I was working around an elderly mans house yesterday who was telling me about being shot down in a sunderland in korea by the chinese.His name was irving fielding can anyone give me any more info about this incident please as i was interested by his story but he was reluctant about telling me anymore than that.
By: lauriebe - 27th July 2009 at 10:53
l have now been able to check through the books that I have here. No mention of any shoot-down. I can find four Sunderland losses in the area during the Korean conflict:
Two, from 209 Sqn (PP164 & RN277), were due to damage during typhoons whilst anchored in Japanese bases.
One. PP148 (88 Sqn), was lost during a landing on heavy seas at Iwakuni.
The last, also from 88 Sqn (RN302), was lost off Tsushima Island, Japan, when one engine caught fire and another lost power. It forcelanded at sea and was scuttled.
Like Pondskater, I would be interested in learning more of the incident related in the first post.
By: Pondskater - 26th July 2009 at 14:46
Interesting – I don’t know of any Sunderlands shot down during the Korean War but would be very keen to know more about the incident he is referring to, even if it is just an attack on a Sunderland.
John is quite right about the Squadrons based in the Far East. They were sent on deatchment to Iwakuni in Japan to patrol to Tsushima Strait and either side of the Korea peninsula.
The evacuation John refers to was Shanghai where Sunderlands brought out British residents as the city fell to advancing Communist troops. Some Sunderlands were shot at there but only small arms fire.
Allan
By: Arabella-Cox - 26th July 2009 at 08:12
Ian ‘Eddy’ Edwards has written to me this morning, Eddy was a Signaller on Sundy’s at PD and Seletar, he writes:
Don’t know of one being shot down. I know of one that was severely shot AT. Our Nav, F/Sgt. ‘Butch’ Tate wore the DFM. When I asked about it, either Butch or someone else showed me a newspaper clipping. A Yank fighter pilot was shot down, ditched (or baled out?) in a small bay in North Korea. Heavy ground fire was aimed at the poor guy as he sat in his dinghy. A Sunderland landed alongside and picked him up, I believe all crew got either DFCs or DFMs.
By: Arabella-Cox - 25th July 2009 at 19:59
I can’t recall the history books saying that, at the time the FEFBW of 88/205/209 Squadrons operated out of Hong Kong from their base at Seletar, I’ll put some feelers out from some of my colleagues that were there then, there was an incident with The RN Ship Amethyst on The Yangtse River where a Sunderland was fired upon.
There was also some other incident somewhere in the FE where something like 80+ people were evacuated by Sunderland but I can not recall one being shot down
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July 25, 2009 at 7:47 pm