Ron and Sue Wall - Our Family Photos

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Page 4 1962-1965

1962 - brother Mike with his dog Peanuts

June 1962 Armed Forces Day, Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas; pictured is the C-47 used by the Navy's parachute team, the Chuting' Stars. In the background a C-119 Flying Box Car.

Graduation day, Radio Intercept Analysts, Goodfellow, AFB, May 1962. Arranged front to back by our class ranking. The airman on my left is Bob Burns from Oklahoma who was given a medical discharge for Diabetes. He remained a good friend of mine until we left San Antonio in 1970.

1962 - graduate photo from Security Service tech school, San Angelo, Texas and my second stripe. Soon after I met Sue and we were engaged. She couldn't resist the uniform

My '56 Chevy Belaire I purchased in Ohio in 1960 after finishing high school. In June 1962, on leave before leaving for Japan, Mom, Art and I went back to Ohio for it. On the drive back to Arkansas we stopped Mishawaka, Indiana at the home of Mom's ex-husband, Harvey Donath. Left to right - Harvey, Mom, Mike and Art.

Art and Mike at Harvey Donath's in Mishawaka. Art traded his 1956 pink and gray Buick for a 1960 Chevy Corvair.

June 1962, Mom's house in Crawford County, Arkansas. She used the car while I was in Japan, but she needed money she traded it in for a much older car for cash difference without my permission. I was spittin' nails when I found out. I learned a lesson to be careful giving a power of attorney.

My transportation from Travis AFB in Sacramento, California to Tokyo, Japan, a MATS C-121 Super Constellation, with a one hour refueling stop on Wake Island, a tiny dot in the middle of the Pacific. The crew navigated using LF radio LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) and the oldest navigation instrument except the compass, a sextant. Total trip time, 36 hours in very uncomfortable seats. This photo is of MATS C-121 owned by the modern Commemorative Air Force (CAF).

Wake Island is 3,500 miles west of Honolulu and 1,500 miles south east of Tokyo in the Marshal Islands. It is now a U.S. wild life refuge and bird sanctuary. Pan Am flew this route with a refueling stop at Wake in the Constellation commercial passenger version during the 1930's, 40's and 50's until commercial jet aircraft, which could fly from California to Japan non-stop, replaced it.

Wake Island is the home of the huge Albatross, a bird with more than an eleven-foot wing span. Hundreds of these birds were beside the runway when we refueled at Wake. Because of their large wings they can soar indefinitely for long distances without flapping their wings, diving down to catch fish when hungry.

U.S. Navy and civilian person ell that operated the LORAN and refueling station on Wake named them "Gooney Birds" because of their silly mating dance and awkward take off. The birds are so large that they need a running start to catch enough wind beneath their wings to fly and is the only time they flap their wings. For some reason the nickname came to be applied to U.S. Air Force C-47's by their crews.

September 1962, 6986th RGM, Wakkanai Air Station, Japan, My home for fifteen months. Wakkanai AS was located in northern most Japan on Soya Point the island of Hokkaido.

1962 Japanese school near the base

October 1962, Wakkanai, northern most point of Japan, during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis the Soviet Union island of Sakhalin in the Sea of Okhotsk is thirty miles to the north.

October 1962, a Japanese pagoda in the village of Soya, which we called Wakkanai, is now incorporated into the city of Wakkanai located twenty miles, as the bird flies, southwest of Cape Soya where the base was located.

1962 me and Japanese fishing boat on the beach near Wakkanai Air Station

Mail and supplies for Wakkanai Air Station were flown there by a C-46 Commando. In 1963 I was sent to Misawa Air Base on the northern tip of Honshu Island about 340 miles south of Wakkanai for training on some SIGINT equipment. I flew to Misawa and back to Wakkanai on a C-46, which at the time I thought was a huge airplane. Pictured above is "Tinker Bell", the C-46 owned and flown by the Commemorative Air Force

Some sort of monument on the beach near Soya point, October 1962

Friend TSgt "Van" Vanbuskirk on his unicycle. The Japanese kids in Wakkanai loved to follow him and called him "Circus".

Meanwhile, back home

1962 Billie Jean Miller and sister Carolyn Sue Whitsett, Fort Smith, Arkansas. Sue is wearing a house coat I sent her from Japan

Christmas 1962 Sue and Cathy

1962, Sue's mother Bonnie DeLois "Lois" Miller with the transistor radio I sent her from Japan for Christmas. This was the latest technology way back then.

1962 Carolyn Sue Whitsett - the photo I kept on the dresser in my dorm room while stationed at Wakkanai

1963, Tokyo, Japan - While waiting for our flight home a friend from Wakkanai, Jerry Essington and I took a bus tour of Tokyo. That's us back row, 2nd and 3rd from the left. We were the only Americans. Our tour guide is on the extreme right. Jerry and I came back to the states together arriving at Travis AFB on November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. His parents asked me to spend the night at their house in Sacramento and they drove me to the San Francisco airport the next day. I changed planes at Dallas Love field where the President's casket was loaded on Air Force One just the day before.

1963 Sue and Cathy with their first nephew, Randy Primm, son of Belva Kay, Fort Smith, Arkansas

1963 Sue (right) with sister Billie Jean Miller (now Womack) Fort Smith, Arkansas two days before our wedding

Sue's sisters, Christine and Cathy Miller, Fort Smith, Arkansas with their new Christmas dolls, 1963

Brother Loy Michael White, Van Buren, Arkansas, ca.1963

1963 - Brother Mike Van Buren, Arkansas

1963, Brother Mike and his parakeet, Van Buren, Arkansas

April 1, 1963 Sue's 17th birthday with the cake my mother baked for her and my little buddy, Sputnik in the daffodils - my grandparents place, Van Buren, Arkansas

October 1963, Sue at Devils Den State Park, Crawford County, Arkansas a month before I came home from Japan.

December 04, 1963, Art, Mike, Mom and me two days before our wedding

Brides' dressing room, our wedding, Fort Smith, December 6, 1963. Left to right, Sue's sister Billie Jean Miller soon to be Mrs. Ronnie Womack, Carolyn Sue Whitsett, soon to Mrs. Ronald Wall, and Sue's cousin and maid of honor Shirley Allen.

Our wedding reception - trying to figure out this ring thing, with Billie Jean and Ron Womack

Left, Billie Jean's bridesmaid, me and Sue, Shirley Allen and Sue's mother Lois Miller

1964 - brother Mike, Mom and Sue at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas

1964, Padre Island, Texas - Sue is pregnant with our son Bruce

January 1965, our first child, son Bruce Edward Wall, San Antonio, Texas

Ronald N. Wall

Modified: 19 January 2023