Book excerpt: The origins of the Utah Air National Guard -- roof rats, parades, and a lot of flying

Editor's note: The following is the opening of a book being written by JCOM student and Staff Sgt. Christiana Elieson.

By Christiana Elieson

Nov. 18, 1946, was not an infamous day in world or even national history; however, it did change the lives of 56 men and thousands more who have belonged to the Utah Air National Guard over the past 60 years.

Original members to the Air Guard consisted of mostly World War II veterans. Though they may have not flown for a while, just wanted the opportunity to keep flying because they loved it.

In the summer of 1946, retired Brig. Gen. Rowland R. Wright, a WWII veteran then living in the area, saw an advertisement in the Salt Lake Tribune that was seeking fighter pilots.

The advertisement may have looked like the one pictured that appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune on Monday, Feb. 18, 1946.

Lt. Col. Kermit Tyler was assigned to the task of finding and selecting those who would become the charter members of the Utah Air National Guard.

"We didn't know much about the Air National Guard. It was just being formed all around the country in those times, but the experiences that I had were positive and I liked to fly," said Wright, one of the nine charter members of the Utah Air National Guard. "I really didn't know what was ahead of me at that time but when I interviewed with Kermit Tyler -- he was the air advisor and a regular Air Force officer, he was a lieutenant colonel and assigned here to get the unit going. I was really impressed with him and his professionalism and I thought I wanted to be a part of whatever it was going to become. But the main attraction was I got to fly again."

The unit quickly gained the needed manpower and on Nov. 18, 1946, the group gathered to begin the unit.

"It was just a regular military formation, you know the normal ceremonies, the reporting and the names to duty," Wright said. "We didn't realize how historic it was going to be at the time I don't think."

Most of the people who joined the guard that day had taken a demotion to join. It was a testament to each person's love for the military and flying.

In the beginning, unit training assemblies were held every Monday night for four hours. During this time, the pilots would do ground training and others would go about their regular base jobs.

One of those jobs was supply and finance. Retired Chief Warrant Officer Clyde Willey joined the Guard in 1947. Originally located in the hangar where the P-51s were kept, he and his fellow supply clerks, Warrant Officer Training Grade Richard D. Shea and Sgt. Ted W. Angus, were known as "Shea's Scroungers," after the chief of supply. "In the beginning each person would be paid quarterly in cash. Supply, on payday, would have to fly to Hill Air Force Base to pick up the payroll. To figure out who would get paid what, a punch card machine was set up so the Guard members could record their time spent at the base for UTAs. Taxes for the Guardsmen would take Willey and others in his unit two weeks. Pilots who came out to get in their flying time however, were not compensated monetarily.

A variety of work happened on the previously Army Air Corps Base. One of the more unusual variety happened when the hangar's supply section was inundated with "roof rats," said Willey. "We had a real experience, all of a sudden we started to see big animals, roof rats. One morning I came rather early we just polished up our floors the day before. There was hardly any light in there because we never had no windows but all of a sudden something went scooting. It looked like a big animal went scooting across the floor . . . and it was one of those big roof rats. I grabbed a broom and went after that he crawled up -- we had radiators that was our heat . . . but that rat went up the back side of that. I was standing by a chair and that thing came out and I thought it was going to run up my leg. I hit down, with my finger on the bottom of that broom, it really hurt, but he went up in that radiator again. The other guy . . . named Charlie Basinger -- we had big, long pieces of aircraft tubing -- he got one of those pieces, and he speared it. It was a big animal. Then he walked around the hangar with the animal over the back of his head. We captured a few of them by setting traps. The traps were (made when) we would put some bait up in a high place, then a bucket of water down below and they would fall into the water and drown. We had the city come see what they could do to help us. We finally got rid of them, I don't know how, but they were big and they would run around in the roof."

Training for new pilots was done at the base. It began in April 1947 and took pilots through a year of training before they were qualified fully as a fighter pilot.

Some of the other work that occurred on the base was the building and expanding of the base facilities. Back then, the construction of new buildings and expansion of the old ones were done by Guard members.

Wright spoke of the pioneers of the Utah Air National Guard stating "They were all very experienced. It was a very unique situation because we had so much in common. We'd been in the service for three or four years in all parts of the world. It was a close-knit organization."

Slowly, the Guard grew. A week after the organization of the Utah Air National Guard, the unit received its first plane. At that time, 1st Lt. Wright had the opportunity to take the first flight in the squadron's new plane. Less than a year after the Guard had begun they had acquired 21 P-51 fighters, two AT-6 trainers, two C-47 transports and an L-5 Liaison plane.

Aug. 20, 1947, saw the first summer field training period. The squadron had 68 airmen and 32 officers; however, because there was a lot of publicity generated about the two-week camp, local men learned about the unit and it began to see a large growth in numbers.

Before the end of the first year of the guard, all the officer positions had been filled. However, there were 183 enlisted slots still open.

In 1948, 345 people belonged to the Utah Air National Guard. The organizations consisted of the 191st Fighter Squadron, (SE), the Utility Flight of the 191st Fighter Squadron, the 191st Weather Station (type A), and Detachment "C," 244th Air Service Group, (151 or 191) U.S Air Force Dispensary.

"The community has been very supportive. The adjutant general is part of the development of a community relationship. . . . All these guys are employed and when they have to go on active duty for summer camp training they had to have time to do that. So our adjutant general created what we call the honorary colonel corps. They were made up of the business men of the community. People that were really top level in business and employees. He would involve them in with our operation. They would come out and go on our transport airplanes. They would sponsor training sessions as they still do for high school graduates, like they do at the present time. We would also involve the families, because they were so important to them. In those days we would always have social activities for the families. We had many of them out here. We would have anniversary parties, we would have big events like Duke Ellington, who was the leader of one of the great bands of the world, . . . and we would have family days at least once a year in the summertime so they could bring the kids out here. So it was one of the important parts of the community service."

"We'd participate . . . in these big parades. We'd take a P-51 down and roll it down in the parade. So people were aware of what was going on. All the communities in the state were that way."

Another example of how the community and the Guard worked together was in the winter of 1948-49. It was a very harsh winter for livestock in Utah and cattle and sheep began to succumb to starvation and sub-zero temperatures. The Guardsmen were able to fly missions that served rural farmers by flying hay and feed pellets to thousands of livestock that were out in southern areas of the state that had been hit with the harsh elements. "Operation Haylift" ended up saving thousands of livestock and many ranchers' livelihoods.

"Sgt. Salty Guard," Terry Kelly, had the distinction of being the youngest person to enlist in the Utah Air National Guard in 1949. According to the March 1986 Salty Guard News, he joined one day after he turned 15 years old by lying about his age. Basic training was conducted on Monday nights in the Non-commissioned Officers Club in 1949 and he completed his training in four months.

"When the Utah Air National Guard was called to active duty in 1951, he went to personnel to set the record straight about his age," stated the article. "He was now of legal age to be in the military, and found out he had not really fooled anybody. Somehow they had known how old he was all the time! Terry started out as a ‘gun plumber' or weapons mechanic and over the years has become an aircraft mechanic and is now a crew chief."

In April 1950, the 191st Fighter Squadron represented the whole Air National Guard in Las Vegas in the U.S. Air Force Gunnery Meet. The team brought home a fourth place finish for the Guard.

The Guard didn't always have things turn out right. Mishaps during the early years of the Utah Air National Guard held deadly consequences.

The first tragedy for the Utah Air National Guard came in the morning of May 7, 1950. An F-51 had just taken off when the motor failed. The pilot was unable to escape in time and the plane crashed into a field shortly before lighting on fire from an explosion inside the gasoline tanks. 2nd Lt. Michael D. Martin was the pilot of the P-51 on the tragic flight. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on the accident on May 8, 1950.

A new unit was added in 1950. The 130th Air Control and Warning Squadron was created on Dec. 18 and added to the base supply unit. They were responsible for controlling planes in the air and for radar surveillance of enemy aircraft.

During the early years few people had high ranks and the only officers in the Utah Air National Guard consisted of the pilots and the lone maintenance officer.

The Guard during this time was considered more of a flying club than anything else.

"When we first started nobody even knew what the Air National Guard stood for. They would put it down International Guard, or they didn't have any idea what it was. We didn't know who we worked for. We didn't know who our boss was. We didn't know where our pay checks came from. . . . We had no retirement. But we loved the Guard. We loved the Air Force. We loved the airplanes, and so we stayed with it," said Col. Al H. Asay.

The atmosphere of the Guard was also very family oriented for many years and it all began during the first few years of the Utah Air National Guard's existence.

It was a cornerstone to many families' social lives, said Asay. "The Air Guard was my life, and it was my social life, and it was my employment. All my friends came from the Air Guard. We were all together. We did everything together. We built the Air Guard. . . . Everything we did was for a family-oriented Air Guard."

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