William John McLaughlin: Flying under the radar

By Charlie Souhrada, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

As a child, William “Bill” McLaughlin took his first flight in a float plane and thought little of it. “We flew around, and I thought that was very cool,” he recalls. “But the idea of doing something like that again never crossed my mind.” 

Yet, two decades later, Bill found himself flying again, this time as a Naval aviator in Vietnam. What began as a childhood curiosity became the story of his military service – providing logistical support, aiding POW evacuations, and helping save lives during the final chapters of the war. 

Born on December 1, 1947, Bill was the youngest of three children raised by Frank and Virginia McLaughlin. The family first lived in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood before relocating to Wilmette when Bill was in sixth grade. 

During high school at Loyola Academy, Bill spent summers caddying at Westmoreland Country Club in Wilmette. “I liked caddying,” he says. “The money was good, you were outside in the fresh air, and interacting with the members improved my self-confidence.” He stuck with the job for five years, eventually becoming the assistant caddy master. 

In the fall of 1965, Bill started his freshman year at Marquette University in Milwaukee, where he got his first taste of military life. “At freshman orientation, male students had to attend a 30-minute, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) presentation. “There was an Army and a Navy unit,” he recalls. “I found out the first two years didn’t require a long-term commitment, and that being in officer training provided a draft deferment. That really caught my attention.” 

He chose the NAVY ROTC program, which required him to take one course each semester, attend weekly drills, and, perhaps the hardest part, wear a uniform to class once a week. “I was immature and didn’t take it seriously,” he admits. “My poor performance put me in the lower half of the class.”

In the summer of 1968, between his junior and senior years, Bill remained in the program and took a required, six week-long midshipman cruise aboard the USS Waller (DD-466), a Fletcher-class, World War II-era destroyer stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. “We were supposed to observe at sea operations, but upon arriving, we learned the ship’s boilers were being rebuilt and for four weeks we never left the pier!” When the Waller was seaworthy, it sailed to Key West and returned to port in Norfolk. 

That fall, during his senior year at Marquette, little had changed. Until one day just before Thanksgiving, Bill was called to see the executive officer. “I remember thinking ‘this can’t be good,’ since I’d never had any direct contact with him before. Upon entering his office, he said, ‘McLaughlin, what the hell have you been doing here for four years?’”    

It turned out that Bill’s midshipman performance during the summer cruise had placed him first among eight senior class midshipmen. No longer flying under the Navy’s radar, it was time for him to step up. “So, I applied for pilot training and got accepted into flight school!”  

His orders came in January 1969. Upon graduating from Marquette with a Naval commission, he reported to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, six months later as an Ensign. “When I got there, a lot of the guys in my group already had their private pilot’s licenses. I was starting from scratch. My primary flight instructor had his hands full!” 

During primary flight and systems command training, Bill dug in. “My grades and cumulative average improved to the point where I could’ve flown jets if I wanted to.” Given the option between fixed wing and helicopters, Bill chose helicopters and earned his wings in July 1970. 

After completing flight training, Bill received orders to report to HC-1 at Naval Air Station Imperial Beach, California, where he provided support for the Pacific Fleet. In this role, he piloted H2 and H3 helicopters as part of the carrier air wing detachments for the USS Oriskany – “The Mighty O” – CVA-34 and the USS Ranger (CVA-61), moving people and cargo between ships, and performing search-and-rescue missions when needed. He also supported an honor roll of iconic Naval carriers – USS Enterprise (CVN-65); USS Hancock (CV-19); USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63); USS Midway (CV-41); and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). 

He served two tours in Vietnam and specifically remembers the massive, Christmas bombing campaign of 1972, known as Operation Linebacker II. The campaign was launched after the breakdown of the Paris Peace talks and aimed to bring Vietnam back to the negotiating table. “We were bombing around the clock, and we’d be on the line anywhere from four to six weeks,” he remembers. “There was a traffic jam in the Gulf of Tonkin because it’s not a very big body of water and we had three carriers operating. It was nuts!” 

In January 1974, Bill left active duty. He turned his focus to family and building a life with his wife, Sheila. The couple met at Marquette, married in 1970, during Bill’s first year in flight school, and raised three sons – Matt, Bill and Daniel. “Married life in the military is challenging,” he says. “But married life in the Navy is the hardest because when you’re on sea duty, you can’t bring your family with you.” 

One silver lining in the end of the brutally long Vietnam War was the fact that businesses viewed retiring junior officers as an excellent talent pool. Bill benefited from this situation by joining Carnation, the food company, as a management trainee. From there, he began to build a career marketing their portfolio of food products. He later held similar marketing roles at Gallo, Sutter Home, and Southern Wine and Spirits.  

“It wasn’t easy,” he admits. “In the first 10 years of our marriage, we moved 10 times. One Friday evening, while recapping their week, Sheila announced she’d decided that she and the boys were moving back to Chicago. “To her credit, it was the right thing to do.” After relocating back to LaGrange in 1979, the family finally found a place to call home, settled in, and Bill retired in 2016. Sheila retired from a job she loved with the Catholic Theological Union in 2017. 

Unfortunately, retirement didn’t go as planned. Shortly after her retirement, Sheila was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and after 53 years of marriage, she passed away in 2023. Bill then moved to downtown LaGrange where he now lives. 

Nowadays, Bill views his Navy flight school and military career positively. “Flight training was my ‘graduate’ school, and my military service helped me find out who I was. I’m proud to have served my country as a Navy pilot!” 

Thank you for your service, Bill. We hope you enjoy your Honor Flight experience!