Passion for flight

  • Published
  • By Jeanne Dailey
  • Air Force Research Laboratory
KIRTLAND AFB, N.M. --  In February, World War II veteran Jack Gallette celebrated his 91st birthday. His son, retired Air Force Col. John Gallette, now a program manager at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland AFB, wanted to treat his father to a birthday celebration to remember and asked the 58th Special Operations Wing to assist.

The 58th SOW offered to host the celebration. As a special recognition, Jack Gallette boarded a brand new C-130J and sat in the flight engineer's seat. When he stepped out of the plane, the aircrews sang "Happy Birthday."

Jack Gallette's flying career started in the early 1930s, when he learned to fly at the original Albuquerque Airport, before there was a Kirtland AFB. As a young man, he worked at the airport, refueling aircraft outside a hangar that today is part of the 377th Logistics Readiness Squadron. During this period, Jack ran across many famous aviators from the golden age of aviation, such as Jimmy Doolittle, Jacqueline Cochran and Amelia Earhart, all of whom were involved in cross-country racing and had stopovers in Albuquerque for refueling.

Gallette joined the U.S. Army Air Corps before World War II. He assisted in training exercises with the Doolittle Raiders at Eglin AFB, Fla., in B-25s. During most of his career, Jack served as a flight engineer and line chief mechanic with the 345th Medium Bombardment Group, flying B-26 Marauders. He flew on multiple combat missions in air operations for the North Africa campaign that defeated the German offensive, as well as the bombing raids for Gen. George Patton and British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery during the offensive into Europe.

Jack Gallette was honorably discharged from the Army in 1945, with combat disability pay that he never took. His shoebox of discharge records shows four Bronze Stars, a Presidential Unit Citation, a French Legionnaires Combat Medal and numerous other honors. Characteristic of Jack, according to his son, Gallette never mentioned any of his citations until his recent birthday celebration.

After the war, Jack bought a ranch with a dirt airstrip in Santa Fe, N.M., and started a successful career as an architect, eventually opening his own architectural business. An aviator at heart though, he began accumulating World War II-vintage aircraft and kept his pilot's license until well into his 80s.

"He taught me to fly when I was 8, and I was lucky to spend most of my youth flying in World War II-period training planes with my dad and his buddies. God only knows who they were and where they'd fought. They just flew the heck out of those airplanes - scared me to death at times - and drank their fair share of booze talking about the war. They are heroes who survived a horrific war and lived to fly many more days," said John Gallette.