ABOUT THE HUMPMASTER (?)

Some of you are probably wondering, "who the heck put this page out on the Web?". Well, I did. My name is Arthur W. Sutton III. If that name sounds familiar to you humpsters, it is probably because you are at least familiar with my father, Lt. Col. Arthur W. Sutton Jr., USAF Ret.. It was he who wrote the Short History of the Hump in another section of this page, and he is a past Chairman of the Board of the CBI-HPA. He is also the current "Honcho" of the ATC Hump Pilots Association. I am 57 years old, a college graduate, and happily married for 28 years. I have a wonderful wife, Beverly, who is a Nurse Practitioner, and two wonderful daughters, Maggie (21), and Meryl (18). My own trade is administering the Novell and Microsoft servers and coordinating new network installations at Dalton State College in Dalton Georgia (even though my degree is in Small Business Management/Entrepreneurship). I am NOT a computer programmer or a software technician. I have no military experience, although I did serve an abortive six week stint in the Air Force Reserve about 22 years ago. Seems the Air Force isn't real crazy about personnel who suffer from "cronic" kidney stones. I was of draftable age during the very height of Viet Nam, but was fortunate (?) enough not to have been called. A draft lottery number of 358 out of 366 numbers drawn in that first lottery assured that I would not go. For those of you who are wondering, YES, I would have gone if I had been called.

So why did I do this? Frankly, it was because I am probably one of comparatively few of my generation who truly admires my father and is extremely proud of his record. In trying to find out more about the HUMP operation, I discovered that it has been largely ignored in the history books. The only mentions of the operation that I found were usually brief paragraphs in sections about the war in the Pacific. I decided that this is not right. What was accomplished on the HUMP is deserving of at least as much attention as the war in southern Europe or north Africa. In searching the Internet, I met with similar results. There simply has been nothing written about this operation, at least not in any detail. Granted, there are several books that have been written (I have drawn on two or three of them for my information), but try and find them in a library or even in compilations of books about WWII.

So here it is; my contribution to history and making sure that an important operation in WWII, one that undoubtedly helped to shorten the war, is not forgotten. To all you Humpsters out there, I salute you. God bless you for what you did, and rest assured, your comrades who did not return are not forgotten.

Footnote to the above: I originally published this page in 1998. At the time, it was recognized by the CBI HPA (see Organizations section above) as the only page on the web devoted to the HUMP operation. This page was down for about a year between 2004 and 2005 because I changed ISP's. But since it was originally published, there have been numerous other pages put on the web concerning the CBI and flying the HUMP. Many of these concern individuals or particular groups. Some do not concern "flying" the HUMP at all. And some are pages similar to this one in content. But, at any rate,  it seems I started something, and at last, after more than 50 years of relative silence, the story of the HUMP is being told.