Air Force attacked 78 cities and towns identified as supportive of a number of military functions, chiefly supply; however, to limit civilian casualties and weaken morale it alerted their inhabitants.
In Korea, as in World War II, the bombing of critical targets attracted the enemy's air force into the sky, where it could be engaged. Intelligence revealed that China had a thousand MiGs ready for combat and Fifth Air Force fighter squadrons, for the first time in the war, did not have to go hunting―the "game" came to them. A new version of the F-86, the F model, gave Air Force pilots superior performance to go along with their better training and tactics. In May and June 1953 the F-86Fs achieved a 133-to-1 advantage in combat kills over the MiGs. Individual scores rose, with Air Force Captain Joseph McConnell, a B-24 navigator in World War II, topping all pilots with 16 confirmed victories in only four months.
Three developments in 1953 brought peace to Korea. In March Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, a major obstacle, died. In May, Air Force bombers increased the frequency of their attacks again, striking North Korean irrigation dams that, when breached, washed away railroads and highways and threatened the nation's rice crop. At the direction of President Dwight Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Dulles asked Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to warn China that the United States intended to use tactical and strategic nuclear weapons and might unleash SAC against Chinese cities if a settlement was not forthcoming. On May 27, 1953, China agreed to an armistice in Korea. It went into effect on July 27.
The Korean War should have taught the United States that nuclear weapons had limited use in conventional wars, but the appeal of the new hydrogen bomb, first tested in November 1952, and plans for a new all-jet intercontinental bomber, the B-52, continued to dominate strategic thinking. TAC sought a new generation of fighters (the "century series," including the F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief, and F-106 Delta Dart) with supersonic speeds, but also adapted them to carry tactical nuclear weapons. The Air Force realized that while turbojet technology was the future, it alone was no substitute for good training, tactics, and aggressiveness. Military casualties in Korea of over two million for both sides, including more than 54,000 dead Americans, belied the judgment that this was a "limited" war―Americans learned firsthand the costs of war in Asia. Air Force aircraft had dropped 476,000 tons of explosives to achieve a standoff. Korea exposed the Air Force to the reality of post-
