Legendary pilot 'Earthquake McGoon' heads home (AP/CNN) {KIA, Vietnam '54}

[eppur_se_muova]

NEW YORK (AP) -- More than a half century after he died in the flaming crash of a CIA-owned cargo plane and became one of the first two Americans to die in combat in Vietnam, a legendary soldier of fortune known as "Earthquake McGoon" is coming home.

The skeletal remains of James B. McGovern Jr., discovered in an unmarked grave in remote northern Laos in 2002, were positively identified on September 11 by laboratory experts at the U.S. military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii.

They will be flown back to the mainland next week for a military funeral in New Jersey on October 28, said McGovern's nephew, James McGovern III, of Forked River, New Jersey.
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Six feet and 260 pounds -- huge for a fighter pilot -- McGovern carved out a flying career during and after World War II that made him a legend in Asia.
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He died May 6, 1954, when his C-119 Flying Boxcar cargo plane was hit by ground fire while parachuting a howitzer to the besieged French garrison at Dien Bien Phu.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/19/earthquake.mcgoon.ap/index.html

[Monkeyman]

1. Welcome Home Brother

[Captain Hilts]

2. Merci beaucoups Mr. McGovern. nt

[struggle4progress]

3. French defeat at Dien Bien Phu led almost immediately to the Geneva ..

.. Agreement in '54, which the US instantly decided it could not abide. So what should have been the end of the French colonial era in Indochina turned instead into another war against another imperial power.

It's clear from the dates that 'Earthquake' was providing material support to the French colonial regime at a time when it had already lost the colony, that is, on the eve of the final battle. I have no reason to doubt his 'patriotism,' but objectively of course he was on the wrong side, helping the French make war against the Indochinese peasantry in order to hold a colonial possession which the French could not hold alone after the devastation of WWII.

This is one of over 50K US tragedies. Millions of Vietnamese died.

[daleo]

4. "a legendary soldier of fortune"

Reminds me of Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.

[Bigmack]

6. I wonder if Van Owen killed him...

(on edit)... or would it be Nguyen Van Owen?

[IndianaGreen]

5. Back in those days, McGovern would have been seen as a patriot

helping the French fight off "godless communism." Our ill-fated involvement in Vietnam began during the Truman Administration when it reneged on promises made to the Vietnamese that they would be given independence if they fought off the Japanese. At the end of WWII, the victorious colonial powers retook their colonies in Africa and Asia. We all know what happened after that.

Welcome home, bro!