Fatal Incident

by Jim Proebstle

  “Good idea, Captain. See you bright and early in the briefing room.”

  Nick was up early the next morning in anticipation of their flight from Fairbanks to Elmendorf Field in Anchorage. Then it would be off to the U.S. military installation at Dutch Harbor the next day. Their first leg of the flight was uneventful, giving Nick a chance to settle in with Captain Smith’s method of sharing the workload with co-captains. He learned quickly that he would be given much wider latitude in flying responsibilities than most captains would give him. Most held the co-captain role in the same category as an administrative assistant. While they wanted their co-captains to be experienced, they didn’t relish doing the teaching themselves. Not with Marshall. Nick handled their first landing together at Elmendorf.

  The trip over the Aleutians on Tuesday would take them through almost all of the Alaskan time zones and take several hours, so they needed an early start in order to make their pick-up time commitment of 0930. About fifteen army enlistees would be very anxious to leave for their first furlough back home.

  After a thirty-minute weather delay early that Tuesday morning, Nick and Captain Smith had liftoff and were headed southwest toward Kodiak Island. From there, they would change course due west for Dutch Harbor, halfway out the Aleutian chain. With the rising sun behind them, the day was clear and they were up on top at eight thousand feet with unrestricted visibility. It gave Nick time to write another postcard to Martha.

  En route to Dutch Harbor

  August 7, 1943

  My Dear Martha,

  Suppose you heard that Warren Porter was found on a mountain side up North a few weeks ago today–or hadn’t the information that he’d been lost been released there? You remember him from the Northwest Christmas party. Probably not since it is under ATC control. Don’t know any details. Don’t worry about me though; I’m not taking any more chances than I would anywhere. Too much to look forward to.

  By the way, someone stole the insignia and stuff off my summer uniform that I left in the MacDonald Hotel at Edmonton last week. Hard to make sense of it. Probably a souvenir hunter.

  Just did a fly-by over Kodiak Island and saw several large brown bear and moose. When we buzzed them they ran like crazy. May have been the first plane they’ve seen.

  Say hi to Bud.

  Yours,

  Nick

  “I just told my wife about Warren Porter’s crash. I try not to worry her, but if she finds out on her own, which she will, it just makes matters worse. Any words of wisdom, Captain?”

  “It’s not the information that worries them,” he said while changing course slightly. “It’s the lack of communication. Put yourself in her shoes. We’re practically halfway around the world, taking risks they’ll never understand. It’s the not knowing anything that causes most women to become stressful and overreact. They just want regular updates. Hell, you’d probably overreact too if you didn’t know what your wife was up to for long stretches of time. My advice is to keep the postcards coming.

  “What bothers me are the crashes that are never recovered because of this god-forsaken wilderness. We never learn a damn thing about what went wrong. No chance to make it better for the next pilot in the same straights.”

  An hour later Marshall gave the controls to Nick and said, “It’s a clear day; let’s do a training exercise while we’re near the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. We’ve made good time and another half hour won’t hurt the schedule.”

  “What do you have in mind, Captain?”

  “Take the ship west toward the Shisho Volcano on the horizon, but before you do, tell me the elevation of the volcano’s rim.” The captain’s reference to the plane as a “ship” was new to Nick, although common among ATC pilots. It evolved from early navy terminology with the C-47 being roughly the equivalent in purpose to a freighter. It would find a permanent home in Nick’s vocabulary, as well.

  Nick thought for a minute. He knew these volcanoes were dangerous because they rose so abruptly on the chain. Worse, however, the fog could close a pilot’s visibility in just a few minutes. Low stratus clouds sometimes moved in from the sea or down from the mountains. He had talked to one pilot who had seen it go from a blue hole in the sky to nearly zero visibility in six or seven minutes. “It’s my first trip, Captain, but I would bet my life on sixty-five hundred feet.”

  “You just did. Set your altimeter for 6,550 feet and put it on ‘the pilot’ with a heading directly for the volcano. You can change your mind any time, but if you do you owe me a steak dinner back in Anchorage. If you don’t, I owe you one, that is, if we’re around to eat it.”

  “The pilot” was the autopilot for the C-47, and Nick knew he’d only need a few seconds to disengage it. The volcano was about fifty miles away and grew bigger every minute. As they approached, the smoke and steam rose from the countless fissures from surrounding volcanoes. Jagged rock formations from previous lava flows and meager vegetation dotted the harsh landscape. It shocked Nick as to how quickly his visibility was impaired by the steam clouds and how turbulent the air became from updrafts. He looked to Captain Smith for reassurance. He got none. I’ve always been right on this stuff in the past, Nick thought. But what about now? In an instant, the C-47 emerged from the cloud, and the volcano was front and center, bigger than life. Nick instinctively pulled back on the controls and put the plane into a climb.

  “Medium-rare porterhouse,” Marshall said with a smile. “Your desire for safety over being right is admirable.”

  Nick wiped the perspiration with his shirtsleeve, shook his head like he had water in his ear, and said, “Your bet would have got us killed if I hadn’t pulled out!”

  “Are you ready for lesson number two?” Marshall replied.

  “What? I mean, sure, I guess.”

  “Level off at 6,550 feet and make your approach again.”

  Nick was beginning to think this guy was crazy, but he was the captain. After making a big loop over the Bering Sea he put the plane on the pilot for the target just as Captain Smith ordered. He could hardly control himself as they approached. The air was sucked out of Nick’s lungs as the C-47 roared just over the leading edge of the rim of the volcano and then over the immediate drop-off into the crater on the backside. Within seconds they crossed the opposite rim with equal drama.

  “So, what do you make of it, Nick?”

  “That I was right in the first place,” Nick said confidently.

  “I would disagree with your conclusion. It proves that you didn’t know you were right, which can be just as dangerous as being wrong. Here, let me show you something.” Captain Smith took the controls and made one more pass, pointing out the remains of a Japanese Zero on the leading edge of the western slope. “When I was assigned to troop evacuation during the attack on Dutch Harbor, that Zero was hot on my tail, flying just below me trying to get a good shot of my belly. The visibility was terrible. I knew that he was vulnerable, but only because I was absolutely sure the volcano was sixty-five-hundred-feet. That’s what I want you to learn while we’re working together. It’s the decisions under pressure when you’re not able to check the flight maps that count.”

  Nick was used to being the best among peers and not familiar with being successfully challenged. He vowed to make the most of his time with Captain Smith and to learn the elevation of every critical peak and volcano on the chain. Two weeks later, however, Captain Smith was transferred to a training command for new captains in Edmonton, Alberta.

  CHAPTER 5

  A minor mechanical issue with the right-main landing gear delayed their return departure for Anchorage until 1015. Nonetheless, the soldiers they picked up were not discouraged by the delay; they were just glad they had a way home. It had been exceptionally hard duty for the fifteen men of the 7th Infantry Division, who were part of the assault against the Japanese on Attu Island.

  The short mechanical delay gave Nick and Marshall a moment to relax and an opportunity for Marshall to prepare Nick for his first exposure to so
ldiers fresh from combat. “Once we’re in the air, Nick, I want you to spend some time with the men. Sit with them and just listen. That’s all I want you to do,” Marshall said.

  “They seem okay, pretty lighthearted actually,” Nick replied.

  “Mark my words, Nick, you’ll understand my meaning for the request after you’ve had time with the men.”

  Once the flight leveled out, Nick left the cockpit and started to walk through the main cabin when a young man with exceptionally dark and wavy hair asked, “Where you from, Captain?”

  “I’m just the co-captain on this ship, soldier. Maybe someday I’ll get my rank up. I’m originally from a small town in Minnesota—Cass Lake—and now the Twin Cities area. How about you?”

  “Canton, Ohio. That’s the home of football you know,” the soldier said with pride.

  “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Private Anthony Palumbo, sir, but you can call me Tony.”

  “Big family?”

  “Five brothers and two sisters, sir. Lookin’ forward to getting home, too, but two brothers and one sister won’t be there. One’s in Pearl, one’s in Italy, and sis is in the Army Nurse Corp stationed in Queensland. That’s in Australia, you know!”

  “Sounds like you’re proud of her. What’s she doing there?”

  “Teaching medics how to administer anesthetics. Pretty important, don’t you think?”

  “You probably saw how important her work is first hand … on Attu, that is.” Instantly, Nick felt he had crossed a barrier as the light seemed to switch off in the soldier’s eyes. “Sorry, I should have left that alone,” Nick said.

  “No, that’s okay,” Tony said with obvious hesitation. “It’s probably better to talk about it now with someone who wasn’t there, before I get home, I mean. But there’s no way anyone would understand by just listening to me talk.”

  “How did it go down?”

  “The brass thought there were five hundred Japs. We had about eleven thousand men. The landing was unopposed—just cold as a well-digger’s ass in the Klondike, you might say, and foggy, like pea soup. I damn near got frostbite on my toes. We didn’t have enough wool uniforms and a lot of men suffered badly. As we advanced through the jagged hills, enemy fire came from everywhere. We lost a lot of men. As it turned out there were close to three thousand enemy troops. After two weeks of hard fighting, much of which was in shitty weather, it came down to the final skirmish you might say.”

  “How many of the enemy was left?”

  “The brass says it was about eight hundred. But, Captain, it might as well have been eight thousand. They came at our line with everything they had that night—except ammunition. Any other troops would have surrendered.

  “By the morning of May 30 there were twenty-eight left who gave up. The rest were killed. It was so dark and the fighting was so fierce that I don’t know how many I killed … don’t know that I want to know either.”

  “Do you think it’s true that they were left there to die?”

  “Hard to imagine a government that would sell out their troops like that, but yes, I do. I’ll tell you this though: I don’t ever want to experience anything like it again. The blood, the bodies, the sounds of people dying—I don’t think it’ll ever get it out of my mind.”

  Nick knew the Japanese were noted for their legend of Yamato damashii, or “spirit warrior.” They believed that this spirit made Japan invincible in war and became obsessed, almost possessed, in war. They also believed their Emperor Hirohito was a supreme deity, which conferred a sons of God mentality to each soldier. They gladly gave their lives for the emperor. What Tony experienced was not unusual for soldiers in battle with the Japanese. The relentless brutality was beyond the typical American understanding of war. The Chinese had known it, however, in their defeat at the hands of the Japanese, but it’s difficult to prepare a soldier for this kind of hostility. Nick had read an article by Robert Sherrod, Time’s war correspondent, that described the situation at Attu best. “The results of the Jap banzai fanaticism stagger the imagination. The very violence of the scene is incomprehensible to the Western mind. Here groups of men … met their self-imposed obligation to die rather than accept capture, by blowing themselves to bits. The ordinary, unreasoning Jap is ignorant. Perhaps he is human. Nothing on Attu indicates it.”

  Nick rested a hand on Tony’s shoulder and said, “Enjoy your time with family, soldier,” and left him to his own thoughts. Nick could see the effects that the surprise attack on Dutch Harbor and the Battle of Attu had on these soldiers. Their nerves were raw because it easily could happen again. Already rumors circulated that the Japanese had a garrison of five thousand on Kiska, an island only seven hundred miles away. It was understandable that the men were very worried of having to endure a repeat massacre.

  Nick was quiet when he returned to the cockpit. The captain could see the look of incredulity on his face. “Now you know why you’re here,” he said.

  CHAPTER 6

  Fairbanks, Alaska

  September 1, 1943

  My Dear Martha,

  Rain again today. I’ve played more pool up here in three weeks than I’ve played all my life. Went to Bahama Passage last night. The shows are the one real connection with civilization. Outside papers here are always a month old. Getting tired of eating frozen meat, crackers, bread, soup, and canned milk. Going to Anchorage now if the pass is open sufficiently. Then up the north coast of Bristol Bay to Bethel and then further north across the Norton Sound to Nome.

  Yours,

  Nick

  Nick was a confident enough athlete to think he could win at most anything. And the boys he was playing pool with were good enough at pool to “let him believe it.” His losses weren’t enough to quit, however, and besides, he enjoyed the company. With his routes taking him to Edmonton, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau, Seattle, Dutch Harbor, Nome, Billings, Whitehorse, and multiple stops on the CANOL (Canadian Oil, a development of Imperial Oil west and north of Great Bear Lake), Fairbanks had been as much like home as anywhere lately.

  Tonight would be a special break in routine as he and Anne Walsh were going to the Bob Hope, Jerry Calonna, and Frances Langford show. Their troupe arrived in the afternoon by an army Lockheed 14. The show would go on from a flatbed truck and the boys were sure to enjoy it. Weather was perfect.

  Anne was an army nurse stationed in Fairbanks. Nick had met her while visiting a pool hall buddy at the hospital who had broken a leg hiking in the White Mountains north of town. She was friendly with dark brown eyes and pretty with short brunette hair, but kind of a tomboy, so she fit in with the various activities the men were doing. Nick was comfortable around her and was glad for a break from the constant companionship of men.

  “This isn’t a date, is it?” Anne asked, teasing Nick about their upcoming evening together. They had been spending a lot of time together. Their friendship had grown, but they were careful to remain just friends. In fact, Nick was one of the few pilots not making advances.

  “I feel uncomfortable enough as it is without your kidding. The guys are going to make me pay for this plenty when they see me tomorrow. We’re friends. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Relax. I’ll make sure they know you’re not my type.”

  Nick was serious. He had examined his life and was ready to make a change from his Northwest days. He wanted a full life with Martha, and the idea of a family seemed perfect.

  The weather was changing, and they felt a chill in the air while casually walking toward the mess hall. Nick commented, “On the flight in from Bethel yesterday I saw another squadron of P-38s pass on their way to Russia. It’s hard for me to get used to how close Japan, Russia, and the U.S. are at the top of the world. From what I’ve seen, most of their pilots are pretty green. I hope the planes last long enough to cause problems on the Russian front with Hitler’s boys.” He made an uppercut gesture to make his point. They tucked their heads down to avoid the swirling dust from a small devil wi
nd on the street.

  “It frightens me to think of all the countries at war,” Anne added. “It’s really hard for me to believe that with Japan between China and the Allies and Germany between Russia and the Allies that Hitler and Hirohito can actually believe in their strategy. Am I missing something, Nick?”

  “All their chips are on the table. Neither country seems to have a fall-back position. They’re in it for supremacy. They’re in it for the long haul, and more lives will be lost … many of them American.” Both were quiet with this thought as they approached the performance area. It was quite a gathering of GIs, officers, and contract workers. They all stood in a big semicircle around several flatbed trucks that were backed in front of the wood frame mess hall. Someone was testing the speakers as the show was about to start. Shows like these made a difference and were a welcomed break from the routine on base. You could see it in the men’s animated expressions and light-hearted interaction.

  “A change in plans came in this afternoon, so I can only stay for half the show. Let’s stand near the back,” Nick said.

  “That’s too bad. Is there a problem? Is Martha okay?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. We have to pull out for Anchorage and Bethel at 2100. Duty calls, another pilot got sick. I just hope I get to hear Frances Langford sing ‘I’m in the Mood for Love.’”

  “You and about five hundred others.”

  Anne had three brothers and no sisters. She knew how to work side by side with these love-sick men without letting herself get involved. It was her feeling that if she began a relationship with a coworker it would be hard to live normally as friends with the other men while doing her job. This night would be like all the other nights after performances. She would have to fend off the advances of love-sick GIs with emotions stirred up by the music. For the most part, their intentions were not completely misguided—they were lonely, just like she was, and missed someone special.