Coll Hutcheck "Red" McLean was born on December 30, 1919 in Evansville, Wisconsin to the union of Coll McLean and Anne Hutcheck. His father was a native of Scotland and supported his family in 1940 as a foreman at a local Oregon quarry. After two years of college, Coll enlisted in the US Navy on March 12, 1942 and was sent to the flight school at NAS Pensacola. There he met Miss Doris Ann Boswell, a graduate of Pensacola High School, Class of 1939 and was a clerk at F. W. Woolsworth Department Store. The young couple were married in 1942 before Coll was sent to Olache, Kansas as an instructor. After a year, he was sent to the torpedo bomber school in Ft. Lauderdale as he prepared for overseas combat duty. In July 1944, he and his squadron took off from their carrier and headed for the island of Saipan where the Marines were in a life and death battle. The airstrike had been called in to attack Japanese tanks that were threatening to overrun the Marine positions. Coll spotted a rumbling tank and dove from above landing placing his bomb right on target. The enemy tank blew up directly under his aircraft, which in turn damaged his landing gear to the point he was unable to lower it. Knowing he couldn't land on his carrier without his landing gear, he decided to land on the unfinished Japanese airstrip only 56 hours after the Marines had first stormed ashore. He lined up his aircraft and set it down without incident on the rough terrain, all to the wild cheering of the battle weary Marines. The bloody sacrifice made by the U.S. Marines to wrest the island from the fanatical Japanese was now beginning to pay dividends. Commander McLean would retire from the military on January 31, 1962 and returned to live out his days in Pensacola, Florida with Doris. He became the owner of Captain Red’s Inc. and a member of the Pensacola Beach Elks Club. Doris would pass away on December 19, 1981 and was buried in the Barrancas National Cemetery. Coll would join her at the age of 67-years old on November 27, 1987.
Pensacola News Journal 7-30-1944
Grave site at Barrancas National Cemetery
Lt. Coll McLean was first pilot to land on the newly captured Saipan airfield