Dear Golden Eagles,
It is my sad duty to inform you that Colonel John Glenn, USMC, (Ret.), NASA Astronaut, United States Senator, loving husband of Annie, proud father, and grandfather, made his Last Take Off on 8 December 2016 with Annie, his children, and grandchildren at his side. |
| John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born on 18 July 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio, the son of John Herschel Glenn Sr. and Teresa Glenn. He was raised in New Concord, Ohio. After graduating from the New Concord High School, he studied engineering at Muskingum College and earned a private pilot’s license for credit in a physics course in 1941. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States entry into World War II, John quit college to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps, but was not called to duty. Muskingum College granted John his degree after his Mercury space flight and is one of nine colleges and universities that have awarded him Honorary Doctorate degrees. |
| In March 1942 John enlisted in the United States Navy as an Aviation Cadet. He attended preflight training at the University of Iowa and went on to NAS Olathe, Kansas, for primary flight training. During advanced training at NAS Corpus Christi, he was offered and accepted a transfer to the United States Marine Corps. |
| Earning his wings and commission in 1943, his first Fleet Marine Corps assignment was in VMJ-353 flying the R4D transport. He transferred to VMF-155 flying the F4U Corsair and flew 59 combat missions in the South Pacific. He saw combat over the Marshall Islands where he attacked anti-aircraft batteries on Maloelap Atoll. In 1945 he was assigned to NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, and was promoted to Captain shortly before the war’s end. |
| After the war, he was a member of VMF-218 on the North China patrol and served on Guam. From June 1948 to December 1950, he served as an instructor in advanced flight training at Corpus Christi, Texas, and then attended Amphibious Warfare Training at Quantico, Virginia. |
| During the Korean War, he had two combat tours, first with VMF-311 flying 63 missions in the new F9F Panther, then in an exchange program with the United States Air Force, 51st Fighter Wing, logging 27 missions in the F-86F Sabre. During that tour, he shot down three MiG-15s near the Yalu River in the final days before the ceasefire. |
| His next assignment was test pilot training at NAS Patuxent River, with Class 12, graduating in 1954. He served as Armament Officer, testing cannons and machine guns. He then was assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics as a test pilot. During that tour, he also attended the University of Maryland. |
| On 16 July 1957, John completed the first supersonic transcontinental flight in a Vought F8U-3P Crusader. The flight, named “Project Bullet,” from NAS Los Alamitos, California, to Floyd Bennett Field, New York, took 3 hours 23 minutes and 8.3 seconds. |
| In April 1959 John Glenn was introduced to the American public as one of NASA’s seven Mercury astronauts. On 20 February 1962, he became the first American to orbit the Earth. Flying aboard Friendship 7 on the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, he circled the globe three times during a flight lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds. This made John the third American in space and the fifth human being in space. |
| John resigned from NASA on 16 January 1964, and the next day announced his candidacy for the United States Senate from his home state of Ohio. An injury forced him to withdraw from the race on 30 March. After full recovery, he retired from the Marine Corps and entered the business world as an executive for Royal Crown Cola. |
| John won election to the United States Senate in 1974, representing Ohio, and held his Senate seat from December 1974 to 3 January 1999. During his service in the Senate he was the chief author of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, served as chairman of the Committee on Government Affairs from 1987 to 1995, and sat on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, the Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Special Committee on Aging. |
| John successfully lobbied NASA to fly as a human guinea pig for geriatric studies and returned to space on 29 October 1998, at the age of 77, flying as a Payload Specialist on space shuttle Discovery’s nine-day mission (STS-95). The mission gathered data on the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on the elderly, with John as an ideal control subject. |
| John, in addition to his membership as a Golden Eagle, was a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, member of the Marine Corps Aviation Association, the Order of Daedalians, the National Space Club Board of Trustees, the National Space Society Board of Governors, the Presbyterian Church and numerous other prestigious organizations. |
| He flew 3,000 jet hours and 9,000 total hours, and earned, among other honors, six Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. |
| John Glenn was an outstanding pilot, astronaut, congressional leader, husband, father, grandfather and friend. He was respected, admired, and loved by those who knew him well and respected and admired by millions of people who knew him only through his numerous accomplishments and his honorable character. |
| We have lost a true American Hero and another member of the "Greatest Generation.” |
He will be missed.
In sadness,
Howard DeCastro, Pilot |
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