{"id":56426,"date":"2025-07-11T08:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T08:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/56426\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T08:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T08:55:08","slug":"vern-jumper-uss-midway-air-boss-during-fall-of-saigon-dies-in-la-mesa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/56426\/","title":{"rendered":"Vern Jumper, USS Midway air boss during fall of Saigon, dies in La Mesa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vern Jumper, the courageous Navy commander who helped more than 3,000 Americans and South Vietnamese refugees flee Saigon during the final hours of the Vietnam War, died at home in La Mesa on July 4. He was 93.<\/p>\n

As air boss of the USS Midway, Jumper guided scores of evacuation helicopters onto the aircraft carrier\u2019s deck during a chaotic, hair-raising 30-hour period in April 1975, as North Vietnamese forces were taking control of Saigon.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point we counted 26 (helicopters) circling around the ship,\u201d Jumper told a historian. \u201cAnd no one had radio contact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effort was part of Operation Frequent Wind<\/a>, the largest helicopter evacuation in history. More than 7,000 people were rescued by choppers, and many others were pulled from the South China Sea by warships.<\/p>\n

Jumper, who later helped create the Navy\u2019s Top Gun fighter pilot school in Miramar, was at the center of the action.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s especially well known for a gutsy moment many still find to be astonishing.<\/p>\n

A South Vietnamese Air Force pilot flying a tiny plane carrying his family dropped a written note on to the Midway asking for permission to land. With unexpected backing from the captain, Jumper arranged for helicopters to be pushed off the ship into the sea to make room for the plane. He also had the carrier\u2019s arresting wires loosened to minimize a hazard.<\/p>\n

A short time later, the pilot and his six family members safely landed, thanks to Jumper.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe risked his own career doing that and possible injury to the people who pushed the helicopters over the side,\u201d said Jack Gale, director of the docent program on the Midway, now a museum in San Diego Bay. \u201cIt all worked out in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OnOn the deck of the USS Midway, Vern Jumper stands in front of the type of F-4 Phantom aircraft that he flew in the Navy. (Jumper family)<\/p>\n

Jumper would often later be asked about Frequent Wind \u2014 particularly decades later, during his roughly 20 years serving as a docent on the Midway once he had retired and it had become a museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so frightened that one of these helicopters were so low on fuel, they might flame out and crash on this flight deck,\u201d he told<\/a> one interviewer of his move to help the South Vietnamese family\u2019s plane land. \u201cThe main thing I want people to remember is that the people did not die.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jumper often demurred when praised, redirecting credit to others.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a quiet, humble man,\u201d said his son Mark Jumper, who lives in Houston. \u201cBut he was all business when it came to the Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n

His admirers included Bung Ly, the South Vietnamese pilot who landed on Midway. Ly visited San Diego County in April to attend ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon<\/a>\u00a0and met Jumper for the first time since the landing.<\/p>\n

Vernon Lee Jumper was born on Feb. 20, 1932, in Phoenix, the only child of James and Evelyn Jumper. The family later moved to Los Angeles and ran a pastry shop.<\/p>\n

He grew up \u201cwith friends playing marbles, playing with homemade rubber band guns, building apple crate scooters \u2026 and listening to AM radio shows such as the \u2018Shadow\u2019 and \u2018Green Hornet,\u2019 \u201d his son Matt Jumper, who lives in Lakeside, said in a written tribute.<\/p>\n

The elder Jumper enlisted in the Navy in San Diego in 1951 and rose to engineman 1st class on the carrier USS Hancock. Many sailors never rise above that level. But he made a big jump, earning a spot in flight training school in Pensacola, Fla., in 1955.<\/p>\n

\"VernVern Jumper stands in front of a F-4 Phantom aircraft at Naval Air Station Miramar in 1968. (US Navy)<\/p>\n

After earning his wings, he was assigned to Naval Air Station Brown Field, in San Diego\u2019s South Bay, where he prospered, flying planes like the FJ-3 Fury as the Navy moved into the jet age.<\/p>\n

Jumper became part of the air wing of the Midway and conducted about 100 combat missions in Vietnam beginning in the mid-1960s. He would later fly another 100 or so combat missions from the USS Coral Sea. In 1969, he helped develop Top Gun.<\/p>\n

Jumper eventually became air boss on the Midway, as the Vietnam War was fading out. He retired in 1982 with nearly 31 years of Navy service, and he eventually became a museum docent on the ship where he had long served.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was perfect for the job because he\u2019d been on the Midway so long,\u201d said his daughter, Julia Jumper, who lives in La Mesa. \u201cAs a pilot, he flew off one end of the carrier and landed on the other. He knew all there was to know about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he loved talking to people. He didn\u2019t care where they were from or what they did. He just loved people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family said he is preceded in death by Rebecca, his wife of 67 years, and by his son Kimber.<\/p>\n

In addition to three children, Jumper is also survived by his nephew, Wayne Grutzmacher; niece, Janette Grutzmacher; and eight grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: July 10, 2025 at 6:57 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vern Jumper, the courageous Navy commander who helped more than 3,000 Americans and South Vietnamese refugees flee Saigon…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,1802,50,17260,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-56426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-military","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-news-obituaries","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114833766667838651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}