Enclosed are photographs, military documents, government documents, and a single published yearbook from Lubbock Army Air Field, that document the high school and military experience of Sacramento aviator Richard L. Calkins.

Richard Leslie Calkins was born on October 24, 1924, in Lomita, California, to Harold and Blanche Calkins. Calkins spent most of his youth in Lomita, prior to moving to Sacramento, California, where he would go on to attend Sacramento Senior High School, graduating in 1942. Calkins entered service with the United States Army on March 12, 1944, going on to train at as a pilot at Lubbock Army Air Field and then at Liberal Army Air Field in Liberal, Kansas. It was at Liberal that Calkins became learned to pilot the B-24 heavy bomber. As a First Lieutenant in the 15th Air Force, Calkins went on to serve in European, African, and Middle Eastern theaters of combat during World War II and saw action over the German Rhineland, Italy's North Apennines and Po Valley, and the Balkans. Calkins then served during the Korean War where he piloted an F-86. He was awarded a Korean Service Medal, United Nations Service Medal, and Bronze Star during his time in Korea. Upon leaving the military, he became a commercial airline pilot and then spent 12-years as the executive pilot for California Governors Goodwin Knight and Edmund Brown. He also retired from the California Air National Guard in December 1971 as a Brigadier General. In 1972 he went on to manage Capital Sky Park in West Sacramento, California. He married wife Ebba in May 1946 and the two were the parents of Cynthia, born in 1959, and Craig, born in 1957. Calkins died on July 14, 2007.

.1 Linear Feet 1 archival folder

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