I’m grateful for having the opportunities I’ve had in this country. After traveling overseas and then making trips afterwards… how lucky we are to be in America!

When I first saw Casablanca, Tripoli, and Cairo… And there we were in the holy land and I expected to really see something but people were still riding camels and donkeys! It gives you a different perspective of what’s out there.

Our folks always helped us out as much as they could. In those days that wasn’t too much. They always wanted us to go to school and be something.

My wife and I could be taking trips but she’s got Alzheimer’s, so I’m living here by myself. I’ve got my son and I spend every night with them. My daughter comes down every month or six weeks and spends three to four days with me.

I looked at Ronald Reagan and how long he lived. Sometimes I go see my wife and children about anything. She wants to see her brother and her sister and her father but they’ve all been gone for years.

The next day go see her and she knows I’m there, but she won’t even talk or say anything. She just climbs up. I never know from one day to the next how I will find her. It’s tough. We could go places and do things but we can’t.

One night I gave a talk to a group of pilots called the Fresno Hangar. I wanted to take my son so that he could hear me talk. They wouldn’t even let them in the door because my son isn’t a pilot. You have to be a pilot.

I talked about flying the Hump. I talked about two different planes that went down and how they were rescued.

One twin-engine plane went down. They were in a cloud and when they came out based on a mountain. They started to turn and a belly-landed into the mountain. The crash landing knocked them out. When they came-to pilot had something wrong with his leg. He couldn’t move it. The copilot also had an injured leg but he could move it. The pilot had a broken ankle. When they went to the back of the plane they found the radio operator dead.

The rule was that if the plane went down you were supposed to stay in the vicinity of the crash site for three days if you could. That would give the search-and-rescue team time to find you. They stayed there are three nights with the ultimate are registering over 16,000feet

The next morning they went to get out but they couldn’t open the door. Snow blowing over the plane had covered it. On the fourth day they started down. If they knew they had to get below the ice and snow or they would freeze to death. They didn’t get far enough so by noon they turned around and went back to the plane. They spent a fourth night in the plane.

The back at the plane the pilot got looking at the floor. They got some tools an unscrewed a couple of panels and got on them like toboggans. They slid down and they made the trees by dark.

The next day they heard water flowing. They had been told to go downstream because the farther downstream you go the lower you get. There was more chance of running into someone. But the rocks were so big and the water was so swift they could walk in the stream. On the 24th day they heard some voices. The copilot went ahead to check it out. There were four kids playing out in a yard. He watched them for a while. Eventually he sought to women. He was afraid that there might have been a Japanese camp near by.

He came back and got the pilot. That night there were two bamboo huts with a fire in the middle of the floor. They brought them some fruit to eat. They brought some hot tea which really revived them. They thought: “we must be near an English tea plantation!”

That was the first warm night’s sleep in 24 days. The next morning one of the children was gone; there were only three kids. He returned with two men. The next day one of the men disappeared; a week later he returned with an Englishman and a half-dozen Indians. The Englishman splintered his leg; by then the copilot was in good shape. He was able to walk.

So the Indians got some long poles and some vines and made a stretcher. It took them for days to get to the truck they had parked.

47 days after they hit that mountain they got back to their base. They got to a hospital and all cleaned up. A pilot was in good shape. They made a cast and put it on his leg and took him to Calcutta. He got on a plane that took him to Seattle. Six months later after operations he was off crutches. He was walking with a cane.

The flight surgeon said that the copilot needed two weeks of rest and relaxation so they sent him to Kashmir. It’s at about 6000 feet elevation with a lake and boats. It’s beautiful. Pool tables and ping pong tables and horseshoe pits. He spent two weeks there any went back to the base and the flight surgeon checked him in.

Ten days later on his third trip he and the plane went down and a crew was killed. After he had gone through all that!

Then there was another crew that came back the bight of that big wind. They got blown off course. When they finally made radio contact they were so far north they couldn’t get back to their base. They ended up bailing out over Tibet.

The only way out of there was over a pass that was snowed in, so they had to wait. When the snow season finally ended the Tibetans got them up over a ridge. It was 93 days before they got back to their base, they all survived.

The China-Burma-India pilots association has had a reunion every year since the war ended. Two years ago was the 60th reunion and they had it in Nashville, Tennessee. That’s where the headquarters of the air transport command was. My son Tom went with me and we went back to the reunion. I’ve been to other unions in San Diego, Palm Springs, Phoenix, and Spokane where there have been 3000 or 4000 people.

We went to the one in Nashville and there were fewer than 400 people. They voted that this would be the last reunion of Hump pilots.