3 RAR was employed as a part of BCOF - British Commonwealth Occupation Forces - in Japan. It was in the process of returning to Australia after having served five years as a garrison force. When the word came through of the North Korean attack they reversed their disbursement stream and started reinforcing it. In the space of 4 weeks they underwent emergency deployment training converting from a garrison to a combat unit. I served in the 1980s with an elderly Warrant Office in the Australian Army who had served with 3 RAR in Korea. He described them as being "rather green" when they arrived at Pusan but they quickly gained their combat spurs against the North Koreans as they were swept from Pusan up through Seoul and into North Korea. It is possible to transform units and rebuild them in a short amount of time. Admittedly they have a lot of "being thrown in the deep end" and "learning on the job" to do gain their ability. The Australians were full time recruits gained for the most part post-war. Later they were reinforced by "Kangaforce" - retreads from WWII who re-enlisted. Only volunteers served in Korea.
Patton in Korea/MacArthur in the White House
- Thread starter BiteNibbleChomp
- Start date
- Status
Easier said then done. The troops in 8th Army were barely trained kids, in poor physical shape, and their junior officers were little better. The ROK's were very shaky, the NKPA was smashing trough them in 1950, they didn't even necessarily have to flank them. The retreat gave them time to reorganize. At the Pusan Perimeter they held a narrow front, with American air, artillery, and naval support. The Americans also needed time, along with a lot of reinforcements, and still needed the Marines as a fire Brigade.
Part II, Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.
September 8, 1950
Much more so than in any war he could think of, Patton had noticed that the soldiers in Korea liked to give names to their battlefields. Hills that would have been known only by the numbers describing their height now were known best by whatever a group of soldiers first thought to call them. Hill 699, the tallest hill in the area southwest of Chonan, would now be forever identified as the Lump. A smaller ridge to the north – it wasn’t really a hill – was now the Little Lump. Off in the area assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division, where he had visited the day before, some of the men had labelled a particularly well held North Korean position the ‘Devil’s Granny’, which had prompted laughter all through the Eighth Army headquarters once he told them about it.
Because it raised morale, he encouraged it. As far as he was concerned, raising morale was at least four-fifths of the job of being a general. Men that had high morale would be proud to be soldiers, and proud soldiers would fight harder, and would save lives as they did so. Third Army had learned that lesson back in 1944, and their performance had shown its value. Eighth Army wasn’t quite up to the standard of his old unit. It wouldn’t be for months: the kids that filled most of its ranks would need time and training to become the hardened veterans he knew they could be. In the eight weeks or so he had been out here, he had seen a great deal of improvement. Serving with Eighth Army was becoming something the men were proud of. One colonel he had spoken with had said that he would never have expected anything like it after seeing the occupation of Japan.
“Let this be a lesson to you then, colonel.” Patton had replied. “Next time there’s a war, unless it is the day we finish up here, I won’t be around to kick them into shape again. You perform well, I’ll recommend you for a star or two. Then it’ll be your job. We learned the wrong lessons from the last war, and look what happened at the start of this one. If we learn the wrong lessons again this time, next time will be worse.” He had said before that America would never lose a war. Lack of discipline in the occupation, and Truman’s budget cuts, were making him wonder if that would remain the case forever. Saying so to that colonel would lower his morale, so he kept quiet instead.
What would raise morale was decorating soldiers that had performed well. That’s why he now stood fifteen metres behind the crest of the Little Lump, presenting Sergeant Carl Dodd with the Commendation Medal. He wouldn’t be the only one receiving a medal today either: E Company had produced several fine acts of heroism and merit this week. He had ordered them remain behind while the rest of their battalion pushed two miles to the north for an award ceremony. In an hour six 2½ ton trucks would return E Company to their battalion.
“Where are you from, Sergeant?” Patton asked.
“Kentucky, sir.” Sergeant Dodd replied.
“The people back there will be proud of you, son.” Patton said, shaking Dodd’s hand. “Your quick thinking on that ridge back there saved a lot of their lives.”
Then he turned to the rest of the company. “Guard duty is damned important, men. Especially out here. The Koreans will sneak around like skunks if you give them any sort of chance. That’s a chance they will use to shove a bayonet in your guts. The object of war is to kill the other son of a goddamned bitch before he has a chance to kill you. Even when the enemy is running away, like you great men have made him do right now, stay alert all the time. Don’t be the dumb bastard who gets killed because he wasn’t watching what was going on around him.”
He was giving out four medals today – one of them for a brave young man who had run out of rifle ammo but till charged a Korean position on the Little Lump with a bayonet and two grenades, an act that earned him a Bronze Star. Each one was praised in front of the company, and with each award Patton gave a reminder to the troops about the importance of whatever skill had been demonstrated.
When he was done, the captain of the company was waiting with the trucks. After salutes were exchanged, he asked “How did you manage to get a couple of Theodores to escort us?”
“Theodores?” Patton asked, confused by the unfamiliar term.
“M46 tanks, sir.” The captain said.
“Captain, I would expect that you know the authorised name for the M46 tank is Roosevelt.” Patton said lightheartedly. The troops gave all kinds of names to things, and this was hardly the most unusual one he had come across today. “I had always thought it was named for Franklin anyway.”
“Sir, that’s what my mate’s uncle says too, and he helped build the thing.” The captain said. “He said that seeing as the British had the Churchill tank and the Russians have the Stalin, we should have had a tank named after our wartime leader as well. The bureau in charge of naming stuff agreed.”
“Then how did Theodore get involved? When he was president, tanks didn’t exist.” Patton said.
“Came out of the field about a month ago from what I’ve heard. When they first arrived in Korea, one fellow who knew his history mentioned that Franklin never served in the Army the way Churchill did, but Theodore had the Rough Riders. His mates started calling them Theodores as a joke, but the name stuck. Say, what do you reckon old TR would say if he saw them going into battle?”
Patton didn’t even have to think about that one. “I met the man once, in my West Point days. He’d say they were a bully sight indeed.”
***
September 11, 1950
Eighth Army headquarters was overdue for a move. A trip to the front would take at least two hours driving at the recommended speeds for jeeps on eighteen-foot dirt roads, and another two to return. Sergeant Mims could do the trip in a hair under one each way, but it was still an unwelcome delay. If he’d had any other options, he would have moved it forward a couple of days ago.
Unfortunately, there really weren’t any other choices. The next reasonably sized town north of Taejon along Eighth Army’s axis of advance was Osan, but that had been wrecked in the battle there two days ago. Phone lines had been re-established to connect the divisions back to Taejon, but there wasn’t anywhere near enough spare to connect an Army headquarters too, at least at such short notice. He had commanded the Army from the back of a pair of trucks at times in Europe, but this part of Korea was crawling with communist bandits. He was personally willing to do it again, but faced almost unanimous opposition from the staff. “An invitation to an assassin,” someone had described it, so that option was off the table. He could also have flown to the front in a Piper Grasshopper, but with nowhere to land it north of the airstrip here, there wouldn’t be much point to that. So the headquarters would move once Seoul was taken. The staff was already prepared to do just that.
Right now though, he wished he was on board a Grasshopper, or in the back of a truck, or even at the front talking with a bunch of GIs. Then he wouldn’t have to answer this phone call from Tokyo.
“Who is it?” he asked Meeks. If it was Willoughby or Whitney, he would hang up the phone even if they knew he was available to speak with them. He had decided both of them were incompetents whose sole mission in life seemed to be giving unending praise to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur wasn’t so bad (and he couldn’t well ignore his commanding officer). The lackeys could go to hell.
“It’s General Hickey, sir.” Meeks said.
“Give him here.” Patton said, reaching for the phone. Hickey had commanded a division under Third Army. In addition to being MacArthur’s deputy chief of staff he had now taken on the role of intermediary between SCAP and Eighth Army. “Good afternoon, General.”
“Wish I could say the same to you, George.” Hickey said. “Only the weather’s been quite disruptive to our loading efforts.”
“I know you didn’t call just to talk about the goddamn weather.” Patton said. “Even a typhoon in Japan doesn’t mean a lot out here. What’s the problem?”
“I need you to stop lying about where your offensive is at.” Hickey said.
Patton’s mind flicked back over the past week. He’d called the offensive a reconnaissance in force (an old favourite term) for the first three or four days. Since then he hadn’t said a whole lot to Tokyo, and neither had anyone else in the command.
Hickey must have picked up his silence. “There’s no point in denying it any more. I know you’ve launched a big attack. So does MacArthur. So does Harry Truman if he read yesterday’s paper. I expect even Joe Stalin knows about it at this point. It’s not a big secret, George. It hasn’t been for a while.”
“And you want to know why I didn’t just sit back?” Patton asked. He didn’t want to get angry at Hickey, but the emotion was coming regardless.
“I think I know already. I was in some of those offensives myself back in Germany.” Hickey said. “The rock soup method worked, because MacArthur knows he can’t well cancel your offensive now that you’re tearing through the communist lines. He’s not going to order you to stop, and indeed if this typhoon blows over he’ll soon be on a boat to watch the landing. No, what I need is to know how far you’ve gone. Where’s the front at, right now?”
“2nd and 24th are just past Suwon. The Cavalry are about the same distance, near Yongin. 25th has advanced to Ichon but most of its strength is covering the flanks while the ROKs push forward in their sector. Coulter hasn’t given me their positions since the middle of yesterday. Some bandit cut the lines between his HQ and ours.” Patton said, looking at the large map on the wall.
“That’s a good ten miles ahead of where MacArthur placed you.” Hickey said.
“Not that surprising, the damn papers had Osan plastered all over their front page.” Patton said. He had tried to get the press away from the battlefield – they had a habit of getting him into trouble in the last war and he wasn’t keen on repeating that this time. MacArthur had insisted they cover the recapture of Task Force Smith’s old battlefield anyway.
“They’ll be distracted by Chromite for the next week now. You don’t have to worry about them. Mac’s got the entire press team prepped to repeat that shot he took in Leyte.” Hickey said. “As for you, I’ve got a request for Eighth Army. From me personally.”
Not an order then. Patton still outranked Hickey. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Stay away from the landing beaches. I know you’ll likely pass them before X Corps is ready. It’s too late to cancel now anyway. But keep your men away. We’re going to shell the beaches before we land. This war has seen more than enough friendly fire. I’d hate it if you caused more.” Hickey said, almost pleading.
“I’ll do it.” Patton said. “They’re not on our route north anyway.”
As he put down the phone, he heard Oscar Koch make a sound halfway between a shout and a cheer.
“What have you found?” he asked. That was the only explanation he could think of for his intelligence chief to be so happy.
“A bridge across the Han.” Koch said, quickly getting up and pointing to a location immediately east of Seoul on the map. “One of our Grasshopper pilots thinks it is still standing. Right about here.”
“We could take that.” Patton observed. It was about twenty-five miles away, but there hadn’t exactly been a lot of resistance lately. “We could take it. Tonight. Landrum!”
“Yes?” Colonel Landrum asked.
“Get on the line to Keiser. Tell him I want as many tanks and motorised infantry as he can assemble to move north up the Kyongan-ni road and capture that bridge intact.” Patton ordered. “And have Kean ready to cover the flank.”
“Yes, sir!” Landrum said enthusiastically. It wasn’t hard to see why he was excited. An intact bridge across the Han would put him within five miles of taking Seoul. That Grasshopper pilot might have just handed Patton the key to the city itself.
- BNC
Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.
September 8, 1950
Much more so than in any war he could think of, Patton had noticed that the soldiers in Korea liked to give names to their battlefields. Hills that would have been known only by the numbers describing their height now were known best by whatever a group of soldiers first thought to call them. Hill 699, the tallest hill in the area southwest of Chonan, would now be forever identified as the Lump. A smaller ridge to the north – it wasn’t really a hill – was now the Little Lump. Off in the area assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division, where he had visited the day before, some of the men had labelled a particularly well held North Korean position the ‘Devil’s Granny’, which had prompted laughter all through the Eighth Army headquarters once he told them about it.
Because it raised morale, he encouraged it. As far as he was concerned, raising morale was at least four-fifths of the job of being a general. Men that had high morale would be proud to be soldiers, and proud soldiers would fight harder, and would save lives as they did so. Third Army had learned that lesson back in 1944, and their performance had shown its value. Eighth Army wasn’t quite up to the standard of his old unit. It wouldn’t be for months: the kids that filled most of its ranks would need time and training to become the hardened veterans he knew they could be. In the eight weeks or so he had been out here, he had seen a great deal of improvement. Serving with Eighth Army was becoming something the men were proud of. One colonel he had spoken with had said that he would never have expected anything like it after seeing the occupation of Japan.
“Let this be a lesson to you then, colonel.” Patton had replied. “Next time there’s a war, unless it is the day we finish up here, I won’t be around to kick them into shape again. You perform well, I’ll recommend you for a star or two. Then it’ll be your job. We learned the wrong lessons from the last war, and look what happened at the start of this one. If we learn the wrong lessons again this time, next time will be worse.” He had said before that America would never lose a war. Lack of discipline in the occupation, and Truman’s budget cuts, were making him wonder if that would remain the case forever. Saying so to that colonel would lower his morale, so he kept quiet instead.
What would raise morale was decorating soldiers that had performed well. That’s why he now stood fifteen metres behind the crest of the Little Lump, presenting Sergeant Carl Dodd with the Commendation Medal. He wouldn’t be the only one receiving a medal today either: E Company had produced several fine acts of heroism and merit this week. He had ordered them remain behind while the rest of their battalion pushed two miles to the north for an award ceremony. In an hour six 2½ ton trucks would return E Company to their battalion.
“Where are you from, Sergeant?” Patton asked.
“Kentucky, sir.” Sergeant Dodd replied.
“The people back there will be proud of you, son.” Patton said, shaking Dodd’s hand. “Your quick thinking on that ridge back there saved a lot of their lives.”
Then he turned to the rest of the company. “Guard duty is damned important, men. Especially out here. The Koreans will sneak around like skunks if you give them any sort of chance. That’s a chance they will use to shove a bayonet in your guts. The object of war is to kill the other son of a goddamned bitch before he has a chance to kill you. Even when the enemy is running away, like you great men have made him do right now, stay alert all the time. Don’t be the dumb bastard who gets killed because he wasn’t watching what was going on around him.”
He was giving out four medals today – one of them for a brave young man who had run out of rifle ammo but till charged a Korean position on the Little Lump with a bayonet and two grenades, an act that earned him a Bronze Star. Each one was praised in front of the company, and with each award Patton gave a reminder to the troops about the importance of whatever skill had been demonstrated.
When he was done, the captain of the company was waiting with the trucks. After salutes were exchanged, he asked “How did you manage to get a couple of Theodores to escort us?”
“Theodores?” Patton asked, confused by the unfamiliar term.
“M46 tanks, sir.” The captain said.
“Captain, I would expect that you know the authorised name for the M46 tank is Roosevelt.” Patton said lightheartedly. The troops gave all kinds of names to things, and this was hardly the most unusual one he had come across today. “I had always thought it was named for Franklin anyway.”
“Sir, that’s what my mate’s uncle says too, and he helped build the thing.” The captain said. “He said that seeing as the British had the Churchill tank and the Russians have the Stalin, we should have had a tank named after our wartime leader as well. The bureau in charge of naming stuff agreed.”
“Then how did Theodore get involved? When he was president, tanks didn’t exist.” Patton said.
“Came out of the field about a month ago from what I’ve heard. When they first arrived in Korea, one fellow who knew his history mentioned that Franklin never served in the Army the way Churchill did, but Theodore had the Rough Riders. His mates started calling them Theodores as a joke, but the name stuck. Say, what do you reckon old TR would say if he saw them going into battle?”
Patton didn’t even have to think about that one. “I met the man once, in my West Point days. He’d say they were a bully sight indeed.”
***
September 11, 1950
Eighth Army headquarters was overdue for a move. A trip to the front would take at least two hours driving at the recommended speeds for jeeps on eighteen-foot dirt roads, and another two to return. Sergeant Mims could do the trip in a hair under one each way, but it was still an unwelcome delay. If he’d had any other options, he would have moved it forward a couple of days ago.
Unfortunately, there really weren’t any other choices. The next reasonably sized town north of Taejon along Eighth Army’s axis of advance was Osan, but that had been wrecked in the battle there two days ago. Phone lines had been re-established to connect the divisions back to Taejon, but there wasn’t anywhere near enough spare to connect an Army headquarters too, at least at such short notice. He had commanded the Army from the back of a pair of trucks at times in Europe, but this part of Korea was crawling with communist bandits. He was personally willing to do it again, but faced almost unanimous opposition from the staff. “An invitation to an assassin,” someone had described it, so that option was off the table. He could also have flown to the front in a Piper Grasshopper, but with nowhere to land it north of the airstrip here, there wouldn’t be much point to that. So the headquarters would move once Seoul was taken. The staff was already prepared to do just that.
Right now though, he wished he was on board a Grasshopper, or in the back of a truck, or even at the front talking with a bunch of GIs. Then he wouldn’t have to answer this phone call from Tokyo.
“Who is it?” he asked Meeks. If it was Willoughby or Whitney, he would hang up the phone even if they knew he was available to speak with them. He had decided both of them were incompetents whose sole mission in life seemed to be giving unending praise to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur wasn’t so bad (and he couldn’t well ignore his commanding officer). The lackeys could go to hell.
“It’s General Hickey, sir.” Meeks said.
“Give him here.” Patton said, reaching for the phone. Hickey had commanded a division under Third Army. In addition to being MacArthur’s deputy chief of staff he had now taken on the role of intermediary between SCAP and Eighth Army. “Good afternoon, General.”
“Wish I could say the same to you, George.” Hickey said. “Only the weather’s been quite disruptive to our loading efforts.”
“I know you didn’t call just to talk about the goddamn weather.” Patton said. “Even a typhoon in Japan doesn’t mean a lot out here. What’s the problem?”
“I need you to stop lying about where your offensive is at.” Hickey said.
Patton’s mind flicked back over the past week. He’d called the offensive a reconnaissance in force (an old favourite term) for the first three or four days. Since then he hadn’t said a whole lot to Tokyo, and neither had anyone else in the command.
Hickey must have picked up his silence. “There’s no point in denying it any more. I know you’ve launched a big attack. So does MacArthur. So does Harry Truman if he read yesterday’s paper. I expect even Joe Stalin knows about it at this point. It’s not a big secret, George. It hasn’t been for a while.”
“And you want to know why I didn’t just sit back?” Patton asked. He didn’t want to get angry at Hickey, but the emotion was coming regardless.
“I think I know already. I was in some of those offensives myself back in Germany.” Hickey said. “The rock soup method worked, because MacArthur knows he can’t well cancel your offensive now that you’re tearing through the communist lines. He’s not going to order you to stop, and indeed if this typhoon blows over he’ll soon be on a boat to watch the landing. No, what I need is to know how far you’ve gone. Where’s the front at, right now?”
“2nd and 24th are just past Suwon. The Cavalry are about the same distance, near Yongin. 25th has advanced to Ichon but most of its strength is covering the flanks while the ROKs push forward in their sector. Coulter hasn’t given me their positions since the middle of yesterday. Some bandit cut the lines between his HQ and ours.” Patton said, looking at the large map on the wall.
“That’s a good ten miles ahead of where MacArthur placed you.” Hickey said.
“Not that surprising, the damn papers had Osan plastered all over their front page.” Patton said. He had tried to get the press away from the battlefield – they had a habit of getting him into trouble in the last war and he wasn’t keen on repeating that this time. MacArthur had insisted they cover the recapture of Task Force Smith’s old battlefield anyway.
“They’ll be distracted by Chromite for the next week now. You don’t have to worry about them. Mac’s got the entire press team prepped to repeat that shot he took in Leyte.” Hickey said. “As for you, I’ve got a request for Eighth Army. From me personally.”
Not an order then. Patton still outranked Hickey. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Stay away from the landing beaches. I know you’ll likely pass them before X Corps is ready. It’s too late to cancel now anyway. But keep your men away. We’re going to shell the beaches before we land. This war has seen more than enough friendly fire. I’d hate it if you caused more.” Hickey said, almost pleading.
“I’ll do it.” Patton said. “They’re not on our route north anyway.”
As he put down the phone, he heard Oscar Koch make a sound halfway between a shout and a cheer.
“What have you found?” he asked. That was the only explanation he could think of for his intelligence chief to be so happy.
“A bridge across the Han.” Koch said, quickly getting up and pointing to a location immediately east of Seoul on the map. “One of our Grasshopper pilots thinks it is still standing. Right about here.”
“We could take that.” Patton observed. It was about twenty-five miles away, but there hadn’t exactly been a lot of resistance lately. “We could take it. Tonight. Landrum!”
“Yes?” Colonel Landrum asked.
“Get on the line to Keiser. Tell him I want as many tanks and motorised infantry as he can assemble to move north up the Kyongan-ni road and capture that bridge intact.” Patton ordered. “And have Kean ready to cover the flank.”
“Yes, sir!” Landrum said enthusiastically. It wasn’t hard to see why he was excited. An intact bridge across the Han would put him within five miles of taking Seoul. That Grasshopper pilot might have just handed Patton the key to the city itself.
- BNC
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Quite right. We should all be grateful that they never shared a theatre IOTL - there were enough command disagreements in France without adding napalm to the fire
Wonder if Patton will line the landing beaches with American flags? Or may be make a press statement requesting Chromite in Wonsan as he is already in breathing distance of Incheon?
Depends if he learned anything from his experience ticking off the wrong people in WWII. Can he see that doing so would drive his commander into a rage? Does he see it would torpedo whatever is left of his career? Does he give a damn with only retirement to go to after the war is over?
Excellent update, I still fear for the safety of the planet though because the combined weight of Patton and Doug's ego's in the same room could reach some horrific critical mass and form a black hole.
And I've no doubt that there's going to be words said between the two at some point. Especially if Patton's temper gets the better of him and he says some choice words to MacArthur about WW2 and the Phillipines.
And I've no doubt that there's going to be words said between the two at some point. Especially if Patton's temper gets the better of him and he says some choice words to MacArthur about WW2 and the Phillipines.
Are the situations different? Does the command get shifted to him from Doug? Does the press care about not having to attempt a risky amphibious landing? Can he dial the Admiral and request him to not land on the beaches but head straight to Incheon (if he already has it)? Does the US Government see any point in a amphibious landing on friendly shores?
Ughhh.... where's the yellow emote face of a guy bashing his head against a wall when you need it? Wonsan has got to be Mac's stupidest idea at least since 1933. Possibly ever. Please don't ever remind me of that operation ever again
Requesting it in front of the press would be a good way to get sacked - Truman hasn't authorised action above the 38th yet.
He remembers the stuff that got him into trouble in WW2, whether his self-control is good enough to keep him from doing something stupid impulsively is another matter. Sgt. Meeks and a few others from Third Army are around to remind him not to screw up too.
As for post-war... he really doesn't want to leave Korea. His OTL depression in the 30s nearly drove him to suicide, and after VE day he was fast becoming quite errratic again (that's why I had Beatrice basically force him out of the public eye after he retires ITTL - anything else and he would have self-destructed in one way or another by 1950). If there's one thing he is likely to be careful about, it's not getting sacked.
Spoiler alert - the TL doesn't end in the creation of a black hole caused by oversized egos.
Did Patton actually care about what Mac did in the Pacific IOTL? He doesn't mention it at all in his book (except maybe something about not being transferred there post-VE, I'd have to check that).
Definitely. Trucks aren't very good for logistics (better than horses and carts or just having men carry everything, but not much else). A nearby port would be a huge improvement. Patton also has the rail line between Pusan-Taegu-Taejon-Osan-Seoul, covering the majority of the distance that supplies need to travel.
Big issue with Inchon is that the harbour has been mined (not that much, especially when compared to Wonsan, but enough to prevent its use for a little while). Once it is swept then yeah, it can be used.
MacArthur would have landed there even if Inchon was occupied by the entire Eighth Army. He was obsessed with the place from the first week of the war (and he did just storm ahead with an unnecessary landing IOTL - Wonsan). Patton would never have been able to overrule the landing. I doubt God could have done it.
- BNC
Spoiler alert: after the UN presses north, the invading Commie hordes are obliterated under the destructive might of the world's first ever black hole bomb--Patton and Mac are bundled up together and airdropped, each being told that the first one to contact the ground will become the first ever 6 Star General
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The main thing I'm looking forward to is the Chinese intervention. I'm betting Patton would be expecting them to intervene the farther north the UN forces get so I don't think he gets caught off guard. I am expecting the UN forces to get pushed back still but not nearly as bad as OTL and likely staying farther north of the 38th.
Soviet and PRC pilots did indeed fly combat over Korea. In fact, the top scoring ace of the Korean War was a Soviet pilot.
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