S/SGT Ralph E. Outcalt

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S/SGT Ralph Outcalt 511th Parachute Infantry 11th Airborne Division

Company E, 511th PIR

June 10, 1921 - September 4, 1949 (Age 28) - gravesite

Citations: Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Presidential Unit Citation, World War II Victory Medal, Philippine Presidential Unit Citation Badge, Philippine Liberation Medal with service star, the American Defense Medal, and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three Battle Stars and one Arrowhead

S/SGT Ralph Eugene Outcalt was born on June 10, 1921, in Glenpool, Tulsa, Oklahoma to Perry Driver Outcalt and Ida Bewley Board. Ralph was the last of the Outcalt’s four children which included his older sisters Velva and Nita as well as his brother Paul.

The family resided in Tulsa throughout Ralph’s younger life (he even made the newspaper for writing to Santa Claus in November of 1928) before the family moved to Jenks where Ralph attended high school. He excelled as an athlete at Jenks, playing both basketball and football in which he lettered two years in a row before graduating in 1941.

With war looming on the horizon, Ralph registered with his local draft board in Sand Springs, Oklahoma then married Betty Patricia “Pat” Duvall during the summer of 1941. The young couple remained in Jenks and on November 10, 1941, they welcomed the birth of their son Donnie. One year later they celebrated the birth of their daughter Diana on December 20, 1942.

Three months later Ralph officially entered military service in February of 1943 and was promptly sent to Camp Roberts, California for Basic. Three weeks later, Ralph received the sad news that his father had passed away following a four-month illness. PVT Outcalt was given leave to attend the funeral.

After the service, Ralph volunteered for Parachute Duty and was sent to join the newly forming 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment at historic Camp Toccoa, Georgia where he was assigned to Company E under CPT Hobart B. Wade. Wade a legend himself in the airborne community as he had served as the platoon sergeant for America’s Test Parachute Platoon. While at Toccoa, Ralph ran Currahee Mountain and acclimated to the 511th’s difficult physical training regime under LTC Orin D. “Hard Rock” Haugen who was one of America’s most qualified parachute commanders. His men nicknamed him Hard Rock because he was tough and demanding, but Haugen was also highly respected and known to be incredibly fair towards his men.

After a few weeks, PVT Outcalt and the 511th PIR’s 2nd Battalion was sent to join 1st Battalion at Camp Mackall, North Carolina since the 511th was assigned to the new 11th Airborne Division under Major General Joseph May Swing.

As part of the 11th Airborne, PVT Outcalt attended Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia with 2/511 and then the division continued training through 1943 before participating in the famous Knollwood Maneuvers of December 1943 wherein the 11th Airborne proved the validity of the airborne division concept.

Ralph and the 11th then went to Camp Polk, Louisiana for more maneuvers, training, and testing before they boarded trains for Camp Stoneman, California to prepare for departure across the Pacific onboard the SS Sea Pike, a “hell ship” about which no one in the 511th PIR had a positive word to say.

Arriving in Milne Bay, New Guinea on June 12, 1944, Ralph and the Angels (the 11th Airborne’s troopers) were shuttled inland to Dobodura where they spent five months in theater training and acclimatization.

The 11th Airborne as first committed to combat at Thanksgiving of 1944 and the 511th PIR spearheaded the Angels’ push across the island of Leyte. Hard Rock Haugen’s tough Paratroopers would endure 33 days of “the worst fighting imaginable” as one trooper later said. The monsoon rains, high and cold elevations, mud, insects and tropical diseases only added to their misery as the Japanese constantly attacked their lines and resisted their westward movements. Ralph and his comrades battled towards Ormoc, leaving a path of destroyed enemy behind.

After a particularly fierce engagement, Ralph and E Company were forced to withdraw to a more secure position, leaving behind their fallen comrades, a machine gun squad. When E Co returned the next day, they found that their brothers had been cut up by enemy soldiers whom they promptly killed.

Coming down from the heights on Christmas Day, Ralph and the victorious 511th PIR sang Christmas carols as they marched towards friendly forces gathered on the beach along the shore.

One month later PVT Outcalt and the 511th PIR jumped on Tagaytay Ridge 30 miles south of Manila on the island of Luzon. The 511th then led the 11th Airborne’s push into the city where the Angels fought for several bloody weeks to eliminate the Imperial Japanese invaders. During the fighting, Ralph was wounded by shrapnel and evacuated to the Angels’ “hospital” that was set up in the Paranaque church. He would carry some of that shrapnel with him “as a memento” until his death.

After recovering, Ralph returned to the lines and continued to fight alongside his buddies as the 11th Airborne Division continued their operations to liberate Luzon from Imperial Japan’s control. He later flew to Okinawa and then Japan with the Angels for about one month of Occupation Duty before his discharge on November 4, 1945, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

After the war, Ralph returned to Oklahoma and his wife Betty and their two children Diana and Donnie. In 1946 they welcomed Mary Sue into the world and the Outcalts enjoyed their life together in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

In addition to supporting the family by driving trucks for the Mid-Continent Petroleum Company, Ralph built a name for himself as a “devil driver” as he began competing in midget car racing in April of 1946. The former Paratrooper showed grit and skill on the tracks around Oklahoma as he raced his four-cylinder Willys and “won something in every race” he entered.

Ralph’s mother Ida Bewley passed away on May 25, 1948, a loss that was greatly mourned by the Outcalts as she had lived with them in their Sapulpa home.

Just over one year later, on September 4, 1949, Ralph and his family were traveling from Sapulpa with friends Robert and Leona Janet Jones Smith to a race in Kansas City that Sunday. Pulling a trailer with Ralph’s race care on it, Ralph was driving when there was a horrible crash outside Paola, Kansas.

Motorist and Paola-native Harry M. Byerly had just passed the other car involved in the crash when he looked in his rearview and saw the accident. The Outcalts' car careened off the road and burst into flames and Harry leapt into action, quickly pulling three-year-old Mary Sue Outcalt from the fire, followed by Robert Smith who had been driving. Mary Sue’s father, Ralph, her mother Betty and her two siblings Donnie and Diana perished in the fire as did Leona Janet Jones Smith. Robert and young Mary Sue were both burned in the crash and Robert passed away the following day, leaving Mary Sue the lone survivor.

SSGT Ralph Eugene Outcalt and his wife and two children were buried in the South Heights Cemetery Sapulpa, Creek County, Oklahoma near his mother and father. He was only 28.