40 Then and Later

Jack and Alice, 1990s

The Places

Jack's home town, Santa Rosa, California

In Santa Rosa, at the airport, where the Sonoma County Airport is now, that was our training base. Suppose that Red Pelizzari from Michigan came to Santa Rosa, and he said to somebody, “Where were the barracks that we stayed in here when we were training, when we had the P-39s here?” There are no barracks left there, or anything.  There’s all buildings built around there, big buildings. I know where they were, down in the eucalyptus grove. The eucalyptus grove’s even gone now. So if Red Pelizzari came out there, I could tell him where things were, but anybody else, how would they know? They’d say, “Yeah, there were some old tar paper buildings over there.” That’s what they were; they put tarpaper on the outside, anything at all at that time, to get some housing. Oh, they tore most of them down. There’s probably little remnants of them that there are left yet.[1]

Beauvechain, Belgium

In 1995 Jack recognized nothing of the airbase where he spent
months near Beauvechain, Belgium.

 Staplehurst Airbase, England

[In 1968] we saw the pig farmer in the little town there. Our airfield was just a strip of farmland cut out with wire matting put down, and when we went back, why, here it’s a farm. The sheep are out on the hills and the man was tending his pigs with a coat and tie on. Everything changes so much, and it’s been pretty near fifty years.[2]

Staplehurst Advanced Landing Ground, tents in the
apple orchard, 1944

Staplehurst Advanced Landing Ground Memorial on the site
of the airfield, now Chickenden Farm, 2010

The Staplehurst monument inscription. Photos courtesy of Alan Wright,
County Kent, England.

And the People

Jack forged a bond with the Hendrickx-Leemput family during his stay at their home in Belgium. It survived the years through letters (translated by family members) and Jack and Alice's occasional visits.

Lique (plaid blouse) and family, 1945

Lique and Jack, 1995

Jack and Derrick were already married in wartime. When they sent their P-51s aloft, their wives' names soared above enemy and friendly lands.

Jack and "Alice"

Derrick and "Camille"

An easy camaraderie developed among the three P-51 crew chiefs from Sonoma County, California. Their friendship, forged during shared wartime experiences, persisted during easier times, with their wives and children, right up to the end. They called each other “Sarge.”

Kellar, Derrick, Winkler, Germany 1945

Jack and Alice Kellar, Jean and Wally Winkler, Camille and Erwin Derrick, 6 June 2000

In Memory

Jack J. Kellar (1921-2006) and Alice M. (Streeter) Kellar (1921-2004)

Jack and Alice, first photo, 1938

Jack and Alice, a last photo, 2003

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[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. Lightly edited excerpt.

[2] Ibid.