Who is Merced’s Macready Field named after?
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- Macready Field honors Col. John A. Macready, who commanded Merced Army Airfield.
- He set multiple aviation records and won the MacKay Trophy three times.
- After WWII he settled near Merced, ran a ranch and died in 1979 at 90 in Mariposa County.
Travelers head up Macready Drive to get to Merced Yosemite Regional Airport. The 93-year-old airport, also known as Macready Field, carries the name of U.S. Air Force Col. John Arthur Macready, a pilot who once commanded Merced Army Air Field and later settled in the area.
Macready, a San Diego native, arrived in Merced in 1946 to lead what is now known as Castle Air Force Base. He remained the commanding officer of the air field until his retirement in 1948.
But before Macready came to Merced, he gained notoriety for pushing aviation to its limits in his day and garnering numerous accolades for his feats.
Macready, a member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame and International Air and Space Hall of Fame, is a three-time recipient of the the MacKay Trophy, which is awarded to pilots and crewmembers for conducting “the most meritorious flight of the year.”
The award has been given to pilots and crewmembers conducting dangerous rescue missions in Vietnam, pilots that have broken sound-barrier records, and others for “extraordinary acts of heroism.”
But Macready is the only person to receive the award three times since its inception over 100 years ago. He received the award three consecutive years, from 1921 to 1923 for setting the world altitude record, world flight duration record, and for the first coast-to coast flight in U.S. history.
He achieved these feats barely 20 years after the Wright Brothers invention of the airplane in 1903.
Macready began his military service during World War I, and ultimately served in both World Wars with a tour in Northern Africa during World War II. His actions as inspector general for the Twelfth Air Force in North Africa earned him recognition from the French government. He was awarded France’s Croix de Guerre in 1958.
Following his retirement from service in 1948, Macready remained in the Central Valley and ran a farm ranch near Merced. He died in 1979 in Mariposa County at the age of 90.