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 test targets in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maryland. But he is especially proud he was selected as the missile operator for those maneuvers.

Chuck McKellar took this photo of a “bat” during testing in the 1950s. (contributed)

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.

Chuck McKellar is proud of his time in the military. (contributed)

“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, which, in this case, were icebergs.

But because they traveled only about a half-mile before exploding, the glide bombs were not as successful as the winged torpedoes, McKellar said.

Although he never fought overseas, McKellar, the radio operator for his squadron in Newfoundland, still had a close call. While experimenting with the glide bombs, it was not unusual for McKellar and his comrades to fly up to 12 hours a day, sometimes traveling as far as Alaska and Greenland.

McKellar said after they had been flying for a few hours one day, the pilots fell asleep, forcing the mechanic to take the controls.

Chuck McKellar retired from Alabama Power 32 years ago. (Phil Free / Powergrams)

“We were so used to the roar and vibration of the plane. But we were flying along that day and everything got quiet,” he said. “When the pilots went to sleep, the mechanic turned off the engine for a couple of minutes while he took over, and it liked to scared everybody to death. We thought we were about to go swimming in the ocean.”

McKellar said one of his greatest honors while in Newfoundland grew out of a tragic accident. The rain and fog were persistent in the region. Blinded by fog, one of the other crews flew into a mountain, killing everyone aboard the plane.

Afterward, McKellar was among the squadron members selected to escort the bodies to the funeral and burial at Arlington National Cemetery across from Washington, D.C. During the ceremony, he presented the U.S. flag to the widow of the man who had been his charge on the long train ride to Arlington.

After nine months in Newfoundland, McKellar returned to NAS Patuxent River, where he worked with his unit on the winged homing torpedoes until his tour of duty ended in 1955. He then used the GI Bill to attend the University of Tennessee, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

Cathy said the two of them made a lot of friends while her husband was in the service.

“I always say every time Chuck came home on leave I got pregnant,” said Cathy, who gave birth to their two daughters while McKellar was in the service.

McKellar said he was proud to serve in the military.

“I learned a lot in the service, and it helped me, as far as running a crew at Alabama Power,” he said. “I love working with people. I liked my crew, and they liked me. We took care of each other.”

This story originally appeared in Powergrams.