But two hours from the coast of Japan, McNabb’s fleet was where it was supposed to be — on schedule with no gunfire, no fog — and the Ticonderoga was already turning into the wind to receive the squadron.

“We knew something was up, because there were 10 times as many men as usual on the ship’s flight deck and gun mounts. The moment I cut my engine after landing, my mechanic was on the wing, ‘It looks as if you dropped the war’s last bomb, lieutenant,’ he told me,” he recalled. “We both knew it had been a matter of being at the right place at the right time — a lucky break that could have happened to any one of a thousand pilots.”

After telling the story so often related 70 years ago at the end of the war, he took a moment to share stories of his children whom he admitted he was “very proud of, and what they have accomplished, more than I've ever been proud of what I have done.”
McNabb doesn’t see himself as the returning hero, but as a pilot who performed his duty, his mission. A mission that just happened to be the last bombing on Japan the day the war truly was over

Despite that, it’s safe to say McNabb, who attended the 50th reunion of his squadron in 1995 held in San Diego, is proud of what he and millions more American World War II veterans did as “America’s Greatest Generation.” It may not be worn on his sleeve or splashed across the evening news, but it’s there in his respectful treatment of the several American flags he flies and keeps indoors from a threat of rain, in the stories he shares with his peers, the scrapbooks he keeps with photos that bring a gleam of memory to his eye.