Taiwanese Pilots in the Yemen Civil War

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
1

I’m curious if anyone has any information about the involvement of Taiwan Air Force pilots in the Yemeni civil war of the late '70s and early '80s. I came across this in the Wikipedia entry on the Northrop F-5 Tiger fighter jet. There was a paragraph mentioning that when the Carter administration rushed 14 of the planes to North Yemen to bolster its defenses in 1979, the package also included about 80 Taiwanese pilots, as well as maintenance and anti-aircraft crews. The local pilots were not trained to operate the sophisticated (for its time) F-5s, so the ROC pilots flew combat missions in Saudi uniforms. According to some of the sources below, the Saudi’s bankrolled most of the operation, as well as convinced Taiwan to provide the pilots. Most of the sourcing I found repeats the same information. I wondering if any local history buffs can add to this story. It sounds like Taiwan’s own version of the Flying Tigers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-5
“The only air combat actions ROCAF F-5E/F pilots saw, were not over Taiwan, but in North Yemen. In 1979, a flareup between North and South Yemen prompted the U.S. to sell 14 F-5E/Fs to North Yemen to boost its air defense. Since no one in North Yemen knew how to fly the F-5E/F (only MiG-15s were operational at the time), U.S. and Saudi Arabia arranged to have 80+ ROCAF F-5E pilots plus ground crew and anti-air defense units sent to North Yemen as part of North Yemen Air Force’s 115th Squadron at Sana‘a operating initially just six F-5E/Fs and then from April 1979 to May 1990, added eight more. The ROCAF piloted F-5E/F scored a few kills in a few air battles, but the ground early warning radar crews and anti-air units also suffered from air attacks from South Yemen, the aircraft being piloted by Soviet crews.[65]”

http://www.fpif.org/articles/yemen_the_united_states_and_al-qaeda
“In 1979, in one of the more absurd episodes of the cold war, a minor upsurge in fighting along the former border led to a major U.S. military mobilization in response to what was depicted by the Carter administration as a Soviet-sponsored act of international aggression. In March of that year, South Yemeni forces, in support of North Yemeni guerrillas, shelled some North Yemeni government positions. In response, President Carter ordered the aircraft carrier Constellation and a flotilla of warships to the Arabian Sea as a show of force. Bypassing congressional approval, the administration rushed nearly $499 million worth of modern weaponry to North Yemen, including 64 M-60 tanks, 70 armored personnel carriers, and 12 F-5E aircraft. Included were an estimated 400 American advisers and 80 Taiwanese pilots to pilot the sophisticated warplanes that no Yemeni knew how to fly.”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2010/05/15/2003473000
“Even after Washington switched diplomatic ties to Beijing, Taiwan’s ally status remained. In 1979, a war between North and South Yemen prompted the US to ship 12 F-5E planes to North Yemen. Since no one in North Yemen knew how to fly the F-5E, the US and Saudi Arabia arranged to have 80 Taiwanese pilots plus ground crew and anti-air defense units sent to North Yemen.”

This next one is a bit more dubious in the timeline and some of the “fact” it presents…

http://home.eblcom.ch/f5enthusiast/AirForces/ChinaAF.html
"The Republic of China AF has no possibilities to participate to excercises abroad due to the diplomatic isolation of the country, but another form of sevice abroad, never officially confirmed, has been rumoured. This service involved pilots and technicians being engaged in countries unable, for various reasons, to operate their F-5s.

Following skirmishes between North and South Yemen in March 1979 the US governement rushed into Northern Yemen 12 Northrop F-5Es and Saudi Arabia 2 Northrop F-5Bs. Taiwan media reported that some (some sources state 12) Taiwan pilots plus ground technicians (mainly reservists) arrived in North Yemen as counsellors/pilots as no Yemeni was trained to fly and maintain the aircrafts, Saudi Arabia paying for the operation.
Change in political alliance brought the country to oppose the 1993 Desert Storm war, Yemen secretly planning to let the Taiwanese pilots bomb Saudi targets before the war! The plan was reported to Taipei with the result that the pilots were immediately called back."

There is also a Chinese Language Wikipedia page about the operation. According to the Wiki article, the whole operation was dreamed up over a golf game between Saudi and Taiwanese diplomats.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E6%BC%A0%E8%A8%88%E7%95%AB

2

wow… i had no idea

3

In 1992-95 I taught English part-time at the ROC Air Force Academy in Gangshan, Kaohsiung. In one class I asked the students - all NCO technicians preparing to go to the USA for additional training - if any of them had been abroad before. Only two had; almost all were from blue-collar backgrounds and hadn’t gone anywhere as kids, and after joining the military they had to get special permission to go abroad while on leave. Those two told me the only country they’d be to was 也門; they didn’t know the English name, but from the Chinese name and the clue “it’s next to Saudi Arabia” I was able to guess. Why Yemen? For work, fixing F-5s during the first Gulf War.

4

Interesting. That adds some credibility to the last story of Yemen trying to get ROC pilots to fly missions against coalition forces in the Gulf War. I thought that last bit seemed a little far-fetched, since I assumed they would have been moved back to Taiwan long before the first Gulf War. There have got to be some interesting stories out there about what these pilots and crews experienced being sent to that region.

5

This is a very interesting topic. A couple of years ago I tried to find more information about this, but like the OP, could find very little. There have got to be some interesting stories about it.

6

Come to think about it, my elementary classmate (born 1980) lost his airforce pilot father when he was younger. I always wondered that could have happened, since after 1980, both the Black Cat and Black Bat Squadrons have been terminated for a while. There seems very little chance for a pilot to be KIA, and if it was a flight accident it would have been on the news.

Judging from the timing, this is probably what happened to my classmate’s dad… It’s odd that very little sources mentions the casualty of this operation.

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[quote=“hansioux”]Come to think about it, my elementary classmate (born 1980) lost his airforce pilot father when he was younger. I always wondered that could have happened, since after 1980, both the Black Cat and Black Bat Squadrons have been terminated for a while. There seems very little chance for a pilot to be KIA, and if it was a flight accident it would have been on the news.

Judging from the timing, this is probably what happened to my classmate’s dad… It’s odd that very little sources mentions the casualty of this operation.[/quote]

Another piece to the puzzle. Thanks! It seems that most of the information on this topic is going to be anecdotal since the whole decade-long operation appears at least semi-classified and now nearly forgotten by the general public.