[Smithy]

Sorry to bring this old chestnut up again but I was just reading Thompson's "MiG Alley" and 2Lt Jim Thompson's account of the dogfight with the "Dragon MiG". Very interestingly this dragon motif was confirmed via Thompson's gun camera footage. It was not a case of chinese lettering or numbering being mistaken but rather "a very elaborately painted dragon on the left side of the fuselage".

I was hoping that someone with access to the PLAAF or Soviet records could perhaps add something here (there is a member here, "RCheung", who in the thread regarding the downing of Sqn Ldr Hulse with the 336th FIS seemed to have a lot of this sort of information). We know that the action took place on the 18th May 1953 and the pilot of the Dragon MiG appeared to have made a successful ejection - Thompson noted that the chute had fully deployed and that as he passed the falling MiG that the aircraft was pilot-less.

If there is the remotest chance that in the Soviet or Chinese records (I hold out no hope for the NK records at this stage) list information regarding ejections on this date then we might be able to at least narrow the field as to whom this pilot might have been.

Thompson's account demonstrates that this pilot was not some run of the mill pilot but highly skilled and supremely aggressive. It would be wonderful to find out who this fellow was.