May Retiree's Corner

This is really strange, here I sit preparing to write the May Retiree’s Corner article, when today I should be preparing for our April Luncheon this afternoon?  Talk about changing times, none of us have had to endure this new pandemic virus, and it may leave scars in our memory banks for a long time.

The other previous viruses that have affected us are now mostly forgotten, other than the Spanish Flu about a century ago, that killed so many people.  By the time you get this article, I am not sure what the world is going to look like? Will it be much worse, better, or the same conditions we are experiencing now?  So many questions, not many answers!  Enough about COVID-19, let’s move on to continuing honoring our Berlin Call-Up folks.  If you recall, we have honored Headquarters 169^th Fighter Group, the 169^th Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, the 157^th Fighter Squadron, and now we are in the second phase of honoring the 169^th Air Base Squadron, which had 96 members assigned to it.  This month we will honor the remaining 48 members.  These members were lower ranking members, many got out as quick as they could once their enlistment terms were up.  At this time I can only find two members who later stayed and retired from SCANG.  Hopefully I did not miss any members or ‘missing link’ folks, not recognizing their names from different Retirees Lists that I currently have.

McEntire History:  As mentioned last month, based on members who were called up with the 169^th Air Base Squadron which was activated in 1957, and later it became the 169^th Combat Support Squadron which was activated in 1964, seven years later.  The remaining 48 members of the 169^th Air Base Squadron are as follows:

• A2C    Leslie F. Bickett, in which I have no information about him.
• A2C    Robert M. Blankenship, no information.
• A2C    George A. Camp, Jr., the name seems familiar, but no information on him at this time. He passed away March 10, 2015.
• A2C    Calvin M. Cornforth, no information.
• A2C    Donald R. Epps, no information.
• A2C    Alfred W. Flynn, no information.
• A2C    John B. Frick, Jr., no information, a lot of folks had the same last names as some of our retirees, which seems like there is some familiarity, many could have been related to some of our Retirees?
• A2C    Charles R. Goodale, Jr., no information.
• A2C    Franklin K. Gardner, one of our non-retirees, who just died February 27, 2020, we put the word out about him.
• A2C    James H. Harmon, no information.
• A2C    Ithiel W. Hellams, Jr., no information.
• A2C    Robert M. Hellams, no information.
• A2C    Edward M. Hines, III, no information.
• A2C    William E. Horne, no information.
• A2C    Charles Eston Housand, who retired in 1994 as a MSgt, he died December 10, 2016, he went back to live in Loris, SC.  Understand he was an accomplished pilot in his own right.
• A2C   John R. Jordan, no information.
• A2C   James R. Kelly, no information.
• A2C    Robert T. Lever, no information.
• A2C    Harold A. Lomas, Jr., no information.
• A2C    James A. Mattox, no information.
• A2C    Jack S. Maynard, Jr., he died a good while back, he used to hang around The Mouse Trap, and was an outstanding drummer.
• A2C    George S. Meeks, no information.
• A2C    John R. Pagett, no information.
• A2C    David W. Pender, no information.
• A2C    Romie R. Pendleton, III, no information.
• A2C    Gene A. Richardson, no information.
• A2C   William L. Sease, no information.
• A2C   Ray B. Simmons, no information.
• A2C    Jefferson C. Wall, no information.
• A2C    John C. Wallace, no information.
• A2C    William F. Windham, no information.
• A2C    Rufus K. Woodlief, no information.
• A3C    George D. Belcher, no information.
• A3C    John E. Bishop, no information.
• A3C    Arlen L. Bouknight, no information.
• A3C    Karl S. Bowers, who retired in 1982 as a Major, great guy, has a bridge named for him going to Hilton Head, an engineer, and at one time the Federal Highway Commissioner.  Karl died January 31, 2012.
• A3C    James F. Bowman, no information.
• A3C    James T. Green, no information.
• A3C    Julian H. Howell, no information.
• A3C    James B. Hughes, no information.
• A3C    James G. Keels, Jr., no information.
• A3C    Ronnie A. Kinlaw, no information.
• A3C    George B. Moseley, Jr., no information.
• A3C    Charles A. O’Brien, no information.
• A3C    Frank Peake,  no information.
• A3C    Franklin D. Spivey, no information.
• A3C    James C. Stone, Jr., no information.
• AB    Don E. Albertson, no information.

At this point we have named and honored 536 members of the supposed 747 members deployed that were stated in the 40^th Anniversary Book. My listing is 738 names, which is not too much difference between the two numbers. So we have honored 73% of the deployed members called up thus far, of which 158 members eventually became Retirees, which is 29% of the named and honored call ups to date.  Of the 158 Retirees, we have 1 Major General, 4 Brigadier Generals, 3 Colonels, 15 Lt. Colonels, 6 Majors, 1 CWO3, 42 CMSgt’s,

29 SMSgt’s, 47 MSgt’s, 9 TSgt’s, and 1 SSgt, which totals to 158 Retirees. Again, these folks were the backbone of SCANG for many of the following years after the Berlin Crisis Call-Up. Next month, I will do one of the smaller Squadrons, the 169^th USAF Dispensary, after that we will honor the 169^th Material Squadron to wrap up theBerlin Call-Up deployment, which will take at least 3 months to name all those folks.