Jet fighters had shot each other down before 1951, but never like this. Over the Yalu River in northwest Korea, a stretch of sky the Americans called MiG Alley, swept-wing jets met swept-wing jets for the first time in a sustained campaign. The North American F-86 Sabre against the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, at speeds and altitudes no fighter pilot had fought at before.

Two American pilots came to define that war. James Jabara was the first: the first US jet ace, and the first jet-versus-jet ace in history. Joseph McConnell was the best: 16 victories, more than any other American in Korea. Both were celebrated, and both died young, far from MiG Alley.

James Jabara: first through the door

Jabara, born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1923, had flown P-51 Mustangs in Europe in the Second World War. In Korea he flew Sabres with the 334th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing. He scored his first jet victory on 3 April 1951.

On 20 May 1951, over Sinuiju, one of his two drop tanks refused to release. Doctrine said to go home. He stayed, fought with the tank still hanging, and shot down his fifth and sixth MiG-15s. That made him the first US jet ace and, as the National Museum of the US Air Force points out, the first ace whose victories were jet against jet; the German Me 262 aces of 1945 had scored against propeller aircraft. He was later admonished for not aborting.

“It was so quiet, so fast . . . I guess that was the happiest moment in my life.”

James Jabara — US Air Force pilot, recalling his first jet flight, quoted by the National WWII Museum

He went home a celebrity, then asked to go back. Returning in January 1953, he shot down nine more MiGs, the last on 15 July 1953, finishing with 15 victories and the status of triple ace. Post-war study of Soviet records suggests some of his 1951 claims may be too high, a common story for both sides in Korea.

Joseph McConnell: sixteen in four months

McConnell came late. Born in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1922, he had been a B-24 navigator in the Second World War, and only reached Korea and the 39th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron in time for the last months of the air war. He scored his first victory on 14 January 1953. Within about a month he was an ace; by the end of April he was a double ace.

On 12 April 1953, the day of his eighth victory, a MiG hit his Sabre. He shot it down, nursed his damaged jet out over the Yellow Sea, ejected, and was hoisted out of the water by a USAF rescue helicopter within a couple of minutes. He flew again the next day. Soviet records credit Capt. Semyon Fedorets of the 913th Fighter Aviation Regiment with hitting McConnell; Fedorets was shot down in turn, ejected and survived.

His last day of combat, 18 May 1953, was his best: two MiGs in the morning and a third in the afternoon. That made 16, a triple ace and the top-scoring American of the Korean War. His Sabre, "Beauteous Butch II", named after his wife Pearl's nickname, was photographed at Suwon with 16 red victory stars.

The US Air Force's own film on American airpower in Korea and its first jet ace.

After MiG Alley

McConnell came home a hero and went back to flying. On 25 August 1954, testing a new F-86H at Edwards Air Force Base, California, he was killed when the aircraft developed a control malfunction. Hollywood turned his life into The McConnell Story, released in 1955 with Alan Ladd as McConnell and June Allyson as Butch.

Jabara stayed in the Air Force. In November 1966, on his way to a new assignment, he died in a car crash in Florida together with his teenage daughter. Both are buried at Arlington. Between them, the two men had shot down 31 MiGs credited by the US Air Force, and shown what the first true jet-against-jet war would look like.

Yarnhub on the other side of MiG Alley: the Soviet pilots who flew the MiG-15 against the Sabres.

HISTORY's Dogfights on a Sabre-versus-MiG duel in MiG Alley.

Sources: National Museum of the US Air Force, Tinker AFB / US Air Force history, National WWII Museum, This Day in Aviation, Wikipedia