Thomas Jessee jr.

Rockport Heroes
World War II Series
A jrd Stat on 11/19/21.

I did not know Thomas Jessie very well, but did know that he served in the army in World War II and that made him a hero to me. We would carry on with small chat if we met or were in a group together. He lived on a small farm near where Western Kentucky Elementary school is located today and with work at the mines and taking care of his farm, he did not have a lot of free time to spend in Rockport.

Thomas Jessie jr. was born and raised in the McHenry area, the son of Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Jessie. I think that he attended McHenry school and after he finished school, he volunteered for the army in 1946. His army career took him through basic training, radio technical school and to the island of Okinawa where he served honorably until 1949. His career field was in radio operations and he was a proud soldier in the Airways and Air Communication Services or AACS.

After an honorable discharge in 1949, Thomas Jessie returned to his roots in Ohio County, married, and settled on his family's old farm place near Rockport. The marriage produced two sons, Thomas L. Jessie and Kenneth Jessie and a daughter, Linda Jessie Fulkerson.

I have done some guessing on these paragraphs about Thomas Jessie, jr. and the old mind is vague in other areas. If anyone knows any more about Thomas' war effort or other information, please feel free to share with me and I will update this web page. Also, if there are any errors in this page, please let me know so they can be corrected. Thanks and thanks for looking.

Thanks Thomas Jessie, jr. for your honorable service for our country. Hope that others of your stature will serve our present day country so well.

jrd

AACS

Army Airways Communications System.

The Army Airways Communication System (AACS) played an important part in the war effort of World War II. For the most part unsung heroes, men of the AACS built "Highways In The Sky" that provided air lanes or air routes for aircraft to follow. These highways in the sky consisted of radio beacons that gave aircraft a course to follow over their route. These highways, both stateside and overseas, were a tremendous help for aircraft to get from point to point and also aided bombers to find their way home after missions.

The Army Airways Communications System (AACS) was formed in 1938 to provide ground radio communications with airplanes. For a short time, during World War II, it was renamed the Army Airways Communications Wing and then the Air Communications Service, but this lasted less than a year. It seems that the acronym AACS had a certain ring to it and finally the Pentagon made the decision to rename this relative new organization the Airways and Air Communication Services (AACS) in 1946. This new designation was also a better fit as by now there was a high volume of airplanes flying through the US and the US controlled airspace and these aircraft needed to be under ground control. Many of the services provided by the AACS during World War II are in use today by the armed forces as well as the civilian control of the airspace, or the FAA. Hats off to the men and women who provided these services to the Air Corps and Navy pilots in World War II and following.

In later years and as AACS evolved, new technology became available and the AACS added services for military aircraft. Below is a listing of some of the service provided by the AACS:

Air Traffic Control Towers, Ground Controlled Approaches (GCA), Radio Ranges, Direction Finding, Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) Ground Stations, Long Range Air Navigation (LORAN) Stations.

Thanks to the men and women that served our country in the Airways and Air Communication Service.

jrd