Ralph Kelly

After his brother was called up by USAAF early in 1943, Ralph enlisted in the same USAAF and was called up shortly for basic training outside of Denver, CO.

Ralph D Kelly

Born Dec 6 1920    Expired December 25, 2005     Married November 24, 1941

Ralph graduated from GIHS 1939, then 2yrs at the UNL. Pat was in TB Hospital, Kearney, NE for part of 1942, then they were in California in 1942-43, Ralph working at Lockheed. Later they returned to GI, Ralph helping his father and brother (Short) put in a sewer line at the GI Airport. After his brother was called up by USAAF early in 1943, Ralph enlisted in the same USAAF and was called up shortly for basic training outside of Denver, CO.

He had a mo of ground school at Utah U, then primary flight training at Lamar, CA, finally receiving his wings in Douglas, AZ in 1944. He had further training at St Joseph, MO, then C-46 training at Ogden, UT. In Sept’44 a group, assigned to the Air Transport Command (ATC) flying C-46’s, assembled in Miami, FL. Pat, who had been with him until now, returned to Calif. The group then took off, flying their C-46’s to Asia. The flight took 15 days, the route over San Juan (Puerto Rico), Belem (Brazil), Ascension Is (UK), Liberia, El Fasher (Sudan), Khartoum (Sudan), Aden (Yemen), Karachi (Pakistan), Delhi (India), Calcutta (India), and finally Dibrugarah (India), on the Brahmaputra River. He has many memories of the flight, such as seeing the Taj Mahal (and getting lost finding it), and the terrible stink (camels, etc) and the ritual burning of the bodies in India.  

Dibrugarah was the staging area where supplies were brought in by boat and by rail, then flown over the Himalayan Mts to the high steppes of Western China (over “The Hump”) to Kunming, Chanyi, Luliang, among other places. The cargo was gasoline, ammunition, mail, airplane parts, mustard gas, and beer. ATC also flew military and diplomatic personnel, as well as medical patients. Much of the fuel was for Gen. Chenault and his Flying Tigers.

On one occasion he was following a B-24 (“just a big bladder filled with gasoline”) landing when it exploded in flames on touchdown. When the rookie copilot started to jerk the plane to the right Ralph had to knock him off the controls, explaining there were mountains just off the runway. Having runways close to mountains was by design: this kept the faster Jap fighters away-they couldn’t fly slow enough to approach the landing fields.

Once, the tower asked Ralph to lead a Flying Tiger P-40 down thru a cloud layer. Going down, with the P-40 on his wing, Tower told him “faster, the fighter can’t fly that slow”, but Ralph had to answer “I’m as fast as this freighter will go.” Fortunately, by that time was field was in sight. Once, when Ralph saw that the manifest was a whole plane full of Kotex he violently objected, until an officer explained these were used as filters in the P-40’s.

Navigation aids were Lo Freq Beacons, which the Japs frequently blocked, then dropped transmitter off in the mountains. One day, while flying in weather, the tower was directing a group of planes (about 50). When Ralph saw another plane come way to close, he realized something was wrong. He immediately dropped below the clouds. He was amazed to see not only many others popping out of the clouds, but also observing many planes crashing and burning for miles around. The Japs had blocked the UAAF transmissions and replaced both the Beacon and Tower with false ones.

On another occasion, flying at 10,000’ above a cloud layer, he became suspicious when he hadn’t reached his base 30 min. past estimate. When he could see mountains, in bright moonlight, through a hole in the clouds, he knew he was not where he was supposed to be. After having his crew don parachutes he reversed course and finally picked up the Instrument Landing Range at his base. Because of mountains he was afraid to let down until over this Range (“cone of silence”) and had to circle to lose enough altitude to spot the runway and land. As the tail settled, the engines ran out of fuel.

On another occasion, returning from a mission, he and the Co-pilot didn’t respond to a couple of calls from the tower- “we were just to tired”-the controller finally said “look out to your right”. On their wingtip was an USAAF Black Widow crowding them. They quickly tuned on their “friend or foe” identifier, and were not shot down.

After landing at Kunming one time, he and the crew were heading for the command post, when Ralph, reboarded the plane to pick up a forgotten manifest. Turning around from the cockpit, he was accosted by a Chinese soldier with a 6ft metal tiedown rod. who had been trying to steal some of the cargo. Ralph loaded his “45”, pointed it, and yelled he’d blow him apart if he took another step. Just in time the MP’s climbed in and subdued the Chinaman, then turned him over to the Chinese authorities; they promptly took him behind the hanger and shot him.

After a particularly harrowing experience, Ralph decided he needed to make himself the best possible C-46 pilot, so he spent many extra hours flying with his more experienced senior pilot, and in the Link trainer.

After 83 missions, Ralph was flown back to Washington, DC, in July of 1945, via China, Northern Egypt, the Mediterranean Coastline, the Azores, and Newfoundland. Then to California, to rejoin Pat.

Ralph Expired 12/25/05 in the Tabitha Health Care Center in Omaha, NE

 

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