This history is published for the education and training of marines as part of the DoD observance of the 50th anniversary of that war. The 5-volume official Marine Corps History of the Korean War provides the centerline for this account of Marine aviation in Korea. This history is illustrated with numerous B&W photos of Marines, planes, and battles. It also includes two lists: Marine Corps Air Units and Primary Units and Primary Aircraft, and Marine Pilots and Enemy Aircraft Downed; and sections on 1st Marine Aircraft Wing Leaders, Flying Sergeants: Enlisted Marine Aviators, Major-League Reservists, Night MiG Killers, Who Were the Guys in the MiGs?, and Aviator Prisoners of War.
Father Joe O’Callahan, S.J. was the unlikeliest war hero. A bespectacled math professor from Holy Cross, he became the U.S. Navy’s first Jesuit chaplain in World War II and served in combat operations in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. Father O’Callahan was on the aircraft carrier Franklin, known as “Big Ben”, in the Okinawa campaign in early 1945 when massive explosions and fire from a kamikaze bomb attack nearly destroyed his ship. Hundreds of sailors died within moments of the attack, and the Franklin, lay dead in the water, drifting toward Japan just 60 miles distant. As flames consumed the carrier, the chaplain organized and led fire-fighting crews and prevented a potentially fatal explosion while ministering to injured, dying and terrified sailors. Father O’Callahan’s deeds were instrumental in saving the Franklin, and he stayed with the ship on its voyage under power to New York Harbor. The carrier’s captain called him “the bravest man I ever saw,” and Father Joe became the first American military chaplain to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest decoration for valor. But the price of glory was high for Father O’Callahan. He suffered a stroke after returning to Holy Cross and spent the rest of his life enduring incapacitating pain. Through it all, the priest displayed the same leadership and strength derived from unwavering faith that enabled him to help save his ship and comrades. The book incorporates primary sources, interviews with Franklin survivors and O’Callahan family members and other materials never before published, including documentation of the Navy’s review of Father O’Callahan’s recommendation of the Medal of Honor and the process leading to the priest’s receipt of the decoration.
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