The Greatest Men I Never Knew

 If the title of this blog sounds kind of familiar then you have probably heard a song with almost the same title by Reba McEntire. This is not about a country music song but the title was rather appropriate for two men that I never really knew.

My father was alive over five decades before I was born. That is a lot of time and to many people, the majority of their life. He worked hard to provide for the family and consequently was very busy with both his job and the chores. He didn't retire until I was out of high school and by then I was the one who was too busy. My dad was quite and reserved and it wasn't until after his death that I discovered most of his life history. I knew he served in the Army Air Force during World War II as a Munitions Specialist but I did not know a lot of the details, as he did not like to talk about his time in the service. During one of the few times that he did talk about the war I found out that he was technically a Pearl Harbor survivor, but because the mission he was on was "secret" and classified, he was never officially listed in the area and at that time was under orders to never talk about it. Surprisingly my dad told me what happened early on the morning of December 7th, 1941 as he was on one of three troop ships headed to Pearl Harbor. His troop was returning from the Philippine Islands and as part of their mission, once they got close to Oahu they were to "hug the coast" and maintain radio silence until they reached Pearl. They approached Oahu from the west and followed the coastline towards the southern shore. Dad was among a few guys who had went out on the deck in anticipation as they were getting closer to the mouth of the Harbor. It was then that they spotted the Japanese fighter aircraft. He said the planes were flying in the same direction that they were heading and at first some of the guys thought they were American aircraft. As the planes approached the troop ships it became clear to everyone that they were Japanese as they were flying low enough to be seen clearly. My dad was in the last troop ship, the ship in the middle attempted to shoot at the planes with a large caliber gun that was mounted on the deck, and the leading ship was sunk after an explosion happened on board. Panic ensued but their commanding officer refused to break radio silence and immediately ordered the remaining two ships to return to the Philippine Islands. Dad and a few of his shipmates even went to the radio shack and tried to talk the radio operator into disobeying orders and radio Pearl Harbor to tell them about the Japanese aircraft, but he refused and the rest, as they say, is history.  

Dad received a commendation for Meritorious Service and was also a sharp shooter in the military. I discovered his medals for that and more. My dad knew his way around a camera and although he was not an official military photographer, he took hundreds of photos during his time in the service, many of which I discovered in his personal effects. He was a truck driver by trade and went his entire 55 year career, which started in the military, accident free. I learned many things from my father, including how to drive a big rig, but I learned even more after his passing.

My father-in-law, who I will refer to as "RJ", was a different story altogether. I knew he worked in the aerospace industry and was away from home a lot of the time on job assignments. RJ was extraordinarily gifted, had an extremely high IQ, and was considered a mathematical genius. There were stories overheard and snippets of phone conversations over the years that gave me the impression that his "jobs" were not exactly main stream and somewhat secretive. When RJ retired, he moved away from all of his extended family to a remote area in the California desert. We saw him infrequently at most until his age caught up with him and he started needing some help with things. When the dementia could no longer be ignored we had no choice but to move him into a memory care facility. I thought I kind of knew what my father-in-law did for work, but after going through some of his personal files and affects, it became crystal clear that I had no idea about his actual job. My first discovery was that he held a Q level Top Secret security clearance and was one of the lead engineers at North American Aviation on Apollo 1. RJ also worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. He was directly involved in Lockheed's SR71 Blackbird program; specifically in the design of it's flexible fuel bladders. We knew he spent a lot of time in Nevada but did not realize that it was at Groom Lake, otherwise known as Area 51. One of the last black programs RJ was involved with was the design and development of the Stealth Bomber.

RJ's list of credentials is impressive and speaks volumes. The following is just a sampling of what I discovered. Throughout the 60's RJ worked at North American Rockwell; he was a designer on both the Hound Dog Missile and the Minuteman Missile Programs; he was also a Lead Engineer - Space Division, on the Saturn II and Apollo programs, including Apollo 13. Up to the mid-1970's RJ worked for Rockwell International as an Senior Engineer on the space shuttle program. For the rest of that decade he worked at TRW as a Senior Design Engineer on their laser systems and the Galileo Project. In the 80's RJ worked for Rocketdyne, specifically with the design and development of the Space Shuttle's main engine fuel lines; then it was on to Northrop Grumman as a Flight Test Engineer on the F-5G Fighter, the F-20 Tigershark, the F-14 Tomcat, and the A-6 Intruder. Mid- 80's saw RJ at Hughes Aircraft as a Lead Engineer for lasers and gun sights on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle; then finishing up that decade back at Northrop as a Engineering Specialist on the F-18, F-20, and the F-23. Switching to commercial aircraft in the 90's, RJ worked at Boeing as a Systems Test Engineer on the 727, 747, 777, and was a consultant on the E-4B Nightwatch. Like I said, this is just some of what he accomplished. To me my father-in-law seemed like the type of guy that writers like Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin included in their novels.

RJ was very tight lipped and told the family numerous times that he could not talk about his past work due to security reasons. I knew he carried a gun and numerous times I saw him with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. I can only recall one story that he shared, and that was only because he had quite a few more than his usual nightly single martini. I was talking to him about nuclear power sources and the conversation shifted towards nuclear bomb testing. RJ proceeded to tell me about an atmospheric detonation of a atom bomb that he was involved with, sometime in "the early 50's", that took place in the Nevada desert. He said he believed the blast was responsible for a craft crashing not far from the test site. I asked, "an airplane?", to which he responded "no, an unidentified craft." "We didn't know what it was at first." He then told me of a miserable bus ride that he had to take from Nevada into the Arizona desert to inspect the craft. RJ said it was basically a waste of time, as they couldn't really do anything out there anyways, but the Air Force wanted to move the craft to Homey Airport ASAP, and he was on the team that had been sent to look it over. He said he saw the craft years later at Groom Lake where he was part of a unit that was reverse engineering the propulsion system on it. I tried to get some more details out of him but he was going on about the craft's technology and getting really technical about it's roll, pitch, and yaw rates. At that time I did not know that he had been a flight test engineer but I did ask him how he knew about all that on the craft, and did he get to fly in it? He looked at me deadpan, smiled, and said nothing more.