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Tag: USS Essex

  • Ex-San Diego Navy sailor sentenced for selling military secrets to China

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    The amphibious assault ship USS Essex underway. (File photo courtesy of U.S. Navy)

    A former San Diego-based U.S. Navy sailor convicted of selling military secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer was sentenced Monday to over 16 years in prison.

    Jinchao Wei, 25, who worked as a machinist’s mate aboard the USS Essex, sent sensitive information pertaining to U.S. Navy ships to a person he met online and accepted thousands of dollars in exchange, according to federal prosecutors.

    Wei was arrested in mid-2023 and according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office was the first person to be charged with espionage in the Southern District of California, which consists of San Diego and Imperial counties.

    A San Diego federal jury convicted Wei last summer of six out of seven counts he faced, including espionage and conspiracy. Wei was sentenced Monday to 200 months in prison.

    Wei “betrayed his oath, his shipmates, the United States Navy, and the American people — a level of disloyalty that strikes at the heart of our national security and demanded this powerful sentence,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement.

    Prosecutors allege Wei was initially contacted by the alleged officer in early 2022 over a Chinese social media site.

    During those initial conversations, Wei was offered $500 to look into where various Navy ships were docked — which prosecutors say prompted Wei to tell a fellow sailor, “This is quite obviously (expletive) espionage.”

    Over the next 18 months, Wei was paid more than $12,000 to send photographs and videos of the USS Essex, as well as thousands of pages of technical and operational documents concerning U.S. Navy surface warfare ships, prosecutors contended.

    During the trial’s closing arguments, Wei’s defense attorney, Sean Jones, told jurors the government didn’t prove Wei knowingly engaged in espionage. The attorney argued that Wei believed the man he was speaking with was merely a Chinese academic who was interested in military ships, and described their conversations as educational in nature.

    Jones said the espionage remark referred to one specific request made by the alleged officer, which Wei refused to comply with. Afterward, Jones said, Wei was reassured that none of the subsequent requests involved anything untoward.

    But prosecutors argued Wei clearly understood he was engaging in illegal activity due to the training he received from the Navy regarding how to detect recruitment efforts from foreign governments.

    Wei and his handler also took aims to keep their communications secretive by using encrypted apps and a search of his internet history also showed he had looked into other cases of U.S. Navy sailors who were prosecuted and convicted of espionage.


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  • America’s last living ace pilot from World War II dies at age 103

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    A World War II veteran from Nebraska believed to be America’s last surviving “ace” pilot because he shot down five enemy planes has died at age 103.Donald McPherson served as a Navy fighter pilot aboard the aircraft carrier USS Essex in the Pacific theater, where he engaged Japanese forces during the final years of the war. He earned the Congressional Gold Medal and three Distinguished Flying Crosses for his service.However, his daughter Beth Delabar said his loved ones always felt McPherson preferred a legacy reflecting his dedication to faith, family and community instead of his wartime feats.“When it’s all done and Dad lists the things he wants to be remembered for … his first first thing would be that he’s a man of faith,” she told the Beatrice Daily Sun, a southeast Nebraska newspaper that first reported McPherson died on Aug. 14.“It hasn’t been till these later years in his life that he’s had so many honors and medals,” she said.McPherson was listed as the conflict’s last living U.S. ace by both the American Fighter Aces Association and the Fagen Fighters WWII Museum. He was honored at the museum’s Victory at Sea event last weekend in Minnesota. To be considered an ace, a pilot has to shoot down five or more enemy planes.McPherson enlisted in the Navy in 1942 when he was 18. Trainees weren’t allowed to marry, so he and his wife Thelma tied the knot right after he completed the 18-month flight program in 1944. He flew F6F Hellcat fighters against the Japanese as part of fighter squadron VF–83.He recounted one mission where he shot down two Japanese planes after he noticed them low near the water on a converging course. In a video the Fagen museum played in his honor, McPherson described how he shoved his plane’s nose down and fired on the first aircraft, sending that pilot into the ocean.“But then I did a wingover to see what happened to the second one. By using full throttle, my Hellcat responded well, and I squeezed the trigger and it exploded,” McPherson said. “Then I turned and did a lot of violent maneuvering to try to get out of there without getting shot down.”When he returned to the aircraft carrier, another sailor pointed out a bullet hole in the plane about a foot behind where he was sitting. His daughter, Donna Mulder, said her father told her that experiences like that during the war gave him the sense that “Maybe God is not done with me.”So after he returned home to the family farm in Adams, Nebraska, he dedicated himself to giving back by helping start baseball and softball leagues for the kids in town and serving as a Scoutmaster and in leadership roles in the Adams United Methodist Church, American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.The community later named the ballfield McPherson Field in honor of Donald and his wife, Thelma, who often kept score and ran the concession stand during games.

    ADAMS, Neb. —

    A World War II veteran from Nebraska believed to be America’s last surviving “ace” pilot because he shot down five enemy planes has died at age 103.

    Donald McPherson served as a Navy fighter pilot aboard the aircraft carrier USS Essex in the Pacific theater, where he engaged Japanese forces during the final years of the war. He earned the Congressional Gold Medal and three Distinguished Flying Crosses for his service.

    However, his daughter Beth Delabar said his loved ones always felt McPherson preferred a legacy reflecting his dedication to faith, family and community instead of his wartime feats.

    “When it’s all done and Dad lists the things he wants to be remembered for … his first first thing would be that he’s a man of faith,” she told the Beatrice Daily Sun, a southeast Nebraska newspaper that first reported McPherson died on Aug. 14.

    “It hasn’t been till these later years in his life that he’s had so many honors and medals,” she said.

    McPherson was listed as the conflict’s last living U.S. ace by both the American Fighter Aces Association and the Fagen Fighters WWII Museum. He was honored at the museum’s Victory at Sea event last weekend in Minnesota. To be considered an ace, a pilot has to shoot down five or more enemy planes.

    McPherson enlisted in the Navy in 1942 when he was 18. Trainees weren’t allowed to marry, so he and his wife Thelma tied the knot right after he completed the 18-month flight program in 1944. He flew F6F Hellcat fighters against the Japanese as part of fighter squadron VF–83.

    He recounted one mission where he shot down two Japanese planes after he noticed them low near the water on a converging course. In a video the Fagen museum played in his honor, McPherson described how he shoved his plane’s nose down and fired on the first aircraft, sending that pilot into the ocean.

    “But then I did a wingover to see what happened to the second one. By using full throttle, my Hellcat responded well, and I squeezed the trigger and it exploded,” McPherson said. “Then I turned and did a lot of violent maneuvering to try to get out of there without getting shot down.”

    When he returned to the aircraft carrier, another sailor pointed out a bullet hole in the plane about a foot behind where he was sitting. His daughter, Donna Mulder, said her father told her that experiences like that during the war gave him the sense that “Maybe God is not done with me.”

    So after he returned home to the family farm in Adams, Nebraska, he dedicated himself to giving back by helping start baseball and softball leagues for the kids in town and serving as a Scoutmaster and in leadership roles in the Adams United Methodist Church, American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

    The community later named the ballfield McPherson Field in honor of Donald and his wife, Thelma, who often kept score and ran the concession stand during games.

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