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My dad was a USAF intercept technician on Yontan Mtn. (think Kadena) in 1950, and he would vector the night/all-weather F-82s that were stationed at Naha; Kadena was full of B-29s at that time. F-82s were - I believe - more often flown flown from Japan in the early days, but some Twin Mustangs were kept on Okinawa because they were the only operational radar-equipped (such as it was) USAF fighters that had any endurance, what with the F-94 not yet operational.

Like the P/F-51s, the F-82s were obsolescent aircraft; unlike the P-51s, there were not many of them to begin with, spare parts were problematic and they were supposedly quite "interesting" to maintain. The pilots did the best with what they had, but a lot of them were none too happy with their situation.

Mr. niteowl77

ETA: Dad has always enjoyed talking about his time in the AF, the only exception I remember being one time I showed him a book with a lot of Korean War B-29 nose art. He remembered a fair amount of them, and even imitated the PIC of the B-29 named "Fujigmo." He said some more about talking to the aircraft as they returned from their bombing runs, then he just stopped and got "the look" which told me that the conversation was over.

Anyway, many years ago when there was a bunch of UFO talk in the news, he told us that unidentified objects would show up on the radar up on Yontan and he'd have to direct the F-82 pilots to the location, as the SCR-720 radars in the Twin Mustang "dong" weren't so useful until they were pretty close to something. The aircraft would eventually get close enough to see something (usually a light or a silver object), and then while a "scope dope" watched in amazement as the "blip" zipped off the radar screen at Yontan, the pilot would be radioing back something about "that @#$%! thing" taking off at some incredible speed in this-or-that direction. None of the family thought he was BS-ing.

Dad was a humble NCO and generally kept close to Kadena, so he only occasionally talked to any fighter pilots, but he thought most of them - especially the ones who had flown in WWII - were pretty good guys. Because of his timeframe at Okinawa, they were generally F-82 or F-80 pilots.

Mr. niteowl77