More detail on this person: My family is
fortunate to have met Col. Braddon and to have had
the opportunity to thank him in person. We last
saw the Braddons in October 2008. Burial information: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA
This information was last updated 05/18/2016
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Date posted on this site:
03/10/2024
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Services will be held at Arlington National
Cemetery on Tuesday 1/26/10. We will be there to
honor our hero.
I've attached a photo of Col. Braddon and I when
we first met in January 2004, nearly 40 years
after his heroic efforts. You may have seen the
photo in my book. I had discovered his action
after listening to a taped interview of my father
then finding this web site which contains details
of the Do Xa battle,
http://www.hmm-364.org/doxa.html.
These were Col. Braddon's words at my book
launch in California on April 12, 2005:
"On April 27, 1964, I witnessed a VNAF A-1H
support a USMC helicopter assault into a heavily
defended landing zone. The A-1 was hit and left
the zone trailing smoke. Since I was the pilot of
a helicopter designated to rescue downed crews, I
chased the A-1 and caught up with it when it crash
landed in a field about 10 miles west of Quang
Ngai. My crew and I picked up the pilot and
delivered him safely to Quang Ngai. The rest of
the day and, indeed my tour in Vietnam were very
busy and I forgot about the crashed A-1 and its
pilot.
Forty years later Quang Pham contacted me and
told me he was the son of the A-1 pilot and that
he was a U. S. Marine and a Naval Aviator who had
fought in the Gulf War. Quang and I made plans to
meet and did so at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the
Air and Space Museum in Northern Virginia. He
accompanied me on a guided tour of the
museum.
It was not until I met Quang that I found out that
my rescue of his dad had a fundamental effect on
the lives of his family and he has written of that
in "A Sense of Duty." I do not deserve great
credit for my action. Years before USMC
helicopter squadrons supporting Vietnamese units
had decided to set aside helicopters to rescue
downed crews and that is why I was prepared to
rescue Lt. Hoa. Also, Lt. Hoa was supporting
Marines. In that capacity he came under the
umbrella that "Marines take care of their own."
However briefly, he supported us and became one
of us and we made sure he was cared for. I am
grateful that I have come to meet his family and
to honor his service."
Semper Fidelis, John Braddon, and may you rest in
peace.
Quang Pham
John Rendall Braddon, 80; decorated Marine
pilot
By Patricia Sullivan. Washington Post Staff
Writer. Wednesday, December 30, 2009; B05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
cle/2009/12/29/AR2009122903036.html
John Rendall Braddon, 80, a Marine pilot whose
1964 rescue of downed helicopter crews in Vietnam
resulted in the award of the Silver Star medal,
died Dec. 11 of heart disease at Capital Hospice
in Arlington. He lived in Fairfax County.
Col. Braddon, then a major, was maintenance
officer of a Marine helicopter squadron and was
assigned to pilot one of the rescue units during
the U.S. military insertion of more than 400 South
Vietnamese soldiers into the Viet Cong stronghold
of Do Xa in the country's central highlands.
The April 27, 1964, operation was just underway
when a South Vietnamese air force fighter pilot,
Pham Van Hoa, crashed and became trapped in his
burning aircraft. Maj. Braddon landed under heavy
fire, dashed to Pham's A-1 Skyraider and dragged
Pham to the Marine helicopter, which had been
damaged. He then flew Pham to safety in Quang
Ngai. The Marine returned to the battle and landed
his helicopter to evacuate the crew of a U.S.
helicopter that had crashed in the same vicinity.
"We took a lot of fire and our bird had many
holes," then-Maj. Braddon later wrote. "As I
lifted from the zone . . . I noticed that some of
the electrical components were not working and
there were new terrible sounds coming from the
engine component. . . . We determined that one of
the 50 cal. rounds had gone through us end to end
and taken out the firewall junction box causing
the electrical problems. Another round had put a
hole in the exhaust system which accounted for the
new engine noise. I finally decided that except
for some electrical damage and exhaust problems, I
still had a bird whose engine was developing
satisfactory power, the transmission and drive
trains were intact and we had radios, we were
ready to rejoin the mission."
He rescued the crew of a second South
Vietnamese helicopter that had gone down, and
that crew placed its heavy guns in firing
positions at the windows of the Marine helicopter.
"Those big guns, firing those big rounds out of
the aircraft, bounced my flight helmet up and down
on my head," Maj. Braddon reported.
His "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in
action," flying into concentrated automatic
weapons fire, and his lack of hesitation in doing
his duty were noted in his Silver Star citation.
John Rendall Braddon was born in New York on
Oct. 19, 1929. He graduated from Ohio State
University in 1952. After college, he joined the
Marine Corps and served a short active-duty tour
in Korea. He was designated a naval aviator in
1954 and served in the Marines' fighter, attack,
photographic and electronic reconnaissance
groups, as well as helicopter squadrons. He was an
instrument flight instructor and took part in
air-to-air missile tests at the Naval Missile
Center at Point Mugu, Calif., and served with the
Naval Air Systems Command.
Col. Braddon served two tours in Vietnam, in 1964
and in 1969. During the second tour, he was
operations officer of a Marine aircraft group and
commanding officer of a Marine fighter attack
squadron.
In addition to the Silver Star, his military
awards included the Legion of Merit, the
Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star and
two awards of the Air Medal.
After he retired from the military in 1976, Col.
Braddon became an agent for New York Life
Insurance, where he qualified for the Million
Dollar Roundtable and was elected to the board of
the D.C. Life Underwriters Association. He retired
from that job in 1997, and for the next two years,
he worked for the Fairfax County public schools,
first as a substitute teacher and then as a
full-time special education teacher.
He also volunteered for and was president of
Mended Hearts, a support group for people
undergoing open-heart surgery.
Col. Braddon was volunteering for the Smithsonian
Institution as a docent at the National Air and
Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, near Dulles
Airport, when he met Quang X. Pham, the son of
the Vietnamese pilot that Col. Braddon had rescued
in 1964. Pham, himself a Marine helicopter pilot
who served in the Persian Gulf, wrote about his
father and the rescue in "A Sense of Duty: My
Father, My American Journey" (2005).
Survivors include Col. Braddon's wife of 57 years,
Jean Anne Lipani Braddon of Fairfax County; four
children, John D. Braddon of Fairfax County,
Virginia R. Braddon of Fairfax City, David K.
Braddon of Frederick, Colo., and Tracy N. Braddon
of Clifton; a brother; and two grandchildren.