Leslie W. Bray Jr. always wanted to be an airline pilot, but found he loved the military life. His distinguished career took him to stints in the Pentagon and around the globe. — Standard-Radio Post/Ken Esten Cooke
By Ken Esten Cooke
Leslie Bray vividly remembers when his new flight squadron was shipped to Calcutta, India to do missions into Bangkok, Thailand during World War II.
Bray was a squadron commander, leading 60 aviators and 25 new airplanes. Missions into Burma were three times daily.
“All of my pilots were very junior,” he said. “Most were not married and most had just come out of flying school.
“We found out when we got there that we were no longer under the Army, and they assigned us to the British 14th Army that was fighting to recapture in Burma,” he said. “For two years, we were stationed in India, flying across the Chiyun Mountains.
“The British had no supply system at all, and we took them every round of ammunition, every bite of food, everything came to them from flying usually three round trips per day, India to Burma,” he said.
Bray recently recalled his 93 years on his birthday and admitted that he is fortunate to be here at all.
Humble beginning
Bray’s military career, in which he ascended to a four-star general rank while working in the Pentagon, nearly didn’t get off the ground.
The Wichita Falls native, raised in Texarkana and Dallas, always wanted to fly airplanes. But during the Depression, there were no private flying schools his family could afford.
But the military had a cadet program, and most pilots made a transition to the airline industry after some military service.
Yet, Bray enrolled in North Texas Agricultural College in Arlington (now University of Texas at Arlington). He accumulated nearly two years of college credits in just over a year, and worked in the mailroom part-time at the Federal Reserve Bank.
After he saved enough money, he hitch-hiked to Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio to enlist. But in the examinations, doctors found elevated blood pressure and “abnormal cardiac findings,” so he had to wait months to re-apply. His doctor back in Dallas found nothing wrong, however. It was thought his papers got mixed up.
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