A fighter pilot from MCAS Miramar has been named Marine aviator of the year for leading multiple strikes on Houthi weapons storage facilities in Yemen, the Marine Corps said.
Maj. Zachary M. Sessa also was praised for guiding Miramar’s renowned Black Knights fighter squadron as it carried out the first combat missions of the new F-35 Lightning II attack jets.
The attacks occurred over Yemen last year while the Black Knights were operating from the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
The assault was part of a broader, ongoing effort by the Navy and Marines to suppress the drone and missile strikes that the Iran-backed Houthis have been directing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The Black Knights’ flights were considered very dangerous because the Houthis have an air defense system that can knock down American MQ-9 Reaper drones, developed in San Diego by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.
Sessa, a native of Butler, Pennsylvania, studied math and Russian studies and played baseball at the College of Wooster in Ohio before ing the Marines.
“With a family legacy in flying — my father flew the A-7D Corsair in the (Pennsylvania) Air National Guard and my grandfather was also a pilot — I’ve always been drawn to aviation,” he said in a statement.
He has spent four years with the Black Knights, which also was singled out for praise and was named the Marine fighter attack squadron of the year.
The squadron, commissioned during World War II, played a key role in the Battle of Okinawa, in which Allied forces gained a staging spot for a planned invasion of Japan. That plan was scrapped when the U.S. decided to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Black Knights also are well-known for their performance in the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
