By Jim Lehr, son*
*relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr
Roger asked me to share my military experience, so I’ll tax my aging memory best I can. I suppose my military experience had its roots at the University of Oklahoma where I was studying pre engineering. There were two events that occurred that affected my future path in life. The first was when a fraternity brother asked me to accompany him to a social mixer sponsored by a dormitory housing nursing school students. Once there I latched on to a girl in a red dress named Eleanor Lacy. Of course, Eleanor and I are still together over seventy years later.
The second event was that I applied for Naval ROTC to help finance my education.
I was accepted into the NROTC, appointed as a midshipman, but was sent to the University of Kansas.
At KU I was majoring in chemical engineering and was studying organic chemistry. I also learned my NROTC was tailoring me for a line officer in the Navy. These two factors led me to the following conclusions: I did not relish a future as a line officer spending much time at sea, and I had no interest in chemistry. Exploring my options, I discovered the only way to exit the NROTC Program without a disciplinary discharge from the Navy was to flunk out of school. Which I did.
In the meantime, Eleanor had finished her nursing training and had moved to Wichita.
I still had a military training obligation to consider. I decided to apply for pilot training in the Air Force. I qualified for pilot training, but learned there was a six month wait to get started. There was an option for observer training that I could enter immediately. Wanting to get in and get it over with, I accepted that option.
While waiting to be called up, I drove a dump truck hauling blacktop to a pavement spreader.
I arrived at Lackland Air Force Base [San Antonio, Texas] for my preflight training military indoctrination, discipline (mainly by mild hazing) and classes mainly in basic electronics. We were sent to Ellington Field [Houston, Texas] for navigation training. Here we got our first plane rides. The planes were classroom configured T-29s and C-47s for navigation training in map reading, dead reckoning and radar navigation. There was also more classroom work in more advanced electronics and navigation. Upon completion of this phase of our training we were sent to advanced schools for training to qualify as navigators, bombardiers, radar observers or electronic warfare. I selected electronic warfare and was sent to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Upon arrival at Keesler, I learned that only one other of the cadets had been selected for this school. We were the only cadets on the base and were housed in a World War II vintage barracks. We had the whole upper floor to ourselves and had little direct supervision.
We had classroom and in-flight instruction. All of our instruction was classified. There were also commissioned officers in our class. The training aircraft were C-54s that had seen service in the Berlin airlift hauling coal; remnants of which were embedded in the interior of the aircraft. Needless to say, we were in need of a shower after a training flight.
Near the end of our training, we received our commissions along with the other members of our cadet class. The three-day Memorial Day weekend was coming up and Eleanor and I put our plan in motion. After my class dismissed at noon on Friday, A friend drove me to New Orleans and I caught a flight to Wichita. Eleanor had purchased a car and met me at the airport and we went to see the priest for our pre-nuptial counseling. We were married the next morning at the church of the Magdalen in Wichita, Kansas.
After a short reception, we left for Biloxi, spending our first night on the road at the Alamo Plaza Hotel in Oklahoma City. The next day we traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, picking up a rock in our windshield on the way. When we arrived in Biloxi, we discovered the cottage I had rented had not been evacuated. We did manage to spend the night in our new home.
I still had a few weeks of school left, at the conclusion of which I was a qualified electronic warfare officer. After completing my schooling, I was retained at the school as an instructor (a common practice in the Air Force). I spent the balance of my military obligation at the school being duly promoted to first lieutenant and progressing through school positions as instructor, intelligence analyst and examiner.
Over the time I was stationed at Keesler, there several events that stand out in my memory. When Eleanor was about eight months pregnant, we went to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We were standing on the sidewalk watching the parade. We saw Louis Armstrong on a float as it passed by. Later we saw him moving back through the crowd and when he passed us, he stepped on Eleanor’s foot.
On an overnight training flight to Long Island, New York, we decided to take a taxi into Manhattan. We told the driver to take us to Times Square. His response: “where’s that?” When we got to the city, we decided to go to see my friend’s family in nearby New Jersey. As we walked through Penn Station to get a train, we ran into my friend’s sister.
When I was an instructor, we had a class of Polish expatriates. During their time in the course, we took an overnight training flight to California. On the return trip for such flights, it was common practice to overnight in El Paso, Texas to “re-fuel”. i.e., refuel the pilot’s liquor supply from Mexico. When the plane landed, the Polish students disappeared. They had a State Department escort responsible for them. He was concerned they would go over the border and an international incident would occur. So, the escort and I spent the entire night looking for them in Mexico and found none of them. When it was time to leave the next morning, every one of them showed up.
On various occasions I was assigned as Officer of the Day, (sort of a chief security officer). On one occasion, the Staff Duty Officer (who was in charge of the base in the absence of the commander) received a warning of a hurricane headed for the base. The question arose as to whether we should order the aircraft to be flown to a safe base. We couldn’t reach the base commander for instruction as he was out in the gulf fishing. Fortunately, I went off duty before a decision was made. The hurricane arrived, but did little damage.
In 1957 my enlistment was up and I left the Air Force with my wife Eleanor and our children Jane and Tom and traveled to Manhattan, Kansas where I completed my education in Electrical Engineering, graduating in 1959.
