Story of Korean War
Rescue of Flier Told

By Rembert James the San Diego Union

The story of a near-miracle of the Korean War, the rescue of a wounded Navy pilot by a helicopter team that flew into a bullet-swept field on a mission so dangerous that no one would order them to go, was disclosed yesterday at Ream Field.

The helicopter team consisted of the pilot, Lt. Jack Stultz, of 631 Claire Ave., Chula Vista, and his crewman, Richard Martin, of Culver City.

They are members of Unit 11, of Navy Helicopter Squadron One just back from Korea. The officer in charge of Unit 11 is Lt. John W. Ross, of 4709 Jewell St., Pacific Beach.

DETAILS OUTLINED

Part of the story, the bare details about what happened came from Stultz and Martin. The rest of it, the facts about how suicidal their mission looked, came from other members of the squadron.

It happened early the morning of Jan. 29 (1952), on a snow-covered field just outside Hungnam, Korea.

The man they rescued was Lt. Samuel B. Murphey, a Corsair pilot from the carrier Antietam. Murphey had taken off about 5 a.m. that day on a pre-dawn heckling mission.

He dropped his bombs on Communist rail lines and was on his way back to the carrier when the spotted a bridge. He dropped his last bombs, but missed. He flew around waiting for the day shift to take over. Then he was hit. A Communist shell smashed his engine and flames broke out. He had the choice of parachuting into enemy territory, or trying to make it to the beach and ditching in the ocean, five miles away.

Murphey headed for the ocean. Two miles inland his broken, flaming craft smashed down through high-tension power lines into a frozen field.

The astonishing thing is that Murphey walked away. He had not gone far when he realized was near a Communist village and he saw Communist soldiers rushing toward him.

STARTED RUNNING

Murphey started running. The Communist started firing, Murphey ran for an hour. The Communist rifle fire kept coming and finally one bullet struck him in the neck.

The bullet grazed his Adam’s apple, missed his juglar vein, causing only a skin wound.

He took a flare from his Mae West jacket (he had forgotten up to then that he was carrying a flare). He lighted the flare and his fellow pilots from the Antietam, still flying around above him, spotted his position. Six of them formed a cover, swooping low and strafing the Communist soldiers still closing in on Murphey, and the Communist anti-aircraft positions that ringed the area which Murphey had fled.

This was where Lt. Stultz and his crewman Martin, came in. When Murphey first went down they were back aboard their base on the LST 799 off Wonson Harbor, 40 miles away. They took off when they got the first radio flash that a pilot was down.

"I was all confused, at first, because nobody knew whether the pilot was still alive," Lt. Stultz said.

"We knew the general direction, though, and churned along".

"Their was a lot chatter on the air, from the control vessel and the rescue patrol planes, the Corsairs flying cover".

SAW BURNING PLANE

"Finally we got up to where we could see the plane burning. But then it was quite a little while before anyone spotted the flare."

Neither Stultz nor Martin told the next part of the story. It concerned the radio talk back and forth between the pilots and the Antietam. The gist of it was, though, that the Corsair pilots said that Murphey was in such a dangerous spot that it would be almost certain suicide for a helicopter trying to save him. The Antietam people would not order the rescue attempt. Stultz acted on his own. "I’m going to try it," he radioded. "Give me all the cover you can."

Martin told what happened next.

"One of the Corsairs broke off to escort us. Mr Stultz and I saw the pilot lying on the ground, pointing toward the place where the Communist soldiers were standing shooting at him.One of them was a big six-footer."

READY FOR THE RUSH

The helicopter, dropping quickly neared the pilot. Martin held his carbine ready to rush from the cabin and stand off the Communists while the pilot climbed aboard.

That part was not necessary. Murphey leaped to his feet and got aboard the helicopter seconds after the helicopter touched down.

Lt. Stultz headed his craft full speed towards the river, and flew low just above the water to dodge enemy anti-aicraft guns. "I hoped they couldn’t point their guns that low, and they couldn’t." Stultz said.

In a week, Murphey was flying again from the Antietam.

Story and picture from Jack Serena

Lt. John W. Ross, Lt. Jack T. Stultz, Chief Ralph C. Mitchel

Henry W. Standish, Richard Martin, Jack F. Serena

part of the Unit 11 crew 1952