The Roots Go Deep: Interview with one of the 63rd Air Refueling Squadron's first commanders

Published March 17, 2011
By Staff Sgt Shawn Rhodes
927th Air Refueling Wing

Louisville, Ky. -- This is the first of a three-part series on Louisville, Ky. native Col. Eugene Kinnaird, former commander of the 63rd Troop Carrier Squadron. Today the unit is the 63rd Air Refueling Squadron, stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. The following was taken from an interview conducted in January at Kinnaird's home in Louisville, Ky.

"Good stories are like wine. They just get better with age" the man said.

He sits on a couch, surrounded by four generations of his family in a modest house on the outskirts of Louisville, Ky. At 91 years of age, Col. Ret. Eugene 'Gene' Kinnaird knows more than most how time can blur the details of a story. In his case, there isn't a need to add to his memories' details. The rapt attention he commands from the family and visitors in his living room is a testament to his time on earth: When you've lived a life like his, just telling it like it happened is more than enough.

Colonel Kinnaird was born the year World War I came to an end. Like many who grew up hearing the stories of the airplanes and pilots that helped win the war, he knew at a young age that his life's purpose would be fulfilled in the skies above him.

"I've flown everything from gyrollers (gyroplanes) to supersonic jets," Colonel Kinnaird said to the small crowd gathered around him.

The American flag visible through the window behind him stands as a testament to a patriotic household, but doesn't begin to encapsulate a career spanning 40 years as a pilot in the Army Air Corps, Air Force and commercial airlines. A profession that would raise the unassuming man with the slow Kentucky drawl to the position of colonel started with the easiest assignment of his career at the military flight academies at Randolph and Kelly Fields in 1939.

For Colonel Kinnaird, this 'easiest assignment' is no exaggeration. A veteran of two wars, the Louisville native's military record reads like a battle roster of the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Northern Solomons, New Guinea, Southern Philippines, Luzon. But first, the newly-commissioned second lieutenant would have to survive the years prior to his country's entry into World War II. For a young pilot who enjoyed the adventure - and inherent risks - of flying, this was no easy task. Although Colonel Kinnaird has seen more countries than he can remember, he never lost his small-town sense of humor.

"If you've ever flown across west Texas, then you know there's a part of it out there where there's nothing but west Texas," Colonel Kinnaird says with a laugh. "It was a foggy day, and I noticed after I took off that things weren't matching up with my watch and my map."

In the late 1930s, many pilots solo-navigated the country using their watches and paper maps. By timing their speed and looking for geographical features, they could accurately calculate where they were on the map. On this particular mission, Colonel Kinnaird realized he wasn't where he was supposed to be.

"I was in a BT-2, which is a big 'ole hunk of wood and fabric, and I landed her in a field," Colonel Kinnaird said. "A highway patrolman happened to be out there on the road and I asked him 'Could you tell me just what part of west Texas I'm in?'"

As he tried to take off again from the field, he had his first brush with death in an airplane.

"Ahead of me was a fence and I wasn't accelerating as well as I should, so I just closed my eyes," Colonel Kinnaird said, shutting his eyes tight for a moment. "The plane made it over the fence, but then it stalled. The right wing went down, and a boxwood tree very neatly removed it. A boxwood on the other side removed the other one. I'll tell you, it's hard to fly with no wings!"

When Colonel Kinnaird's BT-2 returned to earth, the young pilot's first fear was that the 80-gallon fuel tank aboard the airplane would catch fire. He believes he set a speed record for how fast he was unhitched and out of the airplane.

For the Louisville native, this was the first of many times he would come close to being killed while flying an airplane. Soon, he would have to test his skills as a pilot and leader over the Japanese-held islands of the South Pacific.

---
PART II
This is the second of a three-part series on Louisville, Ky. native Col. Eugene Kinnaird, former commander of the 63rd Troop Carrier Squadron. Today the unit is the 63rd Air Refueling Squadron, stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. The following was taken from an interview conducted in January at Kinnaird's home in Louisville, Ky.

For Colonel Kinnaird, flying didn't just provide him with a livelihood; it also linked him to love. Were it not for his enjoyment of acrobatic flying, he may never have caught the attention of a young university student. More than 70 years later, she sits by his side on the couch in their home and tells her part of the story.

"I was in a Spanish class at the University of Kentucky when a plane came flying in between the buildings," Jean Kinnaird said. The professor, Dr. Hernandez, shouted 'There's my friend Kinnaird!'"

When Colonel Kinnaird returned to the airfield at Fort Knox, he was met by his commander.

"He was none too pleased with me," Colonel Kinnaird said.

Colonel Kinnaird asked how the commander knew it was him and not one of the other pilots flying that day. The commander said that the plane's number, written on the wing, was reported.

"I asked if they got it from the bottom of my wing," Colonel Kinnaird said. He chuckled as he answered himself.

"They said no, they got the number from the top of my wing!"

While' barnstorming' was more common in that era, the military did not turn a blind eye. For his aerial acrobatics, he was ordered to live in a pup tent on the runway beside his airplane for a week. Fortunately, Colonel Kinnaird's mission at the University of Kentucky was a success - he and Jean have been married for 70 years. Although there were fewer divorces in the 1940s than there are today, they were not unheard of. When some friends of the Kinnairds' were going through a divorce, the young couple made a pact with each other:

"Dad importuned Mom that they agree to never let anything come between them that would threaten their union. They will celebrate 71 years this August!" said Thomas Kinnaird, one of Kinnaird's sons.

According to another of Colonel Kinnaird's sons, the young pilot made her his first priority then and every year throughout their marriage - his faithfulness to her stands as a testament to their union's success today.

With no immediate use for military pilots like Colonel Kinnaird prior to World War II, he exited the military and worked as an airline pilot for American Airlines, flying DC-2s. The job was going well, and he had high seniority in the new company. One day, he received a telegram from the president.

"I got a message saying, 'You are ordered to report to Patterson Field at your earliest convenience, no later than 24 hours from now,'" Colonel Kinnaird said with a laugh. He did as he was ordered, and joined the ranks of the more than 16 million servicemembers in the United States who fought in World War II.

Colonel Kinnaird and Jean learned quickly that they would rarely call one place home for long while he was serving his country.

It was at this point in 1942 that Colonel Kinnaird was assigned to the newly formed 63rd Troop Carrier Squadron, a unit he would soon come to command. Started as a unit comprised solely of a private, it was quickly assigned pilots and support personnel. Decades later, the unit would be renamed the 63rd Air Refueling Squadron (ARS). Although the 63rd ARS now calls MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. home, it originated in Kentucky. Like many units during this time, it was quickly moved to where it could be of the best use in training its people for upcoming battles. For Kinnaird and his men, this was Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg stands as a testament to the pre-war buildup of troops. In the early 1940s, the base went from hosting just over 5,000 personnel to over 60,000. The 63rd Troop Carrier Squadron was among those shuttled there to practice reconnaissance and paratrooper deployment missions.

"I flew gliders at Fort Bragg, and there was a thunderstorm that killed everyone on board an aircraft (carrying paratroopers)," Colonel Kinnaird said, sadness filling his voice. In one of the hardest duties of his life, he served as the notification official for the servicemembers' newly-widowed wives in the area.

Colonel Kinnaird slows his speech and looks around the room, meeting the eyes of everyone there. He recalls going house to house on the base, and how the women all knew him from the unit and were happy to see him until he gave them the news.

"If you think you've had a hard deal, I'll match that against any deal you've ever had. To tell a young married woman that her husband has been killed ... "

After a few more moves, Colonel Kinnaird was informed he would see duty in the Pacific. He kissed his wife and 2 year-old daughter goodbye, and put on a pendant that he would wear throughout his time in the war. Getting there, however, would require a 16-hour flight to Hawaii - not an easy task in the early 1940s, and especially not in a C-47.

"A C-47 held 800 gallons of fuel, only half of what it would take to get to Honolulu!" Colonel Kinnaird exclaimed. "They had to put an 800 gallon tank of fuel in the fuselage."

The gross operating weight for a C-47 was 25,000 pounds. This was the maximum weight the plane could hold while still be operable and maneuverable, not taking into account the very real the possibility of encountering Japanese forces along the way.

"Before we left 'Frisco,' my plane was weighed in at 31,000 pounds!" Colonel Kinnaird said. On the takeoff, he said that to this day, "I don't know whether I ran out of runway, or whether the plane just kept going."

In addition to be overweight by 6,000 pounds, the six men onboard had to share a five-man life raft. Colonel Kinnaird hoped he had enough fuel for the remaining 16 hours of flight to Hawaii.

"There wasn't nothing down there but water, and you're only seeing the top of it," he said.

After refitting in Hawaii, Colonel Kinnaird and his squadron flew to New Caledonia. Although they maintained strict radio silence and censors monitored their outgoing mail, they were still met with a surprise when they landed on an island that took up just over 6,000 square miles.

"We thought we were super-secret with our codes until we listened to Tokyo Rose on the radio," Colonel Kinnaird said. "When we landed, she said 'Welcome to the Islands, all you guys from the 63rd'!"

The 63rd's tour of duty in the Pacific would be full of surprises - like many of the Allied forces during World War II, it would be how much they could accomplish with so little. "We were part of a transport with the Marines, Air Corps and Navy. We all came together to complete the mission," Kinnaird said.

Although he was very young for a squadron commander by today's standards - Colonel Kinnaird was 25 years old and a captain when he landed on New Caledonia - there were other squadron commanders who were lieutenants, some even younger than him. When not flying missions, the young men did what young men are known for doing - finding ways to make trouble.

Colonel Kinnaird said there wasn't much to keep his squadron occupied when they weren't flying or fixing aircraft. In the great tradition of American patriots, they set about how to make drinks for themselves and their friends. "We would take medical-grade alcohol we got from the doctors and mixed it with synthetic grape juice to make drinks," he said.

Although not the high-quality spirits they were used to, for being on an island somewhere in the South Pacific, they made do. When asked how such a concoction tasted, Colonel Kinnaird's memory served him well:

"It tasted wonderful."

According to Colonel Kinnaird, when his unit was flying supplies onto the Pacific Islands and wounded flying troops off of them, there was nothing they wouldn't carry.

"If we could get the door shut (on the aircraft) we'd try to takeoff," Colonel Kinnaird said. He added that when he thought of all the battles the troops were fighting on the islands his heart went out to them. The same look crosses his face that must've been used to convince his crews to fly on such dangerous missions in a dangerously overweight aircraft as he says "You can't turn those people down."

While Colonel Kinnaird never participated in an aerial dogfight, he did see his share of combat airfields. Military intelligence did its best to let Colonel Kinnaird know which islands to avoid flying over, but sometimes that wasn't enough.

"There's 10,000 islands, and we never knew which ones the Japs were on," Colonel Kinnaird said. "When we flew into Munda, an island north of Guadalcanal, we never shut the engines down. The Japanese had artillery that could come into the airport."

Although he avoided being wounded during his time in the Pacific, not all of his planes were so lucky. On a few occasions, he would land a plane safely on a runway only to find bullet holes punched in the bottom of his aircraft.

Combat supplies and wounded troops weren't all Colonel Kinnaird and his squadron delivered, however. Kinnaird remembers flying Bob Hope to a USO show. Colonel Kinnaird remembers the female singer that accompanied the star more than Bob Hope himself, however.

From the way Colonel Kinnaird speaks of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, it would be easy for a person to think that they knew each other personally. That wouldn't be the truth, but it is pretty close. While Colonel Kinnaird and his men stayed in foxholes and huts, they were usually in eyesight of the cottage that General MacArthur and his family lived in. Built by the Seabees to house the four star general and his family, the cottage stood in stark contrast to the primitive dwellings that surrounded it. Colonel Kinnaird speaks about General Macarthur with the same tone he would use when describing an old friend - always referring to him as 'Dugout Doug.'

"There are a thousand pictures of Dugout Doug walking ashore in the water," Colonel Kinnaird said. He is quick to add "But you can bet your house and lot there were ten thousand soldiers ahead of him waiting on the beach!"

Although many troops who served on the islands never saw rest and relaxation passes to nearby Australia and New Zealand, Colonel Kinnaird's unique position as a pilot and a squadron commander allowed him to see both.

"Six days of every 60 we went on R and R," he recalls. "They just couldn't spare us any more than that."

When in Australia, Auckland was a favorite stopover for Kinnaird and his fellow officers. When asked what they did while on R&R from living in huts and flying seven days a week, his answer is simply:

"We ate!"

On the way back to the war zone, Colonel Kinnaird would often carry back things the troops couldn't get on the island - fresh fruit and meat.

By the end of combat operations, the 63rd was part of a group that earned six purple hearts and one Silver Star for their work in the war.

---
PART III
This is the third of a three-part series on Louisville, Ky. native Col. Euegene Kinnaird, former commander of the 63rd Troop Carrier Squadron. Today the unit is the 63rd Air Refueling Squadron, stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. The following was taken from an interview conducted in January at Kinnaird's home in Louisville, Ky.

At the end of World War II, the Kentucky boy who crashed an airplane in a West Texas field achieved the rank of major and made a major contribution to winning the war in the Pacific. There were plenty of jobs for pilots in the mid 1940s, and Colonel Kinnaird went right back to work with American Airlines. For pilots with commercial airlines, the position of authority decides what preference they have for flights. A pilot with the most seniority today would have first pick of the 250 destinations the airline flies to. Garth Haus had the top position of pilot seniority with American Airlines when he retired.

"I was senior to Garth Haus," Colonel Kinnaird shares with the group around him. "Now that's something!"

Although he survived a war that required him to constantly overload his aircraft, Colonel Kinnaird was not done tempting fate. His job with American Airlines was much less dangerous than the missions he flew in the Pacific, but he still had to contend with aircraft and flying conditions that would be considered unsafe by today's standards.

"We had a stop in Dallas, and the radio said there was a tornado just north of the airport," Colonel Kinnaird says. For some reason, the airport wasn't closed, so he tried to land his DC-3 Airplane (also known as a 'gooneybird') on the runway.

"The wind was such that the gooneybird could just fly on the wind - it just weathervaned there on the runway!" Colonel Kinnaird exclaimed. "Why some of the stuff flying through the air didn't hit my engines, I don't know."

Colonel Kinnaird remained part of the Air Force Reserve, and was required to complete certifications as a pilot with the Air Force to maintain his pilot status. This also provided him the opportunity to fly in the newest airplanes and practice the acrobatic flying he loved so much.

"I was on Randolph Field, flying with an instructor. We had just landed after finishing a mission, so I unbuckled my belt and started to get out of the plane," Colonel Kinnaird said. The instructor told him to stay in the PT-11 plane and fly for another hour. "I sat back down and went back up into the wild blue yonder."

Colonel Kinnaird said he always loved to spin an airplane, and the PT-11 was as good a candidate as any for the acrobatic flying he enjoyed. What he had no practice doing was free-falling.

"It went into its spin, and when I stalled it, out I came," Colonel Kinnaird said. The veteran pilot had forgotten to buckle himself back into the aircraft. "I grabbed the handholds on top of the wing and just hung there! It came back around and I slid myself back in ... I'll tell you, there were a few moments there when I was in doubt!" he said while laughing.

In 1978, after more than 40 years of risking life and limb for his country and for his own enjoyment, Colonel Kinnaird retired from flying and from the military. He had raised children, achieved the rank of colonel, and flown more than 30 different types of airplanes.

Although Colonel Kinnaird shares a special place with other veterans of World War II, his unique legacy plays an important role for many servicemembers - the 63rd Troop Carrier Squadron changed names and places over the years and still exists today. Its present incarnation is the 63rd Air Refueling Squadron, stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. The heroic deeds of Colonel Kinnaird and those in his unit did not come from the fact they regularly performed extraordinary actions, but rather they were ordinary men asked to overcome every obstacle the war presented to them.

"The most important lesson of Colonel Kinnaird is the ability to overcome adversity," said Lt. Col. Erich Novak, the commander of the present-day 63rd ARS. "No matter the obstacles or challenges, he never quit; he just maintained his determination and progressed from (lieutenant) to colonel leading the 63rd through the most dangerous times of its existence."

Colonel Novak today holds the position Colonel Kinnaird once held, and like the World War II veteran, he has to ask servicemembers to take on sometimes impossible challenges and overcome them.

"We are about to enter another very challenging era for the USAF," Colonel Novak said. "To be successful, we will require the principles Colonel Kinnaird demonstrated: dedication, perseverance and adaptability."

Colonel Novak was impressed with the number of planes Colonel Kinnaird said he had flown, and all he had done to gain his experience.

"This is definitely a different era, but the basic principles of being a good aviator and a good leader remain the same - what is expected and what is required to be successful, both then and now," Colonel Novak said.

When Colonel Kinnaird retired in 1978, he had been a pilot for 40 years. In keeping with his humbleness, he threw away most of his memorabilia from his military career. Today, a small shadow box hangs in the entranceway of his home that only begins to tell his story. Men like Colonel Kinnaird don't need large displays capturing their life's deeds - it is easy to see he is just as proud of his family as he is of his military service. The four generations gathered around him share in his laughter and as the evening draws to a close, they leave to remember Gene's stories and to make their own.

Colonel Kinnaird rests on his couch and looks out the window at the snow on the ground outside his Louisville home. He shrugs and smiles as he says:

"You live through it."