Check Six: F-86 Ace Hal Fischer, An Interview

by Bob Bergin

"It's always better to have a MiG at your six o'clock than no MiG at all." He still seemed like the pleasant Iowa farm boy he once was, but in the cockpit of his F-86 fighter, Harold E. "Hal" Fischer turned into a tiger. After flying 105 ground support missions in F-80 fighter-bombers, he wrangled a second Korean combat tour in the F-86. He racked up MiG kills quickly. It appeared likely that he would become the highest-scoring ace of the Korean war. Fischer's tenth victory came on his 66th mission; on his 70th, his luck ran out. In a fight over Manchuria, he damaged three MiGs before becoming the victory of Chinese MiG-15 pilot Han Decai.Fischer would spend the next two years as a POW. He managed a brief escape, only to find himself in the bleak landscape of Manchuria - in winter - the only non-Chinese for hundreds of miles around. The Chinese finally released him in May 1955, long after the war was over.

20 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 10, 2012

About the author

Bob Bergin, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer, wrote on the history of aviation in Southeast Asia and China and on military and intelligence operation in the China-Burma-India theater of World War II. He published four novels set in Southeast Asia and two collections of short stories. He passed away in 2021.