Royal Nelson
Personal Info
- First Name
- Royal
- Last Name
- Nelson
- My Location
- California
- My Service
- Air Force
- My Status
- Retired
- My Military Career Field
- Aircraft maintenance technician.
- About Me
I joined the Air Force two months after the Korean war started in 1950. All of my friends were being activated from the National Guard and I didn't want to be left out. My friend and I put in for gunnery school but I didn't get selected for it, he did. My second choice was Aircraft Maintenance. That is what I was selected for. Tom, my friend, went to Colorado for gunnery school and I went to texas for Aircraft maintenance school.
Tom ended up in Okinawa, and I ended up in Japan. Tom was killed after being captured when his B-29 was shot down over Korea. I didn't find that out until I had returned home from Japan. I never saw combat in Korea. That came later in Viet Nam.
I took my discharge when my first hitch was up.I wanted to try civilian life for awhile. I tried it for five months and couldn't adjust to the slow pace. I re-enlisted and became a "lifer".
I met my wife at Selfridge AFB two months after I had re-enlisted. She was also in the Air Force. She was in the intelligence office in the building we shared.
We got married in June as I had orders for Yuma, Arizona. All of my buddy's thought we had to get married as we rushed the wedding so much. We had our first child four years latter. We have been married 53 years now.
It's a good thing my wife had been in the service. She understood how the military worked and that made life a little easier. Especially when I was assigned to SAC. When assigned to SAC, you are always going TDY someplace. My wife raised our two sons pretty much by herself. I was very lucky to meet her when I did.
I was assigned to Guam and stayed there with my family for two and a half years. My youngest son was born there.
After returning to the States,I was almost unpacked when I was sent on assignment "Big Eye". A 90 day TDY to Taiwan. I didn't stay in Taiwan long I was sent to our forward base at Tan Son Nhut, Viet Nam the next day.
I took over the line chief position for a couple of weeks until a higher ranking Non-Com came in. I became his assistant. Our day started at 0200 Hrs. and if we were lucky it would end about 2200Hrs that night. Paul, the NCOIC, and I, tried to cover the shift so one of us only worked ten hours or so. That was seven days a week. Once a month we would get to go to Taiwan for some good food and a brief rest. that only lasted a day or two, then we were back to Tan Son Nhut again. I lost 30 pounds on that TDY.
We also lost some of our men. We got hit one night with morters and recoiless rifles. Out of 31 people in our small detachment, 11 were wounded. Some were hit so bad they were sent home and we never saw them again.Others went to the hospital and were pached up and sent back to duty. Paul and I were lucky, we didn't get a scratch.
Two of our aircraft recieved some minor damage. We patched them up and sent them to Taiwan for a better fix.
When I returned from that TDY I applied for Recruiter Duty. I was assigned to Instructor Duty instead. I spent the next few months learning how to teach and setting up my lesson plans. I taught for two years and was assigned right back to Viet Nam again.
I went to the 22nd TASS at Bhin Thuy. We had O-1's and O-2's for flying forward observers and marking targets for the big boys.
After a year of that I came home and put my papers in for retirement.
History
- Member for
- 2 years 9 weeks
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