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Please help honor an Aviation Ordnance Chief and Hero, by signing the online petition to have a US Navy ship named after him. http://www.petitiononline.com/USSLTJWF/ . Chief Finn (later commissioned and retired as a Lt. USN) is the only Aviation Ordnanceman (or equivalent in the other services) to be awarded the Medal of Honor!
IYA AmmO YAS

Retired Navy Lt. John W. Finn, received the Medal of Honor for mounting a daring counterattack on Japanese aircraft from an improvised machine gun post during the raid on Pearl Harbor. He died May 27 at a veterans home in Chula Vista, Calif. At 100, he was the oldest surviving recipient of the nation’s highest honor for valor and was among the first to receive the award during World War II.
On the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese aircraft Hawaii, plunging the nation into World War II, numerous acts of valor played out. Of the 15 Medal of Honor recipients from those attacks, 14 were for rescue attempts. John Finn’s award was the only one for fighting back. Amid the death and destruction, Aviation Ordnance Chief Finn, on an airfield runway, was waging a war of his own against the Japanese
A few minutes before 8 o’clock, Japanese planes attacked the Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station, about 12 miles from Battleship Row at Ford Island, hoping to knock out three dozen Navy aircraft before they could get air born.
Chief Finn, the Aviation Ordnance Chief in charge of munitions at the naval station and a veteran of 15 years in the Navy, was in bed in a nearby apartment with his wife, Alice. He heard the sound of aircraft, saw one plane flash past his window, then another, and he heard machine guns.
He dressed hurriedly, and drove to the naval station. At first, he observed the base’s 20 miles-per-hour speed limit. But then, “I heard a plane come roaring in from astern of me,” he recalled decades later in an interview with Larry Smith for “Beyond Glory,” an oral history of Medal of Honor recipients. “As I glanced up, the guy made a wing-over, and I saw that big old red meatball, the rising sun insignia, on the underside of the wing. Well, I threw it into second and it’s a wonder I didn’t run over every sailor in the air station.”
When Chief Finn arrived at the hangars, many of the planes had already been hit. He recalled that he grabbed a .30-caliber machine gun and mounted it on a makeshift tripod, carried it to an exposed area near a runway and began firing. For the next two and a half hours, he blazed away, although peppered by shrapnel as the Japanese planes strafed the runways with cannon fire.
As he remembered it: “I got shot in the left arm and shot in the left foot, broke the bone. I had shrapnel blows in my chest and belly and right elbow and right thumb. Some were just scratches. My scalp got cut, and everybody thought I was dying: Oh, Christ, the old chief had the top of his head knocked off! I had 28, 29 holes in me that were bleeding. I was walking around on one heel. I was barefooted on that coral dust. My left arm didn’t work. It was just a big ball hanging down.”
Chief Finn thought he had hit at least one plane, but he did not know whether he brought it down. When the attack ended, he received first aid, then returned to await a possible second attack. He was hospitalized the following afternoon.
On Sept. 15, 1942, Chief Finn received the Medal of Honor from Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, in a ceremony aboard the carrier Enterprise at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nimitz cited Chief Finn for his “magnificent courage in the face of almost certain death.”
John William Finn was born on July 23, 1909, in Los Angeles County, the son of a plumber. He dropped out of school to join the Navy at age 17.
He served stateside after he recovered from his Pearl Harbor wounds, became a lieutenant in 1944 and remained in military service after the war. He was living on a cattle ranch in Pine Valley, Calif., about 45 miles east of San Diego, before entering the nursing home where he died. His survivors include a son, Joseph. His wife died in 1998.
Only four of the Pearl Harbor Medal of Honor recipients survived the war, ten died in the attack and one died in November 1942 in the battle for Guadalcanal.

Beyond question, General Marquez understood a peacetime atmosphere is not a good training ground for the rigors of wartime munitions tasking orders. He also understood, before it was too late, before we had lost much of the expertise in producing massive frags gained during the Vietnam War, that we needed an institution that perpetuated the knowledge we had gained and helped preclude some of the disasters we had experienced. AFCOMAC perpetuates that knowledge and provides a scenario where in a peacetime world AMMO troops get a real-world feel for the demands of a wartime environment.  

The following Beale AFB News Article came out in 2006 – on the 20th
anniversary:

AFCOMAC celebrates 20-year anniversary

Posted 10/6/2006   Updated 10/6/2006  Email story   Print story

by Airman 1st Class George Cloutier
9th RW Public Affairs

10/6/2006 – Beale AFB, Calif. — One of Beale’s least known units in
fighting the Global War on Terror is celebrating its 20th anniversary today.

The 9th munitions squadron, or the Air Force Combat Ammunition Center, has
consistently provided the Air Force with the finest training for ammo troops
for two decades, teaching Airmen the skills they need to take the fight to
the enemy.

AFCOMAC is a mandatory course for those in the munitions career field who
are training for their seven and nine-level status.

“When you look back at the history, AFCOMAC was started because of the draw
back that happened after the Vietnam War, because there weren’t as many
people putting bombs together in a combat setting,” said Maj. Jeffrey
Stremmel, AFCOMAC commander. “Lt. Gen. Leo Marquez put together an action
team to look at this, and the team came back to him with the idea for
AFCOMAC.”

One of the major faults the action team found with the training munitions
troops were receiving was the fact that there was little to no realistic
training taking place, according to Major Stremmel.

“General Marquez then told his team to build the bombs for real, and they
found out they lacked that vital skill,” said Chief Master Sgt. Partrick
Adams, AFCOMAC munitions superintendent. “The bottom line is that they were
not able to build the bombs as they would need to in a real combat setting.”

After it was realized that ammo troops lacked such critical skills, AFCOMAC
was set up to give troops the realistic training they would need to perform
in a real wartime scenario.

“This program was originally introduced to the Air Force in 1986, when it
was at the Sierra Army Detachment in Herlong, Calif.,” said Senior Master
Sgt. David Nixon, AFCOMAC munitions flight chief.

While much has changed in the munitions world over the years, the core
facets of the training program have remained intact.

“From the outside, you might not think the program has changed all that
much,” Chief Adams said. “If you just measured the number of bombs with the
number of days in the exercise, if you look at it in numbers, you might
think it hasn’t changed at all.”

Though on the outside the program may seem the same, AFCOMAC has stayed up
to date with the latest munitions technology, according to Chief Adams.

“Back when I first came through, we were in the middle of the cold war and
were making a lot of dumb bombs,” he said. “Seeing it again I’m just amazed
at how this school has managed to help stay in touch with the Air Force
munitions mission.”

“One of the ways the school has managed to stay in touch with the Air Force
mission is by the emphasis the course now puts on smart munitions,” Major
Stremmel said. “As the years have gone by, we’ve developed more varieties of
smart weapons.”

When the school made the jump to smart munitions, other facets of the course
changed as well.

“One of the major changes we made in the late 90s was doubling the number of
students that made precision guided munitions,” the chief said. “We were
trying to get 60 to 70 percent of our munitions to precision guided
munitions. When we made that change, we doubled the amount of people we were
putting through the course. Our classes now have 70 Airmen each.”

Since then, AFCOMAC students have used the knowledge they obtain from the
course to rain fire on the enemy, according to the major.

“I know we’ve provided realistic training to the career field supporting
combat operations,” Major Stremmel said. “When Al-Zarqawi was taken out in
June, it was done with two 500-pound bombs. The professionals who put those
bombs together came through this school.”

Students and instructors of the school have also contributed in other ways
over the years as the war on terror has raged on.

“When Desert Storm started, the school was closed down, and they sent
AFCOMAC down range to build bombs and run operations,” Chief Adams said.
“Some guys went to the Pentagon Air Operations Center. Some went to Air
Force Central Command Air Operations Center. When Operation Iraqi Freedom
kicked off, the whole unit shut down and forward deployed.”

Throughout the Global War on Terror and even before, the AFCOMAC mission has
been and will remain a critical asset to the Air Force.

“We’ve made huge contributions throughout the years,” Chief Adams said.

The Air Force can be proud knowing that Beale’s Ammo Warriors are on the
job.

Do any of you have some information that can answer the question Martha Gladu posed?

Good morning CMSgt Fuquay,

I am trying to do some research and CMSgt McVicar from the USAF
Enlisted Heritage Research Institute suggested I contact you to see if
you could possibly assist me. I was recently contacted and asked if I
was the first female Ammo troop. I knew that I was one of the first
when I went to Lowry AFB in October of 1978, but I don’t believe I was
the first to graduate. I am trying to determine who the first woman
Ammo troop was so that I can respond to the inquiry with a correct name.

Thank you for any words of wisdom you can offer on where I may be able
to find this answer.
Martha J. Gladu, TSgt, NHANG
Munitions Flight Chief
157MXS/MXMW

Here are some of the answers we’ve seen so far:

In 1978 while stationed at the 400th we got “one of the first” females (tall
lanky gal) who worked in the Line-D shop but have no idea what her name
was…
Paul

The person giving the best answer will be sent a free ACA Coffee mug. So send in your answers or post your answer in the comments below.

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