available to Rhee's government despite warnings of the competition they faced across the 38th Parallel. That Thursday morning of the 29th, the fifth day of the war, was a beauty, with clear skies and fine warm weather. Unfortunately it was also perfect tank weather. The real Korean rainy season had been somewhat late, at least several weeks behind the rains in Japan. The road connecting Seoul to Suwon was dry and hard and ideal for a break-through. Even the rice paddies alongside the road were parched and almost dry. Because of these conditions American planes could dominate the fairly open, low rolling terrain for most of every day. But at night, with the fighters back at their home fields, it was anybody's guess where the northerners might try to ram through new attacks. Undoubtedly fresh supplies, armor and probably troops were being brought down from the north under cover of darkness. Such were some of General Church's problems that Thursday morning. Back at Suwon airfield, I had just finished photographing the evacuation of two airmen wounded during the attack the afternoon before, when a pair of light observation planes came in for landings. Seeing General Church walking over to the planes, I followed, intending to try to clarify my own understanding of what it looked like around the front area. But instead of an artillery observer, the man who popped out was Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea. U.S. Ambassador Muccio stepped from the other plane. The scholarly old gentleman and our Ambassador had just had the flight of their lives. Coming up from the temporary capital at Taejon (about ninety miles south of Suwon), they had been jumped by a lone Yak. By staying at treetop levels and whipping their little planes all around through the back canyons of the mountains, the two American pilots had kept the Yak pilot so outmaneuvered that he never got a chance to throw a burst into them. I thought to myself that President Rhee was a rather energetic individual for a man of his advanced years. When I learned what he had just endured I could feel only 28 l Ⅲ. Korea 1950 This is War!
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