WILLIAM MASTERS HIS LIFE

Bill went through school in Portland and then to Stanford University where he graduated in 1941. At Stanford he took a course in civilian pilot training where he learned how to fly. After Stanford he went into the Air Force aviation cadet program. Primary at Santa Maria in PT17s (Stearman), Basic at Merced Air Base in BT 13s and advanced at Mather Field in AT 6s. He graduated from Cadets as a 2nd Lt. Pilot in Class 42D in April of 1942. After graduation he stayed on at Mather flying the AT 7 for Cadet Navigators. Later in 1942 he was assigned to the Air Transport Command "ATC" and sent to Assam India to fly C46s transporting critical goods over the HUMP .

He flew a few Missions as Co- Pilot and then got his own crew made up of Himself as pilot ,a co-pilot, an engineer and a radioman. The day after he left the other crew to become a first pilot the other crew crashed short of the field coming back from a trip over the Hump, killing all of them.

In all Bill Masters flew 174 trips over the Hump. When he arrived in India the trips were only day time trips and in good weather but the shortages of supplies made the A.T.C .change that and he flew day and night in any weather.

On his 50th trip over the Hump they took off at night in bad weather and he had a problem with the magneto on one of the engines but got it going and they climbed out through the bad weather breaking out at 16000 ft . The mountain peaks were 15 to 16 thousand feet in this area and at that point they lost one of their engines and Bill went thru all the procedures to try to restart it with no luck and feathered the engine. They were losing altitude by 800 ft a minute because of their heavy cargo and no time to unload the cargo so Bill gave the instructions to bail out. He went out behind his crew through the cargo door and pulled his rip cord and his chute opened. The C46 made a big circle above him and came down almost taking him with it and crashed in a hugene ball of fire below him and he could see he was coming down in deep jungle. He came down through a tree to the ground unharmed and slept that night rolled up in his parachute and his 45 at his side. He heard a yell during the night and in the morning heard it again and followed it up the side of the mountain and found his engineer up in a tree.

He helped him down and they scrambled through the jungle down to a river bed and then along that river and found their other crew members later that day. Moving along the river was treacherous as they had to traverse along heavy brush along the river side. They did this for 8 days when they were spotted by a plane out looking for them and were dropped some supplies and told they were 30 miles up the river from a native encampment. In 3 days of aggravating  travel they reached a native hut up on poles and the natives nursed them back into a condition to travel again and with the natives worked their way past enemy camps to a mountainous road traveled by a Negro trucking unit and a truck picked them up and took them to a base where they were put in the hospital. Masters became seriously ill with dysentery and stayed on in the Hospital until he recovered and then back to a base to return to India  and fly another 94 trips over the hump.

Bill returned to the States in early 1945 and assigned to a unit transporting all type of aircraft from fighters to Bombers and Bill got a chance to fly them all. After his active service he stayed on in the reserve winding up with the Judge advocates department. 

Bill jr. born Jan 21st 1946 Bill married  Milinda  and they have one child named Alexander

John born Mar. 30th 1948 John married Linda and they have 3 children. Ross, Robert and Gina

Barbara born Apr 14th 1952 married Rory and they have 5 children. Bill,  Adam,  Amy, Julie and Sarah

Jeanne born July 6th 1956. is still single

Bill and Mary are retired and after 64 years of marraige live most of the year in Palm Desert Ca.

with summer trips back to Portland to see the family