Richard D. Harris holds a photo of himself taken in 1942 at his apartment in West Seattle during an interview with China Daily. [Photo by Zhang Yuan/China Daily]

"I was 21 years old. You don't have any fear when you are 21," Harris says.

There were all kinds of life-threatening moments. Once he blew a tire when he was fully loaded with pipes for building a gasoline pipeline to China.

He flew mostly by compass and landed using calculations based on flying time. Harris, a Catholic, carried rosary beads with him on every trip.

Sometimes, he flew Chinese troops as well.

"They just sat on the floor (of the aircraft) and they had no oxygen masks. We got up to altitudes of 10,000 feet. The conversation in the back just sort of stopped. A lot of them went to sleep," Harris says.

"It was not a pleasant journey for them."

He was a member of the The Hump Pilot Association, which held its first meeting in 1947. After nearly 60 years of activities, the association's board of directors voted on Sept 28, 2005, in Nashville, Tennessee, to dissolve the body at the end of that year due to the advancing age of its members.

In April, Harris flew to Washington DC with the Honor Flight program and attended WWII memorials..

When the war was over, Harris flew from the eastern Indian city of Kolkata to Shanghai in eastern China, which he said was quite an experience.

Discharged from the army, Harris studied law and became a lawyer and served as an assistant US attorney in Seattle.

He was the special deputy prosecutor for the county, and subsequently served as a judge for three years in Seattle Municipal Court and practiced law for 52 years.

His son Tracy Harris says his father seldom speaks of his war experiences, as is typical of his generation.

"Thanks to the Lord I have (had) 73 years and more of a good marriage, wonderful children－two sons and three daughters," Harris says.

Today, he can still drive his car and ride a tricycle.

"But I am not sure if I can fly an airplane again," Harris says.

Contact the writers through lindadeng@chinadailyusa.com.cn