John S. McCain Jr.

For McCain's son and father, see John McCain and John S. McCain, Sr., respectively

John S. McCain Jr.
Admiral John S. McCain, Jr.
Nickname(s)	Jack
Buried	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service / branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1931-1972
Rank	Admiral
Commands	USS Gunnel (SS-253) USS Dentuda (SS-335) U.S. Naval Forces Europe U.S. Pacific Command
Battles / wars	World War II Korean War Vietnam War
Awards	Navy Distinguished Service Medal Silver Star Legion of Merit Bronze Star
Spouse(s)	Roberta McCain
Relations	Adm. John S. McCain, Sr. (father) Sen. John S. McCain III (son)

John Sidney McCain Jr. (January 17, 1911 – March 22, 1981) was a four star admiral in the United States Navy who served in World War II through the Vietnam War.

In World War II, he was a submarine commander in several theaters of operation and was decorated with both the Silver Star and Bronze Star. In the Vietnam War, he was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater from 1968 to 1972.

His father John S. McCain, Sr. was also a four-star admiral in the Navy, and they were the first father-son pair to achieve four-star admiral rank. His son John S. McCain III is a former naval aviator who retired with the rank of Captain and is currently a United States Senator and the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States.

Early years, education and family

McCain was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, while his father was away at sea and his mother was traveling cross country to visit with her sister. His family name was "Jack".

Besides his father, his uncle (his father's brother) was U.S. Army Brigadier General William Alexander McCain. His family tree also had other people engaged in military service, back through many wars.

McCain entered the United States Naval Academy in 1927, at age 16. He disliked the hazing tradition of Annapolis, and spent his years there gaining many demerits and and mediocre grades. He graduated in 1931, finishing in the bottom twentieth of this class.. Upon graduation he was commissioned an ensign and assigned to duty aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma in the Pacific. He applied to flight school to become a naval aviator, but was turned down due to a heart murmur, and was accepted at submarine school instead.

He married Roberta Wright on January 21, 1933, when they eloped to a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, after Roberta's mother objected to her association with a sailor. They would have three children: Sandy (born 1934), John Sidney III (born 1936), and Joe (born 1942).

The family was frequently uprooted as they followed him to New London, Connecticut, where the submarine training began in 1933, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and other stations in the Pacific Ocean. He served on the old, World War I-era submarines S-45 and R-13. From 1938 to 1940 he returned to the Naval Academy for a stint of teaching electrical engineering to midshipmen. In 1940 and early 1941, he sailed in the more modern Skipjack. He then returned to New London for his first command, on board the old, recommissioned, training-slated O-8.

After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, he would not see his family for long stretches.

World War II

During World War II, "Junior" – who preferred to be called "Jack" and now a lieutenant commander &ndash was assigned to command the submarine Gunnel, joining her in May 1942 for trials and seeing the boat commissioned in August 1942.

Deployed as part of Operation Torch, like many U.S. subs in the Atlantic, Gunnel was attacked in error by friendly aircraft. The Hooven-Owens-Rentschler (H.O.R.) diesels (known as "whores") which powered Gunnel were troublesome; at one point en route, drive gears of all four of the main engines were out of commission, and McCain had to rely on his tiny auxiliary for the last thousand miles (1852 km). Gunnel went into the navy yard for an extensive refit, and was replaced on patrol station off North Africa by "Pilly" Lent's Haddo.

After the refit, Gunnel was ordered to the Pacific fleet. In June 1943, in the East China and Yellow Seas, McCain sank two ships (confirmed postwar by JANAC): Koyo Maru (6400 tons) and Tokiwa Maru (7000 tons). Persistent trouble from the sub's diesels cut the patrol to only eleven days, after which McCain returned to Pearl Harbor.

Gunnel was the first Pearl Harbor boat to have her H.O.R. diesels replaced, and she returned to action off Iwo Jima in December 1943. Alerted by HYPO of carriers, on the night of 2-3 December, McCain fired four torpedoes at IJNS Zuihō at a very long range of 6000 yd (5500 m, 3 mi), only to miss as Zuiho zigged. Although he missed, McCain was one of only a handful of U.S. submarine commanders to actually attack an enemy carrier.

On 18 March 1944, on patrol off Tawi Tawi, the main Japanese fleet anchorage in the Philippines, McCain got another shot at a carrier. He fired from extremely long range (9000 yd {8200 m}), missed the target, and sustained a counterattack of sixteen depth charges. He tried to attack the same carrier over the next four days, but could place his boat no closer than 5 nm (9 km).

During the May 1944 U.S. air strike on Surabaya, Gunnel lay off Tawi Tawi in company with Robert Olsen's Angler, but McCain managed no attacks on Japanese ships. He shifted his operations to the coast of Indochina, where, on 8 June 1944, he picked up a convoy, escorted by yet another aircraft carrier. He was unable to approach closer than 15 nautical miles (28 km). In July 1944, he was detached for a brief return to New London.

On his return to Pearl Harbor then, the Navy ordered him to command the new Dentuda starting October 1944, with commissioning two months later. During his one patrol in command of that submarine, he damaged a large freighter and sank two patrol craft in the East China Sea and the Taiwan Straits. At the conclusion of the war, McCain sailed Dentuda into Tokyo Bay and had one last meeting with his father, who had been commanding the Fast Carrier Task Force during the latter stages of the war. Slew McCain would die four days after the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay.

For his actions in the war, McCain was decorated with both the Silver Star and Bronze Star.

Post-World War II

Right-to-left: John S. McCain, Jr. with his son Joe, his wife Roberta Wright, and son John McCain III in 1951.

After the end of the war, McCain stayed in the Navy and his family settled in Northern Virginia. He was assigned as Director of Records to the Bureau of Naval Personnel until early 1949. He assumed command of Submarine Division 71 in the Pacific that year, sailing on the flagship Carp, which took him to a variety of naval stations and two exploratory cruises to extreme northern waters, adding to the knowledge of an increasingly important strategic area for submarine operations.

By now a commander, from February through November 1950, McCain was executive officer of the heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul, and from June 1950 was involved in the early stages of the Korean War, joining Task Force 77 to patrol the Formosa Strait.

Now a captain, subsequently in 1950s, he was assigned to a series of posts at The Pentagon, including Office of the Chief of Naval Operations; Chief, Legislative Affairs Office; and the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1958.

He spent the 1960s in a series of commands in the Atlantic, including Amphibious Group 2, Amphibious Training, Chief of Naval Information, Amphibious Forces, Atlantic and Eastern Sea Frontier. He was promoted to vice admiral in 1963. In May 1967, he was promoted to four star admiral, and became Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, stationed in London. He was involved in the investigations that followed the 1967 USS Liberty incident.

McCain was known for his salty character and trademark cigar.

McCain was a strong promoter of the importance of seapower. During the Cold War, McCain stressed the importance of maintaining naval superiority over the Soviet Union. He was especially concerned in light of the growing number of submarines deployed by the Soviet Navy, saying they were "a direct threat to our free use of the oceans of the world."

Vietnam War

In May 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, McCain was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), effective in July 1968, stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater.

When the Nixon Administration took office in January 1969, the secret National Security Study Memorandum 1 document collected views of top officials on the prospects for President Richard Nixon's policy of Vietnamization. There was a division of thought among those contributing, but McCain was one of those who were relatively optimistic, believing that the North Vietnamese had entered peace talks due to military weakness, that the South Vietnamese pacification progress was real, and the tide was favorably turning.

In April 1970, McCain gave personal briefings to Nixon in Honolulu and San Clemente, where he highlighted the threat from North Vietnamese operations in Laos and Cambodia and emphasized that the schedule for withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Vietnam had to be flexible. McCain's views helped persuade Nixon to go ahead with the Cambodian Incursion later that month.

During all this time, his son, a Navy pilot John S. McCain III was held in North Vietnam as a prisoner of war for nearly five and a half years, having been shot down in October 1967. Each year that Jack McCain was CINCPAC, he paid a Christmastime visit to the American troops in South Vietnam serving closest to the DMZ; he would stand alone and look north, to be as close to his son as he could get.

During Operation Linebacker, the resumed bombing of the north starting in April 1972, the targets included the Hanoi area and the daily orders were issued by McCain, knowing his POW son was in the vicinity. McCain's tour as CINCPAC ended in September 1972, despite his request to have it extended so he could see the war to its conclusion, which was turned down by Nixon.

National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger would later characterize McCain's approach to the Vietnam War by saying, "He fought for the victory that his instinct and upbringing demanded and that political reality forbade."

Retirement

Admiral McCain retired in 1972 in Washington D.C. He felt despair over his reluctant retirement from the United States Navy and fell into prolonged poor health afterwards. His son John felt that his father's "long years of binge drinking" had caught up with him, despite his mostly successful subsequent recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.

He died of heart failure on a military aircraft en route from Europe on 22 March 1981, with his wife at his side. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on March 27, 1981.

Namesakes

USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) was named for both Admirals McCain.

Grandson John S. McCain IV is currently attending the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the fourth-generation John S. McCain to do so.

Awards

John McCain received the following medals and decorations (incomplete):

	Navy Distinguished Service Medal
	Silver Star
	Legion of Merit
	Bronze Star
	American Defense Service Medal
	World War II Victory Medal
	Navy Occupation Service Medal with "Asia" clasp
	National Defense Service Medal
	Korean Service Medal
	Vietnam Service Medal with three bronze stars
	Vietnam Campaign Medal with "1960-" device
	United Nations Korea Medal
	Korean War Service Medal (postumous)

References

Books

• Alexander, Paul (2002). Man of the People: The Life of John McCain. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-22829-X.
• Blair, Jr., Clay (2001). Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan. Annpolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 155750217X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Frankum, Ronald Bruce (2005). Like Rolling Thunder: The Air War In Vietnam 1964-1975. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-4302-1.
• Kissinger, Henry (2003). Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-1532-X.
• McCain, John (1999). The Reminiscences of Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., U.S. Navy (retired). Annpolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ASIN B0006RY8ZK. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• McCain, John (1999). Faith of My Fathers. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50191-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• McCain, John (2002). Worth the Fighting For. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50542-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Reynolds, Clark G. (2002). Famous American Admirals. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1557500061.
• Timberg, Robert (1996). The Nightingale's Song. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80301-1. Online access to a portion of Chapter 1 is available.
• Timberg, Robert (1999). John McCain: An American Odyssey. New York: Touchstone Books. ISBN 0-684-86794-X. Online access to Chapter 1 is available.