Harry E. McKillop

Mr. McKillop is a direct descendant of the John McKillop and Rosetta Cassidy families of Ballycastle and Cushendall Antrim County. Mr. McKillop’s grandfather, John, and grandmother, Rosetta, and their siblings were born in the Ballycastle and Cushendall area. The family emigrated to the United States in approximately 1893.

Mr. McKillop served as a Naval officer aboard the USS Phoenix in the Pacific during World War II.

Over nearly three and a half decades, Mr. McKillop has engaged in missions to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in order to focus world attention on the plight of American POWs from the Vietnam War. Mr. McKillop coordinated logistics and led a number of missions, including taking the international press to Vietnam, proposed delivery of Christmas dinners to POWs and transporting POW/MIA wives and children to Paris to demand information about their husbands. Those efforts, risky though they were, paid huge benefits, and significantly improved the treatment the prisoners received. In later missions, with little regard for his own safety, Mr. McKillop coordinated the search and verification of leads from all over the world of POW sightings, once spending half the night in the Mekong River waiting for a POW who was never delivered.

In 1979, Mr. McKillop assisted in the celebrated and daring rescue of two American employees of Electronic Data Systems from an Iranian prison. He not only successfully coordinated the return of the men home, but – again, using his know-how and skills — he was also able to get an Iranian national who had risked his life to help them into the United States without any papers or passport.

From Turkey to Mexico to Saudi Arabia, he has rescued and returned home kidnapped children or family members he did not even know, such as the 1995 rescue of Marjorie Fuller, an American who had been held in Japanese and Chinese detention camps on the Manchurian border since the end of WWII. Using only a rough photograph of a gate as a clue, Mr. McKillop located the detention center and talked his way inside to meet Ms. Fuller. After performing the minor miracle of convincing the Chinese authorities to free her, he then arranged for a temporary passport so Ms. Fuller could leave the country. In his role of caretaker, “Doctor”
McKillop whisked her safely out of China. Today, she lives in a Baltimore-area retirement home and refers to him as “My Great Irish Boyfriend.”

In 1997, Mr. McKillop heard about a group of 40 Nung Vietnamese who had fought heroically with U.S.
Special Forces in Vietnam and then were forced to flee to High Island, Hong Kong when South Vietnam
surrendered in 1975. China had agreed to deport these men to Vietnam upon assuming control of Hong Kong to receive “Vietnamese Justice.” Mr. McKillop, along with two others, secretly worked their way onto High Island where they interviewed and validated each Nung refugee. Within four days, all 40 Nung detainees and 130 family members were rescued and are now living safely in the United States.

In 1999, Mr. McKillop assisted a family in fleeing from Kosovo during the Serbian Conflict. The family
has successfully made a new home in New York City, where they are contributing members of the community and their children are pursuing advanced educational degrees.

More recently, he has engaged in various humanitarian efforts in Russia, including the project Hope Burn Center Hospital, Russian Cosmanaut Space Program and The Gargarin Museum. Mr. McKillop is currently involved in several ongoing projects including locating and returning the remains of Ambassador Raul Wallenberg, a World War II protector of refugees to has Swedish homeland; resolving a purported kidnapping in Florida and Costa Rica; and locating and MIA pilot in the Mideast.

Mr. McKillop has been affiliated with many international and local organizations during his lifetime including: Samaritan Inn, Shannon Agile Logistics Hub International, Texas Area of the Council’s Friends of Belfast Network, Duxford Imperial Air Museum, American Friends of the Churchill War Rooms, University of Limerick Foundation, Pecan Grove Cemetery, McKinney Historical Preservation, McKinney Airport Advisory Board, Knock International Development Board, Dallas Summer Musicals, Patron of the Vatican Arts, Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, Russian Star City Gagarin Museum, Wings Club, Knights of Columbus and American Clubs of London and Paris.

Mr. McKillop has six grown children, Linda Ann, Laurie Ann, Jeffre Tyler, Wayne Emmet, Allison Ann and Tracy Ann. He currently resides in McKinney, Texas, with his wife, Rebecca, and their two daughters Mary Cecilia and Rebecca Victoria.

Mr. McKillop's life is a testament to the "Irish Spirit." Such a life is truly worthy of being honored and emulated with an award such as The Harry McKillop Irish Spirit Award.

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson