Air Force the Official Service Journal - Air Force Historical Studies ...

1> AC
'tile .... if Ille Air TrauSti1l1Cenaud wllo plOleeiedlilt ihrt.I1Iesl Rtllite~~.. .•
thcn could not Iioncstlv hc called flight strips but which
could be turncd into a series of bases linking the United
States to Al.ixka.
In June, 1942, a group of ofFiccrs, Maj. Lloyd Earle flight
corn mnudcr, made the first sun'ey run for the 7th r'errying
Group and the route was opened with major stops at Great
Falls, l':(!Juontoll, lort St. John, Fort Nelson, \Vatson Lake,
Whitehorse, and Fairbanks.
When the route ,,'as first opened, deliveries were few and
far between. J\Icn II'Cre killed, aircraft cracked up with
alarming regularity. Ior a while it appeared that the promised
dcl ivcrv schedule would not be met. J\lorc(l\l'r, the
winter of 1942-43 \I'as the coldest in all the recorded history
of r'airh:l11ks. The temperature dropped to 67 degrees belO\v
zero. At some w.r,: stut iou», men lived in tents iu that kind
of wcathcr-i--nnd the lutriucs were out-ide. Enginc oil froze
to solid icc. \Veatller changed from C;\VU to zero-zero in
seven minutes. At Lacld Field, it was not physically possible
to work outdoors for Jong periods in temperatures that
turned breath into icicles, froze eyelids together, and caused
severe cases of frostbite, sometimes necessibtiug amputation.
1\lech:mies took turns running in and out of heated hangars
to service the planes. If any part of the body touched a
piece of metal, flesh and metal could not be separated without
cutting, If a single drop of 100 octane gas fell on the
skin, it would raise a blister about an inch high, The fingers
of some mechanics were eaten :l\\'ay like the hands of lepers.
An indication of the weather is seen in the case of Capt,
Thomas Hardy. IIc "as 13-26 Project Officer at Fairbanks
and he had two brand new 1\lara udcrs, in tip-top .shapc,
serviced by some of the best mechanics in the business.
Only four hours of fl\'ing time a month is ncccssarv to qualifv
for fl\'ing pa\'. Dming [uuuarv. 1()-f 3, the weather'was so ba~l
that Capt, Ll.nclv did not get thing pay,
Gradually, with the help of the untiring work carried on
NOVEMBER, 1944
won a viclorylbal bas bad aprofound'effecfGllitJij,course
" ...~i~~;;~~~~~i;~T!-.~.... Jf"~'1":
bv Brig, Ccn. Dale V, Caffney's (no\\' CC of ATC's Alask.m
Di\'isiou) Cold \Veather Testing Unit at Ladel held
and the pioneering of Col. Ponton De Arcc, first commanding
otneer .it Great I'alls, the principal difficulties were licked.
I.lying the route in the early d.ivs presented the kind of
h:u,arels th.rt granelehildren will never believe. Along the
1,900 mile run, there were only four radio ranges. Thcv
were on the uir oulv half of the time~and then thcv were
completely nnreliable. Pilots s.iicl that the best ,,'ay 'to run
into a mountainside ,,'as to st.iv on the beam. I ,anding C(Udit
iou-, were (l:mgerous lleC:llI~e most fields had oulv sort
dirt ruu w.ivs. J\Lrj. Fr.mk Lnrclcut said, "I taxied a 13-2-+
over a culvert at lxhuonton and the damn thing collapsed
underneath me. \\Then I parked on the Ll11ding'mats, they
sank into the mud."
There "as no weather information of nnv kind in an area
wlrcrc the only thing that could be forcc:lst \\'as th:lt the
weather would be unpredictable. "I had orilv one weather
report for 24 hours of flying," said Capt. Fclmuud Avcruum,
Pilots took off under perfect fl\iug conditions and ran into
a snowstorm tivc minutes out. They just stuck their ',hip"
into the weather and flew until it got too t01]gh. Then the
trick wns to find out where thcv were and how to get back.
There is a vallcv between \ \ia tson I.:Ike am! "'h itehorse
which became knil\\'n as Million Dollar V~J1lc\' because we
lost more than a million dollars worth of airplanes up there
in a short time. It ,,'as easy for cvpcricuccd pilots to gues;
whu! had happened. The planes ran into wcnthcr-c--hlizvnrds,
thuudcrstorrnx, fog, SC\Tre icing, and ceiling zero in the
mountains, In that area, there were ubsolutclv no n:I\'igJtion.rl
methods to dctcnuinc npproviruutc pusit iou. Every
hundred miles of frozen terrain looked jmt like e\l'ry other
hundred miles. F.\Tn' mountain range presented the same
ugl\' picture. Radios were usclcss-s-d i-tuuccs were too great
to establish contact. The pilots just flew around blindlv until
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