Ed McMahon was on TV last night talking about Johnny Carson, then the interview went into his career as a Marine Aviator. This was the first in-depth account I ever heard about him and his service to our country.
So, now I’m on a mission to find markings for any of the units that Ed McMahon flew in.
According to the internet, McMahon flew Corsairs at the end of the war, training at Lee Field. After completeing training, he was kept as an instructor pilot. One of the units there was OCU3. Doesn’t say what unit he was assigned to. When he was recalled for Korea, he flew spotter in a Birddog.
Boy would that have been an experience. Imagine training for war in the Corsar which produced 2350hp and guns to flying combat as a gunnery target for the North Koreans in a 213hp puddlejumper with no guns.
I knew he had served as an instructor pilot & searched in vain for any pics. But that was several years ago & the net has grown, so there may be something somewhere.
NAAS Lee Field apparently was the home of several VF-OCU’s. Around Aug., '44, one of the VF’s was converted to MF-OCU. It was based there until Dec., 1945. Crash reports make it look like the base was equipped with FG-1’s and FG-1A’s. I haven’t been able to find any sites that have any base or squadron markings, or squadron equipment, so far.
From Monogram U S Navy and Marine A/C Color Guide:
Jan. 12, 1943 the Naval Air OTU Command issued a letter establishing the marking system for Florida based OTU’s. 12 bases were assigned a designation letter. This was to be followed by a dash and a letter indicating a/c type. Again a dash and a plane in group number. If there was more than one squadron of a mission type, the squadron number was to be included with the base letter. This was to be painted on boh sides of the fuselage ahead of the national insignia. The rest of the a/c markings were to be according to SR-2b. IN Oct., 1943, four more bases were added, and one was dropped. One of thhose added was NAAS Green Cove Springs. This appears to be another name for NAAS Lee Field. At the end of 1943, all fighter training was moved from NAAS Cecil Field to Green Cove Springs. In Aug, 1944 OTU#4 became the Marine training unit. This should be the unit Ed McMahon trained in, and would be an insructor in. By all this, the markings would look like G4-F-21 . I haven’t found what numbers should be assigned to the squadron.
After writing all of this, there are 2 pictures with the text. One is of Corsairs from Jacksonville. They are coded J5F under the cockpit, and the plane numbers are on the tail. The other picture is of an FM-2 on a carrier deck. Airfix sold a kit with these markings. They said it was a Marine squadron, but it is actually assigned to NAS Miami. M-F is painted on the fuselage. The plane number is painted on the nose and tail. The properly painted code is on the top of the right wing.
Ed McMahon joined VMO-6 in Korea. The tail code was WB. The squadron was a mixture of Bell and Sikorsky helicopters, and fixed wing observation a/c. For sure, there were Consolidated OY-1’s. I have read some posts mentioning OE-1’s and L-19’s, but have only seen pictures fo the OY’s. I read a person’s post stating he flew as an observer with McMahon in an OY.