Page 101 - The History of Veterans at Highland Springs

EUGENE SPILKER
HIGHLAND SPRINGS RESIDENT, AIR FORCE
After basic training I was assigned to be a gunner on a B29, but I flunked the eye test. My next assignment was to be a crypto operator, encoding and decoding classified messages. After graduating crypto school, I was assigned to Mitchel Field, Long Island. I became a member of the golf team, and played some of the nation’s best courses, such as Winged Foot and Bethpage Black. I also got to see all Broadway Shows; Yankee, Giants, and Dodgers baseball games; Giants football, Ranger hockey, and Knicks basketball games free of charge.
In November 1952 we received a Top-Secret message in the crypto room that President-Elect Eisenhower would fly to Mitchel Field and then to Korea to develop a plan to end the war. We were very nervous keeping this super-secret trip successful. We all felt relieved that the trip was successful.
I was transferred to Korea in July 1953. The war stopped a week before I got there. I was assigned to a Korean AFB in Kangnung on the Sea of Japan. I played a lot of basketball and got a part time job in the PX. I visited Japan three times. I went to Hiroshima in my blue US Air Force uniform and was treated very well.
I left Korea in May 1954. I was assigned to Ent Air Force base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I played on the golf team and played many of the best courses there including Cherry Hills and The Broadmoor. While at Ent AFB, I qualified for an Air Force golf tournament at Pebble Beach in California. I led after the first round, but then blew it. We played two days before the Crosby tournament. Bing Crosby paid all our expenses. I became friends with Billy Martin through playing golf with his friends. He was the second baseman for the Yankees, and their future manager. I also met Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle, who visited Martin while he was in the Army. My friends and I hung out at the Broadmoor, a five-star resort, as beer was only 50 cents there compared to $1.50 at most other places.
I was discharged from the Air Force in July 1955 and went back to St. Louis to look for a job and go to night school at Washington U. to get my degree in Business.
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