Stepan A Bakhaev/Bakhayev/Bahayev

[keith A]

This pilot was an ace flying Yak 7, 9 with the 515th IAP in WW2, and then doubled his score in Korea with 523rd IAP.

According to "With the Yanks in Korea" his victories he claimed 5 F86, 3 F80, 2 F84 and a single B29. I know he claimed a share in an RB29 in December 1950 but this was before he reached North Korea. Does anyone have details of his claims? I believe he claimed 2 F80 on 24 June 1951.

(Confusingly I have also found a mention of a victory over a B29 on 29 December 1950 but I think this is his 26 December claim repeated.)

regards

Keith

[Leendert]

Keith,

As F-80C loss on 24 June 1951 I found 49-646 of 49 FBG/8 FBS with Lt Ernest C. Dunning Jr (ejected). Formation of 4 F-80s attacked by 12 Mig-15s.

Regards,

Leendert

[Leendert]

Keith,

Try this website: http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_313.shtml

There's also a Part 2: http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_314.shtml

Behayev himself mentioned three times only here, but his unit is credited with many more...

Regards,

Leendert

[keith A]

Hi Leendert,

Thanks for that. I used the ACIG database for some of my initial research but it's been given a bit of a "slating" for inaccuracy by a few people. He is mentioned as downing the B-29, and I know his fifth claim was probably for an F-86 on 26 September 1951.

[JoeB]

A Russian language author happened to ask me to look up the US side of Bahaev's Korean-era credits awhile back for an article he was writing.

December 26 1950: Bahayev and other pilots intercepted and claimed destroyed what they ID'ed as an RB-29 (other accounts have other ID's) violating Soviet Far East airspace, so not a 'Korean War' incident from their perspective. The target was apparently RB-29 44-61855 of the 91st Strategic Recon Sdn. which was re-assigned to a maintenance sdn the day after, per the a/c's individual record card, later returned to active service with the 91st. There's also brief reference in a FEAF summary for the day to an RB-29 attacked by MiG's that day. 'Cold War' type incidents of the 91st were covered in less detail in US 'Korean War' records.

June 24, 1951: Bahaev credited with 2 F-80's. Various flights of 523rd IAP were credited with a total of 10 F-80's. 51th FG flight 'Bully Easy' claimed 4 MiG's damaged w/o loss, probably corresponding to the claims of Karasev and Okhaya. It's hard to say which of the other 8 claims, including Bahaev's 2, correspond to the single loss, 1Lt Ernest C Dunning Jr., survived as POW, from 49th FBG flight 'Merrimac Mike', which claimed a MiG 'probably damaged'.

Aug 19: Bahaev claimed 1 F-86. My friend characterized this as 'unofficial' but it seems as official as the others per my independent sources. No F-86's were lost; one, serial unk., suffered minor damage in air combat.

Sept 17: Bahaev credited with 1 F-84. The 523rd was credited with 6 or 7 F-84's per varying Soviet sources, in return for 1 MiG-15 lost to an F-84. 49th FBG F-84's were credited with 1 MiG destroyed v. 1 F-84 'minor damage' at time (roughly 5pm) and place (near Sinanju NK) corresponding to the Soviet accounts. Another 49th FBG F-84 (51-528) was lost to engine failure over North Gyeongsang province (southeastern ROK): I haven't been able to ascertain if it was part of the same flight, or what time of day it occurred.

Sept 25: Bahaev credited with 1 F-86 in afternoon combat. 2 of the 3-4 Soviet credits that day were in the afternoon, the time of the single known Chinese credit is not known. F-86 49-1315 suffered major damage that afternoon (returned to service, lost in mechanical failure accident Dec 16).

Sept 26: Bahaev credited with 1 F-86, among 4 F-86's claimed around 1000 (all US time 'Item'). F-86 49-1113 was lost to MiG's at this time, 1Lt Carl G. Barnett, MIA.

Oct 6: Bahaev credited with 1 F-86 among 8 credited at around 1000. F-86's 50-671 and 49-1319 were lost to MiG's (latter recovered and restored to flying condition by the Soviets), 50-670 suffered major damage (apparently reduced to parts source for awhile, but later repaired, then lost in a check flight after those repairs March 13, '52), 49-1178 and two unknown serials suffered minor damage, all in the same combat.

Oct 23: Bahaev credited with 1 B-29 among 5 by the 523rd IAP, 10 total. 8 B-29's (of 307th BG) were present in the attack, all of which were hit, 3 lost, as listed in the FEAF Consolidated Mission Summary with [notes]:
[44-86]295:Major battle damage, probable loss [but actually returned to service per its individual record, noted on 1952-53 missions]
[44-27]347: same [also returned to service]
[44-87]760: Major battle damage, repairable
[44-61]824: same
[44-61]816: same
[44-70]151: hit in target area...over water...crew bailed...4 rescued.
[42-92]045: hit just as rally off target was completed...last seen..in a tight spiral
[44-61]940: hit on first pass... by MiG-15...one crew rescued.

Nov 27: Bahaev was credited w/ 1 F-80 of 2 claimed by 523rd IAP; plus 2 F-84 by 18th GIAP at basically the same time, and those two types were not reliably distinguished by the MiG's. Likewise a flight of F-84's and one of F-80's (36th FBS) were attacked around same time, the F-84's suffered no damage but one F-80 was lost, 49-531, 1Lt Raphael A. DuBreuil, MIA.

Nov 29: Bahaev was credited with an F-86. Soviet MiG's were credited with 6 F-86's in the afternoon combats. 3 F-86's suffered major damage to MiG's that afternoon: 48-301 was apparently written off, 49-1088 was repaired, 49-1318 was written off in early 1952, possibly reduced to a spare parts source after this combat, though the damage appears relatively slight in a photograph (this a/c had been repaired already from extensive damage in a earlier Po-2 night heckler bombing raid).

Jan 1 1952: Bahaev credited with an F-86. 2 F-86's were credited to the 523rd IAP time given 1126. No F-86's were lost in this time window; 50-635's loss was attributed to fuel exhaustion around 1535.

Jan 18: Bahaev credited with F-84. It was a single claim time 0847, but no known US combat account matches it. The only known combat that morning was pair of RF-80's attacked w/o loss 1115; there were major combats in the afternoon. F-84 51-669 was damaged by groundfire and crashed near its base at Daegu, ROK. This situation is unusual. As seen above almost all Soviet claims correspond to known air combats specifically described in US records, occuring at close to the same time.

Sources are primary records.

"Slating" may be an example of 'two peoples divided by a common language', I don't what that means. But, the ACIG Korean War lists have serious problems with methodology. It's not just a question of mistakes or info the compilers were not aware of, though those are problems also. Those lists are a reasonable source to track the claims of the more noted, higher credited pilots, but that's about it. A lot of other claims are omitted, there's no solid in basis in general where one pilot rather than another is credited, and a lot of the US loss cause attributions they give are dubious, directly contradicting, or imaginitively interpreting, the source they used to find those losses (the KORWALD database on the web). There are IME only a small handful of losses where a reasonably strong argument can be made from details in US records and details of opposing claims to reconsider a positively stated non-air combat loss as in fact likely an air combat loss. The likelihood in a given case is low, but those lists present the assumption that it was common as a fact, without any backup.

Further on Behaev, my friend listed his GPW credits also. Is there a source(s) in print with which to evaluate those, even roughly?

Joe

[keith A]

Joe B you are a star!!!! I have never done any research into the Korean War before so this stuff has really got me into the zone.

As for slating, this means that a few people have derided the accuracy of the database (I think it's English but then I am from Edinburgh so maybe it's a bit colloquial).

My own take is that we all have to start from somewhere and these databases all ask for corrections if the reader has more information. The ACIG database is definitely the most complete record of post-war air combat that I have read.

Thanks to all the guys who have contributed and commented.

[JoeB]

Yes most lists, including those, nominally request additions and corrections. The problem with the ACIG Korea lists is more basic than errors. As I maybe too indirectly said the first time, IME/IMO they are deliberately slanted. To put it in simple approximate numbers about 1/2 or less of the known Soviet claims are presented in that list (whereas they apparently used a standard published Russian language source, I've been able to find only a relatively few other claims not in that source). And they present about twice as many US air combat losses as actually occurred. The process there as I alluded to is simply to redesignate US non-air combat losses, clearly so stated in the web-based source, KORWALD database, they used. Extensive debate on that forum, 'offering corrections' didn't uncover any better argument for those systematic loss cause changes than: 'everybody knows the US understated air combat losses in Korea'. In my research in primary records I've found the KORWALD (web database they used) attributions of US loss cause to be backed by details in the records in a very high % of cases. I didn't firmly conclude the attributions to be mainly correct before I did that research. But, I certainly wouldn't assume the attributions were systematically wrong without having done that research. The list compilers did. It's more than lack of info or room for corrections, it's an altogether quite significantly, though not wildly, distorted picture and doesn't appear to be accidental.

It makes me doubt other ACIG lists, though I'm not as familiar with the all the other many topics to know for sure if the same thing is going on, or if so in which direction. I agree it's a unique collection of info. What exactly one can confidently use it for, I'm not as sure.

Joe