I was born in Grand Rapids, MN but lived most of my adult civilian life in and around Oklahoma City, OK. In August of 1956, on graduation day from Primary flight training at Bartow AB, FL, I was selected to fly the last T-6 mission in the USAF. I’d been in finals for the Thunderbirds while at the Fighter Weapons School in the Fall of 1964, flunked the “finals” but made DG at FWS with a great bunch of fighter pilots.
In early 1974, I spent a couple of months at Wright-Pat AFB as one of 25 pilots in an Air Force study group formed directly under the AF Chief of Staff. The group’s task was to develop a force modernization and composition strategy for the 1980s & beyond.
I then returned to England AFB to get my own A-7 squadron, the 76th Tactical Fighter Squadron “Vanguards”. I was then selected for the NATO Defense College in Rome (somebody’s gotta do it) in the summer of 1975 while on TDY in Hawaii in support of Army maneuvers. A NATO tour in Naples, Italy followed and from there to Lakenheath, England in 1978 as Base Commander. (Suddenly I was in charge of all those base agencies I used to bitch about.) Realizing my AF flying days were over, I volunteered for and got an assignment in 1980 as head of the AFROTC detachment at the University of Oklahoma where it all started.
It was a great 26 ½ years!!
After retirement, I went to work as VP for Downtown Airpark, Inc., a business aircraft full-service repair facility in Oklahoma City, OK. The company owned the airport, so it was a real mixture of duties. I became Corp. President in 1985 and retired from there in 1994 after which I worked for a gentleman from Guadalajara, MX to develop & promote Mexico’s business aviation trade show until 2003. When I finally decided enough was enough, I bought a small vacation spot on Grand Lake in Northeast Oklahoma and retired fully. Life is good!!!
James E. Kelm, Col USAF, Ret., “Headed West” on July 18, 2024.
James E. (Jim) Kelm, USAF (Ret) Colonel, went to be with the Lord and his wife of 58 years, Connie, on July 18, 2024, at the age of 92.
Jim was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota to Fred and Kay Kelm on January 6, 1932. The family moved to Oklahoma City in 1946, where Jim attended Capitol Hill High School and then Oklahoma University. While at OU, he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, Air Force ROTC, President of the RUF-NEKs, and an OU cheerleader. He majored in Aeronautical Engineering and after graduating in 1955, went to work for Douglas Aircraft Company in Tulsa, OK.
He met his future bride, Connie Caswell at Douglas and they were married on February 11th, 1956. They left immediately for Florida, where Jim began primary pilot training in the U.S. Air Force. Jim graduated first in his class and was selected to advance to jet fighter pilot training. He served as a fighter pilot and in various command positions around the world throughout his 26 1/2-year Air Force career. These included two combat flying tours in Southeast Asia, during which he was shot down and rescued, command of a fighter squadron, Base Commander of the second largest Air Force base in Europe and ending back at OU as Commander of the Air Force ROTC detachment, where it all started.
During this time, he and Connie had 5 children and relocated 16 times. Jim retried from the Air Force on July 31, 1982, and become President of Downtown Airpark, a business aircraft full service and repair facility, in Oklahoma City. He and Connie moved from Norman, OK to Edmond in August of 1985 and vowed they would never move again. Jim served at Downtown Airpark until June 1994, when he left to start his own aviation consulting business. He eased off consulting somewhat in late 2003 when he and Connie bought a vacation lake front property on Grand Lake in NE Oklahoma, and Jim decided that there must be life after the office. He was right…. but he missed flying til the day he died.
A great blessing to both Jim and Connie was that all of their five “children” live in the Oklahoma City/Edmond area. Jim is preceded in death by his beloved Connie, and is survived by their son, Rick and wife Kristi, daughter Kathleen and husband David, daughter Pamela and husband Don, son Jim Jr. (JR) and Nancy Kelm, and son Matt and wife Kathy, 14, grandchildren, and 20 great grandchildren. Jim loved his family and treasured his many friends at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, particularly those in the “A Team”.
He is loved and missed very much! Services were held on Monday, July 29, 2024, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, 9th and Blvd, in Edmond. Military Honorary burial services were held on July 29, 2024, at Rose Hill Cemetery in OKC. Please use the following link to live stream the service https://youtu.be/PM62UBAyUaE.
It was a Saturday, July 28th, 1968, about a month before I was due to rotate back to the States. My replacement, Maj. Val Robertson had arrived at Phan Rang and this was his first ride in-country. Val was in the front seat of the F-100F & I was in the back. Our callsign was “Devil 51”, a single ship flight.
We did a brief tour of central S. Vietnam at medium altitude & then picked a location south of Phan Rang near the coast to practice various types of weapons deliveries, primarily low angle stuff. We were near a small village. I demo’d hi-drag, slick, nape & a strafe pass & then gave the stick to Val to do some. On Val’s first or second pass, I thought I noticed some flashes on the ground off to the side as we were coming in and, in the recovery, the engine blew & smoke filled the cockpit. The smoke was so thick I had to get within a foot of the instrument panel to see it. Of great prominence was the BIG red fire warning light.
I immediately took control of the bird, had Val go to Guard Channel, and made the first of several radio calls (while going for whatever altitude we could get) and headed out over the South China Sea. In the process, I also tried a couple of air starts. I know, I know, the book says that (as I remember) if the engine explodes or is on fire, do not attempt a restart. Believe me, if you only have one engine and that one quits over bad-guy territory, you’re gonna try to get it running. No dice. I told Val that we were going to eject & to get ready. I wasn’t sure how high we were because of no visibility in the cockpit, but I guessed about 3000 feet. Val confirmed he was ready, so I made our final radio call that we were ejecting and raised the handles.
The windblast was impressive when the canopy left & up I went. I immediately went blind, was slammed by something, & then felt the chute open. I realized that my helmet had rotated 90 deg., so I moved it back to its normal position so I could see again. I checked the chute – it looked OK. I looked over my shoulder & saw Val in the distance with a good chute and then I looked for the aircraft. The plane was in a wings-level attitude heading for the coast. It then nosed over & went into the sea.
As I approached the water, I disconnected the mask from the harness, took off my helmet and threw them both into the water. Looking down, the water looked a tad rough. (I found out later there was close to ten-foot swells.) I landed in the water, dumped my chute and attempted to get in my one-man life raft. I got in on my first try by pulling myself in from the small end using the handles – as taught in water survival. The only problem is that I am now laying face down in a raft full of seawater. I forcefully rolled over to a sitting position and rolled right out of the raft! Back to square one. I started my boarding process again. This time both handles on the life raft broke, which made getting in even more interesting, particularly in 10′ swells. I finally got in the raft, gingerly rotated to a sitting position, pulled in my survival kit, and looked around to see if there was anything in sight except water. Nothing. I looked down and there was my helmet floating & bumping up against my raft. I picked it up & placed it in the raft.
I took stock of my physical condition. All was fine except my left shoulder was sore & stung a bit. After a short while, as I topped one of the swells, I noticed a small boat in the vicinity. I popped a flare and in short order, a U.S. Navy patrol boat pulled alongside and a sailor leaned over the side, grabbed my arms at the top of a swell, and yanked me into the boat. I was glad I hadn’t broken anything up to that point because it would have gotten a lot worse when he hauled me into the boat. I had been in the water for only about 20 minutes. I was glad to see him and the whole crew, as you can appreciate, and expressed my thanks to one & all. I also drank every bit of water I could get my hands on. Boy, was I thirsty. They told me at that time that they had been racing a VC gunship to see who could get to me first. I hadn’t seen any other boat before I was picked up. I thanked them all again for a hell of a good job. The boat skipper quickly found Val and they got him on board as well. Shortly thereafter, the rescue helicopter (Pedro) from Phan Rang came and hovered over the boat, hoisted us up, and returned us to Phan Rang.
We were taken to the base hospital and checked over. I had a minor cut on my shoulder which the experts surmised was caused by the seat when I separated. I was released to quarters, but they kept Val overnight for observation though I’m wasn’t sure why. En-route to the Q, I had whoever was driving drop me at the Squadron where, and you may find this hard to believe, I hoisted a few with the guys.
As an aside to this whole thing, while still at the hospital, I asked to call my wife in Phoenix. I tried for over an hour but couldn’t get through. The Wing Commander heard about my problem, got on the horn, and I was connected in about three minutes. As it turned out, my wife had already been informed that something had happened – in a most unusual way. She received a phone call from someone who identified himself as a ham operator for Barry Goldwater. He said that I was down on a mission and missing, but that was all the info he had. He then hung up. She knew basically what “down” meant and, obviously, was shaken. She called the base but they had no information and then called a friend who started making calls. After a while, I was able to get through and reassure her that I was OK. We never found out who had called her initially.
