Having received the Congressional Medal of Honor last night, I thought this man deserved his own thread and the rest of the story...
I happened on a post that came across my X feed a month or so ago about a dogfight that took place off North Korea over the Sea of Japan on 18 November 1952. A dogfight between two Navy F9F Panthers operating off the carrier USS Oriskany and seven MiG-15s. A 35-minute engagement that is the longest dogfight in naval history. A dogfight that was immediately classified, never to be spoken of, because these were not North Korean MiG-15s flown by North Korean pilots, but rather Soviet MiG-15s flown by Soviet pilots operating out of Vladivostok. After reading this amazing story, a question entered my mind - is this the "classified" dogfight that Viper is telling Maverick about when explaining what really happened to his dad in the movie "Top Gun"? The carrier is the same, but the war was Vietnam. If so, this is interesting because this story did not become public until 62 years later with the 2014 publication of "Red Devils Over the Yalu: A Chronicle of Soviet Aerial Operations in the Korean War 1950-53" by Russian historian Igor Seidov, - 28 years after Top Gun. Curious to know how this story made its way into the movie.
I happened on a post that came across my X feed a month or so ago about a dogfight that took place off North Korea over the Sea of Japan on 18 November 1952. A dogfight between two Navy F9F Panthers operating off the carrier USS Oriskany and seven MiG-15s. A 35-minute engagement that is the longest dogfight in naval history. A dogfight that was immediately classified, never to be spoken of, because these were not North Korean MiG-15s flown by North Korean pilots, but rather Soviet MiG-15s flown by Soviet pilots operating out of Vladivostok. After reading this amazing story, a question entered my mind - is this the "classified" dogfight that Viper is telling Maverick about when explaining what really happened to his dad in the movie "Top Gun"? The carrier is the same, but the war was Vietnam. If so, this is interesting because this story did not become public until 62 years later with the 2014 publication of "Red Devils Over the Yalu: A Chronicle of Soviet Aerial Operations in the Korean War 1950-53" by Russian historian Igor Seidov, - 28 years after Top Gun. Curious to know how this story made its way into the movie.
