Major John “Skip” McCord (Ret.)
US Marines – Pilot F4-B Phantom
VMFA-542 1st Marine Aircraft Wing
Chu Lai, Vietnam. Nov. ’66 – Dec. ‘67
US Marines – Pilot F4-B Phantom
VMFA-542 1st Marine Aircraft Wing
Chu Lai, Vietnam. Nov. ’66 – Dec. ‘67
John “Skip” McCord was an only child and born into a middle class family on October 9, 1942, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Skip came from a family where service to your country was important. His father served in WWII on a destroyer in the Pacific and his grandfather was Marine in WWI. After the war his father took a job managing real estate for Gulf Oil and worked there until he retired.
When Skip was 9, he moved to the suburbs of Pittsburgh which he described as bucolic and undergoing a transition from rural to suburban. Skip enjoyed his childhood. He attended North Allegheny High School which at the time was a very small high school. He lettered in track and cross country. Skip was also a good student and in his senior year he was in the National Honor Society. He graduated in 1960 and headed off to Lehigh University to study geology and geophysics “and performed as poorly as one could perform.”
After his junior year, Skip didn’t feel he had any clear direction of where his life was headed and as the proud owner of a C- GPA, Skip decided he needed to do something to get himself on track. His solution was to join the military. He went to see the Navy recruiter but wasn’t very impressed. Next, he went to the Marine recruiter and the red stripe down the trousers of the uniform caught his eye and he remembered his grandfather was a proud Marine. The recruiter suggested he take a test geared toward aviation. With the help of the Marine recruiter, he passed the test and enlisted. Skip headed home to tell his parents and his girlfriend (later to become his wife) that he had joined the Marines. Although they may have not been thrilled, they were supportive.
It was March 1964 and Skip headed off to boot camp for six weeks of basic training in Pensacola, FL. Skip pointed out that while the physical aspect was not as difficult as what others experienced at Parris Island, it was equally challenging in other ways. There was classroom work for 4 to 6 hours every day which included physics, aeronautical engineering, and swimming. Then it was on to basic flight training and after a relatively short time Skip was flying solo. The attrition rate was very high. Skip was highly motived to succeed because if you washed out of the flight training program you were headed for the infantry and that was a different kind of demanding. Skip scored the highest in a class of 45. At the conclusion of his training Skip selected jets and headed off to Meridian Mississippi for primary jet training which included learning instrument flying, night flying, acrobatics, and landing on a carrier. From there it was on to Texas for more training in advanced navigation, aerial combat and using the various weapons systems on the aircraft.
In January of 1966 Skip graduated, got his wings, and received his commission. He also married his high school sweetheart Sandy Swearingen. The newlyweds headed off to Skip’s first assignment with an F-4 Squadron in Beaufort, South Carolina. At that time the F-4 was the top of the line fighter jet. Skip did not know for certain what the Marines had planned for him, but things were heating up in Vietnam and he was fairly certain his squadron would be sent there. In Beaufort, Skip perfected his flying skills while Sandy took a teaching job in the “Wonderful Low-Country town of Beaufort”. In November ’66 the word came that he was shipping out to Vietnam. Skip took Sandy back to Pittsburgh where his daughter Tracey was born 10 days before Skip shipped out to Vietnam.
Skip boarded a commercial flight and headed to Alaska and then onto Okinawa where they spent a few days getting various vaccinations. From there he headed to Chu Lai, Vietnam. Chu Lai was a small village on the South China Sea, 250 miles south of the DMZ. Skip has no vivid recollections of his first impressions of Vietnam other than there was sand everywhere.
The squadron he was assigned to was Marine Fighter/Attack Squadron 542, or VMFA 542. The squadron lived in huts built between 2 runways. One was your typical concrete runway, and the other was a “SAT Strip” which was short, made of metal matting, required rocket assisted takeoff and had cables similar to a carrier to arrest the landing. It was used primarily by the A-4 squadrons. All day and all night they heard the steady roar of aircraft taking off and landing. Skip learned the art of sleeping with a pillow wrapped around his head but thankful for having a rack to sleep on rather than a hole in the jungle.
Skip was flying the F4-B Phantom which was a twin engine two seat aircraft. Skip was the front seater. He never consistently had the same second seater, but he said they were all great. The second seater, known as the Radar Intercept Officer (ROI), used the aircrafts powerful radar system to acquire enemy aircraft targets and direct the pilot to the firing position. On the approach to a bombing site the second seater would call out the airspeed and altitude, so the pilot could focus on putting the gunsight on the target and then knew when to release the ordinance and then pull out of the dive. He was also a second set of eyes to be on the lookout for enemy ground fire, MIGs and solid objects like trees. Although Skip encountered MIGs over North Vietnam, he never ended up in a “dog fight”. “I would have liked to, but I was never in the right place at the right time.”
The squadron conducted various missions which required different numbers of aircraft. Combat air patrol would involve two aircraft providing protection to heavy bombers, usually headed to North Vietnam. Direct air support would involve 2 to 4 aircraft where they would fly to a predetermine target area to drop bombs based on intelligence that there was an enemy presence in the area. Close air support would require two planes to conduct air strikes against enemy troops that were engaged with US forces. Because of the proximity of the US troops to the enemy a great deal of precision was required by the crew to avoid a friendly fire outcome.
I asked Skip about the most dangerous mission he flew. He said danger was viewed differently by each pilot. He mentioned a mission where the Marines were in close contact with the enemy. The Marines were down in a valley while the enemy had the high ground. There was low cloud cover and there were mountains disappearing into the clouds everywhere which mandated` a limited approach on the bombing run. Skip and the other plane took enemy anti-aircraft fire throughout the mission, but they were able to avoid the mountains, drop their bombs, “knock out all of the bad guys”, get out of the valley and save the Marines. Skip’s aircraft was hit and leaking fuel. The Chu Lai airfield was closed with the weather below minimums and he had to divert to Danang Air Force Base 50 miles north and barely made it before the fuel ran out. This mission earned Skip an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
One night mission found Skip and his second seater headed over the DMZ at 18,000 feet to dropped twelve, 500 pound bombs. 40 miles north the DMZ the ground air controller came over the radio and said, “we have elephants active in the area.” Elephants was the code for SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles.). As soon as Skip dropped his bombs the radio exploded with “elephants, elephants in Bravo Charlie 3”. Bravo Charlie 3 was where Skip was flying. Immediately they began to take evasive action rolling inverted and pulling 9 “Gs”as the first SAM blew up just behind them and the flash lit up the inside of the cockpit. They spotted a second SAM, took evasive action and the missile flew right by them. With enough excitement for one day Skip headed back for the base.
A chronic danger while landing at the Chu Lai air base was dodging enemy mortar fire and tracer fire on their approach to land. Running out of gas was a big concern because “they didn’t fly tankers around like you see in the movies.” On one night mission the base in Chu Lai was taking heavy mortar fire and Skip was diverted to Thailand. Pretty low on fuel Skip landed and “flamed out”.
Throughout the war the US Government would often place restrictions on what they could shoot at and where they could fly. Skip was flying a mission near Khe Sahn which was 14 miles south of the DMZ. At the time, the rules of engagement were aircraft could not go north of the DMZ. They received a call from a forward air controller who advised there were Marines at Dong Ha (30miles east toward the coast) taking heavy fire from 155mm NVA artillery. The forward air controller said “it looks like they are south of the DMZ…..can you see them?” Skip replied, “yeah, we can see them.” The reply came, “why don’t you go get ‘em.” Skip headed toward the enemy position, which turned out to be 3 miles north of the DMZ, dropped down to 500 feet and destroyed the artillery saving the Marines. They bent the rules a little that day.
Skip recalled flying a mission where they dropped bombs along an enemy entrenchment like the trenches used in WW I. This target was about 500 meters from the ocean. He completed the mission and as he pulled off the target, he saw approximately 100 people all dressed in black all along the beach. Skip radioed the airborne forward air controller and told him what he saw. “They are not ours. Do you want to hit them?” was the reply. Skip still had ammo for the 20mm gun the F-4 carried capable of firing almost 65 rounds per second. He rolled in and noticed that these people were not reacting as you would expect military personnel to react with a rapidly approaching F-4. Skip held his fire, pulled off the target, and decided to make another run. On this run Skip dropped to 100 feet and he could see these people were tending to their fishing nets strung out along the beach. Skip held his fire and headed back to base and advised his gun had jammed. Skip was faced the moral dilemma many military personnel face. Unsure of the target do you kill 100 noncombatants or do let 100 enemy, pretending to be fisherman, live to fight your buddies the next day.
Skip and his fellow aviators liked to burn off steam by enjoying happy hour. One happy hour where they particularly enjoyed themselves, they decided to borrow the CO’s jeep “to see the beach”. They headed off down a road they had never been on before and came upon a Marine Checkpoint that they ran right through. Despite all of the noise coming from 6 happy aviators hanging onto a jeep they did clearly hear the sound of the Marine guard cock his shotgun and they promptly, ungracefully pulled off the road and stopped. The Marine yelled, “Do not move! You are in a minefield!” That got their attention. The men carefully walked out of the minefield by following the tire tracks of the jeep. Somehow the CO’s jeep was returned, and no one knew the better.
Skip’s objective was to get 300 missions under his belt, but with only 30 days to go on his tour he decided maybe he would change his objective. After 276 missions, Skip headed for home in December of 1967 with two Distinguished Flying Crosses and multiple air medals. He flew home as the only passenger on a huge C-141 filled with caskets of US servicemen. Despite the political climate at the time, Skip did not have any of the negative experiences that many other veterans endured. However, people always asked about what he thought of the war. Skip said while there he didn’t think about the war because they focused on their mission which was very simple to understand - protect the Marines and friendly troops on the ground and be outstanding at the execution of that and other combat engagements.
Skip, Sandy, and Tracey returned to Beaufort where Skip had many flying duties including an instructor at the Marine equivalent of Top Gun and Sandy found a job teaching. The McCord’s had a fishing boat, and they were really enjoying life when Skip’s service requirement was up and they extended for one year.
While returning from a training flight Skip lost communications with his RIO. As Skip was rolling into his final approach to land, he felt a tap on his should. His RIO had attached a handwritten note with an alligator clip to an extendable pointer. The note read, ‘we are on fire’. “Never a good thing in an airplane.” Fortunately, it was a small electrical fire in the rear instrument panel, and they were able to land without a problem. Although, the RIO later told Skip he could see in the mirror in the front of the cockpit that Skip’s eyes were as big as dishes.
When that year was ending Skip contemplated staying in the Marines longer and possibly making a career of it. The Marines offered him a spot as an instructor in the UK but just before he formally extended his commitment, his orders were changed, and he was scheduled to return to Vietnam. Skip decided it was best for his family not to return to Vietnam and he left active duty in May of 1970.
Skip was unsure of what he would do in civilian life. His back seater buddy asked him to come to Florida and get involved with his family’s real estate development business. Skip and the family headed to Florida and after a short time at this job he went to work for an Architectural Engineering firm, completed his college degree in finance at the University of Central Florida and joined an A-4 squadron of Marine Reserves based in Jacksonville FL. Joining the reserves helped ease the transition from active duty and it also allowed him to learn to fly many different aircraft.
Skip took a job with Chase Manhattan Bank in the real estate group and from there he made a career in banking and other financial service positions until he retired. Skip and Sandy have one daughter and three grandchildren which help to keep them busy.
In retrospect Skip said the entire process of becoming a Marine and learning to be a pilot was very professional and one of the most challenging things he has ever gone through. “Everything had purpose, and everything had a direction”. Skip was expecting Marines to order him around all day every day. Much to his surprise, “ingrained in the entire process you were taught that you are in charge, you have to make decisions, you have to do this yourself, people were relying upon you.” The Marines taught him to be self-reliant, how to make decisions, how to focus and how to lead. That focus helped him improve from a 2.0 student to a 4.0 student.
“It’s been a rewarding career.” However, “I could never have made it without the support of my wife.”
Thank you Skip for the 276 missions you flew and the sacrifices you and your family made for the rest of us. Semper Fi.
When Skip was 9, he moved to the suburbs of Pittsburgh which he described as bucolic and undergoing a transition from rural to suburban. Skip enjoyed his childhood. He attended North Allegheny High School which at the time was a very small high school. He lettered in track and cross country. Skip was also a good student and in his senior year he was in the National Honor Society. He graduated in 1960 and headed off to Lehigh University to study geology and geophysics “and performed as poorly as one could perform.”
After his junior year, Skip didn’t feel he had any clear direction of where his life was headed and as the proud owner of a C- GPA, Skip decided he needed to do something to get himself on track. His solution was to join the military. He went to see the Navy recruiter but wasn’t very impressed. Next, he went to the Marine recruiter and the red stripe down the trousers of the uniform caught his eye and he remembered his grandfather was a proud Marine. The recruiter suggested he take a test geared toward aviation. With the help of the Marine recruiter, he passed the test and enlisted. Skip headed home to tell his parents and his girlfriend (later to become his wife) that he had joined the Marines. Although they may have not been thrilled, they were supportive.
It was March 1964 and Skip headed off to boot camp for six weeks of basic training in Pensacola, FL. Skip pointed out that while the physical aspect was not as difficult as what others experienced at Parris Island, it was equally challenging in other ways. There was classroom work for 4 to 6 hours every day which included physics, aeronautical engineering, and swimming. Then it was on to basic flight training and after a relatively short time Skip was flying solo. The attrition rate was very high. Skip was highly motived to succeed because if you washed out of the flight training program you were headed for the infantry and that was a different kind of demanding. Skip scored the highest in a class of 45. At the conclusion of his training Skip selected jets and headed off to Meridian Mississippi for primary jet training which included learning instrument flying, night flying, acrobatics, and landing on a carrier. From there it was on to Texas for more training in advanced navigation, aerial combat and using the various weapons systems on the aircraft.
In January of 1966 Skip graduated, got his wings, and received his commission. He also married his high school sweetheart Sandy Swearingen. The newlyweds headed off to Skip’s first assignment with an F-4 Squadron in Beaufort, South Carolina. At that time the F-4 was the top of the line fighter jet. Skip did not know for certain what the Marines had planned for him, but things were heating up in Vietnam and he was fairly certain his squadron would be sent there. In Beaufort, Skip perfected his flying skills while Sandy took a teaching job in the “Wonderful Low-Country town of Beaufort”. In November ’66 the word came that he was shipping out to Vietnam. Skip took Sandy back to Pittsburgh where his daughter Tracey was born 10 days before Skip shipped out to Vietnam.
Skip boarded a commercial flight and headed to Alaska and then onto Okinawa where they spent a few days getting various vaccinations. From there he headed to Chu Lai, Vietnam. Chu Lai was a small village on the South China Sea, 250 miles south of the DMZ. Skip has no vivid recollections of his first impressions of Vietnam other than there was sand everywhere.
The squadron he was assigned to was Marine Fighter/Attack Squadron 542, or VMFA 542. The squadron lived in huts built between 2 runways. One was your typical concrete runway, and the other was a “SAT Strip” which was short, made of metal matting, required rocket assisted takeoff and had cables similar to a carrier to arrest the landing. It was used primarily by the A-4 squadrons. All day and all night they heard the steady roar of aircraft taking off and landing. Skip learned the art of sleeping with a pillow wrapped around his head but thankful for having a rack to sleep on rather than a hole in the jungle.
Skip was flying the F4-B Phantom which was a twin engine two seat aircraft. Skip was the front seater. He never consistently had the same second seater, but he said they were all great. The second seater, known as the Radar Intercept Officer (ROI), used the aircrafts powerful radar system to acquire enemy aircraft targets and direct the pilot to the firing position. On the approach to a bombing site the second seater would call out the airspeed and altitude, so the pilot could focus on putting the gunsight on the target and then knew when to release the ordinance and then pull out of the dive. He was also a second set of eyes to be on the lookout for enemy ground fire, MIGs and solid objects like trees. Although Skip encountered MIGs over North Vietnam, he never ended up in a “dog fight”. “I would have liked to, but I was never in the right place at the right time.”
The squadron conducted various missions which required different numbers of aircraft. Combat air patrol would involve two aircraft providing protection to heavy bombers, usually headed to North Vietnam. Direct air support would involve 2 to 4 aircraft where they would fly to a predetermine target area to drop bombs based on intelligence that there was an enemy presence in the area. Close air support would require two planes to conduct air strikes against enemy troops that were engaged with US forces. Because of the proximity of the US troops to the enemy a great deal of precision was required by the crew to avoid a friendly fire outcome.
I asked Skip about the most dangerous mission he flew. He said danger was viewed differently by each pilot. He mentioned a mission where the Marines were in close contact with the enemy. The Marines were down in a valley while the enemy had the high ground. There was low cloud cover and there were mountains disappearing into the clouds everywhere which mandated` a limited approach on the bombing run. Skip and the other plane took enemy anti-aircraft fire throughout the mission, but they were able to avoid the mountains, drop their bombs, “knock out all of the bad guys”, get out of the valley and save the Marines. Skip’s aircraft was hit and leaking fuel. The Chu Lai airfield was closed with the weather below minimums and he had to divert to Danang Air Force Base 50 miles north and barely made it before the fuel ran out. This mission earned Skip an award of the Distinguished Flying Cross.
One night mission found Skip and his second seater headed over the DMZ at 18,000 feet to dropped twelve, 500 pound bombs. 40 miles north the DMZ the ground air controller came over the radio and said, “we have elephants active in the area.” Elephants was the code for SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles.). As soon as Skip dropped his bombs the radio exploded with “elephants, elephants in Bravo Charlie 3”. Bravo Charlie 3 was where Skip was flying. Immediately they began to take evasive action rolling inverted and pulling 9 “Gs”as the first SAM blew up just behind them and the flash lit up the inside of the cockpit. They spotted a second SAM, took evasive action and the missile flew right by them. With enough excitement for one day Skip headed back for the base.
A chronic danger while landing at the Chu Lai air base was dodging enemy mortar fire and tracer fire on their approach to land. Running out of gas was a big concern because “they didn’t fly tankers around like you see in the movies.” On one night mission the base in Chu Lai was taking heavy mortar fire and Skip was diverted to Thailand. Pretty low on fuel Skip landed and “flamed out”.
Throughout the war the US Government would often place restrictions on what they could shoot at and where they could fly. Skip was flying a mission near Khe Sahn which was 14 miles south of the DMZ. At the time, the rules of engagement were aircraft could not go north of the DMZ. They received a call from a forward air controller who advised there were Marines at Dong Ha (30miles east toward the coast) taking heavy fire from 155mm NVA artillery. The forward air controller said “it looks like they are south of the DMZ…..can you see them?” Skip replied, “yeah, we can see them.” The reply came, “why don’t you go get ‘em.” Skip headed toward the enemy position, which turned out to be 3 miles north of the DMZ, dropped down to 500 feet and destroyed the artillery saving the Marines. They bent the rules a little that day.
Skip recalled flying a mission where they dropped bombs along an enemy entrenchment like the trenches used in WW I. This target was about 500 meters from the ocean. He completed the mission and as he pulled off the target, he saw approximately 100 people all dressed in black all along the beach. Skip radioed the airborne forward air controller and told him what he saw. “They are not ours. Do you want to hit them?” was the reply. Skip still had ammo for the 20mm gun the F-4 carried capable of firing almost 65 rounds per second. He rolled in and noticed that these people were not reacting as you would expect military personnel to react with a rapidly approaching F-4. Skip held his fire, pulled off the target, and decided to make another run. On this run Skip dropped to 100 feet and he could see these people were tending to their fishing nets strung out along the beach. Skip held his fire and headed back to base and advised his gun had jammed. Skip was faced the moral dilemma many military personnel face. Unsure of the target do you kill 100 noncombatants or do let 100 enemy, pretending to be fisherman, live to fight your buddies the next day.
Skip and his fellow aviators liked to burn off steam by enjoying happy hour. One happy hour where they particularly enjoyed themselves, they decided to borrow the CO’s jeep “to see the beach”. They headed off down a road they had never been on before and came upon a Marine Checkpoint that they ran right through. Despite all of the noise coming from 6 happy aviators hanging onto a jeep they did clearly hear the sound of the Marine guard cock his shotgun and they promptly, ungracefully pulled off the road and stopped. The Marine yelled, “Do not move! You are in a minefield!” That got their attention. The men carefully walked out of the minefield by following the tire tracks of the jeep. Somehow the CO’s jeep was returned, and no one knew the better.
Skip’s objective was to get 300 missions under his belt, but with only 30 days to go on his tour he decided maybe he would change his objective. After 276 missions, Skip headed for home in December of 1967 with two Distinguished Flying Crosses and multiple air medals. He flew home as the only passenger on a huge C-141 filled with caskets of US servicemen. Despite the political climate at the time, Skip did not have any of the negative experiences that many other veterans endured. However, people always asked about what he thought of the war. Skip said while there he didn’t think about the war because they focused on their mission which was very simple to understand - protect the Marines and friendly troops on the ground and be outstanding at the execution of that and other combat engagements.
Skip, Sandy, and Tracey returned to Beaufort where Skip had many flying duties including an instructor at the Marine equivalent of Top Gun and Sandy found a job teaching. The McCord’s had a fishing boat, and they were really enjoying life when Skip’s service requirement was up and they extended for one year.
While returning from a training flight Skip lost communications with his RIO. As Skip was rolling into his final approach to land, he felt a tap on his should. His RIO had attached a handwritten note with an alligator clip to an extendable pointer. The note read, ‘we are on fire’. “Never a good thing in an airplane.” Fortunately, it was a small electrical fire in the rear instrument panel, and they were able to land without a problem. Although, the RIO later told Skip he could see in the mirror in the front of the cockpit that Skip’s eyes were as big as dishes.
When that year was ending Skip contemplated staying in the Marines longer and possibly making a career of it. The Marines offered him a spot as an instructor in the UK but just before he formally extended his commitment, his orders were changed, and he was scheduled to return to Vietnam. Skip decided it was best for his family not to return to Vietnam and he left active duty in May of 1970.
Skip was unsure of what he would do in civilian life. His back seater buddy asked him to come to Florida and get involved with his family’s real estate development business. Skip and the family headed to Florida and after a short time at this job he went to work for an Architectural Engineering firm, completed his college degree in finance at the University of Central Florida and joined an A-4 squadron of Marine Reserves based in Jacksonville FL. Joining the reserves helped ease the transition from active duty and it also allowed him to learn to fly many different aircraft.
Skip took a job with Chase Manhattan Bank in the real estate group and from there he made a career in banking and other financial service positions until he retired. Skip and Sandy have one daughter and three grandchildren which help to keep them busy.
In retrospect Skip said the entire process of becoming a Marine and learning to be a pilot was very professional and one of the most challenging things he has ever gone through. “Everything had purpose, and everything had a direction”. Skip was expecting Marines to order him around all day every day. Much to his surprise, “ingrained in the entire process you were taught that you are in charge, you have to make decisions, you have to do this yourself, people were relying upon you.” The Marines taught him to be self-reliant, how to make decisions, how to focus and how to lead. That focus helped him improve from a 2.0 student to a 4.0 student.
“It’s been a rewarding career.” However, “I could never have made it without the support of my wife.”
Thank you Skip for the 276 missions you flew and the sacrifices you and your family made for the rest of us. Semper Fi.