<Begin Segment 23>

RP: You graduated from Stanford in mechanical engineering?

KO: Yeah.

RP: Tell us how you got on at China Lake, here.

KO: Well, about, I guess, six months or so after I had graduated, killed time. And we had, during the final years, we had all these interviews and stuff. I just interviewed around in the recruiting people that had my name put in, and the civil service type got a hold of my name. And the people here in NASA Ames needed some bodies. Just happened that this place got their first letter in, but after that I got the Ames one, but I'd come down here for an interview. And things were interesting and they needed bodies, so I accepted the job down here. Ames was sort of iffy because they weren't too sure what they needed up there. But it was sort of obvious that they were just filling out their list. I wound up out here, and like I mentioned before, at that time, this whole business out here was sort of guess and by gosh type operation, so having a degree or two, it was some basic fundamental schooling, I was about as expert as anybody else. And essentially, I was more expert in some areas than the other people out here, so I was able to work things out.

RP: What did you specifically work on?

KO: Initially?

RP: Yeah.

KO: Initially, let's see. I worked on the preliminary things, actually, things like the, one of the Sidewinder Rocket. It was at the idea stage, and they needed a couple of sketches to illustrate what the thing was all about. So me and another guy, we had put out a, just laid out a sketch of what could, should look like if we went through what they wanted to do. And like I was saying, probably it's a good thing they didn't go through with our design we made, 'cause we couldn't convince them that that particular combination just wouldn't work. But we knew just enough to know that it wasn't really a good combination of stuff. All they needed was something to tell the money people that this is what they were working on, sort of thing. And later on, things changed completely in that area. But we did that for the first couple, three months, and then all sorts of odds and ends.

RP: And just a couple more questions. What was Ridgecrest like back in those days? Probably a...

KO: Ridgecrest?

RP: Yeah.

KO: Well, let's see. China Lake Boulevard was almost empty. Everything was on base, and there was a lot more buildings to the south area, not as much as they got to be at the end. And Ridgecrest Boulevard was at that corner where the base is, that had a few buildings and a restaurant or two, a gas station, and is now a service place. It was there, and there was a garage there, no motel. And further down was, where there's a restaurant or two now, there was a couple of buildings that were restaurants. And the intersection of China Lake Boulevard and Ridgecrest Boulevard, there was that group of buildings which no longer exists, but that area had a few stores and stuff. And little bit, about a block to the west and some of the old buildings are still there, and those were there, and that was it. And I think that building, they call it County Building, and that was there, and that was almost anything there. Inyokern itself hasn't changed much, other than the fact that a bunch of bars have disappeared.

RP: And how long did you end up working at China Lake, Kinge?

KO: Huh?

RP: How many years did you put in?

KO: Oh, I came here in late '50.

RP: '50, and when did you retire?

KO: I got all sorts of odds and ends of jobs that, actually, I stayed with one group, but all sorts of jobs kept popping up, so I was able to stick with it.

RP: You called China Lake the "Navy Skunk Works."

KO: Oh, yeah, that's essentially what it was. I think in the Korean War, they needed a air-to-ground rocket, so China Lake concocted one. And concocted is a good term for it, about all it was. And later on, that rocket was totally inadequate, but at that time, they wanted an air-to-ground rocket. So they put one, slapped one together, and I think the word is they did it in about a month to two months from scratch. And at that time, China Lake had the laboratory there, and then they had the test area and they had a rocket manufacturing, an explosive manufacturing capability. So you could go from just an idea down to the finished product. And the shop area was a semi production line type arrangement. So you could build things on a production line basis, on a very limited basis. That's how they managed to do it. That's why I call it the "skunk works" type operation. You can come up with an idea, build it, and send it out to the fleet, and they could use it for a while until it needed to get polished up. And in a number of cases, it really needed to be polished up.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.