An Australian yachting legend who sailed around the world with his wife in the 1950s
The show also inspired a NASA engineer who when meeting Kemmer, told him that the show had ignited his passion for space.
Kemmer was a war hero having served as a P 51 Mustang pilot, and was shot down on his 47th mission, in June of 1944, just a few days after D-Day, and was imprisoned at Stalag Luft 3 and spent 11 months as a POW. He briefly escaped from the camp for two weeks before being recaptured when rhe Russians got close in January, 1945 and they were marched out to a camp near Nuremberg.
A few weeks later General Patton got too close and they were marched out again and headed for Moosberg. He escaped on that march hoping to reach Switzerland .... Two weeks later he was recaptured and sent to the camp at Moosberg. Only there a few days .... Liberated by Patton's tanks on April 29th.
The camp was the same one from which a breakout occurred that was the inspiration for the Steve McQueen film The Great Escape (1963)
After Space Patrol, Kemmer was a guest star in various prime-time television series, including the classic Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", in which former space hero Kemmer co-starred with future space hero William Shatner.
He also had roles in episodes of Perry Mason, Maverick, Gunsmoke, Rawhide, All My Children, and As the World Turns and acted out the role of "Prince Phillip" in live action footage that was given to the animators to study for Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959).
There was no guard rail when the teens went off the road
