Joe Shannon
Joseph Lewis Shannon (born in Walker County May 11, 1921) was a military and commercial pilot and one of four U. S. pilots to fly missions in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
Shannon grew up in Fairfield, son of a pilot in Birmingham's 106th Observation Squadron in the Army National Guard, based at Roberts Field. At the age of six he was in the enormous crowd that welcomed Charles Lindbergh to Birmingham just after his historic solo transatlantic flight. As a teenager, Shannon and his friends pooled their savings to obtain a J-3 Piper Cub, which he first flew solo in 1940 at the age of 18.
World War II
He enlisted in the guard himself while he was still at Fairfield High School, and joined the guard full-time after graduating in 1940. His unit was activated later that same year for advanced maneuvers. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he was ordered to Army Air Corps flight school. He earned his pilot's wings in 1942 and was sent to England with the rank of Staff Sergeant to train on British Spitfires.
Shannon's squadron flew combat missions in North Africa and Italy, first using P-40 Warhawks, and then P-51 Mustangs. He also flew P-38 Lightnings in combat, which he considered the most challenging, most sophisticated, and most fun to fly. He received a battlefield commission to warrant officer status and completed over 50 combat missions as a fighter pilot before returning to the United States to train on the B-25 bomber.
He returned to action as a pilot in the China-Burma-India theater for the Second Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, flying reconnaissance missions over the Bay of Bengal and southern China until the end of World War II.
Korea
After WWII, Shannon returned to Birmingham and helped lead the reorganization of the local guard unit into the 106th Bomb Squadron and 160th Fighter Squadron in the 117th Fighter Group, which was moved to Birmingham as the 117th Tactical Reconnaissance Group.
As part of a recruiting promotion, Shannon set the speed record for the A-26 Invader, reaching 395 miles per hour on a 13 minute flight from Montgomery to the Birmingham Municipal Airport.
During the Korean War, Shannon flew a B-26 Marauder into combat. He also trained on the new C-47 Skytrain transport, which he piloted to Europe during the Berlin crisis of 1960.
Bay of Pigs
In the winter of 1960 Shannon was among a group of experienced bomber pilots recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to train expatriate Cuban pilots in Guatemala for a planned invasion of Cuba which, it was hoped, would spark an uprising against Fidel Castro. The first flights successfully crippled Cuba's air capability, but the Cuban pilots were greatly overextended during the continuous flying between their base in Nicaragua and targets in Cuba. With their few remaining T-33 fighters the Cuban air forces managed to down several of the Cuban-marked B-26's used in the operation. The CIA's restriction on using American pilots was lifted in order to continue the assault and Shannon was one of four U. S. pilots to take to the air in support of the operation.
With an international outcry over the United States' obvious involvement in the attack, the air mission was abandoned and the ground invasion was immediately routed by Cuban soldiers. The failure became a monumental stain on the foreign relations of the Kennedy administration.
Retirement
Shannon retired from the Air Force in 1972, having received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with 14 Oak Leaf clusters, the Chinese Air Medal, the Cuban Liberation Air Force Medal for Valor, and the CIA Seal Medallion.
Shannon became a corporate pilot after his retirement. He still flies occasionally with a group of aviators that meets at the Pell City Airport. In 1999 he was inducted into the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame at the Southern Museum of Flight, of which he also serves on the Board of Directors.
References
- Sepsas, Niki (September 2006) "Sky Soldier". Birmingham Magazine. Vol. 46, No. 9, p. 134-7
External links
- Joe Shannon bio at the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame