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A MiG-15 to Freedom: Memoir of the Wartime North Korean Defector Who First Delivered the Secret Fighter Jet to the Americans in 1953
On September 21, 1953, U.S. airmen at Kimpo Air Base near Seoul, Korea, were startled to see landing a MiG-15, the most advanced Soviet-built fighter plane of the era, piloted by Senior Lieutenant No Kum-Sok, a 21-year-old North Korean Air Force officer. Once he landed, Lieutenant No found that his mother had escaped to the South two years earlier, and they were soon reunited. At his request, No came to the United States and became a U.S. citizen. His story provides a unique insight into how North Korea conducted the Korean War and how he came to the decision to leave his homeland.
231 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 24, 2026
A MiG-15 To Freedom
I was right in the middle of reading Thomas Wolfe's four novels when I read about Kenneth H. Rowe's passing in a CNN news article. I was unfamiliar with Mr. Rowe, so I wanted to read his autobiography; I recently downloaded it from Internet Archive. Mr. Rowe's, A MiG-15 To Freedom is a unique story; it is the life story of a unique individual and also an eyewitness account of a watershed event in our country's history. Its relevancy is as apparent today as it was when Mr. Rowe wrote it forty years ago.
I download these books as PDF files and often modify them by adding a first edition cover or deleting some of the blank pages to save a few megabytes on my tablet's SD card. I went one step further with Mr. Rowe's excellent autobiography and asked Google's Gemini to show me two pictures of an F-86 Sabre and a MiG-15 in flight; they now serve as the frontispiece of my modified copy of A MiG-15 To Freedom.
As mentioned, Mr. Rowe's, A MiG-15 To Freedom is a unique story; it is a story of an American, who longed to become an American because he valued the foundational concepts which are imbedded in the very fabric of our nation; he should be an inspiration to us all, native born and naturalized citizens alike. But today, No Kum-Sok's story is not that well-known. His story was front page news in the early 1950,'s during the so-called "Second Red Scare" but as with all news stories, it eventually faded into history until it resurfaced; No Kum Sok's story resurfaced in December of 2022.
Kenneth Hill Rowe, as the North Korean defector, No Kum-Sok, risked everything to eventually become an American citizen. He felt an immense amount of love for the United States even though he had never set foot on our country's shores; with the life he led as a naturalized American citizen, who truly believed in the greatness of the United States, Mr. Rowe serves as the personification of the opportunities that abound in our country; those opportunities are what truly make our country great.
A MiG-15 To Freedom begins with a twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant No Kum-Sok flying his Russian built MiG-15 on a routine ceasefire mission out of the recently repaired Sunan air base that was located five miles northwest of Pyongyangn, North Korea. He carefully planned his defection for several months and waited until the time was right to initiate his plan. He wrote in an early chapter of his story that "the sky was clear, the air warm, the wind light, and the sun brilliant—excellent flying weather." A few minutes into his mission, he executed a hard right turn and set a compass heading for 170 degrees ... and the rest is history.
He kept waiting for the opportune moment to make his move; it finally presented itself with his transfer to a base in his home country from one across the Yalu River in Manchuria, which is a part of China. His "base" was nothing but a concrete runway adjacent to a stone-built church that remained undamaged as American pilots were ordered not to bomb it, or any churches as they were not considered military targets. It currently served as a barracks for the North Korean officers, including the sixteen pilots who arrived by train a few days after a long awaited ceasefire of hostilities was signed between the United Nations and North Korea. Sunan Air Base was located approximately 90 miles north of perhaps the most famous parallel of latitude in the world ... the 38th Parallel, which serves as the geographical division of North and South Korea.
The first part of the author's story offers an excellent eyewitness account of the air war in a section of the northwestern corner of North Korea that was nicknamed "MiG Alley." It progresses to the eventual ceasefire that halted the hostilities of "America's Forgotten War." The nickname given to the Korean Conflict was appropriate because it was a "police action" that was deemed necessary by the United Nations. It was an unfamiliar term with an American population who a mere five years earlier witnessed the conclusion of the largest war the world had ever seen. After all, wasn't the world finally made safe for democracy to flourish? Apparently not ... some sort of "police action" was deemed necessary in a far off region of Southeast Asia to stop the flow of communism. And American boys would once again be on the front lines of yet another shooting war.
So, this police action in Korea was a "forgotten war" that according to Mr. Rowe's observation at the time of his book's publication in 1996, could restart at any moment; he wrote, "the North Koreans continually attempt to increase their gains and rattle their sabres for emphasis."1 And his statement of forty years ago continues to be relevant today. The current supreme leader and dictator of North Korea is bombastic, 42 year-old, Kim Jong Un who has ruled the country since December 2011, following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. He is the third member of the Kim family to lead North Korea, succeeding in a hereditary dictatorship that began with his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in 1948.
Mr. Rowe wrote his autobiography, A MiG-15 To Freedom in 1996, and made no further statements concerning the country of his birth or its dictatorial leaders. He passed on December 26, 2022 approximately two and one-half years after Trump's meeting at the 38th Parallel with the grandson of Kim Il Sung, thus Mr. Rowe's personal story ended, but his statement which he made forty years ago remains relevant ... the current North Korean dictator is constantly conducting his version of "sabre rattling," but now the stakes are much higher ... today, North Korea has nuclear weapons and various delivery systems to deliver them to its neighbor south of the before mentioned 38th parallel.
Mr. Rowe wrote of flying one of sixteen MiG jet fighters that was smuggled into North Korea during the ceasefire, which was signed on July 27, 1953 ... ironically, after 73 years, that agreement is still in effect, but the situation is a literal powder keg which history tells us often ignite into hot wars. His flight to freedom was thirteen minutes in duration; on September 21, 1953, Lieutenant No Kum-Sok of the North Korean Air Force landed at Kimpo Air Base, northwest of Seoul, South Korea. And his life was forever changed. Mr. Rowe had the unique experience of growing up in two suppressive political regimes, but he never self-indoctrinated into the second one. He "played along" to someday escape the scurge of communism and live a life of freedom in the country known as "The City on a Hill." His dream eventually came true.
Mr. Kenneth Hill Rowe, formally No Kum-Sok of Sinhung, North Korea, is an excellent example of how anyone can come to our country and achieve their highest potential, if it is their desire to do so. With that being said, an individual must take the initiative and start the process of achieving their greatest potential, regardless of where they live; granted, it is easier in some countries than in others, but Mr. Rowe succeeded in escaping from one of the most repressive political regimes in the world. After graduating with two bachelor degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering, the author went on to work for several Fortune 500 companies, eventually serving as an associate professor at Embry-Riddle University. Mr. Rowe, as that determined young man in the cockpit of a MiG 15 took the initiative and flew an enemy fighter to an American air base. He wrote of watching the skies for both his fellow North Korean pilots and the American pilots as well; he could have been shot down by either side, but he took that chance. In other words, he took the ball and ran with it. He was an example of a great American and should be an inspiration to us all ... including the so-called "leader" of our country, the 47th President of the United States.
I'm glad I read this book; with all the warped-minded policies dictated by the current administration during the previous nineteen months, Mr. Rowe's story shows us that Americans didn't always detest immigrants. In fact, there is a statue sitting on a small island in New York harbor that contradicts to the fullest extent the detrimental policies of this current administration. Mr. Rowe wrote that when he stood looking at that statue, he knew America was his home. The Statue of Liberty is a symbolic representation of what our country means to people all over the world ... to preserve Mr. Rowe's legacy, we cannot let a warped-minded despot destroy what that statue represents. *****
1. A MiG-15 To Freedom, Chapter 21, "Retrospective on North and South Korea," p. 263
I was right in the middle of reading Thomas Wolfe's four novels when I read about Kenneth H. Rowe's passing in a CNN news article. I was unfamiliar with Mr. Rowe, so I wanted to read his autobiography; I recently downloaded it from Internet Archive. Mr. Rowe's, A MiG-15 To Freedom is a unique story; it is the life story of a unique individual and also an eyewitness account of a watershed event in our country's history. Its relevancy is as apparent today as it was when Mr. Rowe wrote it forty years ago.
I download these books as PDF files and often modify them by adding a first edition cover or deleting some of the blank pages to save a few megabytes on my tablet's SD card. I went one step further with Mr. Rowe's excellent autobiography and asked Google's Gemini to show me two pictures of an F-86 Sabre and a MiG-15 in flight; they now serve as the frontispiece of my modified copy of A MiG-15 To Freedom.
As mentioned, Mr. Rowe's, A MiG-15 To Freedom is a unique story; it is a story of an American, who longed to become an American because he valued the foundational concepts which are imbedded in the very fabric of our nation; he should be an inspiration to us all, native born and naturalized citizens alike. But today, No Kum-Sok's story is not that well-known. His story was front page news in the early 1950,'s during the so-called "Second Red Scare" but as with all news stories, it eventually faded into history until it resurfaced; No Kum Sok's story resurfaced in December of 2022.
Kenneth Hill Rowe, as the North Korean defector, No Kum-Sok, risked everything to eventually become an American citizen. He felt an immense amount of love for the United States even though he had never set foot on our country's shores; with the life he led as a naturalized American citizen, who truly believed in the greatness of the United States, Mr. Rowe serves as the personification of the opportunities that abound in our country; those opportunities are what truly make our country great.
A MiG-15 To Freedom begins with a twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant No Kum-Sok flying his Russian built MiG-15 on a routine ceasefire mission out of the recently repaired Sunan air base that was located five miles northwest of Pyongyangn, North Korea. He carefully planned his defection for several months and waited until the time was right to initiate his plan. He wrote in an early chapter of his story that "the sky was clear, the air warm, the wind light, and the sun brilliant—excellent flying weather." A few minutes into his mission, he executed a hard right turn and set a compass heading for 170 degrees ... and the rest is history.
He kept waiting for the opportune moment to make his move; it finally presented itself with his transfer to a base in his home country from one across the Yalu River in Manchuria, which is a part of China. His "base" was nothing but a concrete runway adjacent to a stone-built church that remained undamaged as American pilots were ordered not to bomb it, or any churches as they were not considered military targets. It currently served as a barracks for the North Korean officers, including the sixteen pilots who arrived by train a few days after a long awaited ceasefire of hostilities was signed between the United Nations and North Korea. Sunan Air Base was located approximately 90 miles north of perhaps the most famous parallel of latitude in the world ... the 38th Parallel, which serves as the geographical division of North and South Korea.
The first part of the author's story offers an excellent eyewitness account of the air war in a section of the northwestern corner of North Korea that was nicknamed "MiG Alley." It progresses to the eventual ceasefire that halted the hostilities of "America's Forgotten War." The nickname given to the Korean Conflict was appropriate because it was a "police action" that was deemed necessary by the United Nations. It was an unfamiliar term with an American population who a mere five years earlier witnessed the conclusion of the largest war the world had ever seen. After all, wasn't the world finally made safe for democracy to flourish? Apparently not ... some sort of "police action" was deemed necessary in a far off region of Southeast Asia to stop the flow of communism. And American boys would once again be on the front lines of yet another shooting war.
So, this police action in Korea was a "forgotten war" that according to Mr. Rowe's observation at the time of his book's publication in 1996, could restart at any moment; he wrote, "the North Koreans continually attempt to increase their gains and rattle their sabres for emphasis."1 And his statement of forty years ago continues to be relevant today. The current supreme leader and dictator of North Korea is bombastic, 42 year-old, Kim Jong Un who has ruled the country since December 2011, following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. He is the third member of the Kim family to lead North Korea, succeeding in a hereditary dictatorship that began with his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in 1948.
Mr. Rowe wrote his autobiography, A MiG-15 To Freedom in 1996, and made no further statements concerning the country of his birth or its dictatorial leaders. He passed on December 26, 2022 approximately two and one-half years after Trump's meeting at the 38th Parallel with the grandson of Kim Il Sung, thus Mr. Rowe's personal story ended, but his statement which he made forty years ago remains relevant ... the current North Korean dictator is constantly conducting his version of "sabre rattling," but now the stakes are much higher ... today, North Korea has nuclear weapons and various delivery systems to deliver them to its neighbor south of the before mentioned 38th parallel.
Mr. Rowe wrote of flying one of sixteen MiG jet fighters that was smuggled into North Korea during the ceasefire, which was signed on July 27, 1953 ... ironically, after 73 years, that agreement is still in effect, but the situation is a literal powder keg which history tells us often ignite into hot wars. His flight to freedom was thirteen minutes in duration; on September 21, 1953, Lieutenant No Kum-Sok of the North Korean Air Force landed at Kimpo Air Base, northwest of Seoul, South Korea. And his life was forever changed. Mr. Rowe had the unique experience of growing up in two suppressive political regimes, but he never self-indoctrinated into the second one. He "played along" to someday escape the scurge of communism and live a life of freedom in the country known as "The City on a Hill." His dream eventually came true.
Mr. Kenneth Hill Rowe, formally No Kum-Sok of Sinhung, North Korea, is an excellent example of how anyone can come to our country and achieve their highest potential, if it is their desire to do so. With that being said, an individual must take the initiative and start the process of achieving their greatest potential, regardless of where they live; granted, it is easier in some countries than in others, but Mr. Rowe succeeded in escaping from one of the most repressive political regimes in the world. After graduating with two bachelor degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering, the author went on to work for several Fortune 500 companies, eventually serving as an associate professor at Embry-Riddle University. Mr. Rowe, as that determined young man in the cockpit of a MiG 15 took the initiative and flew an enemy fighter to an American air base. He wrote of watching the skies for both his fellow North Korean pilots and the American pilots as well; he could have been shot down by either side, but he took that chance. In other words, he took the ball and ran with it. He was an example of a great American and should be an inspiration to us all ... including the so-called "leader" of our country, the 47th President of the United States.
I'm glad I read this book; with all the warped-minded policies dictated by the current administration during the previous nineteen months, Mr. Rowe's story shows us that Americans didn't always detest immigrants. In fact, there is a statue sitting on a small island in New York harbor that contradicts to the fullest extent the detrimental policies of this current administration. Mr. Rowe wrote that when he stood looking at that statue, he knew America was his home. The Statue of Liberty is a symbolic representation of what our country means to people all over the world ... to preserve Mr. Rowe's legacy, we cannot let a warped-minded despot destroy what that statue represents. *****
1. A MiG-15 To Freedom, Chapter 21, "Retrospective on North and South Korea," p. 263
April 24, 2026
The parts of the book that involve his direct observations and experiences are great! But there's a lot of talk about things that he didn't witness or take part in, such as troop movements, etc. THere are pages where there's simply inconsequential information such as X battalion moved to Y river, and fought Z division... etc. Not what I was looking for in a biography. As well, the timeline of the book is very disjointed. The strong and emotional moments of the book are almost drowned otu by these serious flaws and I think the writer and editing team could have done a lot more to make it far more readable.
December 5, 2025
A fascinating look into individual perspective, aviation, and North Korean history. There were a few abrupt transitions and some fairly technical language, but overall, a good read.
February 27, 2024
昨天晚上，我读完了ERAU退休教授卢金锡的回忆录“米格-15通往自由之路”。起床后，我不经想起哈耶克的通往奴役之路的人生感悟。
An accidental combination of experience and interest will often reveal events to one man under
aspects which few yet see (Hayek, 1944, p. 2).
If in the long run we are the makers of our own fate, in the short run we are the captives of the ideas we have created. Only if we recognise the danger in time can we hope to avert it (Hayek,
1944, p. 2).
An accidental combination of experience and interest will often reveal events to one man under
aspects which few yet see (Hayek, 1944, p. 2).
If in the long run we are the makers of our own fate, in the short run we are the captives of the ideas we have created. Only if we recognise the danger in time can we hope to avert it (Hayek,
1944, p. 2).
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews