Jul 29, 2020
US AIR FORCE, 11th Combat Cargo Squadron, 3rd Combat Cargo Group, ASIATIC/PACIFIC THEATER. LEO BURTIS HOOVER was born in Independence, Louisiana on August 23, 1923. He was drafted in his sophomore year, January 1943. He began with the Army. After basic training, he went to Iowa, where he trained in engineering, and how to camouflage tanks and artillery with backdrops…However, he transferred to the Air Force, where he learned to shoot a gun from the back seat of a 2 seater plane, as well as training to be a radio operator. He joined a crew of C-47, the ‘workhorse of the Air Force’, where he would later deliver to the troops' fuel, ammunition, food…all over the world, The Japanese were getting a stronghold in Burma and China, so he and the crew took cargo and medical supplies to the allied troops there, and traveled over the Himalayas.