This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Greg McCourt-Historian
to remember
Marine Gen Vernon Megee.
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Contact Info
Last Address Tulsa
Date of Passing Jan 14, 1992
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Vernon E. Megee, a pioneer in combat aviation for the Marine Corps and the only person in that service to rise from private to the service's highest rank, four-star general, died Tuesday at the St. Francis Gardens nursing home in Albuquerque, N.M.
General Megee, who was 91 years old, was a resident of Albuquerque the past three years and previously lived in Austin, Tex. He died of pneumonia after a long illness, his family said.
General Megee helped develop the Marine tactic of supporting ground troops with air strikes against nearby positions, using rockets, napalm and strafing, with pilots directed by radio messages from land controllers. In World War II, he was the first commander of a Marine Landing Force Air Support Control Unit. 'Scrape Your Bellies'
Carrying out his strategy of close air support as an air commander at Iwo Jima in 1945, he instructed Marine pilots to "go in and scrape your bellies on the beach." He also commanded the air support units at Okinawa.
In his 40 years with the Marines, General Megee also fought against Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua in 1930, when a plane he piloted sustained dozens of hits, and in the Korean War, when he was commander of the First Marine Aircraft Wing. He won the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star and several other medals.
Among his assignments, he was the first aviator to serve as assistant commandant and chief of staff of the corps at the Washington headquarters and served on the staff of the War College. He was also director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chief of staff of the Fleet Marine Force in the Atlantic and assistant director of aviation at the Washington headquarters.
He reached his four-star rank toward the end of his career and retired in 1959 as commanding general of the Fleet Marine Force in the Pacific. An Enlistee in 1919
Born in Tulsa, Okla., General Megee grew up in Chandler, Okla., and attended Oklahoma A.&M. College. He finished his degree more 30 years later.
He enlisted in the Marines in 1919, then went through officers' training at Quantico, Va., and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1922. His early assignments took him to Haiti and China. Because Marine aviation was in its infancy, he trained at Navy aviation schools in San Diego , and Pensacola, Fla., and an Army Air Corps School in Montgomery, Ala.
After retiring from the military in 1959, General Magee earned a master's degree from the University of Texas in Austin with a thesis on the Marines' intervention in Nicaragua. Then he served about a decade as the first superintendent and president of the trustees of the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, Tex., a preparatory school with unofficial ties to the Marines, which opened in in 1963.
Other Comments:
Also awarded Peruvian Aviation Cross, 1st Class. I cannot find any information or photos on this award.
Korean War/Korean Summer (1953)
From Month/Year
May / 1953
To Month/Year
July / 1953
Description Korea, Summer 1953, 1 May - 27 July 1953. There was little activity anywhere along the front as 1953 began. Then, as spring approached, the enemy renewed his attacks against the Eighth Army 's outpost line. By July these attacks had increased in frequency and intensity until they were nearly as heavy as those of May 1951.
In January 1953 Van Fleet had twelve South Korean and eight U.N. divisions to defend the army front. Total strength of combat, service, and security troops was nearly 768,000. Opposing the U.N. forces were seven Chinese armies and two North Korean corps, totaling about 270, 000 troops. Another 531,000 Chinese and North Korean troops remained in reserve. With service and security forces, total enemy strength in Korea was estimated at more than a million men.
Other than a few patrol clashes, little fighting occurred during January and February 1953. On 11 February Lt. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor took command of the Eighth Army as Van Fleet returned to the United States for retirement. The enemy increased his attacks during March, striking at outposts of the 2d and 7th Divisions and the 1st Marine Regiment. During the period 9-10 March the Chinese were successful in ambushing several U.N. patrols, inflicting heavy casualties in each instance. After these flare-ups the front quieted down until late May, when the enemy struck at the outposts of the U.S. 25th Division that were guarding the approaches to the Eighth Army's western positions. Although the enemy was successful in occupying three of the division outposts, he suffered nearly 3,200 casualties.
On the night of 10 June three Chinese divisions struck the ROK II Corps in the vicinity of Kumsong, attacking down both sides of the Pukhan River. Several attacks forced these units to withdraw about two miles. Both sides lost heavily; the Chinese suffered about 6,000 casualties and the ROK units about 7,400. By 18 June the attacks had subsided. By the end of the month, action along the entire front had returned to routine patrolling and light attacks.
Operation LITTLE SWITCH, an exchange of Allied and Communist sick and wounded prisoners, began on 20 April. When it was completed in the latter part of the month, 684 Allied prisoners had been exchanged for more than 6,000 Communists.
Armistice negotiations were resumed in April. The prisoner-of-war question was settled by providing each side an opportunity to persuade those captives who refused repatriation to their homeland to change their minds. By 18 June the terms of the armistice were all but complete; but on this date President Syngman Rhee ordered the release of 27,000 anti-Communist North Korean prisoners of war unilaterally, in protest against armistice terms which left Korea divided. U.N. officials disclaimed any responsibility for this action; but the enemy delegates denounced it as a serious breach of faith and delayed the final armistice agreement for another month. Enemy forces took advantage of this delay. On 13 July the Chinese launched a three-division attack against the left flank of the ROK II Corps and a one-division attack against the right flank of the U.S. IX Corps, forcing U.N. forces to withdraw about eight miles to positions below the Kumsong River. By 20 July, however, U.N. forces had counterattacked, retaken the high ground along the Kumsong River, and established a new main line of resistance. No attempt was made to restore the original line, as it was believed that the armistice would be signed at any time. Enemy casualties in July totaled about 72,000 men. Out of the five Chinese armies that had been identified in the attacks, the enemy had lost the equivalent of seven divisions.
By 19 July the negotiators at Panmunjom had reached an accord on all points. Details were worked out within a week and the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed at 1000 hours 27 July 1953.
