Frank R. Burnside was born in February 1915 in Tensas Parish in Newellton, Louisiana, on Franklin Plantation, where he still lives today. He had a twin brother and a sister. His father owned the plantation, which produced mainly cotton, as well as soy beans and wheat. He and his son continue that work on the same plantation. He graduated from high school in Newellton, and he and his brother attended Kemper Military School in Booneville, Missouri for two years, then returned home to work. The school was tough and very strict. Times were hard in the 1930s [Annotator's Note: during the Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], and the total cost for Kemper was 900 dollars a year. Burnside married in 1936, and had been married 69 years at the time of the interview. They had a son and a daughter. He wanted to learn to fly, so he went to Tallulah, Louisiana where the oldest municipal airport in the state was located. General Chennault [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major General Claire Lee Chennault] was there then. Burnside took flying lessons there and bought himself an airplane. When war came on 7 December 1941 [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], he knew everyone was going to have to serve. Burnside had heard that civilian pilots were being hired to ferry planes out of Nashville [Annotator's Note: Nashville, Tennessee], where he knew the commanding officer who happened to be from near Burnside’s hometown. Burnside went to Monroe and earned the required commercial pilot's license, and headed to Nashville in 1942, where he began ferrying planes from the factory to around the country. He flew planes from Cubs [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub light observation aircraft] to B24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber], under the command of Colonel Eugene Stevens. At the end of 1942 the 4th Ferrying Group moved to Memphis [Annotator's Note: Memphis, Tennessee] doing the same ferrying work throughout 1943. Late that year, Burnside was sent to Reno, Nevada for high altitude training, which he assumed meant he would be shipped to India. He spent three or four weeks in Reno before being shipped to Willow Run [Annotator's Note: Ford Motor Company's Willow Run plant, also known as Air Force Plant 31, was a manufacturing complex located between Ypsilanti Township and Belleville, Michigan which primarily constructed B-24 Liberator heavy bomber.] near Detroit [Annotator's Note: Detroit, Michigan], where B-24s were manufactured and Burnside ferried them. He was then sent to Buffalo, New York where he picked up a C-46 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] and with his crew went to Homestead, Florida. There were 20 airplanes in his squadron, and they prepared to head to India and China. They were not allowed to open their orders until they had flown a certain distance. His commanding officer told them that many of them would not come back, and were told to step out if they did not want to go. No one stepped out, though later when they were being fired at, they wished they had. After a long journey with several legs they arrived in Calcutta [Annotator's Note: also known as Kolkata, India] and set up their base 100 miles west of there, in the town of Kalaikunda [Annotator's Note: Air Force Station Kalaikunda], 20 miles from Kharagpur [Annotator's Note: Kalaikunda and Kharagpur, India] where the 20th Air Force was stationed. They flew in the Assam Valley, near Mount Everest, over the Himalayas to northwest China to unload their cargo, such as bombs, gasoline, and personnel. They always flew at night because the Japanese were shooting at them. They flew without lights or radar at 22,000 feet. These trips would take a total of 20 hours, 18 hours of flying and two hours of loading and unloading. Burnside was stationed in India for about a year, all of 1944, and made 55 round trips. He returned to the United States, to Birmingham [Annotator's Note: Birmingham, Alabama], in 1945 and ferried modified B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber]. He was there until the end of the war.

Frank R. Burnside [Annotator's Note: worked ferrying planes as a pilot stateside with the 4th Ferrying Group, and then in India with the 1st Air Transport Squadron (Mobile), 20th Air Force] lived in Nashville and Memphis [Annotator's Note: Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee] for a year each, his wife living with him. She did not join him in Willow Run [Annotator's Note: Ford Motor Company's Willow Run plant, also known as Air Force Plant 31, was a manufacturing complex located between Ypsilanti Township and Belleville, Michigan which primarily constructed B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] as they had had a daughter. He was shipped out to India and flew a C-46 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] which he had picked up from Buffalo [Annotator's Note: Buffalo, New York] and then to India with a stop in Homestead [Annotator's Note: Homestead, Florida] among many other stops. They were based 100 miles from Calcutta [Annotator's Note: also known as Kolkata, India], a city which Burnside often visited. It was a British-held city at the time. Where they were stationed [Annotator's Note: Air Force Station Kalaikunda] was desert and they slept in tents with nothing around, so going into the city and having a nice meal was a treat. Otherwise, they were simply waiting to fly The Hump [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China]. A lot of men did not come back, but Burnside was lucky and he did. He was stationed in India for a year and made 55 round-trips. In addition to flying The Hump, they were also a shuttle outfit, picking up men from different bases to go into Calcutta, but their main mission was delivering supplies into northern China. There were seven B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] bases in the area. Chengdu was the cultural center of China at the time. Burnside was the pilot, and his crew consisted of a copilot, radio operator and flight engineer. He had a navigator on their flight from South America to Africa. Over the Hump, they used just a compass and time to navigate. They flew through Kunming [Annotator's Note: Kunming, China] on the way to Chengdu. They often flew personnel as well as gasoline and bombs. When they would take off from India it was incredibly hot, but once they were over the Himalayas, it could reach 40 degrees below zero so they wore flight suits. The flights were treacherous. They did not have fighter escorts. He only ever saw two Japanese fighters in the air, but they did not spot his plane. They did, however, strafe the airfields on occasion, but it was not all that dangerous. On New Year's Eve night 1944, they mistook the strafing for fireworks. The weather was quite treacherous between monsoon season with its heavy rains, and the winter season, when there were up to 150-mile-per-hour winds. On 6 January 1945, the day after Burnside had left for the United States, 70 airplanes were lost due to typhoon winds.

Frank R. Burnside [Annotator's Note: as a pilot in India with the 1st Air Transport Squadron (Mobile), 20th Air Force based out of Air Force Station Kalaikunda] was flying one night between the Assam Valley [Annotator's Note: a valley within the Himalayan Mountains of eastern India] and Chengdu [Annotator's Note: Chengdu, China] and it was snowing and raining, and one of his engines quit. He and his crew were preparing to bail out of the plane, but they reached a clearing and Burnside was able to get the engines started back up and they made it home safely. Burnside is still in contact with his copilot, who often slept for the entirety of their flights. They had six airplanes that did passenger transport, and the rest carried cargo. They were always on oxygen when flying, including the passengers. By this time, Burnside had been ferrying planes for two years. Many of the crew members were young men right out of flight school. Burnside was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross [Annotator's Note: the Distinguished Flying Cross, or DFC, is awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight] and an Air Medal [Annotator's Note: US Armed Forces medal for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievement while in aerial flight], as well as a Presidential Unit Citation. He was a member of the 1st Air Transport Squadron, 20th Air Force. Before going to India, Burnside was stationed at the Republic Factory in Evansville, Indiana where they manufactured P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] which he would ferry elsewhere. Once on a ferrying trip to California, the engine quit and he had to make a crash landing. It was the first time a P-47 was landed with no power. Another time when he was flying P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] out of Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas], there had been some sabotage causing accidents but he did not experience any. The P-38 was the greatest airplane of World War 2. Burnside was confident in his flying and had a good crew, so he was never scared flying The Hump [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China]. He knew that their delivery of supplies to B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] helped win the war. The B-29s later moved to Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands], from where the Enola Gay took off [Annotator's Note: to drop the atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945]. Curtis LeMay [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces, then US Air Force, General Curtis Emerson LeMay; Fifth Chief of Staff of the US Air Force] was the commanding general.

Frank R. Burnside [Annotator’s Note: as a pilot with the 1st Air Transport Squadron (Mobile), 20th Air Force based out of Air Force Station Kalaikunda, India] was stationed in India. They had mess halls, but the Chinese set up a restaurant right outside the base gates and served delicious Chinese food. They were given powdered eggs in the morning. They had to pick weevils out of the bread before eating it. They lived in tents for three months, but eventually bamboo and basha [Annotator's Note: tarpaulin] shelters were built, which were not too bad. Burnside had a bicycle, a record player, and a gasoline stove over which he made grilled cheeses. They would sometimes go to Calcutta [Annotator's Note: also known as Kolkata, India] to get ice and make ice cream. Their base [Annotator's Note: Air Force Station Kalaikunda] was about 100 miles away from Calcutta. Burnside and his wife later visited India and went to the air base. During the war they also visited the Taj Mahal in Agra [Annotator's Note: Agra, India]. The C-46 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] was a big plane, but had the same engine as the P-47 [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft], 2,000 horsepower engines. Before he and his crew would fly at night, the crew chief would check the plane, and Burnside would check the weather in the weather station to get clearance. Burnside was among six senior pilots. They were always the one who would transport the Colonel when he had a pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. Their passengers were often scared to death of flying The Hump [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China], but were reassured once Burnside could say he had made dozens of trips. One of Burnside's closest friends was a maintenance officer. They had few losses compared to other units because of the good maintenance. His name was Smokey Stover [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling; unable to identify]. He had died the week before the interview. [Annotator's Note: Burnside gets emotional.] Colonel Nuckel [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] was killed in a plane crash outside of San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] in 1951. Burnside continued flying privately after the war. His father started a small bank in his hometown which has become very successful. Burnside served as mayor in his small town for a time. He was friends with Jimmie Davis [Annotator's Note: James Houston "Jimmie" Davis; governor of Louisiana from 1944 to 1948, and 1960 to 1964]. Burnside once met and spoke to Johnny Cash [Annotator's Note: John R. Cash; American country music singer and songwriter] while on a trip to Munich, Germany.

Frank R. Burnside manages a farm and plantation as his father did, and his son will after him. He did not have trouble readjusting to civilian life stateside. He and his family traveled extensively around the world. Burnside was good friends with Kemmons Wilson who founded the Holiday Inn hotel chain and had served in the Air Force during the war as well. They ran into each other in Africa when Burnside was heading home from India, and Wilson was going over in 1945.

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