Ralph Gay was born in September 1918 in Oakland, California. He was an only child and was spoiled rotten. He got married when he was 19 years old. His father was a shipping clerk. It was a low-paying job, but he made enough to start a motor home place where people could park their motor homes and live in them. His mother was a housewife. They lived in Oakland until the war started. When they moved, Gay started working for a construction company. He did not notice the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] too much. His father had a good job, so they did not starve. Gay went to business school after he graduated high school. He played ping-pong all day and missed all of his classes. After he got married, he left school. He remembers phoning his wife after he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He decided to go to work for the shipyard because he would make more money. He volunteered for the cadet training program. They closed down the radar program before he could finish because the war ended. He was in the reserves after that and was asked to volunteer for Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953].

Ralph Gay picked the Air Corps because it was easy to work. Once when flying by Shanghai [Annotator’s Note: Shanghai, China], two engines stop running. They had to keep the propellors going to clean out the engines. One engine came back on before they hit the water. Gay joined in 1943. He got his wife a job at the shipyard as a burner. A burner has to move all the hoses around. They were supposed to get two years of college credit in nine months while training in Sioux City, Iowa. He was an officer. He was embarrassed by people saluting him. He had 10 days off duty. His wife was living close to the base when he was in Louisiana. He went back to work for the lumber company when the war ended. He was in the reserves before the Korean War started [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He was called up to fly. He flew around to get the weather so they could do the bombings. They had a weatherman sitting in the nose of the plane. Gay was the navigator. He flew 53 missions in Korea. Most missions took around nine hours. They could outrun anything. They flew solo. Every night he got drunk in Korea, then got up in the morning to fly again. He would have R and R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] in Tokyo [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo, Japan]. He was in Korea for six months. He came back to Roswell, New Mexico and started flying B-29 tankers [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. He was in the service for 11 years. He was discharged as a first lieutenant.

Ralph Gay went into the construction business when he returned home. He built houses. He used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts, and unemployment] for a short time selling insurance. He was a real estate broker and an insurance broker. He retired when he was 71 years old. He likes to think he helped out. He did things that needed to be done to win the wars. They should have finished off North Korea when he was there. Civilians do not think about the war. He thought the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] was great and it is getting greater. He does not think the war changed him.