Name/Title
Letter Dec 1951 1st Lt. Ricard G Bull Fighter Bomber WingEntry/Object ID
001462Tags
Richard G BullScope and Content
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
8TH FIGHTER BOMBER WING
APO 970
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[Stamp: FEAF NEWS SECURITY DIV. APPROVED 17 DEC 1951 CENSOR NO. 9]
WITH THE EIGHTH FIGHTER BOMBER WING... KOREA.—First Lieutenant Richard G. Bull of Central Valley, New York, F-80 jet Shooting Star pilot of the 8th Fighter Bomber Wing, almost didn't return from a rail-cutting mission east of Sinnak, recently. But he didn't know it until he got back.
"I was pulling up off the target, getting back into formation," said Lieutenant Bull. "I felt an explosion under the ship, and then I bounced in the air."
The Lieutenant knew he had been hit but he didn't know where. One of the jets in his formation checked him for damage but could find nothing.
"I figured it couldn't be anything serious, because I had no trouble with the ship," recalls Lieutenant Bull. "Everything went along fine and I landed without any trouble."
When he checked his ship on the ground, he found he had caught a direct hit under his left wing, a few inches from the landing gear.
"If wasn't for those few inches I couldn't have landed."
When the flak hit, it splattered all over the bottom of the ship, blew a hole in an empty fuel tank, smashed into the jet engine and weakened his main wing spar. In all, he counted more than 50 holes.
"I don't think I'll ever know how I got back with all that damage," says Lieutenant Bull. "There were holes in everything but me."
