Lt. James McGovern "Earthquake McGoon"-War Record

[kaki3152]

Today on the Web, there were a lot of news about the burial of James McGovern, the famed CIA pilot who killed in 1954 while flying a C-119 (one was just used in the useless remake of Flight of the Phoenix). All the account mention that he had four Japanese air victories and five ground victories. While looking for him on the USAF AFHRS Website, I found that he claimed 2 Ki-43s on Jan 20,1945 while flying with the 118th Recon Squadron, 23rd FG flying P-51Ds over Shanghai. There are no other victories reported.

Does anyone know of any other claims?

Carlos

[Frank Olynyk]

He has no other aerial victories (no probables or damaged claims). I have no information on ground victories.

Frank.

[CJE]

According to French airmen who knew him in Indochina, he was quite a character, a nice fellow, but after a couple of beers he would swear he had shot down Yamamoto single-handed.

[NUPPOL]

Report of ground victories at http://www.air-america.org/newspaper...e_McGoon.shtml

[KM1957]

From 118 TRS records, McGovern made the following ground claims:

December 23, 1944 (3) Oscars and one Lily damaged
January 15, 1945 one unidentified aircraft destroyed
January 17, 1945 a Tess destroyed and (2) Lily damaged

Kent

[NUPPOL]

Co Pilot Wallace Buford
http://www.bufordfamilies.com/bufordwallacea.htm
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...509150&df=all&

[Tex Longhorn]

Wayne Johnson, a pilot with the 118th and friend of McGovern, kept a detailed diary from his time in China. He incorporated his diary in a book he wrote called "Whitey, From Farm Kid to Flying Tiger To Attorney". His diary entry for the 17 Jan 1945 notes that McGovern was to fly that mission, but became sick at the last minute and Johnson took his place. Johnson recalls that McGovern's sickness was due to drinking too much "Jing Bao Juice" the night before and he started puking out of his plane.

So Johnson went on the mission. As was common in China, Johnson suffered a case of diarrhea on the way back. As a result, he missed the debriefing. So the record showed that McGovern had gone on the mission and was credited with 2 confirmed on the ground and one probable.

The diary goes on to note that Johnson was scheduled to fly on the 20 Jan 1945 mission. Since McGovern missed the 17th, he was put in Johnson's place. McGovern was credited with two in the air on this mission.