I arrived at Kelly in Feburary, 1956, a brand new Aircraft Mechanic.  I was assigned to one of the 13 C-124A's in the squadron.  I was assigned to aircraft number 51-150, (150) for short, as all were 51 models.  My crew chief was a big man named MSgt William J. Nichols, everyone called him Nick.  It took me some time before I could call him anything other than Sgt Nichols.

Nick must have taken a liking to me, because he seemed to take special care to see that I got off on the right foot.  But then Nick treated all his crew members equally well, even this snot-nosed kid of 17.  Seems like there were about 12 to 15 men on each crew. Some of the other names I can remember are SSgt Sparks (Sparky), Denzel Purdy, Richard Poole, Virgil Cole, a fellow named Torres and one named Perry. Perry was killed when he was struck by an automobile one night while walking back to the front gate at Kelly. Richard Poole and I were good friends, did a lot of hunting and reloading together.

Virgil and I were good friends. He was from around Pangburn Arkansas I believe, seems like I can remember him referring often to Pangburn. I remember one day, my little 49 Chevy had a small fish, a perch, stuck under the windshield wiper blade. I assumed it was Virgil that had put it there. I took the little dead fish and carefully place it up under the front seat of Virgils 52 Chevy, securely held between the seat padding and the seat springs. Virgil never did find the source of the odor, nor who had put it there.

I worked for Nick until my discharge in June of  1959.  I took about an 80 day break in service and assured my Squadron Commander, that I would be back.  I did this rather than take leave and start a new enlistment in the hole on leave time. Another reason was to get everything started on the first of the month.

On September 1st, 1959, I re-enlisted at Little Rock, Arkansas to fill the vacancy I had left at Kelly.  I returned to Kelly and the 19th.  I also returned to Nicks crew and 150.  The only thing different was my tool box.  It was if I had only been on leave.

Again, my duties included flying world wide as a scanner/mechanic on the C-124.  The squadron due to their mission, carried their own mechanics and security people.  This was a lot of fun, and work, saw a lot of the world and got extra pay too. Hazardous Duty pay.

I stayed at Kelly until my first overseas assignment, which came in May 1960.  I was going overseas.  I was headed for Lajes AB in the Azores, a Portuguese Island group in the Atlantic, some 800 miles of the coast of Spain.  I had been through Lajes many times as we usually had to stop there both going and coming from Europe and North Africa.  It was at Lajes where, hungry as a bear, I first tried SOS at the mess hall, also known as creamed beef on toast. Off to Lajes AB, Azores