hours while the other two slept. During my shift, Captain Joslyn was asleep on his cot. It was a beautiful night with a full moon and the stars were shining brightly. Scattered clouds below reflected the silvery moonlight. I could not believe that I was so fortunate to be where I was. I suddenly realized I had been staring out the window and shook myself from my daydream. Checking the instrument panel, I noticed that the number four auxiliary tank had quite a bit more fuel in it than the other seven tanks. I thought that it would be nice to make the tanks more even so I put all four engines on the one auxiliary tank to get it down to an equal level. It was such a beautiful night and I soon returned to daydreaming. Then, guess what? All four engines quit. The number four auxiliary tank had emptied in no time. I hurriedly pulled the throttles back, put all four engines back on the main tanks, and turned on the respective boost pumps. The engines gradually came back to life as I eased the throttles back to cruise power. About that time, I turned around to see Captain Joslyn standing in the aisle looking through the curtain. He looked around long enough to see that everything had returned to normal and then crawled back into his cot. He did not say a word. Kinda wish he had.
GROWING UP IN FAIRBANKS, FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLES had to be canned for winter consumption. My grandparents had a huge garden and greenhouse and canning took place in earnest every fall. We had a limited supply of fresh milk, which we mixed with powdered milk from the dairies. Often we simply drank powdered milk. After being in Seattle I could not get enough of fresh milk, fruit, and vegetables. Whenever I was able to bring fresh food and milk home from Seattle, it was a big hit.
The first time I brought a suitcase full of milk cartons home, I did not pay attention to how I packed them. Shortly after takeoff, the stewardess came up to the cockpit to say that there was a lot of white liquid draining down the aisle from where the crew bags were. I thought, Oh, no. I went back to the crew baggage storage and saw that the milk was flowing out of my suitcase. As we climbed, the reduced pressure in the cabin had caused the milk to flow from the top of the cardboard containers and the other crew bags piled on top did not help. That was very embarrassing and it took me a while to mop it up. Another lesson learned.
AFTER I HAD BEEN WITH PAN AM FOR a while, I had a few days off so I went to Fairbanks and rode around with Fred Goodwin on a tourist flight to Nome and Kotzebue. When we departed Kotzebue for the flight back to Fairbanks, Fred said, “Take the left seat.” It had been about four months since I had flown the DC-3 but I knew Fred would keep me out of trouble. As I got in the left seat he put the jump seat down and sat in it. I could not believe my eyes. I don’t know if he was confident in me or confident that Gerry Bolms, the co-pilot, would be able to correct any deviations. The DC-3 felt good but like a much smaller airplane after flying the DC-4. At this time in my life, I was in hog heaven at Pan Am but circumstances can change very fast, as I was soon to discover.
4
In the Army Now
In September 1951, I got a call from my parents telling me that a draft notice had arrived in the mail. Right away, I went to Ralph Savoy with the news and he said that he would take care of it. He petitioned General Hershey, the head of the Selective Service, but my request for deferment was refused. I then had a choice: I could be drafted into the Army and serve for two years or I could choose to enlist in the Air Force and serve five years. I could not imagine doing anything but flying in the military so I chose the Air Force. I still wonder whether I made a mistake because many of my friends decided to take the draft and they ended up serving in Alaska at Fairbanks, home every night and out in two years.
I received a military leave of absence from Pan American. When I went to work for Pan Am, I had taken a six-month leave of absence from Wien Airlines with the thought that I would get some good experience for a short time and would probably come back to Wien a better pilot. Because I was drafted short of my six months with Pan Am, I received a military leave of absence from Wien Airlines as well as Pan Am. It was comforting to know that when I was released from the Air Force, I could take my pick of which airline to return to and keep my original hiring date.
I enlisted in the Air Force at Ladd Field along with Dave Vincent, a friend from Fairbanks. I immediately applied for pilot training in the cadet program but found out that because I had not completed my sophomore year of college, I did not meet the requirements. I actually did have two years of college because of the extra quarter I had at the University of Washington, but because I did not get any credit for the semester I almost completed at the University of Alaska, I came up short. I was devastated. I felt that I should have stayed at the University of Alaska for the two weeks left to complete the semester, even if it cost me some seniority with Pan Am.
That began my ongoing attempt to somehow qualify for cadet training. With my parents’ help, we requested assistance from Bob Bartlett, our representative in Congress from the Territory of Alaska. He contacted General Twining, the commander of the Alaskan Air Command, to see if he could help. We also submitted many letters of recommendation, along with my flying experience and ratings. We were hoping that my flying background would qualify for the missing two weeks of college. I actually had more than two years of college but because I quit before the end of the semester, none of that semester counted. General Twining agreed and set things in motion for the Air Force to accept my qualifications for the program.
Normally new enlistees would come to Ladd Field right out of Air Force basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi. The personnel at Ladd Field decided that rather than sending me and Dave to Mississippi, they would send us to infantry basic training at Fort Richardson, near Anchorage. The next class was to begin in two weeks so Dave and I were put to work at Ladd Field, doing KP, peeling potatoes, cleaning toilets, and painting rooms. I remember looking out the latrine window and seeing a Pan American DC-4 landing. It had been only about three weeks since I had been flying DC-4s. I wondered, Where did I go wrong to end up here in this latrine?
When the next infantry basic training class started, Dave and I found ourselves at Fort Richardson. I was determined to do the best that I possibly could. I ended up having the highest rifle score that the training detachment had ever had. I guess I had an advantage because in college I had joined the rifle club at the University of Alaska where I learned how to shoot. I was soldier of the week three out of four times that grading took place.
As glad as I was to be in Alaska, I sometimes wished that they had sent me to Biloxi because I was cold all the time. When I was lying on the freezing ground learning how to shoot an M1 rifle, my thoughts often drifted off to lying on the beach near the Moana Hotel in Honolulu. You might call it shock cooling.
After completing infantry basic training Dave and I were sent back to Ladd Field. When we got there, it became apparent that we didn’t have any clear assignment there—I don’t know why—so they said we could go off base after checking in every morning. If they could not find anything for us to do, we were released but we remained on standby and were supposed to stay fairly close to the base. One morning I left the base and reported for duty at Wien Airlines. They sent me on a flight to Fort Yukon and as I was landing there, Dave Vincent called on our HF frequency, 5652.5 KC from his dad’s aeronautical radio station. He said that the base had called and that we were to report immediately. Oh boy, I thought. I’m in big trouble. When I returned to Ladd Field, I was restricted to the base for two weeks. All I did during that time was lie on a cot all day long, getting up only to go to meals. All I could think about was how short of pilots Pan Am and Wien Airlines were. Eventually I was assigned to the mail room sorting mail into mailboxes, which only resulted in a lot of sinus problems from mail dust.
I almost got in trouble again a couple of months later when I was at the airport and one of the Wien pilots, Dave Bronaugh, asked me if I would like to take his flight to Eagle in a Cessna 195, which would require me to remain in Eagle overnight due to darkness. He did not want to be gone overnight but I was always eager to fly so I took a chance on being AWOL again. The only hitch was that I was scheduled for guard duty at eight o’clock the next morning.
Figuring I could get back in time, I took the trip. When I arrived at Eagle, I drained the oil and put the wing and engine covers on for the night, which was standard procedure for cold weather. I placed the oil can by the stove in the log cabin where I stayed because it was important to have warm oil the