Maj. Ralph O. Rogers Usaf (Ret) Obituary (1933

Let Us Pause To Honor the Memory of Mr. Ralph Owen Rogers Mr. Ralph Owen Rogers, age 81, of Hanover, Indiana, entered this life on December 3, 1933 South of Canaan, Indiana on the family farm. He was the loving son of the late, William Shirley and Neva D. Brinson Rogers. He was raised South of Canaan and on Graham Road. He was raised in the Hebron Baptist Church and was of the Baptist faith. Ralph was a 1952 graduate of North Madison High School. In November of 1953 Ralph entered the United States Air Force after a year of college at Purdue. He qualified for the Cadet-Training program and trained as a radar observer after completion of that program. Commissioned a Second Lieutenant, on December 26, 1954 he was united in marriage to Ruth Ann Griffin at the Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Madison. This union of 29 years was blessed with three sons, Terry, Cliff and Scott. He would soon move to Alaska and there he rode in the back seat as the radar observer in F-89 All Weather Fighter Interceptors. Toward the end of that tour he applied for and was accepted for pilot training. He finished pilot training at the top of his class. He served at air bases in Texas, Indiana, Nebraska, California and Washington and did TDY ( temporary duty) in a few foreign countries. He served as co-pilot in B-47's for a few years while assigned to the Strategic Air Command. The B-47 was a 6 engine jet bomber and during the cold war they were an integral part of our air defense system. In the early 1960's Ralph was assigned as an Air Force Pilot Instructor in T-37's at Valdosta, Georgia. He spent about three and a half years teaching young officers to fly and watch them leave for Southeast Asia to fight in the war. At the end of that tour he trained as a forward air observer and left for Southeast Asia to fly the OV-10A Bronco. The Bronco was an aircraft used by forward air controllers during the Vietnam era. It was a twin turboprop airplane that cruised at about 250 miles per hour and was armed with "Willy Pete" smoke rockets used to mark targets for the "fast ones"(jet fighters and fighter bombers) who would then come in to engage the enemy. Ralph's main job was to fly over the Ho Chi Minh trail, the supply artery used by the North Vietnamese to supply their troops in the South. The trail was not just one road but many and a large part of it went through Laos. Flying out of Nakhom Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base (NKP) and later out of Ubon Royal Thai AFB in Thailand, Ralph flew most of his missions over Laos. At NKP Ralph was the scheduling officer for the squadron. Later at Ubon AFB he would serve as the Operations Officer. He had his pick of which missions he wanted to fly. He scheduled himself many of the toughest missions because he didn't think he should send a lieutenant to do something he would not want to do. Headquarters assigned lots of missions, such as blowing up roads and bridges. So he flew specific missions as scheduled or he flew search missions to look for targets along the trail. Ralph searched for trucks and for anti-aircraft guns most of the time. He especially looked for gun positions because they presented the most danger to him and his fellow pilots. He was so proficient at finding them and directing attacks to take them out that his fellow pilots called him "gun killer." He says they were not that hard to find. The antiaircraft gun crews would go out into the jungle every day and cut trees and brush to use as camouflage to hide their guns. Human nature being what it is, they did not go any further into the jungle than they needed and eventually the area around was somewhat denuded of vegetation. From the air, a gun position soon looked like a donut with the gun being in the green hole in the center of the donut. Once he found the donut his job changed to that of directing the air strikes against it and then doing bomb damage assessment (BDA). When satisfied the target was destroyed he continued looking for more targets. A mission was typically about four hours of flying time in an OV-10A. Ralph flew 205 missions during his tour in Southeast Asia. He told me about a couple of them. One mission earned him The Distinguished Flying Cross. On the 12th of March in 1970 Ralph flew his unarmed OV-10A into what was designated by the 7th Air Force as an antiaircraft high threat area. It was nighttime and he was flying over the jungle looking for targets when he spotted two stationary sets of truck lights in the jungle below. He called in two A-1 fighter/bombers. They each made runs on the targets and missed the trucks but set off secondary explosions nearby. He had accidentally located a heavily defended logistics complex. The weather was marginal and the antiaircraft fire was intense. But he stayed on station "with complete disregard for his own safety" and directed strikes, which resulted in more than 20 trucks being destroyed and over 100 secondary fires and explosions. When he left the area four hours later due to low fuel, his last observation was that the two trucks were still there with the headlights still on. Ralph's awards include the United States Air Medal and eleven clusters. His skill in an aircraft was outstanding. His courage matched his skill. During one mission Ralph was sent to fly down a valley that was known to be "hot and heavily defended". He was to find the targets and then call in strikes on them. The first time down the valley was pretty bad: bad enough that he decided he did not want to do it again. So he decided that rather than fly down the valley again to mark the targets, he would just come in from the side, pop over the mountain, fire a "Willy Pete" at a target and turn right back over the mountain in the direction from whence he came. Then the fast ones flew in and dropped their bombs. When they asked for BDA (bomb damage assessment) he flew back down the valley and marked the targets again. The fighter/bombers went in again. When they asked for BDA again, Ralph said, "Ah, come on guys, the last time I flew down that valley it was really bad. Do you really have to have the BDA?" They assured him they did; so he started down the valley again while they circled above watching. Once again the antiaircraft fire was heavy and from every direction. About the time he was halfway down the valley, one of the fighter pilots above called out "OK Nail (his call sign). You've got big balls. Get the hell out of there." He got out! One favorite trick the Vietnamese had to lure American pilots into danger was to use captured American radios to make distress calls. They would turn on the emergency radio frequency and pretend to be a downed pilot in need of rescue. On one occasion, Ralph picked up one of those signals and began searching for it. He traversed the sector a couple of times until he knew exactly what longitude it was on and then started traveling that course on the compass. His directional radio needles would roll over when he passed over the emergency radio and he soon knew about where it was. But he did not descend to pick up a visual sighting because he had heard nothing about any Americans being down in that sector. The Vietnamese soldier on the ground soon grew weary of hearing the airplane up there but not being able to coax it within gun range. So he decided to tease Ralph a little with the words "Hey Pilot(piewot). If you can find me, you can have me." Just then the needles rolled over indicating he was directly below the Bronco. Ralph armed his rockets; rolled the plane inverted and fired off four "Willy Pete" rockets straight down. It must have become very uncomfortable down there, because he heard no more signals from that radio. On another occasion Ralph and other FAC's were told to cross the border into North Vietnam to search for guns and destroy them. Those were unusual instructions as the rules of engagement normally dictated no incursions across the border. It took only a few minutes to locate a gun emplacement. North of the border the Vietnamese had not even bothered to try to hide them because they had never been challenged. When Ralph flew over, the gunners came out and watched him. I'm sure they were pretty surprised when they were attacked. After destroying the gun Ralph continued his hunt for more. Not finding another right away, he noticed on the trail below a convoy of trucks parked headed south. He reported the trucks and was told that they were looking for guns not trucks and were not authorized to attack the trucks. He then "noticed" a gun right in the middle of those trucks and directed an air strike against it. The strike aircraft proceeded to use a lot of ordinance in the area of the reported gun, destroying a lot of trucks but never seeming to destroy the gun. Replacement strike aircraft coming on to the scene were also told about the trucks and they also advised him they were not allowed to destroy trucks, just guns. But they happily joined in the attack on the gun that no one could seem to destroy. When Ralph returned to base, he was immediately summoned to the General's office and verbally reprimanded. Ralph's defense that they were shooting at a gun was rejected with the General saying "I'm not an idiot, I know what you were doing!" No written reprimand was ever filed. Ive heard Ralph tell a couple of humorous tales on himself. Ralph liked to dogfight when returning to base from missions. Lot's of pilots like to dogfight because they can hone their skills in competition with one another and because some fun was usually welcome along with the serious work they were engaged upon. Since he scheduled the missions for the squadron, he knew who was flying, where they should be and which aircraft they were in. One day while returning from a mission but still over enemy territory, he saw a plane flown by a Captain (Nail 32) in his outfit. He was a good friend so he "bounced" (engaged him in combat). They fought furiously, starting out by charging each other head to head, then trying to maneuver behind one another to get into a position for a "kill". Most pilots use speed to get the advantage. Ralph understood that he could turn sharper at lower speeds. So as the other plane sped past him he pulled up, gained altitude, dropped off his airspeed and turned in tight behind the other OV10A. All he had to do then was stick in tight behind him and the dogfight was over. A few minutes later Ralph got a call over the radio from a Colonel P----- who asked "Hey Nail 39, Are you over Sector Charlie?" "No, Nail 32 is over there today." On his return to base he found the Captain looking rather forlorn and unhappy. "What's the matter", he asked. "I don't know, Colonel P----- just came by and asked; who do you think you are, the Red Baron." Ralph thought a couple of seconds. " Did you just come back from a mission in tail #895? The Captain answered, "I was scheduled to fly it but Colonel P----- took it instead." Ralph realized he had just bounced the Colonel. He had to go to the Colonel and confess that he had just "shot him down" over sector Charlie. On another mission, Ralph was doing a new pilot orientation over the Ho Chi Minh trail, showing a new guy how to search for targets and stay out of trouble. He wanted to help the guy feel he would be fairly safe if he just followed all the precautionary measures and took no chances. He told him that he had actually never seen anyone shoot at him although other pilots insisted he was taking fire every day but it would burst above the airplane. "If you actually see any round coming up, let me know." Shortly afterward the new man started counting off the rounds bursting above the aircraft:" Wow, that was 25 rounds, "There s another 25 rounds, and darn, those just barely missed us." Finally, when he had counted up to 300 rounds in just a few minutes, Ralph told him to be quiet. It was more information than he really wanted. When Ralph returned from Southeast Asia, he was assigned to flying KC135 refueling tankers over the Pacific. It was like running a filling station in the air. He just flew around out there and refueled aircraft going to and returning from the war zone. It wasn't his favorite duty after flying the small, maneuverable Bronco because the KC135 was like driving a huge 16 wheeler compared to a sports car. Ralph retired after 20 years in the USAF at the rank of Major. He came back to Madison to work for Madison National Airways as their chief pilot. Then he managed the airport at Bedford, Indiana. After that he came back to Madison and managed the Municipal airport there until December of 2001. Since leaving the Air Force he has had dozens of students, many of whom are corporate and airline pilots now. Astronaut Kenny Bowersox of Bedford, Indiana was one of Ralph's students. Ralph has attended several launches at Cape Kennedy in Florida at Bowersox's invitation. Ralph flew the newspaper reporters from Bloomington to the Indiana University ballgames for a period of about fifteen years. Quite often he doubled as a photographer for the newspaper and got to see the games for free. Ralph has flown at least a dozen types of military aircraft and more than 150 types of civilian aircraft. His ratings include: commercial, single and multi engine, instructor, instrument instructor, airline transport pilot, and glider. He has logged over 28,000 hours of time in the cockpit (5500 hrs in the military and 23,000 in civilian aircraft). Ralph had worked construction earlier in life after his retirement from the Air Force with Buchanan Brothers Construction in Columbus, Indiana. He had owned and operated Roger's Aviation in Madison and had also operated and owned Madison Air Cargo. Ralph enjoyed building model airplanes and flying them. He found enjoyment in flying, teaching, skiing, scuba diving, kayaking, tennis, his dogs "Blackie and Lady". At the age of 71, Ralph received his sea plane rating for (plane with floats to land on water) marine aviation. Ralph was awarded the prestigious, FAA Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for 50 plus years in aviation. Ralph died on Thursday, February 12, 2015, at 4:30 a.m. at the King's Daughters' Hospital in Madison, Indiana. Click Here for Funeral Service or Tribute Video A LOVING FAMILY Ralph will be missed by his loving three sons, Terry Rogers and his wife, Sue of Tell City, Indiana, Cliff Rogers and his wife, Sheila of Columbus, Indiana, Scott Rogers of Columbus, Indiana; his grandchildren, Derek Rogers and his wife, Nikki; Chris Rogers and Nathan Rogers; his loving brother, James "Jim" Rogers and his wife, Alice of Madison, Indiana; his loving sisters, Shirley Toland of Madison, Indiana, Bette Hackney and her husband, Sam of Bedford, Kentucky, Jean Marie Lane of Rogers, Arkansas; his sister in law, Jean Rogers of Madison, Indiana; his nieces and nephewss, Sierra Rogers Austin, Shirley Herrick, Shonica Hartless, Joel and Clint Toland, Sam Hackney, Marilyn Christian, Carolyn Roy, Kenny Hackney, Dr. Charles Poteet, Glenn Rogers and Gary Rogers. He was preceded in death by his father, William Shirley Rogers, died March 10, 2001; his mother, Neva D. Brinson Rogers, died August 15, 1989; and his brother, Earl D. "Buck" Rogers, died Feb. 18, 1990. CELEBRATION OF LIFE CEREMONY Memorial services will be conducted Sunday, February 15, 2015, at 2:00 p.m., by Mr. James Rogers at the Morgan & Nay Funeral Centre, 325 Demaree Drive in Madison, Indiana. Interment will follow in the Hebron Cemetery near Madison, Indiana VISITATION Friends may call Saturday from 4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. and Sunday 1:00 p.m. until the time of service at the Morgan & Nay Funeral Centre, 325 Demaree Drive in Madison, Indiana. MASONIC SERVICE Union Masonic Lodge No. 2 F. & A.M. will conduct services on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Morgan & Nay Funeral Centre. MILITARY HONORS A final salute will be conducted at the funeral home on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. by Jefferson Post 9, of the American Legion. Full military honors will follow at the graveside by the United States Air Force Ceremonial Unit and Jefferson Post 9 of the American Legion. MEMORIAL EXPRESSIONS Memorial contributions may be made to the Hebron Cemetery Association or the Jefferson County Animal Shelter. Cards are available at the funeral home. To send a flower arrangement in memory of Maj. Ralph O. Rogers USAF (Ret), please click here to visit our sympathy store.