POWERGRAMS

Although he never saw action while serving in the Naval Air Corps during the Korean War, Chuck McKellar was on the ground floor of developing missiles that would later be used to protect his countrymen who fought against overseas enemies. "We never thought about being scared that they would explode. It was just a job, really," said McKellar, 91, who served in a patrol squadron that helped fine-tune and test some of the early U.S. winged homing torpedoes. That was in 1954, near the end of McKellar's four-year stint in the Air Corps. He helped test the winged homing torpedoes while serving in PV24 squadron at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Maryland. One of McKellar's jobs as an aviation electronics technician was helping check and maintain the gyros that stabilized the flight of the torpedoes as they headed for the test targets in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maryland. But he is especially proud that he was selected as the missile operator for those maneuvers. McKellar said a torpedo was attached below each wing of the plane. As the missile operator, he kept his eyes focused on the radar screen until he saw the target. Signaling the pilot to hover in place, McKellar pressed the button that released the torpedoes, which then glided toward the target before dropping their wings and crashing into the ocean. "The torpedoes would glide about 4 or 5 miles before they would drop onto the target," said McKellar, who retired as Alabama Power Jasper District superintendent 32 years ago. "You'd be gone before it hit the water." JOINING UP With many American young men getting drafted for the Korean War in 1951, 20-year-old McKellar, an apprentice mortician in his hometown of Freeland, Michigan, wanted to choose his own future. When his boss told him of a friend who was a Navy recruiter in a nearby town, McKellar headed there to enlist. "I was sworn in and sent to boot camp in Detroit," McKellar said. "I called my folks from the Great Lakes and said, 'I won't be home tonight. I'm in the Navy.'" After boot camp, McKellar continued his training, spending eight weeks in air crewmen school in Jacksonville, Florida, and then signing up for an eight-month electronics training school in Memphis. While in Memphis, he met his future wife, Cathy, at a club for servicemen and married her seven months later. "I always said when we got married, I really didn't love Chuck. I got married so I didn't have to finish college," said Cathy. But love grew. The couple has been married 68 years, and has four children, seven grandchildren and three great- grandchildren. With his training completed, McKellar was sent to Glynco Naval Station near Brunswick, Georgia – the base that housed the Navy's fleet of airships (or blimps). McKellar said his job was maintaining the radio equipment and communications systems on the base. The most fun part of the assignment, McKellar said, was playing on the base's fast-pitch softball team. They competed with teams from naval stations along the East Coast as well as from the Brunswick City League. "I remember one of the coaches in the city league owned a bar," McKellar said. "If we beat his team, he said we could have free drinks all night. We won, so we took over that bar that night." GO NORTH, YOUNG MAN Soon after McKellar was dispatched to NAS Patuxent River in 1953, his squadron was sent to Naval Air Station Argentia in Newfoundland to test some of the Navy's first glide bombs. These 500-pound bombs, known as "bats," were equipped with flight control surfaces that allowed them to glide across the water to their targets, 3 Retiree's role in Navy testing helped forces in Korean War by Carla Davis McKellar took this photo of a "bat" during testing in the early 1950s. The device was one of the first "smart" missiles, using radio waves to home in on a target. PHOTOS COURTESY CHUCK McKELLAR

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