Osmond J. Ritland; Leader in Air Force

Osmond J. Ritland, a retired U.S. Air Force major general who began his career flying Army mail in the early 1930s and went on to become a test pilot, commander of the service’s Ballistic Missile Division and second in command of its Manned Space Flight program, died Saturday at a hospital in Encinitas.

Ritland had lived in Rancho Santa Fe and earlier in Brentwood. He was 81.

He left the service briefly in the mid-1930s to fly for United Airlines but returned as an experimental test pilot just before World War II. At Wright Field in Ohio he flew the experimental versions of such fighters as the P-38, P-40 and P-51 and the B-17, B-26, B-29 and B-32 bombers.

During the war he flew the “hump” over the Himalayas in the China-Burma-India theater and in 1950 was put in command of a special nuclear testing program for aircraft at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.

He moved to the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in 1956 and later to the Air Force Systems Command for Manned Space Flight, where he coordinated programs with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In 1963, Ritland was awarded the Gen. H. H. (Hap) Arnold Trophy for outstanding contributions to military aviation. His military decorations included the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star and several campaign medals.

Survivors include his wife, Martha, two daughters and five grandchildren. A memorial service will be held Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Miramar Naval Air Station chapel.