Wesley Fronk was born in August 1922 in Jardine, Montana. His father was a homesteader. He grew up on the homestead. He moved a lot. He graduated from high school in May 1940. He did transit farm work that summer and fall in many states. In the beginning of 1941, he went to the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. That summer, Lockheed [Annotator's Note: then the Lockheed Aircraft Company] came through recruiting and he was hired. He went to Burbank, California in October 1941. He was working for Lockheed when Pearl Harbor came [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was working on the Lockheed Hudson Bomber A-29. It was built mainly for Lend Lease. He transferred to the P-38 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft] line. He was drafted on 8 December 1942, and went to basic training in Fresno, California. He then went to Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California] for an engineering and operations clerical course. Fronk transferred to Bowman Field, Kentucky to Troop Carrier Command Headquarters in Louisville. He then went to Alliance, Nebraska [Annotator's Note: Alliance Army Field] to Operations in a Troop Carrier Squadron [Annotator's Note: 434th Troop Carrier Group, I Troop Carrier Command] flying C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. Their operation was flying paratroopers and towing glider infantry.

Wesley Fronk qualified for the Army Specialized Training Program [Annotator's Note: usually referred to by the acronym ASTP] at Fort Sheridan in Laramie, Wyoming. He was sent to South Dakota State College in Brookings, South Dakota. He spent nine months from June 1943 to March 1944 in a basic engineering course. The tide of the war was turning and there was no longer a need for engineers. He was sent to the 97th Infantry Division then at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and assigned to a mortar squad. He attended infantry basic training. Then he was on flood detail on the Missouri River when he was told to go back to Company Headquarters at Bowman Field, Kentucky. He went on pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] one Saturday night and came back to find he was on KP [Annotator's Note: Kitchen Police or Kitchen Patrol] duty. While on duty, he was told he was shipping out. He packed his gear and was taken to the 347th Airdrome Squadron which was supporting the 4th Combat Cargo Squadron, 1st Combat Cargo Group. They were shipping out to Baer Field in Fort Wayne, Indiana for overseas processing. The unit was put on a troop train to Santa Ana, California. They got on the USS General H. W. Butner (AP-113) to Bombay, India. They only stopped in Melbourne, Australia on the way. In the Indian Ocean, they were escorted in by British and Indian destroyers. They went by train to the Ganges River then British trucks took them to Imphal [Annotator's Note: Imphal, India] and Tulihal Air Base.

Wesley Fronk was a courier for a Lieutenant Colonel who was a liaison to the British. He learned administrative duties and became the finance and personnel clerk, which he called the second most important job in the squadron. The first being the mess sergeant. They were air supplying the British 14th Army fighting the Japanese through Burma [Annotator's Note: present day Myanmar]. They also moved some Chinese troops that General Chang Kai-Shek [Annotator's Note: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975] had released to General Stillwell [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Joseph Warren Stilwell] to a former British base at Ramgarh [Annotator's Note: Ramgarh Training Center, India]. There, Americans trained the Chinese for combat. Fronk and his unit [Annotator's Note: 347th Airdrome Squadron, 1st Combat Cargo Group] would drop rice for the troops and oats for the mules. The Chinese had no motorized transport. Fronk went on a couple of those missions. He also would go work in engine build-up for the C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. They moved from Tulihal [Annotator's Note: Tulihal Airfield, Imphāl, India] to Chittagong [Annotator's Note: Chittagong Airfield, Chittagong, India]. One of his duties was to go down near Tongu to a recovered airstrip to maintain and repair the lights. Another time, he was sent on temporary duty to Myitkyina, Burma [Annotator's Note: now Myitkyina, Myanmar] on the Ledo Road for three months. He returned to find his squadron [Annotator's Note: 347th Airdrome Squadron, 1st Combat Cargo Group] had moved. After the surrender, the squadron transitioned to C-46s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] and were moving the Chinese troops back over the Hump [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China]. Some aircraft went to Singapore and picked up the prisoners of war. His unit also went over the Hump and went to Liuchow [Annotator's Note: Liuchow, China], followed by Hankow [Annotator's Note: Hankow, China] where they flew their final mission. They moved the 92nd Chinese Nationalist Army from Nanking to Tientsin [Annotator's Note: now Nanjing and Tianjin, China]. They moved to Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China], left the airplanes there, and took a ship to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California].

Wesley Fronk had one sister and grew up in a lot of different places. He never had any problems making friends. Moving around a lot made him a lot more savvy than other kids. He remembers working on the homestead by himself. He could adapt. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Fronk what he felt when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Fronk was astounded. The West Coast went into blackout immediately. The feeling was to get in the service as fast as possible unless you were involved in defense activity like working for Lockheed [Annotator's Note: then the Lockheed Aircraft Company; now the Lockheed Martin Corporation] like he did. A friend of his went into the infantry and then went into the 82nd Airborne Division. The friend married a girl in France and came back to the United States in March 1946. Fronk was in North Dakota visiting then. That friend's brother was in the Marine Corps in the Pacific. Another friend who was like a brother to him, went in the Navy and spent the entire war at Pearl Harbor. Two classmates went in the Navy.

Wesley Fronk would have liked to have stayed in the service longer. When he got stationed in Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China], he had to do a special payroll. He went out on the town only once because he was working so much. He would have liked to have gone to Group Headquarters [Annotator's Note: 1st Combat Cargo Group] to see if he could stay on. He applied for UNRRA, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency, while in China, but never heard anything. He wanted to go overseas after he got out. He went to Washington to see family. His father had moved to Alameda, California. Fronk took a civil service job at Camp Shoemaker, California. He was interviewing returnees from the Navy from the Pacific. He would review their records to be sure everything was in order. Fronk then applied for a job with the United States Air Force on Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands], but he did not get it. He got a job in Army Ordinance in Manila, Philippines. He spent six years there. He worked with the records of the Philippine Scouts, Philippine Army, Philippine Constabulary, and the Filipino Guerilla groups to certify their service information to the United States Veteran's Administration for benefits. He did that for three years and nine months. He then returned to the United States to go to school.

After the war, Wesley Fronk was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley. A friend of his worked for the Vega Company and they had kept in touch all through the war. He was transferring to UCLA [Annotator's Note: University of California, Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California], so Fronk applied there too. He graduated with a degree in Business Administration in May 1954. In September 1954 he got married. He started going to SC [Annotator's Note: University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California] grad school as a Foreign Trade student. He was working for General Petroleum at the same time. He applied to the Air Force and went to Casablanca, Morocco for three years. He was recruited to work for Air Force Materiel [Annotator's Note: Air Materiel Command] for Europe in Châteauroux, France. He went to Warner-Robbins, Georgia where he was hired as a C-130 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft] Weapons System Liaison Officer for the 64th Troop Carrier Wing in Abilene, Texas [Annotator's Note: Dyess Air Force Base]. He returned to Warner-Robbins in the C-124 [Annotator’s Note: Douglas C-124 Globemaster II transport aircraft] Materiel Division and was then called back to France in 1962. Fronk transferred to Germany and spent 18 years working for the United States Air Forces Europe in various positions. He ended up as a Logistics Plan Specialist. He totaled 48 years with the Department of Defense. He retired in June 1997. He had retired from civil service on 4 June 1987. He and his wife lived in Spain. In 1988, they made a 95-day trip around the world. He got antsy and went to Torrejón [Annotator's Note: Torrejón, Spain] to see if he could get a job in a different retirement system. They sent him up to Germany, where he initially started working for the United States Army in Mainz at the Martin Luther King Village. He applied to USAFE [Annotator's Note: United States Air Forces Europe] at Ramstein [Annotator's Note: Ramstein Air Force Base in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany] and was accepted into Personnel Management there. He retired from there in June 1997.

Wesley Fronk never fired a shot in anger. There was one instance where he and another soldier were returning from visiting some British soldiers and they came to an open area where an ambulance was crossing. There were puffs of dust coming up around it and they realized that the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were mortaring it. Fronk went about 50 yards out in a rice paddy. There were trees on the other side. The ambulance got in the trees and there was no more firing. They stayed a while and then quickly drove through to the other side. His airdrop missions were memorable. When they would land, the pilot and crew chief would walk around the aircraft to see how many holes they had in the wing from rifle fire. The C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] had self-sealing tanks. Fronk was drafted and he does not think one can fight Uncle Sam [Annotator's Note: the United States government]. Everyone around the United States was reporting like they are supposed to. He was never an objector and would never want the label draft-dodger tacked on him. He had more patriotism than that. It was a job he had to do. He went in and did the best he could. He was lucky. He was first assigned to the 97th Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: before being transferred to the Army Air Forces]. They were undergoing joint training in preparation for the invasion of Japan, but they were shipped to Germany for the Battle of Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] and had 45 days of active combat. Fronk went the other way and was not under fire. What his unit [Annotator's Note: 347th Airdrome Squadron, 1st Combat Cargo Group] and group did saved China. Without the airlift, they could not have survived. All of their ports were occupied by Japan. Anything that went into China, went over the Hump [Annotator's Note: aerial supply route over the Himalayan Mountains between India and China]. They had to fly in all kinds of weather. Fronk says, "We did what we had to do."

The best thing that came out of the war for Wesley Fronk was the G.I. Bill. Even though he did not stay in the service, he enjoyed working with the service. He spent 48 years working with them. He served all during the Cold War. During Desert Shield and Desert Storm [Annotator's Note: First Gulf War against Iraq, codenamed Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, 2 August 1990 to 28 February 1991], he was on a taskforce in Ramstein [Annotator's Note: Ramstein Air Force Base in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany] that met every afternoon. He did it because he felt he was doing something useful and serving the country. His war service brings back a lot of memories. He is sorry he did not connect with the China, Burma, India Veterans Association sooner than he did. He enjoys the reunions. He has had two good trips back to China for the surrender anniversaries. What hurts is that his compatriots are fewer and fewer. There are not enough now to have a monthly luncheon meeting. He joined in 2003. He also joined the Hump Pilots Association. He belongs to the first American branch of the Burma Star Association out of England. A lot of them [Annotator's Note: reunion groups] have inactivated due to their charters running out but they continue to meet socially.