EarthQuake Mgoon Buried

WWII Fighter ace James B. McGovern, Jr aka 'Earthquake McGoon", the first US casualty of the Vietnam Conflict laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in 2007.

Most soldiers killed at the outbreak of a war are afforded special honors and recognition. Their names are recalled, their faces published and honored on public display. They are afforded the first of many military funerals with full regalia. This only happened this month for a war that began more than fifty years ago.

The first US casualty of the Vietnam conflict occurred on the very last day of the epic Battle of Dien Bien Phu between French Colonial Forces and the Viet Mihn freedom fighters. The United States was secretly backing the besieged French forces with airdrops of equipment. These were flown by deniable civilian flights of the Civil Air Transport (CAT) company. This company was a front for the CIA and later became the infamous Air America. On May 6, 1954, James B McGovern and his co-pilot and Franco Thai crew air dropped a howitzer from their C-119 "Flying Boxcar" transport and was hit over Dien Bien Phu. McGovern managed to keep his shattered aircraft in the air for another 75 miles in an attempt to leave the combat zone before crashing into the jungle of Laos.

The airplane was destroyed and McGovern and his American copilot Wallace Buford were killed while the crew was able to escape. McGovern's body was found almost by accident in 2002 and positively identified via DNA. He was buried this month in Arlington National Cemetery. He served in China in World War Two as a young fighter pilot in the post-Chennault Flying Tigers where he destroyed nine confirmed Japanese planes in combat. His antics in China and the Far East included winning a gaggle of dancing girls in a poker game, refusing an order to throw out Japanese prisoners of war while airborne, and landing planes on everything but runways. He went on to become an operative and soldier of fortune for the CIA after the war and flew for their CAT front company until the day he died at a world traveled 31 years of age.

Welcome home Earthquake.