by Mike Jenne
On the night prior to coming out here, over beers in the little Officers Club at Eielson, Carson vowed that he had no intention of spending any more than the requisite five days in the wilderness. If they had to suffer, he declared, they would, but they would not crack open the emergency bundle or switch on the URC-64s under any circumstances.
Ourecky considered their alternatives. If they couldn’t pop the canopy open, they could probably smash out the Plexiglas with a sizeable rock. Shivering uncontrollably, he decided to try the stubborn canopy again. Stomping his feet, he tamped down the snow so he would have a solid platform for more leverage. It took him several attempts, but he finally forced the canopy open; the severe cold had caused the hinges to stick considerably.
Peering inside the cockpit, he saw that the two tandem seats were still in place, but the control sticks and most of the instruments had been stripped out. An old cargo parachute—simulating the Gemini-I’s paraglider—was crammed behind the seats; they had been briefed that they could salvage the parachute for their shelter or other purposes. The nylon survival rucksacks were jammed into the foot wells of the cockpit.
“How’s it look?” asked Carson, teeth chattering, standing up behind him.
“Good,” commented Ourecky. He was overheated from the exertion and flipped back his parka hood to bleed off some excess heat. “Nice of you to come by.”
“Climb in,” ordered Carson quietly.
“Huh?”
“Climb into the cockpit, Ourecky. Now. There’s no sense standing out here in the cold.”
Clambering through the open hatch, Ourecky did as he was instructed. He slid headfirst into the cockpit and crawled into the left-hand seat. Carson climbed into the right-hand seat, where the F-111’s WSO—Weapon System Operator—would normally sit.
“Home, sweet home,” commented Carson, closing the canopy. “Of course, it’ll be a bit awkward to sleep sitting up, but I can live with that.”
“You’re planning to stay in here?” asked Ourecky skeptically. “The survival instructors said that staying in the pod was a bad idea.”
“Yeah, those Boy Scouts want us to exert ourselves building a log cabin, but the smart play is to conserve our energy. I’ve done this drill a few times, so I know the rituals. We’re out here by our lonesome for five days, so we make our own rules. We’ll make ourselves a cozy little nest. When the weather’s decent, we’ll climb out and bash around a little bit to make it look like we made a sincere attempt to earn our merit badges, but otherwise we hunker down in here.”
“But what if they come out to check us?” Ourecky noticed that the moisture from their breaths had already formed a thin layer of frost on the interior of the Plexiglas.
“Paranoid, are we? They’re not coming to check on us, Ourecky. Like I said, I’ve already been here and have the cute little patch to show for it. Midway through Day Five, they’ll roll the SAR guys. Then it’s a chopper ride back to a hot meal and cold beers at the O Club.”
“It just seems like we’re cheating,” replied Ourecky, unzipping his survival rucksack.
“And that, Mister Ourecky, forms the basis for the most valuable lesson about all forms of survival training: if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying, and if you get caught cheating, you’re not trying hard enough.”
“If you say so, Major.” Ourecky pulled an odd-looking gun from his rucksack. It was a collapsible M6 Scout Aircrew Survival Weapon, an “over-under” combination of a .410 gauge shotgun and .22 caliber Hornet rifle. It would be the only firearm between the two men.
“Hand it over, Ourecky. I’ve been through the training, so I’ll handle the shooting iron.” Carson dug through his rucksack and located a stiff plastic object about two feet square and two inches thick. “Just what I was looking for,” he said, twisting a metal latch in the center of the square. The object made a loud hissing noise; a vacuum-compressed sleeping bag materialized from the unlikely package. “Find yours and make yourself comfortable.”
Ourecky found his sleeping bag and stuffed it behind his seat. As he inventoried the contents of his rucksack, he said, “I guess we can stay in here tonight. If you don’t mind, after a while, I’ll go outside and scout the immediate area. I won’t stray too far. Okay with you?”
“Sounds good. I might even go with you, but don’t be too offended if I stay put.”
7:45 a.m., Wednesday, October 9, 1968
It wasn’t yet light when Ourecky woke up. Despite the sleeping bag and several layers of parachute material, he was colder than he had ever been in his life. He had never imagined that it was possible to be this cold and still be alive. His extremities were heavy and numb, and to cap it all off, he had a splitting headache. Shivering uncontrollably, he remained in his seat for almost an hour, waiting for the sun to come up, as he contemplated what he should do.
Finally, mustering his courage, he climbed out of his nylon cocoon. Maybe Carson was content to be cooped up in this frigid cockpit, but he wasn’t. He unlatched the portside hatch canopy, jammed his shoulder against it, and then stood up. The canopy reluctantly creaked open. He heaved his survival rucksack out into the snow and then rolled headlong out after it.
Shaking violently, he stood up, closed the canopy, and then stomped his feet to coax some circulation into his toes. He scanned the desolate landscape and spied a slightly wooded area adjacent to the creek, about a hundred yards east of the pod. The trees weren’t much to speak of, mostly new pines and some stunted hardwoods, but they would offer at least some modicum of protection from the wind, as well as the raw materials he would need to establish a campsite.
Instead of crawling on his hands and knees atop the snow, as he had done the day before, he intentionally stayed upright, methodically packing down a path from the pod to his planned abode. Like yesterday, his transit was painfully slow and arduous. Several times along the way, the bitter cold and constant wind almost forced him to retreat to the pod in surrender.
Making it to the sparse tree line, he rested. His head still ached and his swollen tongue filled his mouth. He was badly dehydrated but resisted the urge to munch on snow to slake his thirst. His rucksack contained four metal containers of emergency drinking water, each about the size of a soda can, but they were surely frozen solid by now. If he had remembered to put one under his parka last night, he would now have some water to quench his thirst.
To start a fire, he foraged for twigs and sticks, snapping dry “squaw wood” from the trunks of nearby trees. Recalling the Jack London short stories he had savored in junior high school, he took care to set his fire away from any overhanging tree branches, lest it be snuffed out by falling snow. With shaking hands, he carefully arranged his tinder and kindling to fashion a small teepee and stockpiled extra wood to stoke the fire as it grew.
He successfully ignited the tinder with a single wooden match, just as he had been taught in the Boy Scouts, and gently blew into it to entice the flames. Crouching by the fire, soaking in its meager warmth, he opened the jam-packed rucksack and dug out a “Woodsman’s Pal”—a multi-function tool that looked like a wide-bladed machete with a pruning hook at the end—and a length of parachute cord. He placed the gray water cans near the fire to thaw them.
Over the course of the next few hours, he built a lean-to sufficiently large to accommodate two men, complete with a thick mattress of springy evergreen boughs. On the open side of the lean-to, he gouged out a burrow for a fire and fabricated a small wall to reflect the fire’s warmth into the low shelter. Then he surveyed his handiwork. It wasn’t much, but he was confident that even the stoic Carson would realize the merits of being able to stretch out in front of a fire instead of stubbornly remaining in the cramped pod.
After applying some finishing touches, he backtracked to the pod to grab additional gear. He knocked on the canopy and waited for Carson’s response, but there was nothing; the pilot was either sleeping very soundly—which was highly unlikely—or something was very wrong.
Cl
umsy in his heavy Arctic gear, he popped open the canopy and swung it up. He anxiously pulled the parachute blanket and orange sleeping bag away from Carson’s face. The pilot was pale and unresponsive. Ourecky checked his pulse; his heart was beating, but just barely so. Carson’s body was cold to the touch, so Ourecky knew he had to act promptly, or the least of his worries would be spending five extra days in the wilderness.
Climbing into the cockpit, he managed to wedge himself under Carson. Pushing mightily, he shoved the pilot out into the snow. In what seemed like an eternity, he gradually dragged Carson’s inert body to the lean-to shelter. Placing him inside, he covered him with his sleeping bag before stoking the fire with more wood. Then he tramped back to the pod to grab the second rucksack, the parachute, and some scrap pieces of aluminum from the remnants of the instrument panel. Periodically checking on Carson, who was now conscious and showing signs of improvement, he used a rock to bash some salvaged aluminum into a semblance of a pan, which he then used to melt snow to produce drinking water.
Before the sun went down, Ourecky had succeeded in fully reviving Carson. “Better now?” he asked, fanning the coals of the fire.
“I’ll say,” mumbled Carson. Sitting by the fire, he sipped from a water can, which was filled with a tea Ourecky had made by steeping pine needles in hot water. “I guess I owe you one. I probably would have frozen to death if you hadn’t looked in on me when you did.” He took another sip and looked at their snug sanctuary. “So where did you learn how to do all this?”
“Boy Scouts. Plus I paid attention in class. You just never know when you might actually have to put some of this stuff into practice.” Ourecky leaned over the fire and looked into his makeshift pot. “Hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Well, it’s not much, but I’m cooking up a couple of bouillon cubes. I pulled them out of a survival ration I found in the kit. I also set a few snares on a rabbit trail down by the creek, so maybe we’ll have a more substantial meal at some point.”
“Babe, I’m just grateful for what we have,” Carson said, leaning over the crude pot and taking a quick whiff. “By the way, Ourecky, what happened today . . . would it be a problem if we just kept that to ourselves?”
Ourecky smiled. “My lips are sealed. I guess it can be our little secret. But just one little thing, though . . .”
“What’s that?”
Grinning, Ourecky thumped Carson on the shoulder and exclaimed, “Pay attention!”
Embarrassed, Carson laughed. “Point taken. I deserved that. I’ve definitely learned my lesson on this trip.”
Sipping the tea, Carson was silent for several minutes, contemplating the flickering coals. Finally he spoke. “Why do you do this, Scott?”
“Do what?”
“You know. The Box. This survival training. I endure all this crap because there’s a remote chance that I might go into space someday, but why do you do it?”
“Well, I guess I’ve not really thought about it.”
Darkness was falling quickly. As he stirred the fire with a stick, Carson said, “You should think about it. You must know that ol’ Virg is exploiting you to make this last hurdle. After that, you’ll probably be exiled back to your closet. That’s not fair.”
Ourecky watched red embers rise and flicker out. He was thankful that the winds had died down. “Fair? Life’s not about what’s fair, Major Carson.”
“Drew. Call me Drew, Scott. I think you’ve more than earned that right by saving my butt.”
“Okay. Drew, it is. Anyway, I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that I’m not meant to be a hero. I’m just cut out to be someone who makes it possible for others to be heroes. I figured that out after they rejected my last appeal to attend flight school. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Yeah. Not everyone is destined to be a pilot,” noted Carson.
“That’s true, but I’ll tell you, the past few weeks have been the best time in my life, and if this is as close as I ever come to orbit, then it’s all been worth it. Just to be a part of this makes it all worthwhile to me. This is history in the making.”
“So you’re willing to do all the heavy lifting that makes this thing possible, and then just fade anonymously into the background?” asked Carson.
Ourecky nodded. “Look, no one knows the name of Lindbergh’s mechanic, but he was still a part of history all the same. And that’s the way it is for me. If any of this ever ends up in the history books, I can point to it and tell my kids and grandkids that I was a part of it.”
“But it’s never going to be in any history book.”
“I can accept that.”
“Well, Scott, I sure admire you for that. You’re definitely enduring a lot of pain and agony just to remain on the ground and watch others go into space.”
Ourecky didn’t reply. Anticipating the long night ahead, he banked glowing coals so that the warmth would remain for the cold hours between now and dawn.
“Wow, look at that,” exclaimed Carson, gesturing toward the north. The ghostly red and green plumes of the aurora borealis danced and shimmered in the sky. “Isn’t that something?”
“It surely is,” replied Ourecky, awestruck by the sublime beauty in the heavens. “It most surely is.”
10:20 a.m., Friday, October 11, 1968
The ride from Eielson to the field training site took almost an hour by Sno-Cat. Accompanied by a PJ and a security man from the 116th, Wolcott quietly unloaded his gear for the two-mile trek to the observation post. The security man bore a 30.06 hunting rifle; the bolt-action weapon was intended for the grizzly bears that sometimes frequented this environs.
Wolcott was a little wobbly on his snowshoes, so he used an old pair of bamboo ski poles to help maintain his balance. Like his companions, he carried a sleeping bag and other survival gear in an Army mountaineering rucksack. The pack’s narrow straps weighed heavily on his shoulders, even through the padding of his parka, and its metal frame grated at his hips.
The outpost was set just below the ridgeline, overlooking the expansive valley where Carson and Ourecky had their survival camp. Keeping vigil in a blind manufactured of rough timbers and white cloth, a man intently peered through a tripod-mounted spotting scope, periodically jotting notes in a journal. He wore camouflage “overwhites” atop his olive drab parka and field pants. The interior of the blind was spare and tidy; a scoped bolt-action rifle leaned against a timber, next to a PRC-25 field radio. A small multi-fuel mountain stove sat in a corner, heating a pot of liquid. The hard-packed snow floor was covered with a sheet of canvas.
Wolcott approached the man and said, “So you must be the one keepin’ an eye on this big spread.” He stuck out his mittened hand. “I’m Virgil Wolcott.”
The man turned, slowly put a gloved finger to his lips, and quietly shushed Wolcott. “Sorry, sir, but sound carries far over this snow,” he explained quietly, in a voice just barely above a whisper. “I’m Tech Sergeant Halvorsen. I’m a survival instructor from Fairchild. We’re observing your aircrew for the duration of the exercise. We keep an eye on them, but we keep our distance. They won’t ever know we’re here unless they have a significant problem.”
“Sounds good, pard,” replied Wolcott. He heard a slight rustling noise and turned to see a small lean-to, constructed of freshly hewn pine saplings and boughs, next to the blind. Inside the lean-to, another instructor was bundled in a heavy Arctic sleeping bag, sleeping soundly.
“That’s Tech Sergeant Jackson, sir. Do you want me to wake him, sir?”
“No, pard, don’t disturb him,” said Wolcott. He stooped down, took off his mittens, and cupped his hands around the blue flame emanating from the mountain stove’s burner. “That ain’t coffee, is it?” he asked, gazing into the small aluminum pot perched atop the stove.
“Yes, sir. Help yourself. Use my cup there. You have to drink it down pretty fast, though, because it will start freezing a couple of minutes after it comes off the stove.”
Wol
cott reached into his parka and extracted a pack of cigarettes and a pack of matches. Teeth chattering, holding a cigarette between his lips, he flicked open the Zippo.
“Sorry, sir. No smoking up here. They’ll be able to smell it down in the valley.”
“Well, pard, you sure know how to make someone feel welcome.” Wolcott gingerly poured the plastic cup full of coffee. He stood up slowly, chose an aiming point outside and behind the blind, and let fly a string of tobacco juice. Within seconds of hitting the snow, the spit froze into brown crystals. “So how are my boys doin’ out there?”
Kneeling on the canvas floor, Halvorsen consulted his log. “They’ve been out three days. As you look at their shelter down there, the big bump in the snow about a hundred yards to the west is their F-111 pod. About six inches of snow fell last night, and it covered it up fairly well.”
As Wolcott looked through the spotting scope, Halvorsen continued. “Your crew scouted around on the afternoon of the first day, but didn’t venture more than a couple of hundred yards from where we dropped them off. They don’t have snowshoes, so it’s mighty hard slogging around out there, but they did make it as far as that little creek you see off to the east.”
“About mid-afternoon of the first day, we observed both of them climb back into the ejection pod. Initially, we figured that they were just sorting out their survival kits, but later we realized that they were seeking shelter in the pod, which really isn’t a good idea.”
“Why’s that, pard?” asked Wolcott. He sipped from the coffee.
“That pod’s aluminum, so it soaks up the cold like an ice cube tray. No insulation at all. Of course, a good layer of snow will insulate it somewhat, but you run the risk of suffocating if you can’t open the canopy. Plus, if you remain in there, you can’t build a fire. You’re not going to last very long out here without at least a small fire to stay warm. Normally, when we see an aircrew take refuge in the pod, we know we’ll eventually be heading down there to evacuate them.”