Published: July 03, 2008 03:27 pm            

The Aviator

Local Air Force vet reflects on years of military service

San Marcos — Retired Col. Elton Jennings loves to fly, and it shows.

And the World War II veteran loves his country, too: He’s flown 88 combat missions, 350 combat hours and devoted 34 years to military service.

So today, the Fourth of July, is a special day for him.

“This country means more to me than anything else, other than my Lord and Savior,” he said.

The 92-year-old Jennings has suffered four strokes in recent years and is confined to a bed in his San Marcos home. But his mind — and his recollections of military days — remain sharp. Sitting up in his bedroom earlier this week, he points up to a portrait of two planes hung on his wall.

“Know what a 135 is,” he asks, identifying one of the airplanes. “It’s a four-engine jet, carries 33,000 gallons of fuel. And I flew every position on it. I knew everything about it. You have to when you’re an instructor pilot.”

But Jennings was flying long before he was an instructor pilot with the Air Force. He’s been flying nearly as long as he can remember.

Jennings was born on Dec. 16., 1915 in Saltillo, TX. to Sam Jennings and Viola Tucker. As a child, his family moved to a ranch near Mineral Wells, where he graduated from high school in 1934. In 1933, at 17, Jennings got permission from his parents and joined the Texas National Guard Calvary, which he belonged to until 1937. Jennings excelled athletically, lettering in track and basketball and football at Mineral Wells High School.

He even earned a scholarship to play football at Texas Tech.

“But my dad lost his health so I had to come home to help (on the ranch),” Jennings said.

Not long after he dropped his classes, though, he began attending nearby Ranger College in Ranger. There he heard about free Civilian Pilot Training lessons offered. And he was intrigued.

“That’s back when Hitler was acting up, it looked like we were going to war, and they were trying to get everyone interested in flying,” Jennings said. “I was the manager of the Ghoulson Hotel (in Ranger) at the time. But I went and learned to fly.”

It wasn’t long after that, of course, that the United States did join the war.

Jennings and his wife Josephine were headed to Mineral Wells that December Sunday in 1941 to meet his parents for church. On the way an announcement came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

“That same day, I told my wife that I would go to Dallas and I would join the Air Force,” Jennings said. “She said ‘why do you have to be in such a hurry?’ And I said, ‘well, I’m a pilot already.’”

So he received his commission, went through a series of Air Force trainings before joining fellow units in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. Piloting primarily KC-135 tanker planes, Jennings helped refuel B-52 bombers, dropped supplies to Army units below and transported soldiers and supplies all through the China-Burma-India area.

He remembers being shot up one time leaving a base in China.

“A Japanese zero stitched me with machine gun fire, but I dove down where he wouldn’t try and get me,” Jennings said.

He remembers a stormy night during the war when 13 American planes were flying from Burma to China – there was literally zero visibility and the planes couldn’t land. The pilots were forced to land wherever they could.

“I knew of a little old strip and it was near the base, so we got in there and out of the 13 planes, our’s was the only one that made it,” Jennings said. “I lost a lot of dear friends along the way.”

And he also recalls the day the war ended. He was flying instruments over China on his way to Burma, and the rain was coming down hard and fast.

“The reception on the radio was really bad, but they repeated three times for us that the war was over,” Jennings said.

It was, of course, a welcoming sound to hear.

“The fact that you’re going to come home, the fact that you made it, that was the main thing,” Jennings said. “I had a little wife at that time, and I finally got to see my little boy again in time for his fifth birthday.”

But after the war, Jennings would remain in the military full time. He became stationed in the “Canal Zone” training pilots in the Caribbean. During the Vietnam War, Jennings became the director of operations at the Air University at the Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. He was promoted to full colonel in 1963, a year before he retired from the military.

But throughout his career, Jennings never stopped flying.

“I’ve flown lots of dignitaries places (including Franklin Roosevelt, whom he met at Lackland Air Force Base), I’ve stopped in every major city in South America. I’ve gotten to see most of the world,” Jennings said. “... I’ve been a ‘fly boy’ most of my life.”

        

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