Thirteen of us were scheduled to go overseas by ship with the rest of the ground echelon and our Squadron equipment.  I was among these men and we stayed at Baer Field until the 27th of October.  Lt. Hart was in charge of the ground echelon and we then left Baer Field, boarding a train for Camp Stoneman near Pittsburg, California.

     I remember the train ride to Camp Stoneman.   There was an old fashioned open car, probably leftover from WWI, that was our "rolling mess kitchen."  The G.I. cooks did quite well preparing food for us guys.  The train ride was tiring as we had to sleep sitting up in the passenger cars.  We arrived at Camp Stoneman on the 31st of October.

     We spent two weeks at Stoneman awaiting our ship.   There we had some exercises in climbing up and down ropes to prepare us for the possibility of having to climb down the side of our ship in the event we were torpedoed.

     We got into San Francisco several times eating in fine restaurants and even got to the "Top of the Mark." (The Mark Hopkins Hotel).   I remember the large circular bar there and the large glass windows where one could see much of Frisco.  What a beautiful sight.

     On November 14th, we were taken to the harbor at San Franciso where we boarded the "Boschfontein," a conscripted Dutch ship.  It was an old "Bucket" but I must honestly say we never had it so good.  The G.I.’s lived in crowded quarters below deck and ate with their mess gear.  The officers dined in a lavish dining room where there were white table cloths on each table. We were served by young boys from India, who had white jackets and a towel over their arm as one saw in finer restaurants of that day.   The dishes used were fine china and stemmed goblets were used for water.  The food and service aboard this ship was to my mind, terrific.

     During the day time, we were out on the deck playing cards or shooting the bull.  We had music provided by some G.I.’s that somehow had instruments aboard.  They played swing music tunes that were popular in that time.  We also had daily drills with small groups of men to prepare us to get to our assigned life boat in the event of our being torpedoed.  The ship zig-zagged for 25 days until we reached Hollandia, New Guinea where we reluctantly disembarked to a hot, dusty transient camp.

     Before we left the ship, a bunch of A20’s came down low over the harbor and buzzed the ships. I thought, wow, there aren’t any rules about flying here.  This is going to be great.

     We stayed at this camp for about a week waiting for someone to pick us up.  Finally Jocko Creelman, one of our top B Flight pilots, landed on the strip and we piled in for the brief flight to Biak.

     We didn’t have our foot lockers yet so we set up housekeeping in pyramidal tents. "B" Flight tent was larger than most and I think there were about 10 of us sleeping in this crude abode, known as "Sad Shack."

     The men that had flown from the States to Biak struck me as being somewhat aloof and distant. My guess is that these guys were tired from all this new kind of life and long distance flying.  After we were settled in, we were immediately assigned flights.  Happily I was a co-pilot then because frankly I had a healthy fear of the extreme weather flying and I hadn’t been up in a plane for over one month and a half. I needed to be acclimated to the "wild blue yonder" in a new, tropical setting.

  Lt. Curtis H. Krogh, 7^th Combat Cargo Squadron, 2nd Combat Cargo Group.   From his manuscript  '7th Combat Cargo Squadron History'  2nd  Combat Cargo Group, 54th Troop Carrier Wing, 5th Air Force'.   

    I am looking for former members of the 3rd Combat Cargo Group,  1st, Combat Cargo Group, 2nd Combat Cargo Group and the 4th Combat Cargo Group.  In fact I would like to hear from anyone who flew over the Hump during WW II, or flew any Combat Cargo Missions at any time (Berlin Air-Lift, Korea, etc)

Please e-mail comment, suggestions, corrections,etc to: bill@comcar.org

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