Armed Forces: Mac the Fac’s Last Mission

In TIME’S recent cover story about the American fighting man in Viet Nam (April 23), an admirable member of the gallery of combatants was “Mac the Fac” — Air Force Major William W. McAllister, 36, a “forward air controller” who sought out Viet Cong troops and installations in his toylike L19 spotter plane.

Short (5 ft. 7 in.) and powerfully built, with a bowlegged, gangling walk, the blue-eyed, crew-cut McAllister looked like the all-American Butch —and had an all-American record. A careerman like most of his U.S. comrades in Viet Nam, he had been a hot jet pilot in Korea, had flown more than 100 missions and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. But his assignment in Viet Nam to the low-level chore of winkling out Viet Cong did not dim his enthusiasm. On the contrary, Mac made himself the most celebrated “Fac” in South Viet Nam.

Coming in Low. A truly versatile Jack-of-all-trades, McAllister until recently loaded his own smoke bombs (with which to mark guerrilla targets), owing to a shortage of hands at his base airport in Quinhon in Central Viet Nam. But it was in the cockpit of his light observation plane that he made himself a legend of skill and courage.

Clad in grey coveralls, with a .38 revolver on his hip and a knife strapped to his leg, McAllister was in the air so much of the time that he began counting “missions” by the day instead of by the flight. He was so expert at detecting guerrilla camouflage that he could spot a Viet Cong position within seconds. He flew in low—like a “goosed gnat,” in the words of one of his colleagues—marked enemy positions with smoke bombs, called in hot fighter-bombers, and then got the hell out of the way. The whole business scared him almost stiff. Said he: “Whenever that ground stuff came up at me, I was the most disjointed pilot in the world, trying to get away.” But he went in lower, more often, and took more hits than any other U.S. pilot so far in the Viet Nam war.

“I love to fly. I am part of every plane I fly,” said McAllister. Of his duties in Viet Nam, he said: “This is a damn sight easier work than Korea was.”

As renowned as his daring was Mac’s ever-bubbling, extroversive ebullience. Buzzing along over the jungle, he would sing a raucous couplet into his radio for the benefit of ground walkie-talkies in the area:

Throw a nickel on the grass, Save a fighter pilot’s asterisk.

Then his familiar voice would crackle through loudspeakers: “Hello you marines down there. Here’s your air power.”

“Home Next Week.” Last week, as usual, McAllister was in the air hour after hour, seemed even more cheerful than usual as he spotted the enemy’s ground forces, called in the fighter-bombers. The reason for his special good humor was that this week, after a year in Viet Nam, he was scheduled to go home to his wife Gail and a nine-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter in Victorville, Calif. Last Thursday afternoon, some U.S. Marine friends ran into him at a small airport at Phucat, just north of Quinhon in the Red-infested Binh Dinh province. It had been a rough day, McAllister said; his plane had suffered more hits than usual from ground fire.

But he added: “I’ll see you over a beer in Quinhon after I finish this last flight. I’ve got plenty to celebrate. I’m going home next week, and this is my last mission.”

It was. At 5 p.m., McAllister took off in his single-engine L-19, climbing steeply as always. The plane reached approximately 300 ft. of altitude. Then —possibly as a result of damage from antiaircraft fire—it went out of control and crashed. Mac the Fac was instantly killed.