Authors: Mitchell Zuckoff
Frozen in Time (13 page)
Talking with Howarth by radio, Balchen offered a piece of advice that the PN9E crew, Harry Spencer in particular, could have used twelve days earlier: don’t leave the wreckage unless everyone is roped together. Balchen reported that a dog team or motorsled team would soon be on the way. He also told them to watch the bay for a Coast Guard rescue ship, the cutter
Northland
. Before flying off, Balchen made plans with Howarth to stay in contact with twice-daily radio calls between the PN9E and Bluie West Eight.
On his way back to the base, Balchen tore a page from his diary and drew a sketch showing the location of the wreck, along with possible routes for an approach across the ice. He flew over Beach Head Station and dropped the weighted note for delivery to its commander, Max Demorest, the glacier scholar turned army lieutenant. Eleven days earlier, mechanical problems had forced Demorest to abandon the motorsled search for McDowell’s lost C-53. With Balchen’s map showing the site of the PN9E, Demorest would try another rescue, this time for the men of the B-17.
Although the frozen crewmen had food and basic supplies, time remained their enemy. Warmer weather during the two days following Balchen’s flight caused the crevasse under the tail to open with a roar, reaching as wide as fifty feet across in spots. There was no suitable place for the men to hole up in the cramped front section, so they tightened the ropes anchoring the tail and hoped.
A more urgent worry was O’Hara’s health. Gangrene gripped both feet. Monteverde fed him sulfa pills, but they made O’Hara delirious. The navigator talked gibberish and wouldn’t eat. The worst soon passed, but his crewmates worried that O’Hara might die.
On November 26, Thanksgiving Day, two days after Balchen spotted them, Howarth sent the PN9E crew’s most urgent call for help. With O’Hara’s deteriorating condition preying on everyone’s mind, he tapped out in code:
“Situation grave. A very sick man. Hurry.”
A
FTER RESCUING THE
Canadians, the
Northland
had been ordered to cruise through the thickening ice toward the presumed vicinity of McDowell’s C-53 and Monteverde’s B-17. Now, with Balchen’s discovery, the priority became the B-17.
The Greenland Patrol commander, Rear Admiral Edward “Iceberg” Smith, told the
Northland
’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Frank Pollard, to head toward Koge Bay, as close as possible to the PN9E location described by Balchen. Smith had concerns about sending the ship into the ice-filled waters so late in the season, but he understood that Monteverde’s crew needed the
Northland
’s help. Because ice already clogged parts of Koge Bay, the
Northland
would anchor to the east, in the body of water known to the Americans as Comanche Bay, named for a Coast Guard cutter by that name. Once there, the
Northland
would be close to Beach Head Station and about thirty miles from the wrecked PN9E.
T
HE MOTORSLED TEAM
of Lieutenant Max Demorest and Sergeant Don Tetley also joined the rescue effort. Their attempts to find McDowell’s C-53 had failed when their sleds conked out, but the sleds were back in working order, and now they were headed toward a known destination. Joining them was a dogsled team led by Johan Johansen, a Norwegian fur trapper and survival expert who’d been stuck in Greenland since the Nazis had invaded his homeland. Johansen had become a civilian adviser to the U.S. Army, a job that distracted him from his worries about his wife and son in occupied Norway.
The evolving plan was modeled on the rescue of the three Canadians, with a few wrinkles. On paper, it called for the motorsled and dog teams to travel over the ice cap on the inland side of the rugged coastline and mountains. They’d go from Beach Head Station to Ice Cap Station, then approach the PN9E from the northeast to avoid the worst crevasse fields. After reaching the bomber, they’d lead or carry Monteverde’s crew back the same way to Beach Head Station, where the
Northland
would be anchored just offshore in Comanche Bay. The PN9E crew would be taken by motorboat to the waiting ship.
If everything went smoothly, all nine men would be safely aboard the
Northland
in three or four days. The plan sounded so straightforward that it was easy to imagine Monteverde’s crew sharing stories and toasting their good fortune alongside Goodlet, Nash, and Weaver in the ship’s sick bay.
But as the events of November 1942 had already proved, almost nothing goes as planned on Greenland’s ice cap.
No one understood that better than Balchen, who once wrote, “The Arctic is an unscrupulous enemy. It fights with any weapon that comes to hand, it strikes without warning, and it hits hardest just when you think the fight is won.”
NOVEMBER 1942
A
S THE
N
ORTHLAND
fought through gales toward Comanche Bay, the rear admiral at the helm of the Greenland Patrol, Edward “Iceberg” Smith, expressed second thoughts about its role in the rescue mission. Smith wanted as much as anyone to save the PN9E crew. But he didn’t want to lose 130 Coast Guardsmen and a vital ship under his command.
Smith’s PhD in oceanography and the quarter century he’d spent in icy waters made him one of the world’s foremost authorities on the awful conditions facing Lieutenant Commander Pollard and the men of the
Northland
. Although the ship had a reinforced hull and was built for Arctic operations, it wasn’t an icebreaker. That meant ice could be a ship-breaker. Calamity could come swiftly, from an iceberg, or slowly, if the
Northland
became trapped in Greenland’s coastal ice pack. In that case, the ship would be lost to the war effort for months, and the crushing pressure might leave the
Northland
crippled or worse. Smith knew the
Northland
’s strengths and limits firsthand: he’d been its commander for more than a year.
One of the Greenland Patrol’s converted fishing boats, the
Aklak
, had already abandoned the search and left the coast after its anxious captain told Smith that “further delay will seriously endanger ship and personnel.” Smith’s radio messages to the
Northland
urged Pollard to consider the same prudent course.
At first, Smith trod lightly, respecting Pollard’s prerogatives as the ship’s captain. The admiral issued an inquiry rather than an order: “In view of lateness of [the] season and relative risks involved, and latest information you may have received from Ice Cap Station,” he radioed the
Northland
, “do you consider further operations advisable?” It was easy to read Smith’s message as offering an exit strategy, a way for Pollard to pull away from the rescue effort without losing face.
The response couldn’t have been clearer, and it couldn’t have comforted Smith. “Extremely hazardous . . . five miles south of Comanche Bay entrance . . . in rafted pack ice thickly interspersed with floe bergs, growlers around us . . . visibility poor.” But then, to answer Smith’s question, the ship radioed flatly: “Continuing attempts to work free and make base at Comanche Bay.”
Smith didn’t relent. Perhaps, he said in a follow-up message, the
Northland
’s doctor should go ashore to spend the winter at Beach Head Station. The injured PN9E crewmen could be brought to him there, allowing the
Northland
to head toward safer waters. The ship could return and fetch everyone from Beach Head Station in the spring. Smith still wasn’t issuing an order, but he punctuated the suggestion with a warning: “Do not take risks this late in season.”
Again Pollard demurred: “Do not, repeat not, deem it advisable for
Northland
medical officer to proceed with rescue party, and will keep him aboard ship unless otherwise directed.” In other words, unless Smith gave a direct order, the
Northland
and its crew would remain on the job. Pollard’s reply also informed Smith that the
Northland
had carved through the ice and had nearly reached Comanche Bay. The message ended with an ominous weather report: “Fog.”
Pollard and Smith were locked in a respectful standoff, and both men knew that Pollard would prevail barring a dramatic change in circumstances. Central to the Coast Guard culture was a belief in testing every reasonable limit to complete a rescue. A decade earlier, in the 1930s, the service’s highest-ranking officer captured that outlook in a Coast Guard creed built around the phrase “I shall sell life dearly to an enemy of my country, but give it freely to rescue those in peril.” Pollard couldn’t bear to turn away from Howarth’s plaintive message: “Situation grave. A very sick man. Hurry.”
Smith might have taken a harder edge with Pollard had he known that a new rescue plan was brewing aboard the
Northland
. Despite repeated back-and-forth messages between the two, the captain of the
Northland
curiously, perhaps purposefully, failed to mention that the approach used to rescue the Canadians might not apply, after all, with the American crew.
To begin with, reaching the coastline on foot or by motorsled would be far harder for Monteverde’s nine-man crew than it had been for Goodlet, Nash, and Weaver, who were exhausted but still able-bodied. In a follow-up message from Howarth in the PN9E, he described the “very sick man”—Bill O’Hara—as having “frozen feet, a touch of gangrene, high fever.” A further complication was the instability of the Koge Bay glacier. Between the wrecked PN9E and the coast were untold hidden crevasses, one of which had nearly killed Harry Spencer.
In fact, the terrain proved too much for expert dogsledder Johan Johansen and his team. They turned back, defeated by deep, finely powdered snow and the tall waves of crusted snow called
sastrugi
. Even if Lieutenant Max Demorest and his motorsled team could reach the PN9E, there was no guarantee they could get the survivors to Beach Head Station, perhaps forty miles away, depending on the route. In addition, with fog and storms approaching, the
Northland
’s motorboat might struggle or capsize in Comanche Bay.
With doubts rising about how best to reach the PN9E crew, Lieutenant John Pritchard, the
Northland
’s Duck pilot, dreamed up a daring new plan that would eliminate the need for motorsleds and motorboats altogether. It also would remove arduous travel by sea, and would minimize the risk of crevasses. Pritchard proposed flying the Duck to the ice cap, landing briefly, leading the B-17 crewmen to his little plane a few at a time, then flying back to the
Northland
. Then he’d do it at least twice more to get all nine men off the ice.
JOHN PRITCHARD (LEFT) ON THE DECK OF THE
NORTHLAND
AS THE CHIEF BOATSWAIN’S MATE INSPECTS THE DUCK.
(U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTOGRAPH.)
It was likely the same plan Pritchard had hoped to use during the search for Goodlet, Nash, and Weaver, but he’d been unable to find them. Now, with Balchen’s coordinates, he knew exactly where to locate Monteverde’s crew, so it made perfect sense that Pritchard and the Duck’s radioman, Benjamin Bottoms, would be eager to show what they and their Duck could do.
P
RITCHARD’S PLAN WAS
elegant, efficient, brave, and dangerous. It also was unprecedented. No plane had ever landed on Greenland’s ice cap and then taken off again. On each of three or more round-trips, Pritchard would have to contend with buffeting winds, blowing snow, and treacherous haze, the same conditions that contributed to the PN9E’s crash and numerous others. Also, he’d have to avoid hidden crevasses located between his landing spot and the broken bomber.
Pritchard’s plan to save the B-17 crew was bold, but it wasn’t reckless. It fit the selfless oath he’d taken as a Coast Guardsman. It’s also easy to imagine another, more personal motive: Pritchard’s younger brother Gil was a B-17 pilot, flying combat missions in a Flying Fortress over North Africa.
By neglecting to inform Rear Admiral “Iceberg” Smith of the emerging Duck-centric rescue plan,
Northland
captain Frank Pollard might have been operating on the theory that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. Another possibility was that Pollard hadn’t yet decided to allow it.
Later, Pollard would explain that Pritchard had been determined to land on the ice cap in the Duck as soon as Balchen located the PN9E. Pollard said that he was persuaded to approve the mission by what he called “the touching appeal that was contained in the simple messages being sent out by the wrecked crew on their hand-powered radio set. They kept repeating they were getting weaker and told of two men suffering from advanced cases of gangrene, of other injuries and hardships.” It wasn’t clear to whom Pollard was referring when he mentioned a second man with gangrene, but he apparently meant Paul Spina.
With Admiral Smith expressing qualms about the
Northland
’s role to begin with, Pollard wouldn’t test his commanding officer’s resolve. He’d tell the head of the Greenland Patrol what was happening only
after
the Duck took flight.
B
Y THE TIME
he volunteered for the PN9E rescue, John Pritchard had gone through hell and humiliation to prove himself a gifted, fearless pilot.
Born in January 1914 in Redfield, South Dakota, Pritchard was the eldest of five children. Gil, his bomber pilot brother, was a year younger, followed by two more boys, one of whom died in infancy. Last was a girl, their baby sister Nancy. Their mother, Virginia, ran a strict home while working as a children’s book reviewer. Their father, John Pritchard Sr., was a cattleman and a banker, but he lost everything when a late-spring storm in 1926 wiped out his herd. Reduced to selling applesauce, John Senior moved the family to Los Angeles for a fresh start.
In Nancy’s eyes, her brother John was their parents’ favorite. In the tradition of firstborn sons, John Junior was a responsible, dependable boy. The family’s German nanny proclaimed that someday he’d be president. John cruised through Beverly Hills High School with a mix of A’s and B’s, and worked as a paper boy for the
Los Angeles Times
, where his father had found work as a circulation manager.
From age twelve, Pritchard dreamed of becoming a naval officer, but he couldn’t collect the required recommendations for the U.S. Naval Academy. Instead, after high school he joined the navy as an enlisted man, then spent two and a half years trying to blaze a path to a career as an officer. He served nine months at sea and endured a hernia operation, and eventually he gathered enough support for admission to Annapolis. Pritchard passed all the tests—except for one, in geometry, where he fell four-tenths of a point below the bar. He’d reached the age limit of twenty for admission, so retaking the test the following year wasn’t an option.
Pritchard swallowed his disappointment and set his sights on the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, where he’d be eligible for admission until he turned twenty-two. But again he hit a snag. He ranked eighty-eighth out of one thousand applicants on the Coast Guard exams, but only fifty-eight cadets were offered spots. Pritchard tried again the following year, but he was foiled by the physical exam: a blood test claimed that he had syphilis.
Watching their son’s dreams and reputation unravel, Pritchard’s parents mounted a feverish letter-writing campaign to powerful men from California to Washington. John Pritchard Sr. won support from a U.S. senator and a congressman. Virginia Pritchard wrote an impassioned letter to an old friend who’d become administrator of the U.S. Agricultural Adjustment Administration, who forwarded her letter to the secretary of the treasury. When campaigning for her son, Virginia Pritchard bared her political soul, declaring her love for the New Deal and her FDR-inspired conversion to the Democratic Party after a lifetime as a Republican. “We have no political friends,” she pleaded. “If in any way you can help this son of ours, we shall be more than grateful.”
John Pritchard took a second, more reliable blood test for syphilis, which came back negative. Yet still he was out of luck: the cadet class was full. His parents kept up the pressure, and their efforts paid off. Six days before the start of the school year, an accepted cadet dropped out and John Pritchard proudly took his place in the Coast Guard Academy’s Class of 1938. His roommate, a future vice admiral named Thomas Sargent, called Pritchard “the happiest man I have ever known.”
“At reveille,” Sargent recalled, “he would practically jump out of his bunk and, in spite of rain, snow or darkness, he would say, ‘Good morning, Tom, what a great day’ and break out in song. He had a good singing voice, and his favorite rendition was ‘The Grandfather’s Clock’—he knew all the verses. At first, starting the day like this was a little wearing, but his enthusiasm for life was so infectious I actually looked forward to reveille.”
Upon graduation, the blue-eyed, brown-haired Ensign Pritchard stood five feet, ten inches tall, and weighed 145 pounds. He carried his thin frame at attention, shoulders back, a posture that his sister said reflected self-assurance, not cockiness. A good-looking man, Pritchard had an oval face he arranged in a thoughtful expression. He had several girlfriends, but was in no rush to marry. He seemed more interested in building his career while looking out for his sister and his friends. During one of his first postings, aboard a Coast Guard cutter in the Bering Strait, Pritchard became best friends with Ensign Harry “Tick” Morgan. He decided that Morgan would make an ideal match for Nancy. “He said, ‘I’m saving Nancy for Tick and Tick for Nancy,’ ” she recalled.
