Alaska (141 page)

One night as they worked not far from the Canadian border, Major Carnon, the indefatigable, proved that he was very fatigable indeed. As he sat with Elmer and Charley, surveying yet another bulldozer whose careless driver had ignored orders, sinking his machine in dark gumbo from which it might never return, tears came to his eyes and his voice broke. After a while he said: 'Forty years from now, if we win this war, this road'll be blacktopped, and people will whisk by here in their Cadillacs. We've been at this damned lake three mud-soaked weeks and we've accomplished damned little. They'll whiz by in three minutes and not even see it. But it had to be done.'

Next morning he lost his composure and shouted at another inept driver, who was failing pitifully to take any reasonable part in the rescue operation: 'Get down off that dozer. Let a real man handle it,' and he pointed to Elmer Flatch: 'Show him how it's done.”

Elmer knew only how to handle his own big machine; it had an inborn stability created by its sheer mass, and he did not feel at ease aboard a smaller machine which might have better maneuverability but also less reliability. Nevertheless, he climbed aboard the smaller machine, tested the controls, and gradually eased it back until he felt the two wire cables tighten. Waiting for the signal which would send the two other rescue dozers in motion, he adjusted himself to the unfamiliar seat and said: 'Ass, send me messages.'

The messages did come, warning him that he was placing the smaller bulldozer in a dangerous posture insofar as tension on the cables and torque from the treads was concerned, but it came in a version that Elmer did not immediately comprehend. Ignoring the signals, he applied more pressure, not wanting to lag behind the other two, and when the sunken tractor broke loose, almost springing out of its cavern, the other two drivers, well acquainted with their machines, relaxed tension immediately. Elmer did not. His

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bulldozer leaped backward, responded unevenly because of torque, and toppled sideways, pinning Elmer beneath it and crushing both his legs.

Major Carnon, seeing him fall under the dozer, was terrified that he might be dead, and it was he who first reached the spot where Elmer lay trapped, with great courses of pain running up and down his body.

'Get him out of there!' Carnon screamed, but it was obviously impossible to do so while the dozer lay atop him.

'Come around this side,' Charley shouted, and when the two other dozers were in position, he and Major Carnon attached the wire cables, but it was Charley who gave the effective orders to the two drivers: 'Once you start back, don't stop for nothin'. You got to keep pullin'. You stop, it falls back down on him, he gone.'

'Hold everything!' Major Carnon shouted. 'You understand what Charley just said?'

'We got it,' one of the drivers replied, and there in the bright sunlight for a brief moment the five actors in this dangerous drama froze: Flatch pinned in the mud, Major Carnon trying desperately to save his life, Indian Charley testing the wire cables, and the two dozer men preparing to move their machines slowly, purposefully backward.

'I'm going to count to three, then I'll yell ”Go!”And for Christ sake, pull even.

If it twists sideways, it'll grind him to pieces.'

Assuming a kneeling position by Flatch's head, so that he could protect him from anything that might slip or bounce off the downed machine, Carnon asked: 'You ready, Flatch?' and when Elmer nodded, the major in loud voice gave the preliminary count, then shouted 'Go!' The two drivers, obeying hand signals from Charley, eased the toppled bulldozer away, steadily and with no rotating motion. Flatch was saved, but his war was over. The medic who inspected his partially crushed legs said, almost cheerfully: 'You were saved by the mud. Hard soil, your legs would've been pulverized.'

Examining him carefully and probing the tissues, he said: 'Marvelous luck. I'm sure they won't have to amputate, soldier.'

'I'm not a soldier,”Flatch replied, determined not to faint.

Of the fourteen hundred and seven miles of' the Alcan Highway, he had been instrumental in building sixty-one. Twenty-two men like him had been killed on the job; seven airplanes had crashed trying to deliver heavy supplies to the various camps; and many black soldiers and white Canadians had suffered severe injuries.

But on 20 October 1942 at a Canadian creek so small it 859

appeared on few maps, Beaver Creek in Yukon Territory, Major Carnon, working south from Alaska, moved forward with his black troops to greet Canadian workmen moving north. The great road, one of the marvels of modern engineering, had been completed, so that trucks bearing the men and armaments required for the protection of the continent could take position along the western reaches of Alaska.

Elmer Flatch, hospital-bound, could not be present to witness this triumph of the human will, but Indian Charley was, standing a few steps behind Major Carnon as the latter stepped forward to greet the Canadians. When the brief ceremony ended, Charley whispered to the major he had served so faithfully: 'Up here we do it different.

But we get it done.'

ON THE MORNING OF 3 JUNE 1942, WHEN ELMER AND THE

black troops had barely begun building the life-saving Alcan, the people of the United States, and especially those living in Alaska, were shocked by the news that a daring Japanese task force, containing two aircraft carriers and hiding behind the storm clouds which clustered permanently in this area of the Aleutians, had crept close to Unalaska, one of the first big islands off the end of the Alaska peninsula, launched bombing planes precisely as its predecessor had done six months before at Pearl Harbor, and brazenly bombed Dutch Harbor.

No great damage was done this time, for in the preceding months America's 11th Army Air Force had secretly constructed undetected airfields in the Dutch Harbor region, so that when the Japanese planes from the carriers attacked, our fighters sprang off the unknown fields and drove them off. The enemy landing that had been planned could not take place, for the Japanese, learning that a frightening number of land-based planes were ready to attack, prudently withdrew, seeking protective cover under the storm clouds.

But enough damage was done by this attempted invasion to send a chill through the Alaskan command, because the generals knew that had the Japanese come in greater force and with more planes, they might well have established a foothold close to Anchorage from which they would be able to subdue all of Alaska, and thus place great pressure upon cities like Seattle, Portland and Vancouver. As then-Captain Shatter had predicted at his 1940 meetings throughout the territory, the invasion from Asia was under way.

The response was quick, but during the first three months, not very effective. Waterfront towns like Sitka constructed shore installations with which to hold off Japanese landing forces. The little airfields of the Northwest Staging Route 860

were beefed up, and the big air bases at Fairbanks, Anchorage and Nome were patrolled twenty-four hours a day by dogs, jeeps and combat aircraft. The frontiersmen of Alaska enlisted in a group called the Alaska Scouts, an official branch of the American armed forces, and some of the more daring men, middle-aged or young, were sent on scouting missions involving extreme danger.

On 10 June 1942, a week after the bombing of Dutch Harbor, one of these scouts riding in a small plane radioed appalling news to headquarters in Anchorage: 'The big Japanese task force that bombed Dutch Harbor, it sailed west under cover of fog and captured Attu Island.... And it looks like they've captured Kiska, too.' American territory, a substantial chunk of it and strategically placed, had been occupied by enemy forces, the first time this had happened since the War of 1812, and all America shuddered.

This was the week that young Nate Coop, the half-breed son-in-law that the Flatches had considered illiterate, left Matanuska to volunteer for duty with the Alaska Scouts.

The army officers serving as liaison with the scouts quickly determined that Nate was too poorly educated to be of much use in any demanding job, but as they watched how capably he handled himself, they concluded: 'He's tough. He seems to have guts.

And he knows the land. He might make a good scout.' And four nights later a solemn-faced officer, a woodsman from Idaho, sat with the three most promising volunteers and issued their instructions: 'We must know what's happening on the islands between here and Attu and Kiska. I can't tell you our plans, and you wouldn't want to know them ... in case you're captured. But you are entitled to know that we have no intention of allowing the Japs to hold those two islands. And if you're caught, you're free to tell them so.'

By this time the three young men could guess what their assignment entailed: 'Teschinoff, you know the Aleutians well. We're putting you on Amlia Island. Small boat launched from a destroyer escort. Middle of the night. Food. Radio. Code. Tell us what's happening.'

When Teschinoff, who was almost pure Aleut except for that Russian great great-grandfather, saluted, the officer added: 'We're sure everyone got off that island, but we need confirmation.'

Kretzbikoff, another Aleut, was dispatched to Atka, an important island. And now came Nate's assignment: 'We must have information about Lapak. Two of our scout planes reported people there. They could be very troublesome if they're Japs.' He studied the three scouts and thought: My God, they look young. Then he asked: 'You understand your

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missions?' When they nodded, he gave them one further command: 'Master your radios.

If you don't send us reports in code, you'll be pretty useless.' But as they prepared to leave his office, a ramshackle affair that had been used for salting fish, he felt a deep, fatherly affection for these youngsters and gave them a promise: 'The army never leaves a scout stranded . . . never.'

Nate spent one more week at Dutch Harbor, mastering his radio and poring over two old, conflicting maps of Lapak Island, and in early August he gathered his gear, marched down to the shore where a small boat was ready to ferry him out to a waiting destroyer, and saluted the officers who had come down to see him off and who would be responsible eight days hence for recovering him from Lapak, always supposing that the Japanese, if they were there, didn't get him first. As he stepped into the boat, the officer from Idaho said: 'It has about a hundred and thirty square miles. Lots of room to hide, if they are there.'

Nate had never before been aboard a ship of any kind, and the severe weather of the Aleutians was hardly the kind one would have chosen for an initiation. Within an hour of leaving Dutch Harbor he was wildly seasick, but so were many of the crew.

A sailor who was not gave him good advice as the destroyer dodged westward through heavy fog and heavier seas: 'Stretch out when you can. Eat a lot of bread, slowly.

Stay away from things like cocoa. And if they serve anything like canned peaches or pears, eat a lot.'

When Nate asked, between vomiting spells, how this small warship could stay afloat in such seas, the sailor explained: 'This tub can stay upright in anything. No matter how far it heels over, it always comes back. Built that way.'

'Where do these waves come from?' Nate asked, and now he had hit upon a subject the sailor enjoyed discussing: 'Up there to starboard, the Bering Sea whipped by arctic gales into choppy swells. Down there, to port, the great Pacific Ocean with its endless reach and massive seas. Up above, a constant flow of stupendous clouds roaring in from Asia. Mix that all together, you got yourself one of the hairiest weather cauldrons in the world.'

At this point Nate had to hit the railing again, and when he saw those violent seas hammering at the destroyer, he accepted the fact that this was a breeding ground for horrendous weather. But the sailor had good news for him when he returned to lean against the outer wall of the captain's quarters: 'You be damned glad, soldier, you're not an aviator. Imagine flying in that stuff?' and he pointed aloft. About an hour later, when Nate heard a plane flying overhead through 862

the incredible storm, the sailor came back: 'Let's say a prayer for the bastards involved in that one,' and Nate asked: 'What do you mean?' and the sailor replied: 'I don't know who has it worse, the guys in the plane or the ones in the sea.'

'I don't understand,' Nate said, and the sailor pointed toward the sound of the plane: 'PBY, big flying boat. If it goes out in weather like this, somebody's lost at sea.

In these waters you rescue them in fifteen minutes or they're dead.' He listened to the droning engines of the big, slow plane and bowed his head.

The destroyer, following a jagged course to confuse any Japanese submarine that might be tailing it, waited for morning light so it could spot the location of Qugang Volcano, the one that guarded Lapak on the north, and when that beautiful cone showed clear, the navigator assured the captain: 'Course two hundred ten degrees straight in for the central promontory. Air cover promises no Japanese guns in that region.' So into the beautiful land-enclosed Lapak harbor the destroyer came, its guns ready to fire at any prying Japanese aircraft, and when it looked as if all was clear, a rubber boat with oars lashed to the locks was dropped over the side and held fast by a rope extending from the prow. Gingerly, Nate dropped into the rubber craft, adjusted his oars, and set out for shore.

As the destroyer pulled away, vanishing behind the eastern headland for its hurried return to Dutch Harbor, Nate rowed himself toward the central headland, and as he approached it, looking for the deep cove that was supposed to exist on its western face, he was startled to see a middle-aged man striding forward unafraid, attended by what seemed to be either a young boy or a girl in boy's clothing. For one dreadful moment he was afraid he might have to use his revolver if these two were Japanese, but the man shouted in good English: 'What in hell is all the secrecy about?'

When Nate got his craft onto the beach, the man and his young companion ran forward to drag it safely inland, and now Nate saw that the helper was a girl. 'I'm Ben Krickel,'