12/28/2023 0 Comments Jack donovan![]() (Major, USAF Ret), 82, died peacefully at his home on Saturday, April 11, 2015. The ceremony was finalized with a missing man four ship flown by the McEntire Air National Guard Base 157th Fighter Squadron flying the F-16C/D Wild Weasel. ![]() On November 20, 2015, Major John Edward "Jack" Donovan was interned at Arlington National Cemetery. A Funeral Mass was held Saturday, April 18, 2015, at St Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Tucson, Arizona. In addition to his medals and commendations and in honor of his distinguished service, the Air Force Navigator School in San Antonio awards a trophy in his name to the top Electronic Warfare graduate in each class. Jack was a leading advocate for the development of the F-4G Advanced Wild Weasel in the early 1970’s. When the fraternal “Society of Wild Weasels” was created in 1967, Jack Donovan and Allen Lamb were charter members.Īfter returning stateside, he went on to help lay the groundwork for the USAF Wild Weasel School which by that time had converted to F-105G aircraft. Lamb and Donovan were each awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for having killed the first SAM site. Four F-105Ds who were accompanying them finished off the SAM site with additional rockets and 20mm cannon fire. They located a SAM site at Yen Bai about 75 miles northwest of Hanoi and fired a salvo of 2.75 inch rockets along with 20mm cannon fire igniting a SAM on the launch pad. 22, 1965, while covering the strike force northwest of Hanoi, North Vietnam. In early November 1965, after their training at Tyndall was completed, the five new Weasel aircrews led by Major Garry Willard flew their modified F-100F’s to Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand and were assigned to the 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 388th Tactical Fighter Wing.Ĭaptains Allen Lamb (Pilot) and Jack Donovan (EWO) achieved the first Wild Weasel SAM kill on Dec. The backseat Weasel EWO's were called "Bears". Jack’s comment, You Gotta Be Shitting Me (YGBSM), became the motto of the Wild Weasels and remains so to this today. “You want me to fly in the back of a little tiny fighter aircraft with a crazy fighter pilot who thinks he’s invincible, home in on a SAM site in North Vietnam, and shoot it before it shoots me, you gotta be shittin’ me!” When the briefing was over the General asked if there were any questions to which Captain Jack Donovan responded with: Their mission was to fly this ten year old aircraft into North Vietnam in front of the strike force, hunt for a SAM site and then destroy the SAM site. Brigadier General Kenneth Dempster, the man in charge of the Wild Weasel project, explained to them that the Air Force had upgraded some of old two seat F-100F, Super Saber, aircraft with the new AN/APR-25 Radar Homing and Warning (RHAW) system which could tell the direction to a Russian SA-2 Surface to Air Missile (SAM) site and also warn them of a launch. Only after arriving at Tyndall AFB, Florida, were the newly assigned Wild Weasels told what their actual mission would be. In 1965, he was assigned to the then classified Wild Weasel mission. As a B-52 EWO, Jack received an Air Medal for his actions in February 1965 when an aerial refueling malfunction pumped nearly 3,000 pounds of fuel into the crew compartment of his B-52. ![]() Jack’s initial assignment was to the B-66 and later to the B-52. Upon completion of Navigator training he attended Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO) training at Keesler AFB, Biloxi, Mississippi. Air Force Navigator training at Harlingen AFB, Texas. When Jack graduated from the University of Montana in 1956 he entered U.S. While attending the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana Jack married Joyce Becky on November 24, 1954. John Edward ‘Jack’ Donovan was born in Butte, Silver Bow County, Montana on Apto Julia Piazzola (1906-1978) and Richard Patrick Donovan (1905-1965).
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