Colonel Edward "Ed" McMahon, Jr. was born March 6, 1923, and although he passed on June 23, 2009, he will be remember fondly by the dwindling generations who knew him first as a Marine Corps Pilot and then as a celebrity, most notably as Johnny Carson’s side kick. For more than 30 years, McMahon introduced the “Tonight Show” with a drawn-out "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"
He was born in Detroit and raised in Lowell Massachusetts. He attend Boston College as a freshman in 1940-41, primarily so he could get the two years of college he needed to become a Marine Pilot. When Pearl Harbor was attacked both the Navy and Marines dropped the college requirement and Ed applied to the Marines. His primary flight training was in Dallas and then he went to Pensacola, Florida. After carrier qualification he was snapped up as an instructor for his excellent command presence and public speaking ability. That landed him in the classroom, training fresh faced Marine pilots for their chance to become a Marine Fighter Pilot. Finally he received his orders to the Pacific fleet and his chance to fly combat missions off a carrier in the spring of 1945. Fate intervened again when the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Once again his orders were changed and he never did make it to a seat in a fighter plane in the Pacific. He left active duty in the Marines in 1946.
Ed stayed in the Corps as a reserve officer, finished college at Catholic University of America where he majored in speech and drama. He became a successful personality in the new TV medium after the war. His Marine command presence helped. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War and flew the Cessna O-1E Bird Dog, which is a single engine slow-moving unarmed plane. As an artillery spotter for the Marine batteries on the ground and as a forward controller for Navy & Marine fighter bombers, Captain Ed’s job was to circle enemy ground positions looking for targets while avoiding North Korean and Chinese ground fire. Amazingly enough he surviveed and stayed with the Marines as a reserve officer until he retired in 1966 as a Colonel.
The world knows Ed as Ed McMahon of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Very seldom did the subject of Colonel McMahon earning several Navy Air Medals in Korea ever come up on the show or anywhere else. As a former Navy officer, Johnny Carson knew the significance of those medals, but McMahon shrugged it off, saying that if you flew enough combat missions they just sort of gave them to you. McMahon flew 85 combat missions over North Korea, alone, unarmed, and as the joke goes, unafraid. He earned every one of those Air Medals. The casualty rate, for flying forward air controllers in Korea sometimes exceeded 50% of the pilots assigned to a squadron.
Once a Marine, always a Marine. During Vietnam when the public was treating our returning service members despicably, Colonel McMahon was taking Marines off the street and into his posh Beverly Hills home. Stories of McMahon’s visits to numerous Marine Air Bases in California in the 1960s were well known in the Corps at the time. He was also known for going to Navy hospitals and visiting the wounded Marines and Sailors from our country’s conflicts, even in the last years of his life.
He stayed true to his Corps as a board member of the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund and as the honorary chairman of the National Marine Corps Aviation Museum. After retiring from the Marine Reserve, members of the California Air National Guard came on stage during the Tonight Show. In front of millions of Americans who watched it happen live on TV, Colonel McMahon was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Air Guard. It may be a while before you see anything like that again on TV.
This country could use a few more Ed McMahons. He will be sorely missed.
Thank you Colonel McMahon. Semper Fi, sir.
