From June 25, 1950, to May 20, 1951, Lt. Gen. George E.
Stratemeyer, the Far East Air Forces commander, kept a diary of his
activities during the Korean War. A number of general officers kept
such diaries during World War II, although the practice was
generally frowned upon by higher headquarters and, in the Navy at
least, was against regulations. In the Korean War, the writing of
such works became less wide-spread. Surprisingly, however, three
diaries written by senior Air Force officers (Stratemeyer, Maj.
Gen. Earle E. Partridge, Commander, Fifth Air Force, and Maj. Gen.
Edward J. Timberlake, Vice Commander, Fifth Air Force) exist from
the Korean War. These three diaries view the war from different
perspectives: Stratemeyer's from a high-level planning, strategy,
and political viewpoint; Partridge's from a mid-level planning and
operational plane; Timberlake's from a slightly lower operational
level. This book, however, deals only with General Stratemeyer's
diary. It is a valuable document because his position as Far East
Air Forces commander allowed him to observe the war and its
personalities from a unique perspective. General Stratemeyer had
his secretary type his diary entries onto 6 by 9 1/2-inch
loose-leaf lined pages. Totalling some 750 pages, these were then
placed into three large binders covering the periods June 25 -
September 15, 1950, September 16 - December 16, 1950, and December
17, 1950 - May 20, 1951. The editor has changed this time division
somewhat to conform to certain significant events and to make each
section more or less equal in length. September 14 now ends the
first section; the second section begins the following day with the
Inch'on landings and concludes on November 25 with the opening of
the massive Chinese Communist offensive; the final section covers
the period November 26, 1950, to May 20, 1951, the date of
Stratemeyer's heart attack. The reader should be aware that,
although it was the intent of the editor to keep this diary as
published as close as possible to the original, it is not the "raw"
diary as Stratemeyer had it transcribed. By remaining close to the
original, all messages have been retained even though some were
word-for-word repeats of messages entered earlier, perhaps just a
paragraph before. However, to prevent an overload of "sics,"
brackets or other such emendations, certain editorial changes have
been made. This has been done primarily to make the text more
readable. As General Stratemeyer wrote the diary and his secretary
typed it, punctuation tended to wander or be non-existent at times.
Commas and other such punctuation were often omitted, resulting in
words which ran together or created occasional odd sentences. Also,
Stratemeyer (or his secretary) often used quotation marks randomly
for no particular reason. He (or they) also tended to capitalize
everything that had an "official" ring to it, regardless of whether
it was necessary or not (e.g., "Ground Force," "Border," etc.). In
the case of place names, at times he capitalized the entire name
but in the next sentence capitalized only the first letter of the
name. Therefore, proper punctuation and capitalization has been
inserted throughout the text. United State Air Force, Air Force
History and Museums Program.
General
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