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While
at Komaki, everyone seems to agree that the chubby cheeked RF-86F flew
clandestine spy missions over the mainland of Korea (?), Manchuria (?),
China (?), or Russia (?). Some of the pilots have described their
flights but most believe that the missions are still highly classified
and won't talk until cleared by the National Security Agency. Since the
Korean War is still technically at war, and a peace conference is now
being forced on North Korea, there may be some reluctance to give
official permission to talk. You see, the photography they probably took
(and they will still not tell me what it was) forms the basis for a
series of armistice violation complaints going back to 1953 and 54.
I have color pictures of the RF-86F
(like ours) in Korean War colors, and the airplane is considered to be
that vintage.
Now about our individual aircraft: we
have the USAF records for the plane and it does not appear that this
plane was in Korea at all. Nor is it clear that it was modified into an
RF until about 1961. It is sure that the plane served as an RF-86F for
the Japanese Air Self Defense Force, and we have color photos of this
plane in Japanese markings. In fact, the Japanese markings can still be
seen at certain light angles to match our photos.
All that being said, the RF-86 was a
significant and largely unknown combat plane in the Korean War and
afterwards. The plane was only flown by the 15th TRS but for
concealment, it was always marked as if it were a fighter 86 assigned to
the 4th Fighter Group. Those of us who have been researching the model
think it is altogether proper to mark and display our own aircraft in
the Korean War markings of the other 15th TRS aircraft. This would
recognize the outstanding achievement, still largely unknown because of
security classification, of those pilots in that squadron.
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