I tried to go with him, imagining myself as co-pilot or radio operator, clinching my jaw and my fists as the converted B-24, heavy laden with fuel and cargo, labored to lift itself from the muddy airfield in Shamshernagar, India. From all dangers, deliver us, Lord. I wondered what storm would assault us as we gained altitude enough to miss the sharp, jagged teeth of the formidable Himalayans. How far would we get before the monsoon turned to snow or the clouds turned to ice, before the load shifted or the engine failed? From all dangers, deliver us, Lord. Would we make it out of Burma before Japanese fighters assailed our unarmed transports? Would the airstrip’s homing beacons be operational or visible as we landed with our payload of 2400 gallons of gasoline desperately needed by American troops in China? From all dangers, deliver us, Lord.

As a 21-year-old flight officer for the Army Air Transport Command, Papa Harold flew more than 50 missions over the Hump—the name given to the Himalayan mountains by Allied pilots in the Second World War. Each 10-hour mission to China and back was wrought with danger, attested by more than 500 aircrafts lost during these supply runs. But on this day, the centenarian brought us down safely and I was back in his living room with the photo album in my lap. Acclimated to the present, my eyes found the picture of a young boy standing beside the front stoop, dressed from head to toe in pilot gear, trying on the vocation that would one day lead him from Pinckney Street to flight school, over the Hump and back, then home again to his Genevieve and finally here to me. From all dangers, deliver us, Lord.