TRAVERS TRAVERSES GLOBE FOR U.S. NAVY

Charles Travers stands in front of a SNJ Texan training aircraft in Pensacola, Fla., in 1954.

Travers flew this C54 Navy 8 support plane for the Blue Angels.

Travers flew this C121. This aircraft is also referred to as a "Connie." It was used in the Military Air Transport Service.

Today Charles Travers helps people with their income taxes at H&R Block, but from 1954 to 1974 he flew to just about every destination on the planet for the U.S. Navy.

Travers went to Pensacola, Fla., for flight training on May 8, 1954. The first 16 weeks Travers went through physical training and classroom instruction in navigation, engines, naval orientation, military drill and survival swimming.

After that he learned to fly airplanes at NAAS Corry Field in Pensacola, Fla. Travers trained on a SNJ Texan, a conventional geared plane powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-1340 radial engine.

He would train in many different areas from precision flying to acrobatics. Later, Travers trained at NAAS Barin Field in Pensacola, Fla., in bombing, gunnery and carrier landings.

He practiced carrier landings on the USS Monterey, it was an old World War II vintage straight deck carrier.

After more training at Corry Field it was off to Hutchinson, Kan., where Travers was an advanced cadet.

In Kansas, he would fly the SNB, a twin-engine beechcraft. There he learned to think multi-engine while flying. Travers got to fly a few cross-country flights while in Kansas.

The next plane Travers would train in was the P2V Neptune, a large twin-engine patrol bomber with Curtiss-Wright R-3350 engines. After that, he trained in a four-engine PB4Y-2 Privateer.

In the Privateer, Travers performed some over the water flights to practice LORAN (long range navigation system) and celestial navigation.

On Dec. 5, 1955, Travers received his Gold Wings. His first orders were to report for duty at Hickham Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii.

He was in the Navy squadron VR-7 which was attached to the Air Force as a part of Military Transport Command.

There he had to fly under strict Air Force regulations. He received a lot of good training in handling large aircraft.

Travers flew all over the Pacific to places like Wake Island, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Guam, Midway and many other Pacific Ocean locales. Travers also got to see a lot of Southeast Asia as well as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Travers described Wake Island as a place with a runway and a golf course. He also said there was Japanese and American fighter wreckage in the brush and a Japanese freighter that ran aground years ago was slowly eroding away near the runway.

Travers was logging a bunch of flight hours. It was the beginning of the Cold War.

Travers progressed from navigator to second pilot to first pilot to aircraft commander during this tour of duty.

"I was the youngest person ever to be designated an aircraft commander in the R7V Super Constellation," Travers said.

Midway through the tour with the VR-7 the squadron was transferred to NAS Moffet Field in San Jose, Calif.

The flights remained the same for Travers. He flew to Pacific Ocean destination, domestic destinations and Southeast Asia.

Travers was given new orders to join the VR-3 at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J., in December 1958.

Travers stopped at home in Missouri on his way to New Jersey and renewed his friendship with Barbara Lackey from Sikeston. He had met her on leave a few months before. The two would marry on July 5, 1959.

With the VR-3 he was flying C-118Bs, the military version of the DC-6. His routes changed to North Atlantic and European routes with some flights to South America and Africa.

"I also took a trip to Iran which was close to the Soviet border so we had to be very careful not to fly over their territory," Travers said.

Travers finished his tour with the VR-3 and he went back to Pensacola, Fla., and back to the Navy.

"I was looking forward to instructing, but when I arrived they said that what they really needed was an officer of my experience in operations flying their transports."

Here Travers began flying the support plane for the Blue Angels. In one year, Travers went to 78 shows across the country.

He often had to leave a day before the Blue Angels to make sure his slower transport plane would be there on time to meet them.

"They didn't call that thing the lead sled for nothing."

The support plane was a Navy 8, a C54 painted blue with a big 8 on the tail.

He was at Pensacola during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during the crisis, Travers busied himself with transporting the Training Command football team to Mexico City.

His next tour of duty was at Barber's Point, Hawaii. Travers thought his luck with mostly warm climate bases was up. He expected to be sent someplace cold, but he lucked out again and was back in Hawaii.

He was with VR-21. At this time he and Barbara had a 2-year-old daughter. In 1966, their second daughter was born.

The VR-21 was another transport squadron. Different Hawaiian clubs would ask Travers to pick up Alaskan king crab on his flights to Alaska.

Travers was a pretty popular man when he would arrive back in Hawaii with the fresh king crab from Kodiak, Alaska.

But during this tour the big buildup of American forces in South Vietnam began and Travers would have to make numerous flights to South Vietnam cities like Da Nang and Saigon.

He saw some gunfire, "but nothing ever hit me."

Travers was transporting supplies and troops to South Vietnam. On one mission he had some special cargo for Navy star football player Roger Staubach.

Travers delivered a load of footballs to Staubach while he was in Vietnam. Travers said he enjoyed meeting Staubach and Staubach seemed to enjoy Travers and his cargo.

Staubach finished his tour of duty and went on to become a Pro Football Hall of Famer for the Dallas Cowboys.

Travers said he spent some time in San Francisco, Calif., and he saw some war protesters in the Haight-Ashbury district. He got to see both sides of the story and he said that both sides had some good points.

Well, by May 1974 it was time to retire from the Navy. Travers logged more than 13,000 hours of flight time while flying to every continent with the exception of Antarctica.

He decided to farm for awhile, but he soon reverted back to his old ways and went to Perryville to work for Rockwell-Sabreliner.

"Those were the first planes I ever flew where everything worked on them."

He left Sabreliner and sold motorcycle parts to dealers in surrounding states for awhile before he and his wife got into real estate.

His wife is still in real estate at Century 21 Key Realty while Travers went into the tax preparation business more than 10 years ago.