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World War II Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient
Cdr. David S. McCampbell
http://www.mccampbell.navy.mil/namesake-pix.htm
David McCampbell was born on January 16, 1910, in Bessemer, Alabama to Andrew Jackson (A.J.) and E. La Valle (Perry) McCampbell. At thirteen he left home to attend the Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, Virginia, and later Georgia Tech in Atlanta, before being appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929 by Senator P. Trammell of Florida. While at the Naval Academy, McCampbell excelled in athletics, becoming A.A.U. Diving Champion - Mid-Atlantic States in 1931 and Eastern Intercollegiate Diving Champion in 1932. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1933 with a B.S. degree in Marine Engineering. The same day, he was honorably discharged from the Navy due to Congressional legislation limiting officer commissions and was recommissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve. For the next year, McCampbell worked for a construction company in Alabama and as an assembly mechanic with Douglas Aircraft Corporation.
On June 14, 1934, McCampbell was transferred from the Naval Reserve to the U.S. Navy. His first assignment was aboard the cruiser USS Portland. In July, 1936, he was assigned as Aircraft Gunnery Observer with Scouting Squadron 11. In 1937, McCampbell's flying career finally got off the ground at Pensacola Naval Air Station where he reported for flight training. A year later, he was designated a Naval Aviator and received his first flying assignment with Fighting Squadron 4 aboard the USS Ranger where he served two years. In 1940, he was transferred to the USS Wasps Air Group in the Atlantic Ocean to serve as Landing Signal Officer. The work of a Landing Signal Officer on a carrier was extremely exacting, for the safety and lives of the pilots and crewmen rested upon him. He served as Landing Signal Officer until the Wasp was sunk on September 15, 1942 by a Japanese submarine while on routine patrol south of Guadalcanal.
Next, McCampbell returned home for a rest and promotion to Lt. Commander while he served as an instructor of Landing Signal Officers in Melbourne, Florida. But the war was heating up and the Navy needed experienced men to command fighter squadrons. In August of 1943, McCampbell became commanding officer of Fighting Squadron 15 where he served from September 1943 until February 1944, when he assumed command of Air Group Fifteen, which came to call itself the Fabled Fifteen.
In the spring of 1944, the Fabled Fifteen went to war aboard the USS Essex. McCampbell was given command of the entire Essex air group -- bombers, fighters, and torpedo planes. He was thirty-four years old and he was finally going to war the way he wanted it, with a fighter plane in his hands! The Fabled Fifteen, led by McCampbell, slashed a devastating path through the sky all the way to the Philippines before the exhausted fliers went home. During their tour of approximately seven months and more than 20,000 hours of operations, this group destroyed more enemy planes (318 airborne and 348 on the ground) and sank more enemy ships (296,500 tons sunk, and more than a half million tons damaged and/or probably sunk) than any other air group in the Pacific war. Among the major combat ships sunk was the Japanese battleship MUSASHI, three carriers and a heavy cruiser. The Fabled Fifteen became one of the most highly decorated air groups of the war.
Despite the impressive record of the Fabled Fifteen, McCampbell's personal record is even more unprecedented. He entered combat on May 19, 1944, leading a fighter sweep over Marcus Island. He shot down his first Japanese plane on the 11th of June, 1944 during air strikes against Japanese positions on Saipan. In the first and second Battles of the Philippine Sea, McCampbell led his fighter planes against a force of eighty Japanese carrier-based aircraft bearing down on the U.S. Fleet on June 19, 1944. McCampbell personally destroyed seven hostile planes and two probable during this single engagement in which the larger enemy attack force was routed and virtually annihilated. Fighter pilots remember the battle as the famous Marianas Turkey Shoot. By September 1944, McCampbell had shot down nineteen Japanese planes and the side of his Hellcat was cluttered with miniature Japanese flags. In October, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, McCampbell, assisted by only one other plane, intercepted and daringly attacked a formation of sixty hostile enemy aircraft approaching American forces. Together they accounted for fifteen downed enemy planes with McCampbell personally shooting down nine enemy planes and two probables, a feat unequaled in the annals of combat aviation. He also completely disorganized the enemy group, forcing the remainder to abandon the attack before a single aircraft could reach the U.S. Fleet.
After almost seven months of service in the Pacific, McCampbell had destroyed 34 airborne enemy planes, the greatest number of enemy planes ever shot down by an American pilot during a single tour of combat duty, as well as 20 planes on the ground. David McCampbell became the top scoring Naval fighter pilot of World War II. As a result of these incredible feats, McCampbell received numerous honors and decorations including the Congressional Medal of Honor which was personally presented to him by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. McCampbell also received the Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, Legion of Merit, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
After returning home, McCampbell served from March 1945 to January 1947 at the Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Virginia as Chief of Staff to Commander Fleet Air and as Commander of Carrier Air Groups. He was next assigned to the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, first as a student and then as a member of the staff in the Intelligence Division. Later, he was assigned to Buenos Aires, Argentina where he served as the Senior Naval Aviation Advisor to the Argentine Navy from 1948 to January 1951. In February of 1951, McCampbell joined the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt as Executive Officer. From March 1952 until July 1953, he was the Planning Officer on the Staff of Commander Aircraft Atlantic. In the summer of 1953 he assumed command of the Naval Air Technical Training Center at Jacksonville, Florida and a year later became Flight Test Coordinator at the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland. In the years following, he commanded the USS Severn and USS Bon Homme Richard until he was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C. in 1960. In September, 1962 he became the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations to the Commander in Chief of Continental Air Defense Command. He remained there until he retired from the Navy in 1964. David McCampbell died in Florida after a lengthy illness on June 30, 1996.
McCampbell is the Navy's top ace with 34 confirmed aerial victories and recipient of the Medal of Honor while serving as commander, Air Group 15, USS Essex (CV 9) during the Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19, 1944) and the Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 24, 1944). During the first encounter, McCampbell's force "virtually annihilated" an attacking force of 80 Japanese carrier-based aircraft, of which he personally shot down seven. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf, he daringly attacked a formation of at least 60 Japanese land-based aircraft. McCampbell shot down at least nine of these aircraft, forcing the remainder to abandon the attack.
The Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded to David McCampbell for the flight of nine and the earlier mission of seven victories.
McCAMPBELL, DAVID
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy, Air Group 15. Place and date: First and second battles of the Philippine Sea, 19 June 1944. Entered service at: Florida. Born: 16 January 1 910, Bessemer, Ala. Other Navy awards: Navy Cross, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with 2 Gold Stars, Air Medal. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commander, Air Group 15, during combat against enemy Japanese aerial forces in the first and second battles of the Philippine Sea. An inspiring leader, fighting boldly in the face of terrific odds, Comdr. McCampbell led his fighter planes against a force of 80 Japanese carrier-based aircraft bearing down on our fleet on 19 June 1944. Striking fiercely in valiant defense of our surface force, he personally destroyed 7 hostile planes during this single engagement in which the outnumbering attack force was utterly routed and virtually annihilated. During a major fleet engagement with the enemy on 24 October, Comdr. McCampbell, assisted by but l plane, intercepted and daringly attacked a formation of 60 hostile land-based craft approaching our forces. Fighting desperately but with superb skill against such overwhelming airpower, he shot down 9 Japanese planes and, completely disorganizing the enemy group, forced the remainder to abandon the attack before a single aircraft could reach the fleet. His great personal valor and indomitable spirit of aggression under extremely perilous combat conditions reflect the highest credit upon Comdr. McCampbell and the U.S. Naval Service.
Mr. Bob Hope talking with CDR McCampbell onboard USS LEXINGTON (CV 16)
Veteran pushes to honor ace pilot
By Eliot Kleinberg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 22, 2004
Big Jim Gregory served with David McCampbell, the top U.S. Navy fighter pilot ever. He persuaded politicians to name the terminal at Palm Beach International Airport for the "Ace of Aces," a lifelong Palm Beach County resident, and was on hand when a ship named for McCampbell was christened in Maine in 2000.
Now Gregory is on a new mission. He wants the classroom building at the Navy's "Top Gun" school in Nevada to be named for McCampbell.
"What else do you name a Top Gun school after but a Top Gun ace?" said the 79-year-old Lake Clarke Shores resident and owner of a West Palm Beach coffee service.
The base in Miramar, Calif., that hosted the famous "Top Gun" school was closed in 1986 and the property was turned over to the U.S. Marines. The school moved to a 241,000-acre base in Fallon, Nev., about 60 miles east of Reno.
That base's airfield was named in 1958 for Bruce Van Voorhis , Nevada's only Medal of Honor recipient. But the academic building, built in 1995, doesn't have a name.
"It would be fitting to the name the building after such a distinguished naval aviator," base spokesman Patrick Lane said. "But we have to deal with the chain of command. We're researching just exactly what it takes and whether it needs to be registered."
McCampbell, an Alabama native who had moved to West Palm Beach as a youngster when his father opened a furniture business, died at 86 in 1996 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
During World War II , newspapers and magazines across America showed the grin of the Navy captain who, during a seven-month span in 1944, recorded 34 kills and destroyed 24 planes on the ground in the battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf.
In the Leyte Gulf battle, the USS Honolulu was the first ship torpedoed, and it was dead in the water for four days. Gregory, who was a 19-year-old engineer stationed in the boiler room, contends the Japanese Zeros would easily have finished off the Honolulu if not for the exploits of McCampbell and his colleagues.
"His fame is resting on the fact that he was such a ferocious pilot," Hank McCall said of McCampbell, "and absolutely fearless."
McCall, an 82-year-old retired West Palm Beach life insurance agent who was a submarine officer during World War II, lectures about McCampbell, most recently on March 4 for the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.
McCampbell's nine kills in 90 minutes set a record in aerial warfare history for a single mission that is believed to stand today. He is the nation's top Navy ace and fourth-leading ace, behind three Army Air Force pilots.
He was the top ace to survive the war. He received the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Legion of Merit, the Silver Star and the Air Medal.
"I brag about the planes I shot down, but I don't brag about the number of people I killed," McCampbell said during a 1992 interview. "For 32 years, all I did was try to forget all of it."
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