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81 Days Below Zero

Page 23

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.

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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

 

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