Boyd N. Owen 1943

When the 39th moved to Salina, Kansas, he was assigned to the Personal Equipment Section and sent to Second Air Force Personal Equipment Training Technician School for further training. Following this he became responsible for inspecting and maintaining all survival equipment used by flight crews as well as that within the aircraft.

He arrived at Guam on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, and served there until October 20 of the same year. Boyd remembers two experiences very vividly. The first was the painful memory of an operation for hemorrhoids. He's convinced that there in the hospital he spent the "worst two or three days of his life." Another incident, this one surprising, happened one day when he ran into a fellow who had bunked next to him in Newfoundland in 1943. He still wonders what the odds were of that happening.

Owen was discharged on November 5, 1946. Eleven days later on the 16th he married Eudola York, a girl he had dated before entering the service. He attributes all of the good things that ever happened to him to their 46-years of blissful marriage to Eudola.

Eudola and Boyd Owen 1986

He retired from a chemical plant in which he worked since 1977. A member of the local United Methodist Church, he has been a Sunday School teacher for nearly 30 years. Boyd is also a member of a nearby American Legion Post and has been elected its Commander three times.

Owen recalls one day during the Vietnam Conflict he sat waiting in a doctor's office. He happened to scanning a St. Louis newspaper and read that where General William J. Crumm, former 61st Squadron CO, had lost his life over the South China Sea. Boyd remembers with sadness, that Crumm had been one of the most respected and best liked officers that he had served under during his service years. Source: Boyd Owen