by Brian Murphy
In Anchorage, Beckstead’s boxes and files packed with his research from the crash site were left without an owner. On the first day of July in 2014, Beckstead died suddenly at his home. Among the items, carefully filed and dated, is Beckstead’s notes from a phone call in July 1994 with Crane just a few weeks after Beckstead first visited the resting place of the B-24.
“Leon did not want to talk about the crash. He did not want to talk about his survival,” Beckstead said nearly a decade later.
“He left some part of himself back in Alaska. It’s something he does not want to disturb or share. The wilderness can do that to people who face it alone. It becomes a private thing, an almost sacred thing.”
Acknowledgments
My thanks go out in many directions for guidance, assistance, and support with this project.
I’ll start at the top: my wife, Toula Vlahou, and daughter, Zoe. They make me better in every way. Toula’s wisdom, research, and deft editing grace every page. Zoe’s humor and truly original observations on life make my life so much richer.
My immensely gifted editor Robert Pigeon made this book sharper and smarter every step of the way. My friend and agent, Robert Shepard, once again lifted my work with his vision and insights.
The families of Leon Crane, Harold Hoskin, Richard Pompeo, and Ralph Wenz provided invaluable help. I am in their debt. Special thanks go to William and Joyce Crane, Thomas Crane and Steve Crane, John and Mary Hoskin and Joann Goldstein, David Myers and Michael Slaybaugh, and Dick Wenz, Jana Wenz Bloxham, and Ray Wahl.
Similar appreciation goes to Douglas Beckstead. He wanted to write his own book about his efforts to recover and identify Hoskin’s remains. Sadly, he left us before he could realize this dream.
To better understand the B-24, my thanks go to Bill Gros, who flew thirty-one combat missions aboard a B-24D; the Collings Foundation, especially Hunter Chaney; Craig Fuller at AAIR Aviation Archaeological Investigation & Research; Jeremy R. Kinney at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; William Darron; Michael S. Simpson; and Jim Lux.
Others deserve my deep gratitude.
In Alaska: Linda Jackson; Denise Gray; Dee Rice; Charles “Chuck” Gray; Bob Eley; David Wozniczka; Angela Linn at the Museum of the North; Rose Speranza, Charles Hilton, and the staff at Project Jukebox at the University of Alaska’s Special Collections in Fairbanks; Nicole Jackelen of the University of Alaska in Anchorage archives; Pete Haggland and Richard Flanders at the Pioneer Air Museum in Fairbanks; Linda Douglass, Lisa Graham, Constance Storch, and Natalie Loukianoff at Fort Wainwright; Timo “Chris” Allan and Chris Houlette at the Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve; former Ladd Field researcher and writer Kathy Price; and the late Ladd Field veteran Randy Acord.
In Hawaii: Major Jamie Dobson and Lee Tucker at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.
In Philadelphia: Elizabeth Stegner, Mike Hardy, Joe Minardi, and Joe Shapiro at the University City Historical Society; Bob Lieter at the Jewish Exponent; Allen Meyers; Nathaniel Popkin at PlanPhilly; Jessica M. Lydon at Temple University’s Special Collections Research Center; and Mary Dean at West Philadelphia High School.
In Massachusetts: John Linn Ragle, Myles Crowley at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Special Collection Library, Dr. Bruce Bistrian, Jack Murphy, Ellen Foley, and the staff of the Brewster Ladies’ Library.
In the New York and Washington, DC, areas: Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan, Susan Gough, military analyst Mike Lyons, and Bruce Guthrie.
And in other points on the map: Amy Fischer at Western Union; Major Russell Vanderlugt at West Point; Peter Hatem in Maine; Terry Leonard at Stars and Stripes; Gregory L. Fox at JPAC; Dan Poynter; Paul Ames; Gino Ferri; Pinedale, Wyoming, historian Ann Chambers Noble; Theresa Rice; Robyn Russell; and Jerry Johnson.
Selected Bibliography and Sources
Leon Crane’s firsthand accounts are taken from several sources: military records, the unedited transcript of an interview for the New York Journal-American, a similar story under Crane’s byline published in the American (August 1944), and a videotaped oral history conducted in the late 1990s. Descriptions of U.S. military operations in Alaska during World War II, including the search for the missing bomber, were aided significantly by documents from Pentagon archives, oral histories, interviews with veterans and experts, and details from press reports at the time.
Many of the military records concerning the recovery and identification of Harold Hoskin’s remains were kindly provided by his brother John.
Other details in the book are derived from archival sources, published material, and more than one hundred interviews by phone or during research trips to Philadelphia, Maine, Alaska, Washington, and elsewhere.
Historical details on the Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve and related subjects were found in a variety of National Park Service publications. Background on Ladd Field, including the Lend-Lease period, comes from sources including historical accounts compiled for the U.S. military by researcher Kathy Price.
Temperature data from Fairbanks and surrounding areas were taken from University of Alaska meteorological records.
Other books and sources include the following.
Introduction
Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/.
Operations in Snow and Extreme Cold. Field manual. Washington, DC: Army Air Corps, 1941.
Chapter One
Chandonnet, Fern. Alaska at War, 1941–1945: The Forgotten War Remembered. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2008.
Forman, Wallace R. B-24 Nose Art Name Directory. North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 1998.
Memorandum Report on Consolidated B-24D. Washington, DC: Army Air Corps, Materiel Division, 1942.
Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Army Air Force. Oxford: Osprey, 1993.
Chapter Two
“Fliers, Forced Down in Arctic, Reach Safely Following Epic Trip.” Havre (MT) Daily News, January 31, 1942.
“Poon Lim Awarded Medal for 133 Days on Life Raft.” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 17, 1943.
Chapter Three
Bombing at Dutch Harbor: Report, Commander, Northwest Sea Frontier. Seattle: National Archives and Records Administration, July 17, 1942.
Garfield, David. The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969.
Ragle, Richard Charles. The War in the Aleutians: The First Two Weeks. http://jlragle.com/FRAMES2/rcragle.htm.
Rearden, Jim. Sam O. White, Alaskan. Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories, 2006.
“Russian Flier, Pitched Out of Bomber over Alaska, Lives to Tell Tale.” Lethbridge (AB) Herald, August 31, 1944.
“Statement by Capt. Jack S. Marks.” Papers of Admiral Robert A. Theobald, June 9, 1942, Hoover Archives, Stanford University.
Chapter Four
Beckstead, Douglas, and Anita Slomski. The Long Trip Home. Washington, DC: Parks, 2007.
Birdsall, Steve. B-24 Liberator in Action. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal, 1979.
Journal of San Diego History 24, no. 4 (1978).
Pattillo, Donald M. Pushing the Envelope: The American Aircraft Industry. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
Simons, Graham M. Consolidated B-24 Liberator. South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books, 2012.
Chapter Five
Byrd, Admiral Richard E. Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1938.
Payer, Julius J. New Lands Within the Arctic Circle: Narrative of the Discoveries of the Austrian Ship Tegetthoft in the Years 1872–1874. Vol. 2. London: Macmillan, 1876.
Van Lanen, James M., et al. Subsistence Land Mammal Harvests and Uses, Yukon Flats, Alaska: 2008–2010 Harvest Report and Ethnographic Update. Juneau: Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments, October 2012.
&nb
sp; Chapter Six
Freeman, Moses. Fifty Years of Jewish Immigrant Life in Philadelphia. Translated from Yiddish by Julian L. Greifer and Maxwell Scarf. Philadelphia: Temple University Collection.
Grove, Mary Confehr. History of the West Philadelphia High School. Philadelphia: Temple University Collection, Faculty of Teacher’s College, 1936.
Meyers, Allen. The Jewish History of West Philadelphia. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2001.
Weaver, Wallace W. West Philadelphia: A Study of Natural Social Areas. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1938.
Chapter Seven
Flatt, Dr. Adrian E. Frostbite. Dallas: Baylor University Medical Center, July 2010.
Jarvenpa, Robert. Northern Passage: Ethnography and Apprenticeship Among the Subarctic Dene. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1998.
Streever, Bill. Cold: Adventures in the World’s Coldest Places. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.
Chapter Eight
Cole, Terrence. Crooked Past: The History of a Frontier Mining Camp, Fairbanks, Alaska. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1991.
Osgood, Cornelius. Winter. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
Chapter Nine
Smith, Dinitia. “Gerold Frank Is Dead at 91; Author of Celebrity Memoirs.” New York Times, September 19, 1998.
Chapter Ten
Hays, Otis. The Alaska-Siberia Connection: The World War II Air Route. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006.
Jordan, George Racey, with Richard Leroy Stokes. From Major Jordan’s Diaries. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952.
Layman, Richard, and Julie M. Rivett. Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett, 1920–1960. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2002.
Stefansson, Vilhjalmur. Papers. Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.
Chapter Eleven
Patty, Ernest. North Country Challenge. New York: David McKay, 1969.
Chapter Twelve
Cold Weather Survival. United States Search and Rescue Task Force. http://www.ussartf.org/cold_water_survival.htm.
Roberts, David. Alone on the Ice. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013.
Chapter Thirteen
Bergquist, David. “My Brother’s Keeper: Harold E. Hoskin and His Brother John.” Echoes, the Northern Maine Journal (Caribou), no. 86 (October–December 2009).
Opium: A Japanese Technique of Occupation. Washington, DC: Office of Strategic Services, 1945.
“Recollections of Pvt. Hans Krueger.” Kriegsgefangen Research Forum. http://home.arcor.de/kriegsgefangene/memoirs/hans_krueger.html.
Chapter Fourteen
Mallory, Enid. Robert Service: Under the Spell of the Yukon. Custer, WA: Heritage House, 2006.
Service, Robert W. Collected Poems of Robert Service. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907.
Chapter Fifteen
Dauenhauer, Richard. Koyukon Riddles. Anchorage: Alaska Bilingual Education Center, 1975.
de Laguna, Frederica. Tales from the Dena: Indian Stories from the Tanana, Koyukuk & Yukon Rivers. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995.
Goldfarb, Richard J., et al. Geology and Origin of Epigenetic Lode Gold Deposits, Tintina Gold Province, Alaska and Yukon. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Geological Survey, 2007.
Hoffman, Richard G. Human Psychological Performance in Cold Environments. Washington, DC: Textbook of Military Medicine, Department of the Army, Office of the Surgeon General, and Borden Institute, 2001.
Raven’s Athabascan Tales. Fairbanks: University of Alaska, Alaska Native Knowledge Network. http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/npe/culturalatlases/yupiaq/marshall/raven/athabaskan.html.
Ruppert, James, and John W. Bernet. Our Voices: Native Stories of Alaska and the Yukon. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
Chapter Sixteen
Isto, Sarah Crawford. The Fur Farms of Alaska. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2012.
World War II Combat Diary of J. J. McAndrews. Cleveland, OH: Coast Guard Great Lakes. http://greatlakes.coastguard.dodlive.mil/2013/11/world-war-ii-combat-diary-of-j-j-mcandrews-d-day-and-saying-goodbye.
Chapter Seventeen
Beckstead, Douglas. The World Turned Upside Down: A Mining History of Coal Creek and Woodchopper Creek, Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska. Fairbanks: National Park Service, 2000.
Hunt, William R. Golden Places: The History of Alaska-Yukon Mining. Anchorage: National Park Service, 1989.
O’Neill, Dan. A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River. New York: Counterpoint, 2006.
Shore, Evelyn Berglund. Born on Snowshoes. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1954.
Chapter Eighteen
McPhee, John. Coming into the Country. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1977.
Patty, Stanton H. Fearless Men and Fabulous Women: A Reporter’s Memoir from Alaska & the Yukon. Seattle: Epicenter Press, 2004.
Chapter Nineteen
Ambrose, Stephen E. The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Gunston, Bill. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Propeller Airliners. London: Phoebus, 1980.
Chapter Twenty
Batzli, Samuel A. Fort Myers, Virginia: Historic Landscape Inventory. Technical report. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, June 1998.
Poole, Robert M. Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Proietti, Senior Master Sgt. Matt. “B-24 Pilot Finds Final Resting Place at Arlington.” Arctic Sentry (Anchorage), September 14, 2007.
Index
Acord, Randy, 203
Adakian (newspaper), 126
Adak Island, base newspaper, 126–127
African Americans, northern migration of, 7–8
Air-ferry business in Alaska, 40–41
Alaska
adventurers and, 126
aviation in, 14, 39–42
gold mining/gold rush, 100–102, 133–135, 166–167, 173, 188
Japanese attacks on, 11–12
plane wrecks in, 59–60
understanding of nature in, 68–71
winter weather, 6, 14, 139–140
World War II and, 11–13
Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, 133
Alaska Army National Guard, 154
Alexander II, 78
Alford, Thomas Carl, 76
American magazine, 112
Ames, Albert, 177–184, 214
trip to Woodchopper with Crane, 185, 188–189, 191
Ames, Albert Norman (son), 178
Ames, Daniel Lee, 178
Ames, Molly, 178
Ames, Nina, 178, 180, 181, 182–183
Ames’s cabin, 216
Crane’s discovery of, 175–176
Crane’s stay at, 177–184
Antarctica, Mawson in, 145–148
Anzio, 136, 183
Arctic air corridor, 119
Arctic ptarmigan, 131–132, 175
Arctic Village (Marshall), 41
Arlington National Cemetery, 111
Hoskin burial rites, 207–210, 211–212
Silbert interment, 216
Athabascan people, 68–69
Chief Charley, 102
Great Raven and, 172–173
Nina Ames and, 180
Attu (Alaska), Japanese attack and control of, 49–50
A-20 Havoc fighter-bomber, 43
Aurora borealis, 104
Aurora (ship), 147
Ballaine Lake (Alaska), 124
Banzai suicide charges, 50
Barnette, Elbridge Truman, 100–102, 133
Bauer, Eddie, 8
“Beautifu
l Dreamer” (Foster), 121
Beckstead, Douglas, 3, 154
on cause of crash, 203
death of, 218
exploration of crash site, 53–54, 59–60, 109, 110, 112
at Hoskin burial, 210, 212
retracing Crane’s journey, 215–216
Bell, Alexander Graham, 211
Bell Aircraft Corporation, 214
Berail, Phil, 135, 179
cabin, 99, 106, 129–131, 216
death of, 216
early career in Alaska, 99–100, 102, 189
military interview with, 214
pain tolerance of, 189–190
visit with Crane, 188–189, 190–191
Berglund, Evelyn, 188, 191, 194
Bergman, Ingrid, 104
Bertoson, Gordon, 190
Big Delta (Alaska), 17, 18, 25, 27
Crane’s decision to head toward, 88
as focus of Iceberg Inez search, 37–38, 50
Bismarck (battleship), 57
Blackjack, Ada, 126
Blizzards, perils of, 165–166
Bloom, Jessie, 64
Bloom, Robert, 64
Blotto-botto conditions, 37
Boeing, 57
Boeing Vertol, 215
Born on Snowshoes (Berglund), 188
Bradley, Omar, 54
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 49
B-17B bomber, Ragle and, 45, 46, 47
B-17 bombers, 59
B-17 Flying Fortress, 18, 47
B-24 Liberator, 13–14
in combat, 52
crashes, 15, 34
development of, 57–59
problems with, 18, 200
production of, 56–57, 59
size of, 51
use in World War II, 55–56
See also Iceberg Inez
B-24D Liberator, 11
B-26 Marauders, 45
Bush pilots, 39, 40–41, 193–194
Byrd, Richard E., 72
Camp Barkeley, 157
Caribou fog, 16
Casualties, civilian war, 54–55
Catalina Flying Boat, 110
Central Identification Laboratory (Oahu, Hawaii), 154, 199, 205
C-47 transport, 119
Chaplin, Charlie, 166