John W. Mecom Sr.

John W. Mecom (1911-1981) was an independent Texan oil tycoon. Mecom started his career at the age of 25 when he and two friends raised $700 and began drilling in a field in Liberty County, TX that had been abandoned as dry. They made the field profitable again, and two years later Mecom sold his stake in the business for $100,000. With that money, he explored a larger field near Galveston, TX. The great demand for oil in WWII helped to make him a millionaire. In 1948, Mecom sold most of his oil holdings for $11.6 million and began to expand his operations farther afield, to Louisiana and the Middle East.

In the Middle East, Mecom had crews operating in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen from 1957. A vast oil exploration mission was conducted the Wadi Mughshin, a desertic region north of Salalah, Oman. To support these efforts, Mecom built up a small fleet of aircraft consisting of the following:

• Douglas B-23 Dragon N86E;
• Fairchild C-82A Packets N127E and N128E;
• Curtiss C-46D Commando N9588Z (actually a Smith CW-20T).

On 19 December 1964, C-82A N128E, flying without a flight plan over Egypt, was intercepted by the Egyptian Air Force which instructed him to land at nearby Alexandria. The pilot repeatedly ignored the warnings and the aircraft was eventually shot down by the MiG's.

In the late 1960's, as Mecom was rated by Fortune Magazine the third largest independent oil operator in the world, oil production costs were rising. Mecom's companies were forced to borrow against future income. But when their wells started to run dry, the companies ran into more trouble, and in late 1970 two of them, US Oil of Louisiana Inc. and Lake Washington Inc., filed for reorganization. A week later, Mecom filed for personal bankruptcy. At that point, Mecom attempted to have his aircraft in the Middle East ferried back to the US, but the B-23 and he remaining C-82 only made it to Athens, Greece where they were abandoned by their crews. Only the Commando made it back and was transferred to US Oil of Louisiana.

Mecom later started another oil business with his son, John W. Mecom Jr..

• Smith CW-20T Commando: N9588Z