Seven MiGs and Seventy Years Later …

In the bleak November of 1952, as Americans alternated between cringing at the prospect of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and giggling at Ozzie and Harriet, U.S. Navy pilot E. Royce Williams and his Grumman F9F-5 Panther engaged and defeated no fewer than seven Soviet MiG-15 fighters over the Sea of Japan.

On 18 November 1952, at the height of the Korean Conflict, Lieutenant E. Royce Williams Jr. and three other F9F Panther pilots launched from the USS Oriskany in the midst of a maritime blizzard. Their mission: Intercept seven Soviet MiG-15 fighters south of Vladivostok.

Intelligence personnel aboard the heavy cruiser USS Helena (CA-75)—also dispatched to the Sea of Japan—surmised the MiGs had been tasked with asserting Soviet air-power and military presence in the wake of an American airstrike on targets in northeastern Korea, near the Soviet border, early that morning.

A series of unlucky events left Williams and his Panther alone against the MiGs, and set the stage for a stunning feat of courage, toughness, and air-combat heroism.

For interminable, bloody minutes, Williams exchanged gunfire with his Soviet counterparts, all seven of them. The MiG-15s were faster and more maneuverable than Williams’s F9F-5, but the Grumman could out-turn them—so that’s what Lt. Williams did. Pulling the stick into his gut, then slamming it against his right leg and stomping right-rudder, Williams urged his Panther through a very tight, wings-vertical, right turn and watched the lead MiG flash past his tail. For thirty-minutes, Williams stomped rudder and slammed ailerons, all the while firing as MiG after MiG flashed through his gunsight. Turn. Turn again. Not one second of straight and level flight. Fire a burst to keep the enemy off balance. Turn some more. Fire and pray.

Williams shot down four of the MiGs and escaped the remaining three by diving into the blizzard raging below. His Panther was badly damaged and uncontrollable at speeds slower than 170-knots. That Williams managed to catch Oriskany's three-wire and bring the airplane to safe landing is something of a miracle in itself.

Flightdeck crews counted 263 holes blasted through the Panther’s fuselage by the MiGs’ 23-millimeter guns and 37-millimeter cannons. Williams had fired all 760 of his own 20-millimeter rounds. Regrettably, the valiant Panther was deemed irreparable, and after crews pulled everything of value from her, F9F-5 BuNo 125459 was commended to the sea.

Royce Williams had accomplished a feat unmatched in the annals of U.S. Naval history; he’d shot down four MiG’s in one fight—and for his heroism, Lt. Williams was ordered to say nothing of the incident. Fearing escalation of Cold War tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Williams’s commanders swore him to silence—which he maintained until the event was declassified decades later.

On 14 July 2022, Congress moved to award E. Royce Williams Jr. the Congressional Medal of Honor. “We won’t stop until Royce Williams receives the recognition he doesn't seek, but richly deserves,” Congressman Darrell Issa asserted.

FMI: www.navy.mil