https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/196051120/francis-w-nye

Nye graduated from Barton Academy (Vermont) (1936) and the University of Vermont (BSc, 1941).

He enlisted as Army Air Corps flight cadet after graduation. In February 1942, he completed flight training and was commissioned a second lieutenant. Through April 1943, he flew 36 missions with the 98th Bombardment Group from bases in Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa. Nye returned to the United States in April 1943 and, in September, entered the B-29 aircraft program, first as an acceptance test pilot at the Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas.

Nye's crew was formed at Salina, Kansas, and assigned B-29 serial #42-6232 in April 1944. This aircraft was named "Kickapoo II." Captain Nye had finished a tour of duty previously with 36 missions in a B-24's named "Kickapoo" in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

Nye was the Airplane Command Pilot of an original crew that departed from Salina on April 4, 1944 for Kharagpur, India, and was one of the first to leave Salina, and arrive at Kharagpur, with stops in Presque Isle, Maine; Marrakech, Morocco; Cairo, Egypt; and Karachi, India. This crew flew several "operational" over-the-hump missions to Pengshan A-7 , the forward base in China. This crew flew the first mission by B-29 Superfort's to Bangkok, Thailand from Kharagpur (June 5, 1944), and the first mission from Pengshan A-7 to Yawata, Japan on June 15, 1944.

On June 20, 1944, Nye was ordered to the 468th Bombardment Group as Assistant S-3 (Deputy Group Operations Officer). In August 1944, Nye flew the longest B-29 mission (over 4,000 miles) in World War II by any type of aircraft to Palembang, Sumatra, from a forward base at China Bay, Ceylon. Nye flew this mission while substituting for a pilot who had become ill. Nye flew 11 combat missions with the 468th Bombardment Group in the China-Burma-India Theater.

In May 1945, he went with the 468th BG to North Field on Tinian in the Mariana Islands and then to Roswell, New Mexico. Nye finished World War II on Tinian as Group Operations Officer.

Francis W Nye