MAINE AIR GUARD CELEBRATES MILESTONE Charter members of 101st recall Guard’s early years

BANGOR – Early in 1947, 21/2-ton Army trucks rattled down state roads collecting hundreds of young men from Bucksport to Bangor. Undeterred by winter’s chill or summer’s sultry heat, members of the Guard stationed at Dow Air Force Base climbed into the back of the canvas-enclosed truck eager to earn government wages.

“Those [trucks] were pretty darn drafty in the wintertime in the back,” said Ken Rowell Sr., one of two known surviving charter members of the 101st Air Refueling Wing. “But a PFC [private first class] in the Guard got $2.50 a day for two hours of work. That’s $1.25 an hour. That was big money back then.”

In his civilian job, Rowell earned $0.52 an hour. With the Guard offering such enticing pay, young men lined up in droves in January 1947 to enlist in the unit.

When Rowell, who had turned 18 only two weeks earlier, signed his name on the dotted line that day, he pledged his allegiance to the Guard and to the World War II veterans who had just returned home victorious after years of battle overseas. When he underwent his physical examination, he stood next to the second group of men enlisting as charter members in the Guard: those just as young as he.

Rowell, 78, still chuckles at one part of his first military physical exam.

“We had to give a urine specimen, and we had to use Coke bottles because that’s all they had,” Rowell said with a laugh. “All I did for the next few years was drink Pepsi.”

While Rowell represented the youth who enlisted that day, Joe Murphy already was a seasoned vet.

Murphy, the only other known surviving charter member of the Maine Air Guard, served in World War II with the Army Air Corps 357th Fighter Group and returned home from Germany in 1945. After joining the Guard in Augusta one day before the Bangor wing opened, he transferred to the 101st within months.

“When we came home from all over the Pacific and Europe, we really made up the backbone of the Air Guard,” said Murphy, 83.

While the 21/2-ton trucks drove around collecting unit members for the first few years, Murphy frequently found himself walking to the base from his home in Brewer. With his wife, Tina, and six children at home, Murphy explained with a smile, he always lost the battle for the keys to the family car.

When Murphy retired from the wing after almost four decades, he still was known as “No car Joe.”

While the Bangor Guard initially was part of the Army Air Corps until it became part of the newly established Air Force seven months later, it struggled to find its identity and organize itself as a single force. Rowell said he worked in the unit for a year before receiving a complete military-issued uniform.

“My father was in the Coast Guard Reserve in World War II, and I was still wearing his old peacoat in the winter,” he said.

Charter members did not complain about their mismatched uniforms though, because camouflage and patches did not adequately represent the pride they had in being the founding fathers of the Maine Air Guard.

Murphy, who spent his career in supply at the base, said he learned important life lessons from his years of service.

“The Air Force changed me really,” said Murphy. “There are a lot of guys smarter than you, and it’s really humbling.”

“We were proud to be called weekend warriors because we were proud to be better and cheaper than the [active duty] Air Force,” Rowell said. “It’s the longest 40-hour-a-week job in Bangor. It wasn’t just go to work, go home and forget about it. You had to be ready for what came.”