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It was a clear twilight sunrise at 1330 hours on 12 April, 1945, when 79 years ago 14 F4U Corsairs took off from Kadena Airfield on Okinawa. Just 11 days earlier, a massive armada invaded the Japanese occupied island as part of the great Island Hopping strategy. Days earlier as well, the planes of Marine Fighter Squadron 323, the “Death Rattlers”, arrived at Kadena. This day would be the squadron’s trail by fire, and among this group of 14 Corsairs was one section that was led by Captain Joe McPhail. For an hour after takeoff they arrived near Motobu Peninsula, climbing into clouds at 23,000 ft. Peering down below him, Captain McPhail saw a blue plane chasing some brown planes. Upon descending, before him were 4 Japanese Zeros in a wingtip formation. He picked the Zero furthest behind in formation, and pulled the trigger.
Joe McPhail was born on 10 October 1921, in the small Texan town of Grand Saline in Van Zandt county from his father Homer and mother Fanny. He had an older brother, Hugh, an older sister, Claydie, and eventually a younger brother, Larry. Homer McPhail was a groceryman, eventually running for and becoming Tax Assessor-Collector in Van Zandt Countyfor the next four years. In 1930 they moved to the county seat in Canton. After that they were moved to the city of Tyler in 1937, where Joe would stay until graduating
In school Joe had a hard time remembering things, and so didn’t like it, but still never got into much trouble. Outside of school his favorite thing to do was fishing, and even once caught an 11 lb Black Bass in Tyler. At the same time he also played Baseball as First Baseman.
The Great Depression in 1929 hit the McPhail family a bit, and so they had to make their ends meet. In Tyler Joe started working for the Tyler Morning Telegraph, delivering papers to people, and even mowed lawns that some point, but didn’t earn that much money.
Nearby in Tyler was the Tyler Pounds Field, where Joe gained interest in watching planes take off, fly, and land.
In 1939 Joe turned 18 years old, graduating from High School that year. Homer would become a Railroad Commissioner working for the state around the same time, and so the family moved to Corpus Christi. Joe went to Junior College in Corpus, where nearby was Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. On top of seeing the planes come in and out in Tyler, here he would see many different uniformed men around town, helping to convince him that flying was going to be something for him.
Joe’s flight training
Between then and summer ’41, Joe completed his sixty hours of Junior college. Unfortunately his father would pass away officially from cancer. Having finished college, Joe and his cousin Ray decided to enroll into a government program called Civilian Private Training (or CPT for short), enrolling at Tyler Pounds Regional Airport. There Joe would train in Piper J-3 Cubs, which he though was primitive and didn’t have breaks, which lead the pilots to taxi up and park almost on a hill. He would finally complete CPT and get his Private Pilot License, along with his new friend John, and really knew at that point that he wanted to fly.
He went back to Corpus, trying to get into the Navy flight school in NAS Corpus Christi, eager to become a fighter pilot. However the Navy required that he be 20 years old with sixty hours of college, only the latter of which he had.
Entering service and Pearl Harbor
After waiting for a few months, 8 days after his 20th birthday, Joe and John were sworn into NAS Dallas with some of his friends from CPT following him. His mother, although approving of his service, was anxious, and told him to fly low and slow.
On 4 December 1941, Joe was commissioned into service upon arriving to NAS Dallas to start Flight School. There he started as a Seaman 2nd Class being paid $36 a month, then as Aviation Cadet with $75, though with nowhere to really spend it all on.
Despite seeing the geopolitical situation leading the US into war, nothing at this time indicated to him war was imminent, though his love for flying wouldn’t stop him from avoiding service.
In the afternoon of 7 December 1941, just three days after being sworn in, Joe and others at the base heard the news of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Joe thought that he got himself in a mess, but was dedicated to stay and do his job. Due to fear of sabotage and other things (among the fears being of an uprising from the Japanese Americans), Joe and others would take on patrols around the NAS, though without bullets and any incidents. Planes from then on would be seen transferring through NAS Dallas from East to West Coast.
NAS Dallas would become what they called “E Base” or Elimination Base, to test the cadets’ abilities and root out those who could pilot properly. Luckily Joe was a rung up above many others, and so he and those that remained proceeded to NAS Corpus Christi. From then instead of Pipers, they would train in N3Ns.
During this time, Joe and many others around were eager to get overseas to fight, due to their dislike for the Japanese for what they did to the US.
Continuing his training in the Navy, Joe was afraid that he would end up on a PT boat, patrol plane, or something like that. Wanting to fly fighters, he found out the Marines had few volunteers for such, and so decided he would join the Marine Corps.
After flying N3Ns, he flew Stearmans, which were big and strong, and even flew other planes back then, like SNVs, Cabinets, and even an OS2U Kingfisher, which he enjoyed experiencing. They learned basic things, got into complicated maneuvers, and got into acrobatics, which Joe liked to do. When he joined the Marines he got 150 hours of training.
After ten months of training in October 1942, after 225 hours of training, Joe obtained his wings. He then transferred to Opa-Lacka Air Station in Miami, Florida for pre-operationals training, where he flied SNJs. Other than fighter training they also conducted Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) to land on Carriers, practicing with the N2 and F2A Buffalo, which he wasn’t too fond of, partially due to it having no hydraulic system.
In December of that year, Joe and John were transferred to NAS North Island in San Diego, California to go overseas. Arriving there they noticed that the whole West Coast was locked down. Going into town as tourists, people seemed to be completely behind the war effort. In San Diego there were blackouts and guards posted around the city. Joe and others had to have ID cards to get in and out of the base.
First trip overseas
On 16 January 1943, Joe, John, and others got to finally go oversea. He arrived in Pago Pago, American Samoa, joining Marine Fighter Squadron 441 in the city of Tafuna, who were operating F4F Wildcats. The Wildcat also didn’t have a hydraulic system, and so you had to charge the guns with cables running out to the wings, and crank up and down to move the gear. It didn’t even have a starter either, having to fire a shotgun shell to start it. In fact, in the squadron, Joe and others would laugh when a newcomer would take off for the first time in the plane, having their right hand on the stick and left on the throttle. Upon liftoff they would switch to right on crank for the gear, and left on stick. Those on the ground would therefore see the pilot cranking up and moving the stick with it, wobbling the plane. Once he even scraped the Flight Officer’s Wildcat’s wing, though wasn’t punished for it.
Their job in VMF-441 was to keep the Japanese off from continuing south. Despite this and the patrolling, they didn’t get much action. Therefore they also continued their training. The squadron would form a good bond, many becoming friends.
In Joe’s eyes the food they got was sub-par, getting beans and things like that, no vegetables, milk, etc. He was able to get and send letters home.
Eventually other members and him transferred to the Island of Funafuti, 700 miles south of Tarawa. Due to the distance, it would be a suicide to try to go there and back in a Wildcat (only going 300 miles and back), so they didn’t encounter much there either. Though while scouting, one of the pilots, Bill Boland, was able to shoot down two planes, one of them a Nell.
The natives on Funafuti were friendly, and on the island there were many forms of entertainment.
Sometimes on moonlit nights, the Japanese would bomb them. The first time it was kind of scary for Joe, since there wasn’t much they could do with no anti-air, and so all they could go was wait in a foxhole for the duration of the air raid. Following this during the other night air raids, Joe and the other pilots would be told to fly out without night equipment and circle around a specific island until the raid was over.
Crashed at Sea
On 23 June 1943, Joe was flying out of Funafutti on a training mission where someone would tow a banner for someone else to fire upon, where Joe was one of the ones carrying the banner. To get the sleet off the ground they had to lighten the load, so didn’t take reserve fuel tanks. Unfortunately during the flight they got lost. With Funafutti not being a big island they flew 80 miles past until they could get in touch with radar. At this point they started running out of fuel, and planes were sent out for Joe who would be running out while everyone would make it back. Joe got within 20 miles of the island before running out. The rough 15 ft waves crashed down under his descending plane. He crashed into the water, his tight harness making it hard to breathe and him hitting his nose on the gunsight. He was able to unhook everything and get out, with a little raft shooting out behind the seat. Fortunately the water wasn’t cold, but since the raft was attached to the plane with a string, as the Wildcat sunk, the raft flipped over, and so Joe lost many of the supplies in it. He was able to get the raft back up and in it. For an hour and a half he sat as planes came but couldn’t see him. He put green dye in the water, but the current drew it into a long thin line that wasn’t easily visible. He was a spec in a vast sea. He never thought he’d see land again. After three long hours in the ocean, finally someone spotted him, and pointed him to a PT boat who came and rescued him.
Despite this, there wasn’t much action. In August, the Guadalcanal campaign started and some planes were sent there. While not on mission, they did things on their own time. Joe was able to get a Hallicrafters radio, able to pick up all the way to San Francisco. When Joe first arrived at Samoa he was paid $220. In his opinion he would pay $220 to fly those planes. At one point him and others were messing around in a recreation room, and Joe said, “You know, if the Marine Corps knew it, we’d pay them to let us fly these airplanes”. Art Neff, who’d been to Guadalcanal, replied, “You wait’ll you get a few arrows in your ass and you’ll think you’re grossly underpaid.” Joe didn’t respond, but later on would begin to realize what Art was talking about. He had a deadly and difficult job to do, but had made a commitment he had to follow.
Wildcats of VMF-441 on Nanumea Airfield September-October 1943
Eventually the squadron went to Nanumea, only 500 miles from Tarawa, but still far. At first almost no accommodations were developed, and so they had to eat outside and such, but eventually had things built.
The trip back
After staying between thirteen to fourteen months, in early 1944 Joe’s tour overseas ended. He came back to El Toro, California, to a fighter training unit, in which they were staying at a nearby hotel with a pool and other things like that. Here he first came into contact with the F4U Corsair while instructing. They trained with many different kinds of munitions with the plane, and Joe thought that it was a lot better than the Wildcat. He then proceeded to Jacksonville, Florida, at the time of which Joe and John were both Captains. One day in a ready room they requested two Captains to go overseas, and Joe told them him and John were ready.
Joining the Death Rattlers
In January 1945, Joe went separate ways with John, and joined a new Marine Fighter Squadron, VMF-323, the “Death Rattlers.” They were currently base don the island of Espiritu Santo, 500 miles off of Guadalcanal. The squadron had already been overseas for a few months then, and were flying the new Corsairs. For 3-4 months they trained for their upcoming invasion of Okinawa. Many of the pilots got to fly their planes to Okinawa, but since Joe was a newcomer, he was one of the ones that had to take an LST to get there. It was a long 38 days on there. Like on Funafutti, the chow was lousy, with baked potatoes, black eyed peas, and other things, though there was coffee and smokes, which Joe did do. What made it worse was the heavy pitching of the seas.
Okinawa
The invasion of Okinawa started on 1 April, and by then Joe’s LST had arrived there. He could look out and see the most ships that he’d ever see in his life. They would have to wait a few days to get on the beach though. Finally on 6 April they were able to get to the beach, but had to wait till the morrow to get ashore. When he got there Joe could see the barren landscape on Okinawa, and all US-set up installations were pretty primitive. Men were still at work on the airfield and the planes hadn’t shown up yet.
Like on Nanumea there was no mess hall, and eating in tents meant that they had to deal with the flies and everything else which were bad enough.
The squadron would fly out of Katena (Kadena) Airbase in support of the ground troops and on Combat Air Patrols. Finally, it was 12 April, the day the members of the squadron were waiting for, their first mission. 16 Corsairs took off from Kadena at 1330, 2 having to stay behind due to problems. The group of Corsairs was split into two, one led by Major Turner who were going North to Motobu Peninsula, and the second was led by Captain Cecot, of which the second section of the group was led by Captain Joe McPhail, along with his new wingman, 2nd Lt. Warren William Bestwick. They were vectored to Motobu where it was reported Japanese planes were.
After an hour at 1430, the group under Cecot arrived and climbed to 23,000ft, and began circling. Some veterans said they spotted bogeys, but due to the clouds around Joe couldn’t see them. The next moment he looked down below his plane, and could see a blue plane chasing some brown planes, and decided to check it out. Capt. McPhail and his wingman descended 2,000 ft, and before them was 4 Zeros flying abreast in two-two plane sections. from 400 yds away, Capt. McPhail picked the Tail end Charlie (the last one in formation), and pressed the trigger. Tracers wizzed passed the Zeros, alerting the Japanese, who began making small turns. Eventually however, McPhail’s bullets started hitting. Pieces around the cockpit came flying off and the Zero exploded into flames, descending under the rest. Bestwick then started chasing after some of the rest, while McPhail, with his fast Corsair, pursued his flaming victim. He now thought that 3 Zeros were on his tail, so decided to dive down low, his plane now reaching compressibility (in which the airframe couldn’t take going faster down), and pulled up at 9,000 ft. He decided that would be all for the day, and headed back to base.
In total that day, the Death Rattlers downed 4 Zeros and 1 Betty, and damaged 2 Zeros and 1 Jack.
Between then and 4 May, McPhail had several missions, one in which he almost got a Zero, but it evaded him
At 0730 on 4 May, with the morning sun illuminating the scene, 16 Corsairs ,split into 4 divisions, took off. One division was under Capt. Van Buskirk, another under Lt. Dillard, then one under Lt. Ball, and finally one under Capt. McPhail. With McPhail at the head, there was Bestwick on his wing, and the second section led by Lt. Ruhsam with his wingman Lt. Robert Wade. McPhail’s mission? To protect some ships from kamikaze attacks.
The different divisions were vectored to their locations. It would have been around an hour later when they arrived at their area. McPhail spotted a lone fix-geared Japanese plane, a Nate, flying at about 1,000 ft, clearly a kamikaze, as McPhail determined. He was to ensure that the plane wasn’t going to reach its destination. The Nate completely oblivious, McPhail pounced on it, causing it to go in flames and roll into the water, his second kill.
The division ascended, encountering a Val dive-bomber, but Ruhsam made quick work of it, and McPhail confirmed the kill. They were able to reach up top to the point, but unfortunately Bestwick’s engine started smoking, making a black trail behind. McPhail escorted Bestwick back to base while Ruhsam and Wade stayed.
Upon returning to the original area, McPhail couldn’t find the two. He came on the radio and kept asking where they were. However Ruhsam and Wade were in heavy dogfighting with a large group of kamikaze Nates and Vals. They tried telling him that they were in this area with little clouds. Ruhsam tried to reply again, but all McPhail could hear was the loud sound of his guns firing. What he tried to say was “I’m over here on the tail of this Jap!” In the end McPhail wasn’t able to join the engagement, while Ruhsam and Wade downed many Japanese planes. They all returned to base. Over the course of that day, the squadron achieved 24 ¾ kills.
Over the course of the next month Captain McPhail and his squadron conducted many Combat Air Patrols and ground support missions. However on 15 June McPhail and other member of the squadron were to leave it to transfer to VMF-122 on Peleliu.
On 18 June McPhail, Bestwick, Ruhsam, Wade, and others from 323 and other squadrons arrived on Peleliu. At the moment VMF-122 was patrolling specifically Babelthuap, which was still occupied by the Japanese, for any activity and potential reinforcements to the island. On 3 July McPhail and several others went to bomb the other, and used napalm on 10 August.
On 6 and 9 August the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria. McPhail and others around him originally thought that they would participate in the invasion of the home islands, but were relieved by the bombings and were happy the Soviets were participating. On 13 September McPhail and several other officers went to Ulithi to Marine Aircraft Group 45 for some service. They would return on 11-12 September. Finally on 2 September, Japan surrendered to the allied powers on the USS Missouri. Everyone celebrated with shooting guns and drinking. Apparently on Okinawa someone got injured with a bullet that fell on them.
Joe McPhail goes home
Now Joe was looking for a way to get back home. With the point system, Joe didn’t have enough points to fly home, so had to sail home, leaving Peleliu on 15 September. On 12 October his ship arrived in San Diego, where signs welcomed them and some people celebrated. He was able to travel home to Tyler to see his mother who he hadn’t seen in years. He visited people around town who wanted to hear his stories. Despite this, Joe was still in the reserve.
A year later Joe went to MCAS Cherry Point near Havelock, North Carolina, where he met his future wife, Norma McPhail. He did a short tour overseas to San Juan, Puerto Rico in an infantry outfit. They needed people like him as Forward Air Controllers due to experience in aviation. Before arriving, they required them to take salt tablets due to it being hot and sweaty. Joe took a couple, and proceeded to throw up, and then had to go down the rope ladders and such to get down. After about a month he went back to Cherry Point.
After that, the day he got off Cherry Point, a Dispersing Officer told him, “You know if you go fly four hours, I’ll give you flight pay.” Joe enthusiastically responded “I’ll be back!” After the four hours he got his $120 and left, taking Naomi to Dallas with him where he would go to school. Eventually there both got married in 1948.
In late ’46 Joe enrolled into SMU, studying business and accounting, whilst getting notified by the Corps about flight pay, wanting him back. In 1948 He was able to finish his studies, getting a Business BA degree. At this time he stil wasn’t able to go back into the Marines full time. He went to Colorado to a drilling company, then back to Tyler at a Ford Dealership to help with accounting.
One day a guy at the dealership told Joe that he ought to come to the squadron as they needed people like him. Joe agreed and said he’d like to, so in May 1950 he joined a reserve squadron at NAS Dallas, VMF-111, getting to fly 2-3 hours per weekend. He joined in time, as a month later the Korean War began. VMF-111 had to go to Cherry Point without Joe, but eventually came back.
Korea and the Black Sheep Squadron
On 1 August 1950, (joining VMF-214 at the time or somewhat before it), VMF-214 “the Black Sheep Squadron”, was called up to be the first one seeing action in Korea. Before this Joe had begun working as a pilot at a Gas Transmission Company based in Houston, and now had to do this. He traveled to El Toro with his wife (who was pregnant at the time), excited to get back into action. In El Toro they conducted much training, though still flying Corsairs (these ones with the four blade prop). When going overseas his wife had to drive back to Tyler by herself.
In October 1950, the Black Sheep Squadron went overseas to Wonsan, North Korea. They started flying missions out of there. Wonsan to Joe was a regular town, nothing special. He never got the chance to fly any of the Jets used at the time. Usually on missions in their Corsairs they would conduct Armored Reconnaissance Missions, looking for anything on roads. They were told everything North was free game. Luckily, despite being shot at, Joe was never hit during any of his missions, neither while he was in the Pacific. The men also conducted Combat Air Patrol in support of the troops on the ground.
Joe’s most memorable day in Korea was when he was involved in a mission with 150 planes going to attack Sinuiju, North Korea, near the Yalu river. They carried 1000 lb bombs with VT fuses, which would be set off by anything. He remembers all the MiGs that could be seen taking off from the Manchurian side of the border. Between November and December of ’50, 214 went upt to Yonpo Air Base, which is the farthest North they stayed, and quite high in altitude, making it harder to fly. They participated in providing air cover for the 1st Marine Division’s breakout struggle at the Chosin Reservoir.
Aboard the carrier Sicily
In early 1951 the squadron transferred aboard the USS Sicily, a jeep carrier. The squadron had to get carrier qualified first though and so went to Japan and, for Joe conduct his second Field Carrier Landing Practice near at Atami, Japan.
Sicily wasn’t all that long of a carrier, only around 600 ft long. Flying off it for the first time with his Corsair was interesting for him. 214 conducted deck launches, and there’s one Joe particularly remembers well. He was going on a mission, therefore his plane was on a catapult, where they taxied him. As soon as they gave the off-break signal, him and a few others watched as they shot the guy right off the carrier. A man tells Joe to run up 30 inches and check his bags, then go full power. The two saluted and pulled the cord to it, taking Joe off. Coming back from the mission, Joe spots writing on the chalkboard in big letters: “MCPHAIL A RELUCTANT WARRIOR.” Joe asked “What’s wrong?” A man replied to him, “You took off with your breaks on.” At that moment he knew exactly what he did. When putting power into it, his feet unintentionally stepped on the break pedals. When pushing the throttle, he didn’t want his plane to roll down the deck, which is why he did it automatically. He could see the blue smoke coming out, but it went away and thankfully there were no problems.
In July 1951, Joe’s ten months were over. With 102 missions in Korea, he had a total of 242 missions in service, and 1,025 hours in the Corsair, making about 4,000 hours total during the wars, including Wildcat and other planes. He was proud of his two air-to-air kills, and often jokes that he is a “generic ace”, given his two kills and wrecking three American planes (all probably Wildcats, never damaged a Corsair). He also received 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 11 Air Medals, and a Navy Commendation Medal.
Unlike other times, Joe was fortunate to fly home. He was stationed back in NAS Dallas between 52 and 55 as a “weekend warrior” to get 20-22 years of satisfactory service to get the full benefits, with 9 years already complete. An Operations Officer that he knew from Korea names Earl Crow, part of the Marine Air Reserve Training in Dallas, offered Joe to be his executive in NAS Dallas while his former one was in Korea. After that he came off as a Lieutenant Colonel.
In August of ’55 he started working at a Gas Transmission company in Houston where he’d be an executive pilot, flying the executives who were also war veterans. During this job he racked up 13,000 hours in total over his long career there, totaling 17,000 flight hours. With this experience he had a little fun when his three girls asked him where a particular flight was going. “Oh, that’s the 4:15 flight to Chicago,” he might say, and they totally bought it.
In 1958 he was told that there were so many lieutenant colonels that they’d have to get him out, and so he joined a Volunteer Training Unit, meeting once or twice a month. not long after Joe wrote a letter to the Corps’ Headquarters to a guy he knew asking to get out, and he replied telling him that if it he is in for being a Bird Colonel (full Colonel) if he stayed for some time. Joe emphatically asked to cancel the request, and then he got his highest rank.
Finally in October 1981, Joe got 20 years satisfactory service, and was able to retire from the USMC, and about 2-3 years later he retired from the gas company. In 1990 he piloted for his last time.
Over the next few decades Joe began attending airshows and other events celebrating what him and others did in the service during the war. He also conducted several interviews, and had several published articles on him and others attending these events. He even got his own plaque at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg.
In October 2023, I was able to graciously meet Col Joe McPhail at Wings Over Houston, where I was able to set up a meeting at his residence in Houston to conduct an almost 2-hour long interview with him and discussing his life and story. Thank you also to his daughter Terry for helping arrange for that to happen!
It was a great honor to meet, listen, and talk to you. I salute you sir!
If you would like to view the interview, you may view it here. Otherwise, the full article detailing Joe McPhail’s life and career may be viewed here.