| Date: 26 October 1967 |
| Aircraft type: A-4E Skyhawk |
| Serial Number: 149959 |
| Military Unit: VA-163 |
| Service: USN |
| Home Base: USS Oriskany |
| Name(s): |
| Lt Cdr John Sidney McCain (POW) |
| A little later in the morning the Oriskany launched a strike on a thermal power plant at Hanoi. Again the target was well protected by SAM batteries and two aircraft were shot down. Lt Cdr McCain was in the leading division of the raid but as he started his dive on the target his aircraft (call sign Old Salt 300) was hit by an SA-2 which blew most of the starboard wing off. Unable to control the remnants of his aircraft, McCain ejected over Hanoi itself and landed in a small lake in the city. During the high-speed ejection he broke both arms and his right leg and was barely able to save himself from drowning. Lt Cdr McCain was captured and spent the next five years as a prisoner until released on 14 March 1973. After the end of the war, John McCain visited Vietnam to see the lake where he had landed and saw a small monument that celebrated his capture.
John McCain was a member of a well-known Navy family, his father and his grandfather having both been naval admirals. His grandfather commanded the USS Ranger in the later 1930s and became Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics in 1942 before commanding the Second Carrier Task Force in the Pacific in the final year of the Second World War. His father had flown from the USS Hancock to destroy Japanese shipping in Saigon harbour in January 1945. His father later became Commander-in-Chief Pacific Command in July 1968 and as such commanded the Army, Navy and Air Force units that fought the war in Southeast Asia. John McCain had been sitting in his A-4 ready to launch from the Forrestal on 29 July when the disastrous fire started on that unlucky ship. Incredibly, he had also been on board the Oriskany on 26 October 1966 when that ship caught fire. After his release from Vietnam, John Sidney McCain resumed his naval career until he retired in 1981 to enter politics. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1982 and 1984 and won the Arizona Senate seat vacated by Barry Goldwater in 1986. During his time in the Senate John McCain was prominent in highlighting the POW/MIA issue. In March 2000 John McCain was narrowly beaten for the nomination as the Republican candidate for President by George W. Bush but he remained active in politics for the next 18 years. John Sidney McCain III died on 25 August 2018 and was buried in the US Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland. |
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