23 Staying in Touch with Home

Winkler, friend, Derrick, Jack, and American teen at
Old House at Home pub, Maidstone

Lonely for home, even among hundreds of other American boys, especially lonely for Alice, Jack clung to reminders of his home culture.

Other Americans

Dearest Alice,

I got a swell letter from you today [April 30] dated April 17. No matter how tired or gloomy I may be when I get in from work, if there is a letter there from you it sure cheers me up. While on pass I met an American boy of 16 years. He seemed so friendly and did not talk like an Englishman so I asked him if he was English & he said no he was an American. He is from N.Y. and really a swell kid. He and his folks were captured by the Japs in China but escaped. When they got on the boat, it was supposed to go to U.S. but it came to England and then they got caught in the Blitz of 1940. He is credited with shooting down a nazi plane. While watching a gun crew man a gun over here in 1940 a plane came down & wounded several of the gunners. He saw it and jumped in and took one’s place and pointed the gun and knocked down the plane. When I asked him if he planned on going back to U.S. he said darn rights just as soon as the war is over he is going back. He sure was a swell kid. I treated him to the show. It sure is swell to talk to someone from U.S.[1]

The boy told a good story, as he would have been about twelve when he supposedly shot down the Nazi plane. Still, Jack was ready to hear it, and it was one story he could share with Alice. The censor wouldn’t care.

Memories

While on pass yesterday we rented a boat & went boating for about an hour. We sure had fun and it reminded [me] of the times in Dallas when we use to [go] boating down on the lake.[2]

Derrick boating in Maidstone

Remembering boating with Alice in Dallas

The second feature: "Alaska Highway"[5]

Movies

Upbeat American musicals featuring G.I.s and their girls were just as popular in England as in the U.S. Sometimes Jack saw them on base, sometimes at a local theater. He could write to Alice about them, confident that she had probably seen them, too.

Dearest Alice,

Last night I went into town to the show and saw “Let’s face it” with Bob Hope & Alaskan Hiway. They were both very good. Then I found a pretty good place to eat and had sausage loaf and chips & tea.[3]

See the movie Jack saw:
"Let's Face It"[4] 

Music

Dearest Alice,

Tonight I got thru work about 8:00 and then I got the fellow who plays the accordion and he has been playing the songs you sent for us and some other old favorites too and they sure make me lonesome & homesick for you.[6]

A few of Jack's letters

Letters

Dearest Alice,

Darling if for any reason my letters to you should not be as often & quite as regular as they have been please don’t think that it is my fault & don’t feel I have forgotten about you. It’s just because we are so darn busy and our work must be done even before we sleep. Last night I did not get thru work until about 1 A.M. so I did not get a chance to write to you. I may have to go back to work yet tonight. I guess you can imagine from the papers just how busy we must be. Darling I would like to get you some other things from over here but now that I have the money saved up I can’t get to town in the day time and most of these towns the things are so picked over by now that all they have left is a bunch of junk.[7]

Among the “junk” Jack, ever sentimental, was able to find some souvenir jewelry for Alice.

This bracelet was crafted from old English three-penny coins.
Jack called them "thrupnybits."
Photo courtesy of Alison Garcia Kellar

Gifts from Home 

Alice’s packages to Jack contained practical items he had asked for. He particularly appreciated candy and sweets. His brother-in-law Floyd, single and working the dairy, sent nice candy from a new Oakland, California, company. That was a big hit!

MacFarlane's chocolates[8]

Dearest Alice,

I just opened the package you sent and I got the writing paper, 3 rolls of film & candy. Thanks so very much honey, you sure are a darling and I love you so very, very much. I also opened the package from Floyd of McFarlanes chocolates & honey for the life of me I could not keep my mouth from watering. Great big drops hit the floor Ha It sure is good. I have your gift that I got you in town all ready to be censured and I think I will send it tomorrow. I sure hope you will like it. I think I will send my electric razor too as I am not using it.[9]

The best part about being abroad was the opportunity to see a little bit of the country. Jack and his buddies went to London on pass a couple times. Sightseeing in wartime was risky, yet, for Jack, particularly memorable.

---

[1] Jack J. Kellar (England) to “Dearest Alice” (Alice Streeter Kellar), 30 April 1944.

[2] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 28 April 1944.

[3] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 20 April 1944.

[4] “Let’s Face It,” advertisement, The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, California), 2 January 1944, p. 2, cols. 1–2; digital image, Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/265206717/ : accessed 25 May 2018).

[5] “Alaska Highway” advertisement, The Press Democrat, 5 April 1944, p. 2, col. 3 detail; Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/265212172/ : accessed 25 May 2018).

[6] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 28 April 1944.

[7] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 22 April 1944.

[8] “Awful Fresh MacFarlane, The Scotch Candymaker, Opens New Branch,” Oakland Tribune, 16 May 1939, p. 20-D, cols. 5–8, detail; digital image, Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com/image/136077933/ : accessed 24 May 2018).

[9] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 29 April 1944.

22 Keeping 'Em Flying: Spark Plugs and Rivets

Jack and his tent in the Staplehurst apple orchard

Another month, another move, this time to Staplehurst between London and the English Channel. Planes were coming back to base shot up or with engine trouble. Jack and his fellow crew chiefs were the front line to getting them back into the air. He never mentioned the details of his job in his surviving letters to Alice, but even fifty years later he remembered his job well.[1]

Bombing and Strafing Mission Preparations

It was getting into the spring of the year when it got light real early in the morning, about 4 a.m. [at that latitude], and stayed light until 11 or 11:30 at night. Our planes would fly missions sometimes twenty hours a day, and that plane had to be ready to go twenty-four hours a day. We were flying top cover for bombers, and then, too, we were making short 500-lb. bomb runs across the Channel to France.

Staplehurst airfield, formerly farmland[2]

When we flew on the long missions we would install two temporary tanks, which we called belly tanks, under the wings, for an extra 150 gallons of fuel. And the orders were always changing. They would call and ask to put on bombs, so the armors would come down and attach bombs under the wings. Then they would change the mission and decide they were going on a long flight, so they would say, “Drop the bombs and put on belly tanks.” We would then put seventy-five gallons of gas in each belly tank, which gave them 436 gallons of gas on that little tiny plane. So we put the belly tanks on, and we had to run the plane up to make sure that they would suck gas out of those belly tanks. Maybe they would change the mission again and say, “Drop the belly tanks and put the bombs back on.” We were busy all the time.

Tony Haley working on a plane fitted with bombs
Homer on the wing

 

Derrick and "Sunkist" fitted with belly tanks

Specialist Repairs

If it was something that we were responsible for, as crew chiefs, we fixed it. But if it spoiled the radio, then the radioman fixed that, and if it made holes in the sheet metal on the outside of the plane, then we had a sheet metal man, Toi Toy, a Chinese boy, that fixed that. Some of the time my plane came back pretty well shot up where there wasn’t anything mechanical to do, but I had to get the sheet metal man down. You work with him and hand him rivets or whatever he needed. You had to stay right with him and make sure the thing was done. We had a lot of specialists in there, but if they shot a coolant of mine up we fixed that. Prince and I were assigned to one plane and one pilot. He ran, and then when he came back we worked on the plane.

Electrical specialists

Toi Toy, right

Crew Chief's Responsibilities

It was many hours more than eight hours a day sometimes. Sometimes maybe the coolant actuator would go out, so we had to get back in and work in little tiny spaces and change the coolant actuator. Maybe next time the engine was rough, so we had to change twenty-four spark plugs. Sometimes the engine was hot, and we had to go down in between like this and try and change spark plugs down there. So we devised things like putting a piece of rubber hose on the end of the spark plug where we could do it from out here, where it wasn’t so hot. That plane had to be ready to go all the time.

Homer and replacement engine

"Work in little tiny spaces"

And let’s say Derrick’s plane came back with a bullet in the engine, and Derrick had to change engines in his plane. If my plane was ready to go, I would go and help Derrick. And the same thing with them.

Faulty Brakes

At first the pilots had trouble with the brakes. When the wheels retracted, they came up like this to the center of the plane. The wheels were still spinning, and that would make them want to go back down. So the pilots decided that they would hit the brakes after the wheels were spinning, but the wheels had multiple disk brakes. They had thirteen multiple disks in there. Six of them were stationary, and seven of them turned with the wheel: this one was stationary; this one turned with the wheel. When they put the pressure to them, they stop the plane. But they got hot from taxiing so far to get to the end of the runway to take off. They were so hot that when the pilot hit those things to make them retract [clap!] in the coolness of the altitude, then [clap!] they would freeze. They would freeze right together. Consequently, when he came down, the wheels were locked. And when he’d nose the plane up, it would go over on its propeller, and then he would wear the tires out completely, just skidding, which means that we’d change tires. That was no easy job. You had to get big jacks and jack the plane up. Oh, we were busy all the time.

Jack, Homer, and fellow crewmen on the line

Cantine truck delivering meals to the line

Jack, a faithful correspondent, particularly with Alice, was too busy some days to write even to her, anxiously waiting at home for news from her husband. Was he safe? Was he alive?

---

[1] Jack J. Kellar, interview about his first years after high school by Judy Kellar Fox, 12 April 1993; cassette tape recording and transcription held by the author. Also, Jack J. Kellar, “Autobiography,” 1998; two ninety-minute cassette tape recordings; held and partially transcribed by the author. Excerpts lightly edited.

[2] United States, Army Air Force, 7^th Photographic Reconnaissance Group, “Aerial photograph of Staplehurst airfield looking north west, 11 May 1944,” sortie number US/34GR/LOC14; American Air Museum in Britain http://www.americanairmuseum.com/media/6108 : accessed 17 May 2018), “English Heritage USAAF Photography,” object number US_34GR_LOC14_VE_2007. 

21 Finally I Lost a Plane

“After all, we were a bunch of kids just having a ball, fighting a war.”

—Major General James B. Tipton, 1985[1]

 

Lt. Killingsworth

Lt. Huff

Risk-Taking between the Earth and Sky

Filled with exuberance and youthful enthusiasm and sure they were immortal, the P-51 pilots flew high over the earth faster than ever imaginable on the ground. They savored the thrill and the adrenaline rush of entering into combat with enemy planes.

Pilots of the 380th relaxing together

The German pilots were just as anxious to knock them out of the sky. Sometimes they were successful. That spring of 1944 the 380^th Squadron sent up their P-51s on bomber escort missions and then on dive-bombing and armed reconnaissance missions. Their gutsy pilots had successful encounters with Messerschmitts, Focke-Wulfs, and Junkers, destroying or damaging them in the air. They also hit locomotives, barges, and radio and flak towers, dive-bombing ground targets to cripple the Nazi offense in any way possible.[2]

Waiting: On the Ground

From Jack’s perspective on the ground: After a mission it was always exciting to see the planes come in four at a time, peel off, and land. This thrilling video shows what Jack saw daily, P-51s taking off, flying in formation, and peeling off for landing. 

Ground crew members waiting

The pilots were at the mercy of the weather, the mechanical capabilities of their planes, Luftwaffe fighters, and flak from the ground. Not all returned. In March the 380^th Squadron’s roster included four flights of eight or nine pilots each. In three months, it lost ten pilots and their planes.[3] Some of the pilots parachuted to safety. Some were taken prisoner. Some were killed. The ground crews didn’t always know what happened to them.

8 April: Lt. Alfred Fontes disappeared near Brunswick [Braunschweig], Germany, on a bomber support run.[4]

11 April: 2^nd Lt. James B. McKenna, piloting one of two radio relay planes, “developed engine trouble and was last seen by his wing man when they entered the overcast while over the channel on their return to base.”[5]

22 April: Lt. Paul R. Maxwell was hit by flak and parachuted to safety near Speyer.[6]

23 April: Lt. James E. Barlow encountered heavy flak over Ooterwalde [Osterholz?] Airfield and was believed to bail out safely.[7]

11 May: Lts. Roy Benson and Lloyd M. Bruce were attacked by ME-109s in the Marche area and may have bailed out.[8]

28 May: Lt. Feodor Clemovitz was shot down by ME-109s west of Gardelegen, Germany.[9]

11 June: 1^st Lt. Edwin E. Vance was hit by flak and crashed near Carentan on the Cherbourg peninsula after successfully targeting a bridge at Sainte-Suzanne-sur-Vire and railway repair shops at Gourfalant [Gourfaleur], France.[10]

17 June: 1^st Lt. Herbert F. Lyman scored hits on a truck concentration and then was hit by flak and crashed near Savigny, France.[11]

19 June: 1^st Lt. Ernest L. Nicholas’ plane was damaged by flak over Calais. Another P-51 escorted him to a point in the Channel near Cap Nez-Gris, where he had to bail out. Rescue boats were unable to find him.[12]

 

A P-51 formation as seen from the ground

Finally I Lost a Plane

Captain McCall had flown his missions, and I had a fairly new replacement pilot, a young second lieutenant pilot. One day after a strafing mission to France my plane did not come back. When you hear the planes coming back, you’re always looking for your formation. Mine was A9B, which means that it would be in the first formation; usually it would be the end. We’d watch as they peeled off, and you could tell whose planes were coming back. Well, there was no 19 9B in that flight that day. My plane was missing.

Did I do something wrong? I immediately contacted the pilots in his flight who were flying his wing. They said German artillery was firing at our planes, and he had gone down to strafe a German flak tower. They could see the tracer bullets going into my plane and pilot and not coming out. He never pulled up at all, so he must have been killed immediately. I had tears in my eyes.[13]

From another pilot's perspective

Jack didn't mention his pilot’s name. None of his surviving letters to Alice mentions a pilot by name. He may not have known him well enough to remember. Three who were killed that spring were Jack’s age (twenty-two) and younger: Lts. McKenna, Vance, and Nicholas. 2^nd Lt. McKenna was most likely Jack’s pilot. He was born in England in 1921, a couple weeks before Jack. His family emigrated to the U.S. when he was a toddler and settled in Miami, Florida. An ironic twist of fate places his memorial plaque in the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, Cambridge, England, returning his memory to the country of his birth.[14]

“Tablets of the Missing” entry for James B. McKenna
Courtesy of Geoffrey Gillon, photographer[15]

Waiting: At Home

Vera (Lewis) Nicholas and her son Ernest
Courtesy of Karie Nicholas[16]   

John L. Nicholas receiving the Purple
Heart on behalf of his son Ernest
Courtesy of Karie Nicholas[17]

Opportunity

So I was without a plane. While I was waiting for a new plane, I was given the job to crew the small C[essna]-78 two-engine [five-seater] transport plane that we had. I made a lot of flights with the pilot, transporting people back and forth to different places. I traveled around quite a bit. Sometimes we would go where one of our planes had landed after being shot up or out of gas and just able to reach England, but not our base. They took me there in the C-78, and I would get the aircraft going again so it could be flown back to our base.

C-78[18]

One time I got into the C-78 with some pilots and a couple of us crew chiefs, and we went down to Land’s End, way down in Plymouth in southern England. We had planes downed down there, and we worked on them until we could get them fixed up good enough to get them home. So I crewed that C-78 for a while, and that was fun.[19]

The ground crews had to steel themselves for the possibility that their pilots would not return. Working hard gave them the focus necessary to keep their emotions in check. Sometimes, as in Jack’s case, that hard work was also fun. Decades later he could still recall the detailed work that was his part of the D-Day effort.

---

[1] Judd A. Katz, U. S. Air Force Oral History Interview of Major General James B. Tipton, July 15, 1985, Auburn University, Montgomery, Alabama; digital images, The University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections, James Tipton papers (http://purl.lib.ua.edu/122063 : accessed 19 March 2018), 35.

[2] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, February 1943–August 1945 ([unknown place]: [unknown publisher], printed by A. Roßbach, Eschwege, Germany [1945]), 33.

[3] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 14, 20, 25.

[4] Nick Marinelli, The History of the 363^rd Fighter Group, 380^th Fighter Squadron, 381^st Fighter Squadron, 382^nd Fighter Squadron, 9^th Air Force, ETO, IX Tactical Air Command, 70^th Fighter Wing until August 1, 1944, XIX Tactical Air Command, 100^th Fighter Wing until August 29, 1944, Reorganized as the 363^rd Tactical Reconnaissance Group, 160^th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 161^st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 162^nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron after September 4, 1944, and attached to the XXIX Tactical Air Command (South Lynn, Mich.: Nick Marinelli, 1992), 4–45. Also, 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 20, 21. Also, Kent D. Miller, Seven Months Over Europe: The 363^rd Fighter Group in World War Two (Hicksville, Ohio: Kent D. Miller, 1989), 9-10.

[5] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 22. Also, Marinelli, History, 4–47, 4–48.

[6] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 23. Also, Miller, Seven Months, 13. Also, Marinelli, History, 4–53.

[7] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 23. Also, Marinelli, History, 4-56.

[8] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 24, 25. Also, Miller, Seven Months, 17.

[9] Miller, Seven Months, 19.

[10] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 33–34.

[11] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 35. Also Miller, Seven Months, 25.

[12] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, 35. Also, Miller, Seven Months, 27.

[13] Jack J. Kellar, “Autobiography,” 1998; two ninety-minute cassette tape recordings; held and partially transcribed by the author.

[14] EKRINGC, owner, “Ellie Schoppe Family Tree,” Ancestry (http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/33809727 : accessed 3 February 2017), James B. McKenna. Also, “2Lt James B McKenna,” Find A Grave (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56292337/james-b-mckenna : accessed 10 May 2018), Memorial no. 56292337.

[15] darealjolo, “Tablets of the Missing,” detail, photographer, Find A Grave (https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2015/33/56292337_1423009357.jpg : accessed 10 May 2018), Memorial no. 56292337, James B McKenna.

[16] kjnicholas, owner, “Nicholas-Lewis,” family tree, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/7053735/person/1482546948/gallery : accessed 11 May 2018), gallery for Ernest Nicholas.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Cessna UC-78 “Bobcat,” photograph, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cessna_UC-78_Bobcat_in_flight.jpg : accessed 10 May 2018), a public domain image created by a U.S. Army soldier or employee as part of official duties.

[19] Jack J. Kellar, “Autobiography,” 1998.