Floyd Wilson Bottorff, Flight Officer Army Air Corps, served from 1942 to 1946 in the Army Air Corps as a flight instructor and in 1945 as a pilot hauling gasoline over the "Hump" in the Burma-China Theater.

Floyd enrolled in flight training at White River Airport, Seymour, IN when he was 17. One story: "While taking off with passengers on a sightseeing trip in the Ox5 Parks from a wheat stubble field at Columbus, IN I hit a rough place and the left landing gear strut broke off leaving the left wheel dangling unusable for landing. I gave the passengers an unusually long ride while trying to decide what to do. I landed on one wheel holding the left wing as high as possible and continued to try to hold it up as the plane slowed down rolling on one wheel. When the wing tip touched, the plane made a large 180-degree turn doing very little damage to the wing tip. The passengers knew so little about flying in those days that they congratulated me on the nice flight as they got out of the plane."

Floyd also tells about "flying the Hump" during World War II:

"After training in C-54s at Homestead Army Air Force Base, FL I was ordered to Nashville, Tennessee for shipment overseas. When ordered to our plane for take- off, we did not know where we were going. We were given instructions for our orders and navigational maps. We read that we were headed for the China, Burma, India theater of war. We stopped at Jamaica for fuel; then to Belem, South America and on to Natal for the hop across the ocean. After Natal, our next stop was Ascension Island, located about the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was nothing more than a volcanic mountain sticking out of the water about one mile in diameter. The only living thing I saw was one small palm tree growing on the water's edge. The men stationed there and all supplies had been brought in by boat. The men were really starved for any news or reading material they could get from the U.S.A. We only stopped there long enough to receive fuel and box lunches, then took off for Dakar, Africa.

"From Dakar we went across central Africa flying over Lake Chad with its millions of birds and animals. We saw herds of antelope, zebra and elephants running from the sound of our plane. It was such a marvelous sight that we went down low and circled the lake once just to look. We then landed at Khartoum on the Nile River, then at Aden, Yemen, and from there across the Indian Ocean to Karachi, Pakistan. I received orders there to my base of operations located near Shamshernager, India. The base was in Assam Valley near the river and was only fifty feet above sea level. It was about 200 miles north of the city Dacca and at the end of a pipe line.

"In Shamshernager we lived in bamboo barracks with dirt floors and leaking roofs. I arrived at night and was shown to my room. It contained one small table and two chairs. I made a bed by driving four bamboo stakes in the ground and tying ropes between them to put a blanket on. I then put a piece of plastic over the top to keep it dry. There was no electricity or running water on the base. We drank from lister bags hanging under a tree. The food was plenty of rice, rice bread and canned C rations. The temperature ranged from pleasant to 118 degrees which was very unpleasant during the monsoon season. We slept under nets and took Atabrine to protect against Malaria fever. The jungle around the base was full of wild animals including hyenas, monkeys, tigers, baboons and elephants. So I captured a small monkey and made a pet of him. The monkeys even scampered around in the ceiling timbers of our barracks.

"There were about fifteen hundred men on the field and about a hundred planes. Our mission was to fly one-hundred-octane gasoline from the end of the pipe line to air bases in China. The planes were C-109s which are B-24s with gun racks and turrets removed and gas tanks installed in every available place. The gasoline capacity was 5000 gallons and the tanks were connected with flexible tubing which often caused fumes inside the plane. It was suspected that when planes disappeared and never were found they had blown up in flight, thus the common name given to them by the pilots, C10boom.

"The base where I was stationed was one of several along the Assam Valley and the aim was to keep every plane flying twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. One of the major difficulties was bad weather, which consisted of a monsoon season during which time it was foggy and rainy most of the time with visibility almost zero. Then a thunderstorm season with some of the most violent storms any place in the world. These seasons meant much instrument flying and let downs for landing with a minimum of instruments which consisted mainly of an automatic direction finder and an artificial horizon. In violent thunderstorms this made instrument landings a real challenge. There were lots of severe up and down drafts with plenty of ice, sleet, and static electricity. This static electricity made streaks of lightning run across the windshield and made the windshield appear as if it were on fire -- this was called St. Elmo's Fire. It was hard to understand when you saw the wing tips and motors bouncing up and down how the planes could stand the punishment.

"The normal height for crossing the "Hump" loaded was 19,500 feet and 21,500 feet coming back empty. During the thunderstorm season the storms were severe with thunder, lightning and very high winds. It was unbelievably rough with clouds reaching to 40,000 feet. This meant we had to fly directly through them since our maximum height was about 25,000 feet. We sometimes had ice on planes and it would get so thick on the propellers that chunks would fly off and hit the fuselage so hard it sounded like bullets striking. One time we had a direct lightning strike on the plane that knocked out all of our electrical equipment but we were able to switch to auxiliary circuits and finish the flight. Two different times during my overseas duty I had planes on fire in the air, but luckily those two times there were no fumes in the plane and we got on the ground safely.

"While in India, I received the air medal for trips over the Hump during combat conditions, the victory medal, a battle star for combat duty in the Central Burma Theatre and Theatre Ribbons for operations in Europe, Africa, China Burma, and India. After I was home I also received the China War Memorial Medal and a set of wings from the Republic of China."

After World War II he was employed by the National Veneer & Lumber Co. to fly a Republic Seebee, a single-engine amphibian plane, and to work in research and development. The company had logging operations on the Mississippi River so the Seebee was handy for landing on the river and small lakes.

Floyd was instrumental in development of particle board and Veneer & Lumber formed a new company, Swain Industries, to manufacture and sell the new product. He helped oversee the construction and building of proper equipment for manufacturing. Floyd retired in 1975 as President of Swain Industries after 30 years of service.

Born 29 Nov 1912in Cortland, IN; died 28 Nov 1992.