Oral History Interview with Stephen E. Van Nostrand, April 20, 1987 Page: 2
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now known as the Worthington Corporation. They had a train-
ing program in engineering that I enlisted in, and then I
went to night school in order to pick up some other, more
technical, information for the job. At the outbreak of World
War II, I was doing military work in the engineering depart-
ment and had a deferment against the draft.
I had always wanted to fly. I was always interested in
aviation. When they lowered the requirements from a college
education to two years equivalent, I took the competitive Air
Force examinations and qualified and came down here to San
Antonio, Texas, to Kelly-Randolph Field and went through
training in Texas, and finally graduated in Louisiana. I spent
a couple of years flying fighters in Alaska and the Aleutian
Islands after graduation..
I went out to China--western China--in 1944 and flew
the Hump, the operation over the Himalayas, between India
and China, for a year. Then I ended up as the last command-
ing officer of the Air Transport Command detachment at
Kunming Air Base. I deactivated the base inDecember of
1945 and went on up to Peking and installed another Air
Transport Command detachment there. I spent about eight
or nine months as its commanding officer and finally went
down to Shanghai as director of operations for the Air
Transport Command on the four-engine passenger run between
Shanghai, China, and the West Coast of the United States.
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Marcello, Ronald E. & Van Nostrand, Stephen E. Oral History Interview with Stephen E. Van Nostrand, April 20, 1987, book, April 20, 1987; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc306889/m1/4/?q=%22~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Oral History Program.