• Format
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Text
• Extent
  • Duration: 9 pages (transcript)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_MSS01-04_Walters_Kelly_2002-10-19_transcript

Name of interviewer: Kathy Walters Name of interviewee(s): Perry Kelly Date of interview: October 19, 2002 Length of interview: 32:37 Location of interview: Jackson County, NC START OF INTERVIEW Kathy Walters: Mr. Kelly you realize that we are recording this interview. Perry Kelly: Yes, I do. KW: And I have your permission to record it. PK: You do. KW: Can you give me a little bit of your background. Like when you were born. Where you were born and a little bit about your childhood? PK: I was born in Orlando, Florida 1925 and I lived there for a while then moved to Alabama then to Georgia, then to Orlando. I am one of thirteen children in the Family. KW: Are you towards the beginning of the family or? [Laughter] PK: The fourth one. KW: Did you go to school? PK: School Started in Alabama then Georgia in Public Schools. KW: How far in school did you go before you joined the service. PK: Through high school. KW: how did you become interested in joining the military PK: Well, being of the age of military draft, you didn’t have much choice but to be interested in it. I was facing the draft and I knew that the draft would probably put mem in the army, Which I did not want to go into. So I joined the air force instead. KW: So when did you join the air force? PK: December 1946, no. November 1946. KW: So you did not serve during WW2 then? PK: That is WW2. KW: 1946 PK: 1946, we still had the pacific war to win. KW: Okay. PK: The European theater ended in 1946. KW: You told me on the phone that you had been in Hawaii. PK: Yes. KW: Where you there when it was bombed. PK: No, Afterwards. KW: When did you get to Hawaii. PK: I think 1948, no earlier than that. Oh my goodness. Late 47’ I went to Hawaii. KW: Where was the first place they sent you after you joined the air force. PK: Boca Raton, Florida is where I was inducted. Then they sent me to Fayetteville, North Carolina for my uniforms and what not. That was my introduction to an Army base, which I did not like. KW: So then? PK: Then from there to San Antonio Texas. To Fort Kelly Air Force base for basic training. KW: So you went through basic training in San Antonio. PK: San Antonio, yes. Then transferred to Spokane, Washington for school. KW: What kind of training or schooling were they giving you in Spokane. PK: Well in my civilian life before I went into service I was a women’s fashion center display men. So when you go into the air force they look up your civilian occupation was. So they never knew what to do with me. I mean what do you do with a women’s center designer. So then I asked to go into the medical service, so that’s why they sent me to Spokane for medical training. Only to find out that medical training had been closed there a month earlier. So then I did all kinds of nothings around then base until they finally found a school to go to. And they gave me architectural training. Drafting then led me to my occupation. And then transferred me to California and then out to Hawaii. KW: Okay, so when you got to Hawaii was that your first duty station? PK: Yeah. KW: So to Speak, I mean real job after all the training. PK: Yeah, I arrived, first of all after all the processing to San Francisco already told me I was going to Hawaii. And it was pretty safe at that time. I had always wanted to go to Hawaii so I had no problem going. As we were going through processing, one of the boys stamped my soul pack with a south pacific stamp and I knew my brother had been in the south pacific and I knew I did not want to go. So I stopped and said I won’t move until you change that stamp. So I argued with him and held up the line. The officer came out and I explained what was going on. Then the Corporal or whatever stood out and changed my stamp back to Hawaii. Just by saying No I wouldn’t go. When I was in school in Spokane I did the same thing. They were trying to get me into all kinds of school, and when they couldn’t get me into medical school. They decided that I would be a good heavy equipment operator, and I said NO WAY I won’t do it. They said what do you mean you won’t do it. And I said well I just won’t go. They said well we will just send you overseas to be a bulldozer operator! And I said that’s okay I just won’t go either. So they have me a few days, they had me doing odd jobs and finally they said well what about sheet metal worker. And I said I am an artist, I aint working with that cheap metal that cuts my hands. So I got chewed out and sent back to whatever I was doing. Later they called me back again and decided I would make a good refrigeration mechanic. And I said obviously you haven’t looked at what my background is. And I said I won’t do it. So again chewed out and sent back. Then the commanding officer called me and screamed at me about not being in a school. And I explained to him. He said, oh your and artist? Why don’t they put you in drafting school? I said that what I want. So he got on the phone and had me in drafting school in five minutes. Just like that. KW: Seems like you just have to get to the right person. [Laughter] PK: Yeah! So went I went to San Francisco to get transferred I already knew that you could say No. And I said No so then I got to Hawaii and was assigned to Hickam Air Force Base. At that time, I was still in the Unit that does Engineering with the Army. The Engineering Core. So then they separated the Army from the Air Force. Also I was there at the time when the raced were integrated and that was quite an experience to go through that. KW: I can only imagine. PK: My first employment in Hickam was with the designing unit. And we designed glide angle and air fields. Things like that for the south pacific. KW: Okay, so you were actually designing what the runways were and all that. PK: And glide angle for the islands, and things like that. KW: This is for all the different islands as they were occupied, or? PK: Before, some of they before. KW: Oh really? PK: Yeah KW: How would you know how to design them. PK: Well we had to gather very top secret information from all over. My boss was a Korean by the way. He was a civilian. We became good friends. Rather than sitting at a desk drafting and drawing. He assigned me to go gather information. So I went with and armed guard all over the islands to different locations and caves. And had information to bring back so that it could be figured up. KW: Did you go to any of the islands from a ship? PK: No, most of the time it was on the island of Wahhabi. At that time many stations there on the island had tunnels and it was amazing. And you would never know they were there. KW: In Hawaii? I had no idea. PK: Yeah, there was one island when you were driving through the pineapple fields there was a shack. Like a tool shack, it just looked like your normal little tool shack. It was actually the tunnels exhaust from down below. And you were drive for miles around the mountain, then into the tunnel and the gates were so big that you could roll an airplane inside. The elevator took up two floors. That was the kind of stuff I was doing. And I had to have an armed guard at all times. My driver always was armed with a gun. So then while I was working there, word went out that the commander and chief of the pacific forces who was at that time an admiral. Over in pearl harbor needed a draftsman who could type. He really wanted an artist who could type. And I filled the bill. So I got transferred over to pearl harbor. And I lived on a submarine base in pearl harbor but my office was up on the hillside above pearl harbor. And my job was then on the joint chief of staff working with the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Officers. To gather the information from different sources there in the building and prepare the admirals briefing charts. SO then I would take the charts with a guard to an Army base where he was going to briefing. And post his charts and leave the room immediately. Then gathered all this information back up and carefully put it back in the vaults. It was really a great job. KW: Thats a preview to some real top secret level stuff. PK: Yeah, my clearance is like yards long. Amazing and they really came back in Georgia and Alabama and checked back. They told me people would ask about these things and I could not tell anyone. [Laughter] KW: Wow. PK: One thing that I think people overlook. When you call to talk about the War, for every soldier that is out there on the battlefield. And every pilot flying a bomber somewhere that there is a whole battery of people backing them up. And that is not often thought about. If you think of a musician in a band, you don’t hear much about him. But without them there, the army would be quite different. The Artists that go in have their duties to do and if necessary they would have to fight also, of course. We back up our teams. I lived in the barracks on time and the guy right across from me could be an engineer right out on the field or mechanic. Or a pilot, it was very interesting meeting so many different types of people. KW: Yeah you got to realize how many different types of people came together during the war. PK: Yes, my role in the Air Force was a pivotal point in my life. Absolutely turned me around. KW: The tunnels that you were talking about. Who built those? PK: We did. KW: We built the tunnels? PK: Even before pearl harbor some of the tunnels were already in place. The admiral and his staff had a secret passage that would take them up in the mountains very fast. Like a little railroad car underneath the tunnel. Also up in the mountains above pearl harbor. There were large storage tanks, fuel tanks that were accessible from below. KW: So this had all been put in place before the pearly harbor attacks. PK: Yes a lot of it. KW: So I guess the quick getaway that they had for the upper echelon for the fear of the invasion? PK: Yes or the bombing. KW: Going back to the joining the army completely changed your life? Real interested in hearing why that was such a pivotal point to you. PK: When I finished high school and was working the design job. There is not a lot of future to it. You know, you can decorate those windows and things all day. And these windows were as big as my dining room. Very large windows with fashion scenes. KW: Now where was this again? PK: You know Orlando. KW: Oh Okay. PK: So after being in that a couple of years, I could see that I had to do something else. I had to grow. And I needed to do something else. And I didn’t know where to go. So I joined the Air Force. The people I met during that time and that experiences that I had just changed my life totally. I had never been exposed to so much. Having been a southerner and having limited exposer. It was amazing, I mean my best friend was an actor from New York. Another one was a Baptist minister’s son from North Carolina. We hitchhiked across a lot of the country. One was an enthusiast for music in New York. And he introduced me to Opera and Classical music. I remember in Hawaii that a band had come to play and I couldn’t get off base at the time. So I went to the commanding officer and he said Hell Yes if you want to go hear a band. By god you can. So he wrote a special note for me to be able to leave the base. Experiences like that just opened up everything for me. And then I met people who were artists and my interest were there already. So then when I was coming home aboard the ship after my service, a friend and I were standing over the railing talking about the future. I asked him what he was going to do? He said, well I am going back to Hawaii. I said what are you going to study? He said I am going to study Philosophy. I said well there’s nothing more useless than Philosophy. I said well I am going back and I’m going to study art. He said, well why not? And I said Okay. So we both went back to Hawaii to study Art and Philosophy. And the funny thing was I never saw him again after we enrolled in school and went different ways. KW: So you were on the ship to come home and got to the US, only to decide to turn around and go back to Hawaii. [Laughter] PK: Yes! KW: That’s interesting. PK: Came back and I had enrolled in the University of Florida from the University of Hawaii using the GI Bill. That opened up education for me, I mean I couldn’t afford it and my parents couldn’t afford it. I got to the University of Florida, and they took me to my dormitory and it was a Quancid Hut. I said, I’ve been in that 3 years and I am not fooling with that again. And I just, that night caught a plane back to Hawaii. And enrolled in the classes there. And then while in Hawaii I met a lot of people. Like Burt Reynolds who I had never known. Good experiences with meeting people. Even my studies I enjoyed so much. On Saturday mornings I had an English class, and right after I took Hula down at the beach. So I would leave my classroom and rush to Hula and lay on the beach all day. KW: Now that sounds like a great idea. PK: My introduction to hula was in the ancient Hawaiian hulas were men’s dances not women’s dances at all. And it was either War or Sex rituals. And those were the dances that I learned to do. I actually performed and made the parade and all that stuff. KW: That’s fascinating. PK: Ha-ha Yeah! the first Caucasian to ever do that. [Laughter] KW: So how long were you in the Air Force. PK: 3 years. KW: So when you joined for what 3 years. So in essence when you got done with the service you didn’t go all the way back home to Orlando? PK: Yeah, Sure I went back home. And then went to the University of Florida. Then the next day flew back to Hawaii. I went to finish my freshman year there and was studying Art. And I had an idea that I wanted to go into commercial Art. In order to do that I felt that I needed to be on the mainland. So I came back the Florida and finished my bachelor’s degree there. Well actually a bachelor’s design degree from Florida. Then I went into commercial Art with a advertising firm in St. Augustine. After a little over a year of that, I went back and got my master’s degree in education. And the GI Bill still paid for that. So I then was teaching in Orlando for five years. Then went back to get my Doctorate’s. And got an Art education in Pottery. KW: Oh my goodness. That’s fascinating. PK: So you see how it changed my life. Totally. KW: Yes, I can. I never thought along those lines about the GI Bill. But your right. PK: Intact I am still in contact with some people I met in Hawaii during that experience. KW: When you came back home after you got out of the Air Force. Did Orlando seem different to you or? Did you feel different about being home? PK: Well I didn’t see the place where I lived or the city differently. I see my place in it differently. It was still a wonderful, Orlando was lovely with lakes and had brick paved streets around and all that. And heavy moss oak trees. It was a very pleasant place to live. So that had not changed, but I had changed so that I saw it differently. Then I was in school, the University of Florida. Most of the time was not in Orlando. KW: How did your family react to you being home after being gone. PK: Very differently. My father was a family man, and when I grew up everything was family oriented. Now we all worked for the family. A large group, a family of thirteen kids. You got to stick together. I grew up as one of the Kelly boys. So it was a Unit that survived by pulling together. Even to the point where in high school I had a science project. Future Farmers of America project, and when came to sell the produce, Corn, Pig or something like that. The money really went to the family. Not to me personally, I got some things from it. But none of it was mine. It was the family’s. So when I came home it was the first time that I think my father had spoken to and treated me like a man. I was no longer a boy. I was the man. So I was no longer one of the Kelly boys. I was Perry. And Also it was the first time that he had ever confided in me some things that were troubling him, personal things that were troubling him. He asked me to go for a ride and he talked to me about them. So I felt, oh man It was great. [Laughter] KW: Ha-ha. Well you were no longer a child and he didn’t see you as a child anymore. How about your mother. PK: My mother had died when I was in the fourth grade. My stepmother. I was raised by my step mother. So my family consists of kids from both mothers. KW: Yeah a large family. PK: And the change that came about with me after I came back was really just opening up the world to me. KW: What do you think would have happened if you would have not gone into the Air Force. [Laughter] PK: Ha-ha. Oh Lord. I hate to think. I would still be. I don’t know maybe a grocery delivery boy or something. Another thing happened to me while I was an undergraduate at Florida. I had a professor there that I liked very much. He was a Humanities professor. I worked for him some as an office aid and so he had just come back from the European area after the war and wanted to travel back over there, So in 1958 he asked me to assist him with a group going back. We took 34 people on a tour of Europe, Twelve countries. Well that opened up another world and I was absolutely with Europe and I loved touring. I was teaching Art and world geography and the two went together so well. So next year the company I was with wanted me to take another group the next year. They wanted me back. So I took another group 4 times to Europe. Mine were usually mostly college kids. And I enjoyed it very much. But that experience got me into traveling. So I have been to 36 foreign counties and most 4 or 5 times. I have been to China 6 times. And in May I go back for my 7th trip. I have lectured in China, I have exhibited there too. And in Denmark, I have been to Russia 4 times and Siberia and around the world. So that experience after the war and being in college for this kind of person just opened up the whole world. We are still in contact by the way. That professor is 94 years old now living in Houston, Texas. KW: That’s wonderful, so if it hadn’t been for you going with the Air Force. You kept from being drafted into the Army, none of this most likely would have never happened. PK: You have to realize at that time, because of the draft. All the Armed Forces consisted of a very wide range of people from all professions. All intellect. All motivations. KW: So with the draft they were taking anybody and everybody. And you may end up with an interesting group, yeah. PK: One of things about my life that I have observed. People have opened doors for me and I stepped through. An opportunity presented itself and I stepped through. I was working in a grocery store in Orlando as a bag boy right after High School. And this Jewish woman ran it. Wonderful women. It was the first time I had ever met a Jew. I didn’t know what they were like at all. We were very good friends and then one day she said to me that the way I arrange the produce in the window, the carrots, radishes etc. You have an art flare; you know just how to do it to make it look good. She told me I should be in Art. I said I don’t know what the relationship is between carrots and art but she laughed and said there is. She said look at the display windows down town and I will talk to you. So I looked at the windows down town and I came back the next day. So she said the way you arranged those items are the same way you are displaying them right here. She said I am going to get you and interview. And sure enough in two weeks I had a job in the women’s fashion center. So she opened the door for me. And I have always been grateful for that. Then the professor that I was talking about. He opened the door to international travel for me. That friend in Hawaii really opened the door to me for going to Hawaii. AUDIO ENDS

Perry Kelly (Dr. Isaac Perry Kelly, 1925-2018) is interviewed by Kathy Walters on October 19, 2002. Mr. Kelly was born in Orlando, Florida in 1925. He lived there for a while until he moved to Alabama, then Georgia, only to return to back Orlando. He is the fourth of thirteen children. Upon turning 18 and facing the Army draft, which he was not interested in, Mr. Kelly joined the United States Air Force in November of 1946.

• Creator
  • Kelly, I. Perry (Isaac Perry), 1925-2018
• Contributor
  • Walters, Kathy
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 2002-10-19
  • Date: 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s;
  • Date digitized: 2019-02-14
• Extent
  • Duration: 32:37 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 9 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • Aircraft drafting
  • Autobiography
  • Educators
  • Hickam Air Force Base (Hawaii)
  • Kelly, I. Perry (Isaac Perry), 1925-2018
  • United States. Air Force -- Officials and employees
  • Veterans -- Education -- United States
  • Western Carolina University -- Faculty
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • North Carolina, Western
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • Western North Carolina Oral History Project Collection
• Identifier
  • HL_MSS01-04_Walters_Kelly_2002-10-19
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library