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Dogfighting from WWII to Korea

Meet: Colonel Joe McPhail

By Shanon Weaver

etired United States Marine Corps Fighter Pilot Colonel his many commendations, he was
Joe McPhail has a long title, and an even longer list of awarded the Distinguished Flying
Raccomplishments. To begin with, though, he tells me just Cross twice—once in each conflict.
“Joe” is fine. His strongest memory, though, was among his first.
“I was born in the little ol’ town of Grand Saline, Texas,” Joe “Seeing my first Japanese airplane on the 12th of April, 1945,”
begins. “It’s on highway 80 between Dallas and Shreveport.” Joe says when asked about his greatest memory. “I shot down a
Joe left Grand Saline in 1937, following his father to Tyler, TX. Zero that day. It was pretty impressive. I trained for three years,
His father worked for the Railroad Commission. He graduated and had never seen one, and then all of a sudden there were 4 of
from High School in Tyler, and then the family moved to Corpus them in front of me. I started firing, and pieces started coming off
Christi. There, Joe graduated from Junior College in 1941. His of it, and it blew up. The other three took off.”
love of flying would take off from there. “I tell people I’m a generic ‘Ace,’” Joe jokes. “I wrecked three
“I enrolled in a civilian pilot training program in 1941, flying American airplanes and shot down two Japanese airplanes.
Piper Cubs. That’s how I really got hooked on flying. I wanted That’s my five. You gotta have five.”
to continue flying, and knew the only way I could was to join Joe last flew in 1990, and isn’t keen to go up again. “I miss it, I
the military.” really do,” He says. “But I wouldn’t trust myself now. I’ll be 98
Joe joined the Marines, and in 1943 did his first tour in the in October. I feel blessed though, I really do. I’ve done a lot and
Pacific Theater of World War II. That January, he joined up my health is good.”
with a Wildcat Squadron in American Samoa. He was there for All of us at Celebration would like to thank Colonel McPhail for
14 months, but says he really didn’t do much. “We really just his distinguished service, and wish him a happy early birthday!
occupied islands to keep the Japanese from occupying them,”
Joe remembers.
The action heated up during his second tour, when he flew with
VMF 323—a fighter squadron known as The Death Rattlers.
He joined up with them in February 1945, and was deployed to
Okinawa, Japan.
“All the old guys, they had already been overseas about six
months when I joined them, “Joe recalls. They were training in
New Hebrides, about 500 miles west of Guadalcanal. The group
I was with, an augmented squadron, joined up with them and we
ended up with 51 officers. The old guys got to fly their airplanes;
I had to ride an LST [military carrier, Landing Ship: Tank] from
New Hebrides to Okinawa. It took 38 days. Heck of a way for
an aviator to ride to the war.”
According to Wikipedia, the Death Rattlers racked up 124
Japanese planes shot down between April of 1945 and the
Japanese surrender, without losing a single pilot. Joe remembers
it a touch differently. “We lost some guys. I don’t think we lost
‘em to combat; some of ‘em just didn’t ever come back, we
don’t know what happened to ‘em.”
After WWII, Joe went back to school and got his degree from
Southern Methodist University in 1948, and went to work for a
company in Tyler. He was part of a Reserve Squadron in Dallas
though, and on August 1st 1950, he was called back into service
for the Korean War. Things were a little different there, as he
and the rest of Black Sheep Squadron mostly provided close-
air support for troops on the ground. “They’d tell us where the
bombing line was, and anything north of that was fair game,”
Joe says. “We’d look for military targets, of course.”
Joe flew 240 missions, 102 of which were in Korea. Among

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