Flying On Instinct (7 page)

Dickins later joined de Havilland Canada Aircraft Ltd. as a consultant. In 1946, de Havilland was looking to the civilian market to replace dwindling military work and
decided to develop a new all-purpose transport plane for extreme northern conditions. They did what Fairchild and Noorduyn had done before—they asked seasoned bush pilots for input on specifications. Dickins collected recommendations that included an all-metal airframe, locating the battery cover for easy removal and installing doors on both sides of the fuselage so pilots could pull up quickly to either side of a dock to unload freight or passengers. The doors needed to be wide enough so a 45-gallon (205-litre) drum of fuel could be easily rolled in. Ideally, the planes would have extra power and STOL performance in a design that could be easily fitted with wheels, skis or floats. When de Havilland engineers said this would result in poor cruise performance, one pilot replied, “You only have to be faster than a dog sled.”

Dickins was instrumental in the design and launch of the Chipmunk (DHC-1) and Beaver (DHC-2) planes. The Beaver is a single-engine, propeller-driven, high-wing, all-metal aircraft, designed to be a reliable, all-purpose utility machine. It seats six people and is often described as a half-ton truck with wings. The Beaver spawned the Otter (DHC-3), Caribou (DHC-4), Buffalo (DHC-5), Twin Otter (DHC-6) and Dash 7 (DHC-7), all durable work planes used worldwide from jungles to glaciers. For his ongoing accomplishments, Dickins became the second recipient of the McKee Trophy in 1928 for his pioneering flight across the Barrens. He was named an Officer in the Order of the
British Empire in 1936, an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1968 and a member of Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 1974.

In a 1962 speech, Dickins described bush flying as “a pilot and mechanic, who are ready and willing to take any kind of a load to any destination, on or off the map, within the limits of their aircraft, and the financial resources of the customer.” He flew until he was 78 years old and died in Toronto in 1995 at the age of 96. His ashes were scattered by his son John along the Mackenzie River from an aircraft flown by another remarkable bush pilot, Max Ward.

CHAPTER

6

WOP MAY AND PUNCH DICKINS
both grew up in the city of Edmonton, attended the same school, played on the same hockey team and enlisted in the new RCAF. Although very different in physique and personality, they were still called the “twins of the air.” Named for Canada's seventh prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, May got a name change early in life when his two-year-old cousin could not get her tongue around the moniker Wilfrid. The best she could do was Woppie, shortened to Wop. His family thought it was cute, and the nickname stuck. May worked in his father's service station and became a skilled mechanic, acquiring expertise that would be useful later in life.

In 1910, the first airplane landed in Edmonton, and May
was hooked. He enlisted five years later when he saw a newspaper photo of a First World War fighter plane in the skies over France. But instead of pilot instruction, he was trained as a machine gunner. He kept telling his superiors he wanted a transfer to the RFC, and in 1917, he got it. The first day of flight instruction consisted of taxiing along the runway. He was bored, but was finally allowed to take off with his instructor in the seat behind. May buzzed the airfield, did a figure eight and totally ignored orders to land. Back on the ground, he was confined to quarters. After training, he and other new pilots were sent to St. Omar base in Belgium. To celebrate their front-line posting, they went on a two-day pub crawl through local towns. May was ordered back to base, but because pilots were needed, in April 1921 he took off as the junior flyboy in a squadron of Sopwith Camels.

May was ordered to observe but not engage in any dogfights with German planes. He couldn't help himself. When a German Albatross peeled off, May followed, lost him in the clouds, then picked him up again and fired. He scored a direct hit and the Albatross went down in flames. But May had problems of his own. His guns had jammed, and he needed to get back to base quickly. That's when the Red Baron spotted him. Baron Manfred Albrecht von Richthofen in his red Fokker Dr.1 triplane had May in his sights. No matter what he did, May could not shake the Red Baron. But suddenly, in the valley of the Somme River, the Baron's Fokker triplane shuddered, then arced to the
ground, bursting into flames on impact. May's commander, Captain Arthur “Roy” Brown, wrote in his report of the incident: “I went back again and dived on pure red triplane which was firing on Lt. May. I got a long burst into him and he went down vertical and was observed to crash by Lieutenant Mellersh and Lieutenant May.” May would not become the Baron's 81st victim. He looked back to see Brown, who had come to his aid.

But was it Brown's guns or the guns of the Australians on the ground below that had shot down the Red Baron? Nobody was officially credited with the kill, and the debate continues. Like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the death of Manfred von Richthofen is surrounded by conflicting eyewitness accounts and a mountain of speculation. In 1925, a New York magazine called
The Progressive
published an article titled “Richthofen Was Murdered.” It reported rumours circulating in Germany that Richthofen had landed unscathed and that Canadian soldiers had jumped from their trenches and killed him before he could climb out of his triplane. The hearsay may have begun when German pilots from the Baron's “circus” reported witnessing the triplane's relatively smooth crash landing. This sparked hopes the Baron had been captured alive and later speculation that he had been murdered.

May racked up 13 kills of his own before the war ended and received the Distinguished Flying Cross. After returning home to Canada, Wop May and his brother
Court opened May Airplanes Ltd., Alberta's first airline, barnstorming and delivering the
Edmonton Journal
newspaper to Wetaskiwin. In early 1921, a new opportunity arose in the oil industry. During the summer, oil companies could move men and equipment by boat, but winter transportation was a big problem. Imperial Oil decided that planes were the answer and hired May and First World War veteran pilot George Gorman to travel to New York and fly two new planes back to Edmonton. Mechanical problems and bad weather lengthened their return trip, but people followed their progress on radio news reports. Finally, on January 15, 1921, they landed in Edmonton and were greeted by thousands of people.

May wanted to continue the air-shipping business, but in 1924 he married Violet “Vi” Bode, a noted equestrienne, so needed to find a “real” job. He sold the flying business and joined National Cash Register (NCR), moving to Ohio. While there, he was struck in the eye with metal from a lathe, which seriously impaired his vision for the rest of his life. Convinced his future lay with flying, May returned to Edmonton and founded the Edmonton and Northern Alberta Aero Club in 1927, fulfilling the roles of president, chief pilot, mechanic and instructor.

On New Year's Day, 1929, M.R. Bow, deputy minister of health for Alberta, received a telegram from Dr. Harold Hamman of Fort Vermilion: “Diphtheria. Fear Epidemic, Send Antitoxin.” The manager of the HBC post in Little Red
River and his wife had contracted the contagious disease, but Hamman had no antitoxin for them or any other victims. Hamman had raced by dogsled from Little Red River back to Fort Vermilion and convinced a resident with a sled and team of horses to take the news to the telegraph office in Peace River. The overland trip took 12 days. More than two weeks had passed since the telegram had been received, and it would take even longer to deliver serum back 600 miles (965 kilometres) north of Edmonton. By then everybody could be dead.

Bow telephoned Wop May, who immediately volunteered to fly the mercy mission, as did engineer Vic Horner. Their plane was a small Avro Avian, which had an open cockpit, no heater and no skis. They would be landing, or crashing, on wheels in snow. The serum would survive, or perish, with them, and if it froze, it would be useless. The 600,000 units of serum, enough for 200 people, were wrapped in blankets and placed in the freight compartment of the aircraft. May and Horner knew that the blankets could catch fire so close to the heat of the engine, but there was no other way. Just before takeoff, May's wife, Vi, rushed over with a handful of chocolate bars, just in case. They disappeared into -60°F (-51°C) temperatures that penetrated all their layers of clothing—wool, leather and fur—flying at 500 feet (152 metres) through blinding ice fog. Their goggles froze on the outside and misted on the inside. Sharp crystals cut their faces until they bled. After four hours, they
flew out of the fog bank near McLennan Junction, south of Peace River, where a surprise greeted them.

They were looking at a makeshift airstrip, snow tamped down and flags lining the edge. Alerted by radio that May and Horner were coming, residents had prepared the runway and now stood beside it waving. As they climbed out of the plane, May and Horner were stiff from cold and immobility and thrilled at the offer of hot food and a warm bed for the night. They had come 267 miles (430 kilometres); they still had 320 miles (515 kilometres) more to go.

Setting off the next morning, May and Horner made Peace River by noon and refuelled. While stopped there, they tucked the serum inside their clothing next to their bodies because, just as they had feared, the blankets wrapped around the serum had caught fire, and they'd had to beat out the flames with their gloved hands. Aloft again and on the way to Fort Vermilion, they hit a blizzard. The little plane pitched and yawed as it was buffeted by strong winds and sleet that slashed their already cut faces. Luckily they were so cold they could not feel it. Through it all, May managed to keep his bearings, and by late afternoon they sighted their destination. Dr. Hamman and the settlers helped the men out of their plane because they were too cold and fatigued to move on their own. The doctor rushed off to Little Red River by dogsled. It was too late for the HBC manager and his wife, but the antitoxin delivered by May and Horner did save the rest of the community. On January 6, the pair landed
back in Edmonton, where thousands of people watched the mayor award each of them a gold watch. May just wanted to get home and warm up.

The following year, May was offered a flying job with Commercial Airways Ltd. in 1930. He made the first nonstop flight between Edmonton and Winnipeg, and as a publicity stunt, raced a train to see who could deliver freight faster. May had completed the return trip before the train finished one leg of the journey, thus earning a contract to fly mail from Fort McMurray to northern communities. Aklavik now had delivery three times a year. He flew food to Peace River residents marooned by flood waters and oxygen canisters to a farmer with pneumonia. He was an angel of mercy and soon would also be a champion of justice.

In late 1931, a trapper came to the RCMP post in Aklavik to file a complaint that somebody was damaging his traps. He suspected a local weirdo named Albert Johnson, who had a cabin on Rat River near Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories. Constable Alfred King and Special Constable Joe Bernard set off by dogsled to investigate. Finding no one at the cabin to respond to their shouts and knocks, they returned 60 miles (97 kilometres) to Aklavik, got a warrant and went back to the cabin. This time they were met by gunfire. King was hit in the chest and fell. Bernard tied the bleeding officer to his dogsled and mushed back to Aklavik. Then he returned over the well-worn route with a posse of nine police officers, some trappers and a guide. They got the same reception—
even more rifle fire from inside the cabin. One officer crawled closer and tossed a stick of dynamite beside the outside wall. It exploded in a firestorm of flying wood chunks, snow and earth. But when he looked up to see how much of the cabin remained, he had to dive back down as more shots whizzed over his head. This was going to be tougher than originally thought. The posse went back to Aklavik and returned five days later with more supplies and reinforcements, only to find the cabin abandoned and footprints in the snow.

For the next 48 days, the RCMP chased their man, dubbed the Mad Trapper of Rat River by the media, into the Richardson Mountains. He went in circles and followed caribou herds to hide his trail, which meant the tracking dogs could not keep his scent. He didn't seem to have any supplies with him, yet he was not slackening his pace, even though temperatures hovered around -40°F/C. By the end of January, the Mounties were no closer to catching the fugitive. Then one day, with the crack of a rifle shot, Constable Edgar “Spike” Millen fell down dead. The Mad Trapper had graduated to murder.

Inspector A.N. Eames knew the RCMP needed help and appealed to Punch Dickins, now WCA superintendent for the Mackenzie District and based in Edmonton. Dickins offered the services of his chief pilot, Wop May, to provide aerial assistance and keep the team supplied. May flew north with mechanic Jack Bowen and Constable William Carter, who was replacing Constable Millen. In his Bellanca
CH-300 Pacemaker, May flew over every inch of Yukon forest looking for any anomaly, and airlifted patrols into the mountains to get ahead of Johnson and cut him off before he reached Alaska. Takeoff from makeshift airstrips was so difficult that May often had to tie the plane to a tree, rev the 220 kW (300-hp) engine to its maximum, then have one of the searchers chop the rope with an axe so he could slingshot himself into the air.

On February 17, May passed low over the Eagle River and noticed something below. It was the Mad Trapper dug into the snow. May directed the trackers to the spot and watched as they approached. One man fell as he was shot. The others closed in, and a volley of shots ended the life of Albert Johnson. May set his plane down and approached the bullet-riddled corpse, then moved over to Sergeant Earl Hersey, who had been shot. The men bundled him into the plane, and May flew at top speed to Aklavik for medical treatment, making the 125-mile (200-kilometre) journey in 45 minutes. He knew every pass and peak in the mountains, knowledge that proved invaluable when they ran into a blizzard on the way. Hersey survived, but the doctor said if they had been 15 minutes later, the sergeant would have died.