[Annotator's Note: The interview starts mid conversation.] William Martin was drafted in January 1943. He was lucky he got in the Army Air Corps. He was headed to mechanics school. He went to St. Petersburg, Florida for basic training. It took some work, but he managed to get into flight school. He always wanted to do it. He was 19 when he got his wings. He flew C-46s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] on the Hump [Annotator's Note: name given by Allied pilots to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew to resupply the Chinese war effort]. He flew a B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] once towards the end of the war to deliver it to Chiang [Annotator's Note: Chiang Kai-Shek, leader, Republic of China, 1928 to 1975] in Shanghai. He started out at University of Alabama [Annotator's Note: in Tuscaloosa, Alabama] flying Cubs [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub light observation aircraft] for familiarization. He went to San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] and started preflight there. He went to Sikeston, Missouri for primary in PT-19s [Annotator's Note: Fairchild PT-19 primary trainer aircraft], then Independence, Kansas for basic flight training. He graduated on 8 September 1944 at Frederick, Oklahoma. He got in the Air Transport Command and went St. Joe, Missouri [Annotator’s Note: St. Joseph, Missouri] to copilot school. A crew was picked to go to Nashville [Annotator's Note: Nashville, Tennessee]. They picked up a new aircraft and flew it to India. It took them a couple of weeks. They went to the Assam Valley in eastern India where the Hump operations started from. The C-46 was the biggest twin-engine cargo plane at the time. It took some time to learn to fly that. He had not had a lot of training then. About 75 percent of the time, they would unload in Kunming [Annotator's Note: Kunming, China] and the pilot would let the copilot fly back. That is where he really learned to fly. After accumulating enough hours, he went for two weeks of training that was very hard. The aircraft could fly on one engine. It was a good airplane. They carried about 51,000 pounds and had larger engines than the C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. Martin left the United States for India in December 1944. They did not quit until 2 October [Annotator's Note: 2 October 1945], after the war was over. He flew 87 round trips by that time. He turned 21 the next month. He came home and went back to school.

William Martin had moments of terror flying every other day out of India. Once on the ground, it was okay. They had kids that would take care of their tent and do other tasks. They called them "bears." They would pay them and give them things. He was based out of Mohanbari, India in the Assam Valley. Most of the flying on the Hump [Annotator's Note: name given by Allied pilots to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew to resupply the Chinese war effort] was in the C-46 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft], the mainstay. Other aircraft were the C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft], B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber], C-109 [Annotator's Note: C-109 Liberator Express cargo aircraft] or C-87 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express cargo aircraft]. The B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] would fly over and get gas sometimes. The purpose of the Hump was to keep China in the war and tie up thousands of Japanese to keep them out of the islands. They carried a lot of 55 gallon drums of gas which was dangerous. He was on call 24 hours a day. They had a list and they never knew when they were going to fly. It averaged out about every other day. Martin could not get used to a schedule because he did not have a schedule.

If it was at night and he had to fly, William Martin would be awakened 30 minutes before. They would go and get their paperwork, get a parachute, and then to the airplane. The flights would average about seven hours and 20 minutes round trip. Kunming [Annotator's Note: Kunming, China] was the biggest base they flew to. They would land, unload, have coffee and eggs, and take-off. They had to get back on whatever gas they had left. An hour of thunderstorms could make them pretty thin on gas. The weather is the worst in the world, but it was the only way to supply China. Sometimes they would have a 120 mile-an-hour crosswind. He never encountered any Japanese fighters. This was in 1945. He had an air raid alert once in China. P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] and P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] took off and headed them off. They had a dance club. They would check out a motorcycle once in a while. They got war news from a bulletin board. He knew the day they dropped the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, 6 August 1945]. The night they dropped the second bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, 9 August 1945], he and a few friends got some guns and went out and shot up some outhouses and had a few schnapps [Annotator's Note: alcoholic drink]. He was awakened the next morning and told he had to fly. He said he did not because the war was over, but he did have to. They kept on flying until October [Annotator's Note: October 1945].

William Martin waited on a troop ship home. All of the airplanes were torn up. He flew a C-46 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft] down to Calcutta [Annotator's Note: Calcutta, India] where they were junked. He learned the war was over from the bulletin board. There was a big party that night. Bob Considine [Annotator's Note: Robert Bernard Considine] was a war correspondent. He came over to Mohanbari [Annotator's Note: Mohanbari, India] and would hang around the officers' club and listen to all the stories. He wrote a big column that Martin's father sent to him. He wrote about a flight he had taken over the Hump [Annotator's Note: name given by Allied pilots to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew to resupply the Chinese war effort], but he had not flown over the Hump. He had only gone up one day with a crew to break in an engine. He was not an Ernie Pyle [Annotator's Note: Ernest Taylor Pyle]. Martin ran into him 30 years later when he picked him up at the airport for a speaking engagement. On 1 October [Annotator's Note: 1 October 1945] he cracked up [Annotator's Note: crashed his airplane]. He took off in a terrible thunderstorm. General Tunner [Annotator's Note: US Air Force Lieutenant General William H. Tunner], the George Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] of the Air Transport Command, had shut down the Hump for eight hours and then lined up all of the planes. Martin took off and plowed into the ground. They were on instruments and did not know they were going to hit. They had 1,400 gallons of gas. The engines flew off the airplane and that is why they did not explode. Martin felt like he had been beat up in a football game. The other two [Annotator's Note: crewmen] had to have stitches. They were hospitalized for a week.

William Martin did not have enough points to go home, so he took a B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] to Chiang Kai-Shek [Annotator's Note: leader, Republic of China, 1928 to 1975]. There were 118 aircraft on that mission. He returned on a C-54 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-54 Skymaster cargo aircraft]. He waited around for his number to come up. From 2 October [Annotator's Note: 2 October 1945] to New Year's Eve, he just sat around with nothing to do. He crossed the North Atlantic in a troop ship and got into a storm that was worse than flying. He mustered out in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois]. He was 21 years old and was going to have fun, but his dad already had him signed up for college. He became an optometrist. He attends reunions every year. His group of eight guys, who became good friends, is down to three now. He received an Air Medal [Annotator's Note: US Armed Forces medal for single acts of heroism or meritorious achievement while in aerial flight], a DFC [Annotator's Note: Distinguished Flying Cross, US Armed Forces award for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to 11 November 1918] and two Bronze Stars [Annotator's Note: indicates additional award] for ribbons, not the medal. The first trip he made in the right seat, he was landing in China and the engine caught fire. He jumped out to put the fire out but forgot to put the ladder down. It hurt but he did not break anything. The night he climbed out of the wreck is the most memorable experience of the war. They were lucky to get out of it alive.