Ensign Albert Hickman

Few community posts have as close of a connection to their namesake as Albert J. Hickman Post 460.  A native of Sioux City, Iowa, he was only 21 years old and one of the youngest pilots assigned to VF-121 where he flew a McDonnell F3H-2N Demon.  Fighter Squadron 121 was a training squadron at Naval Air Station Miramar.

On 4 December 1959, Hickman was practicing carrier landings, and as he returned to Miramar at an altitude of 2,000 feet, the aircraft’s engine failed.  As the airplane started losing altitude, it was headed straight for Hawthorne Elementary School in Clairemont, a community in San Diego, California.  It was reported that Hickman opened the aircraft canopy and waved to warn children of his aircraft, all the while steering it away from the school, just missing the school’s fence.

By Hickman choosing not to eject from the damaged aircraft, it was estimated that as many as 700 lives were saved as he sacrificed himself to stay in the airplane and steer it away from the school.  The airplane crashed in San Clemente Canyon, which resulted in the burning of 20 acres of canyon brush; however, Hickman was the sole fatality in the incident.

Students from Hawthorne Elementary School and their parents wrote letters to Hickman’s family in Iowa thanking them for raising such a heroic son, and the community named their American Legion Post in his memory and in thanks for saving the lives of their children.

Almost 50-years later, a similar event took place when an F-18 fighter jet lost power coming in to the Miramar landing field.  The pilot ejected to safety, but the resulting crash ended-up destroying three homes and ending the lives of four community residents.  Most recently, two days after Christmas, an Aeromedevac Air Ambulance Learjet came down just short of Gillespie Field after the jet’s turbines were heard screaming across the night sky; two pilots and two nurses died in the crash.  But there is speculation that the pilots may have guided the plane onto the road to avoid houses, as the jet erupted with an explosion into a fireball upon impact.

For his actions that led to his death, Hickman was posthumously awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.  Today, the Albert Hickman American Legion Post is an important part of a close-knit community; a community who lives in the flight path of one of America’s most famous fighter aircraft military bases, but honors the bravery and integrity of the military personnel such as young Albert Hickman.

Author: Kevin Burns

Kevin is the 2021-22 Area 5 commissioner and chairman for The American Legion Department of California Aerospace Commission.