POWERGRAMS

4 Although Rayford Davis Rayford Davis was stationed on Okinawa Island and in Japan for 22 months during the Korean War, he said his scariest moment came before he left American soil. "A sewer plant had flooded, and I was in there pumping out the water when I flipped an electric switch. They told me later, 'You should be dead,'" said Davis, whose unit was responsible for water sanitation and purification at Muroc Air Force Base near Los Angeles. That was the summer of 1949 – nearly a year after Davis enlisted in the Air Force as a 17-year-old. Since joining the military, he had finished basic training at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas and water- sanitation school in Wyoming, and was on his first tour of duty. Davis, 89, said he learned a lot at Muroc, now Edwards Air Force Base. He worked nights and weekends, digging ditches by hand using a pick and an air gun, and helping to maintain the pumps that filled the tanks that provided water to the base and off-base housing. "I was a troubleshooter," said Davis. "If I could fix it, I did. And if I couldn't, I found someone who could." Davis got word he was shipping out to Okinawa, Japan, in September 1949. "I had gone home to Alabama on leave and when I got back to California, I had a surprise," said Davis. "They had put me on the overseas list." It was during his 14-day voyage across the ocean that Davis got his first taste of working around electricity. The morning after boarding the ship, he was assigned to kitchen police (KP) duty in the galley. Because he was already suffering seasickness, he couldn't stand the smell of food and knew he had to "get out of there fast." "I had to get another job," said Davis, who retired in 1991 as vice president of Power Delivery after nearly 34 years with Alabama Power. "The sergeant asked us if anybody knew anything about electricity. I raised my hand. I didn't know anything about electricity, but I wasn't going to be on KP anymore. They made me an electrician." That was only the beginning, Davis said. During the trip, a severe storm buffeted the ship for seven days, forcing Davis and his comrades to remain below deck. "The whole ship would shake," Davis said. "The first time, you thought it was going to break up. But after a while, you were so sick that you didn't care if it did or not." When they arrived at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Davis and his unit were far from finished with storms. He lived through five typhoons during his months on the 50-mile-long island. It was then that the unit went into high gear. Because the storms knocked out the power plant, Davis and the others went to work manning six diesel engines to pump water through pipelines to the island residents. When the sun was shining, it was the unit's job to maintain and repair the pipelines. After a few months, Davis decided he wanted to do some sightseeing on the Japanese mainland or in the Philippines. But he didn't want to take leave. He signed up for an electronics training program at Nagoya Air Force Base in Japan. Davis said 10 days after he arrived for electronics and radio repair training, the Korean War began. It was June 1950. "Everybody went crazy," he said. "We all thought we were going to Korea. I thought, 'I'm about to get shot at, and I haven't been trained to use a gun.' But instead, after finishing school, they gave me a set of orders and told me to get Davis served during Korean War before becoming Alabama Power VP Davis, right, in Okinawa in 1949.

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