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Finally on April 11, General Douglas MacArthur was relieved as Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command, and Far East. General Mathew Ridgway was appointed to succeed him. On April 14, Lt. General James A. Van Fleet was flown from Washington, D.C. to Korea to take command of the Eighth Army and all those forces attached to it.  As the U.N. forces slowly pushed the Communists northward, the front line once again was established on the south bank of the Han River by June 25, 1951, roughly on the 38th parallel, just as it had existed on the morning of June 25, 1950.

With slight advances and retreats by both sides, this line remained largely unchanged for the next two years, but with many additional casualties on both sides. During the first ten months of this conflict, a total of 96 possible submarine contacts had been reported. These reports were most often visual sightings by the patrol planes continuously covering the vast area of the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. Other reports were in the form of sonar contacts made by the U.N. ships deployed off both the west and east coast of Korea.

In very early November 1950, with the appearance of the first MIG-15 jet fighter, it became all to obvious to the Fifth Air Force and senior navy officers that a formidable new weapon flew over North Korea. The new fighter jet was far superior in aircraft characteristics to even our most recent operational jet fighters. If it had not been for their excellent training and proficiency in gunnery, our pilots and their aircraft would have been on unequal terms. Until now our aircraft had operated over almost all of South as well as North Korea without any serious challenge. This new development alerted those at home and soon it became a matter of importance to be able to examine a MIG-15 in detail to determine those features that were making its flight characteristics superior to what we then possessed, at least in the Far East.
 

Plans were soon developed to capture or retrieve a downed MIG-15 for detailed examination at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Air Force General Ben Chidlaw, the head of the Air Material Command, arrived in the Far East along with representatives from both Lockeed and Pratt & Whitney. While in the Far East, General Chidlaw conveyed to Air Force General Earle E. Partridge that intelligence on the MIG-15 was completely lacking. The physical structure, the caliber of guns installed, and the type of ammunition used were unknown.  It was reported that a MIG-15 was downed 100 miles behind the front lines. Immediately, plans were put together to obtain critical pieces of the aircraft. Major Donald Nichols, who was an Air Force special intelligence officer, was put in charge of the recovery attempt. At first, the initial location of the downed MIG-15 was found to be incorrect. As soon as the correct location, near the town of Sinanju, North Korea, was verified, Major Nichols, along with a few of his men, hastily obtained the services of a H-19 helicopter and pilot to make the dangerous trip behind enemy lines to the site of the downed MIG-15. 

 

On April 17, 1951, taking off from a point south of the battle line, the helicopter was flown to a neighboring island (Cho'do) off the west coast of Korea, which was in friendly hands and used for a radar installation. Here the helicopter was quickly refueled to make the flight to a point some 100 miles north of the line of battle. The trip north was accomplished while under small arms fire, heavy machine gun fire, as well as considerable flack. Air cover was provided for this operation and they did their best to minimize the problems. Arriving at the site, the wreck was found to be under guard. After landing the helicopter some distance away and after a few brief exchanges of gunfire the guards around the wreck disappeared.  In about fifty minutes of frantic work, Major Nichols managed to blow the MIG-15 apart with some hand grenades. In this first effort to retrieve parts of a MIG-15 for analysis, no major sections were retrieved. However this attempt was deemed successful considering the location of the downed aircraft. Upon arriving back at base it was found that even the rotor blades of the helicopter had been hit but obviously with no disastrous effect. 

From the end of June until about July 8, 1951, the MIG-15 flights from Manchuria and across the Yala River into North Korea suddenly ceased. One humorous conjecture was that the Chinese Communists were giving one more week of intensified training to their MIG-15 pilots.

On July 9, a flight of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing entered the Sinanju (North Korea) area of "Mig Alley" on an assigned patrol mission. Suddenly three MIG-15s were encountered but were quickly lost due to evasive maneuvers. Shortly thereafter, the leader (Charlie) of this F-86 flight was observed engaging one of the MIG-15s. The MIG-15 pilot quickly bailed out and was seen landing in the water on the west coast of North Korea, northwest of Pyongyang. Somehow, the pilotless aircraft managed to make a pancake landing in the mud flats below.  Two days later, aircraft from the British carrier HMS Glory reported sighting large pieces of a swept-wing aircraft on the mud flats near shallow water in the same area that the pilot of the MIG-15 was seen to land in the water.  Pictures of the downed aircraft were also taken by aircraft from the HMS Glory and forwarded to the Deputy for Intelligence Far East Air Force. Careful examination of the photographs revealed that the downed MIG-15 was in two major  pieces, not far from shore.

This information was passed on to the Fifth Air Force which quickly dispatched an RF-80 and a boat to this area. Bad weather prevented the RF-80 from sighting the MIG-15 and due to heavy fog the boat that was sent also failed to locate the MIG-15. As was later discovered, high tide completely covered the aircraft and at low tide it was impossible for any boat to reach it. 

Senior U.S. Navy officers seemed reluctant at this time to make a major commitment to the proposed recovery plans now underway. The salvage and recovery effort was soon known by the phrase, "Pinch-a-Mig," and on occasion as "Swipe-a-Mig" The Americans did, however, offer the assistance of U.S. Navy LSDs and a U.S. Navy LSU, number 960 to be specific. The recovery attempt was to be carried out under the skillful direction of Rear Admiral A.K. Scott-Moncrieff, RN. The initial plans called for the use of two junks to attempt the salvage effort by lashing the MIG-15 between them. This first plan was abandoned upon learning that the USS Whetstone (LSD-27) had proceeded to Inchon, to embark the LSU-960 which had been fitted with a special crane.

Air Force personnel (Major Donald Nichols, Commander of Detachment No. 2, 6004 Air Intelligence Service Squadron) and other technical personnel from the Army were brought along for their special knowledge of this type of operation. Other ships committed to this operation were the HMS Kenya, HMS Glory, HMS Cardigan Bay (Commanded by Captain J. M. Brown, OBE, DSC, RN), and the ROKN 302.

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