Alaska (139 page)

After LeRoy had been serving for six months on the Northwest Route, Colonel Shafter, who seemed able to work twenty-two hours a day when things were going smoothly, thirty-six at times of crisis, and to win a promotion every five months, flew into Palmer Airstrip with surprising news: 'Flatch, I've been watching you. They don't come any better.

I want you to trade back your fourseater Waco. Give whoever has it your old Cub and become my personal pilot for the whole route, Great Falls to Nome.'

'Does this mean I have to join the Air Corps?' 'Not yet. Later on, when we get into this thing, probably.' But his new job did mean that LeRoy had to learn to fly again, for Shafter's job required flying over such vast unexplored areas north of the tree line that the old safeguards of bush-piloting no longer prevailed. 'Son,' Shafter said in the midst of one dangerous flight, 'you got wheels on your crate and skis and you could have pontoons, but none of them is worth a damn if we have to land on tundra down there,' and two days later he had a pair of 'tundra' tires flown in.

They were enormously wide balioonlike affairs inflated only partially, which enabled Flatch to land on humpy or even slightly marshy tundra. But the tires were so huge they al—

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tered the flight characteristics of any plane using them, and this required LeRoy to avoid things a prudent pilot would normally do.

A flier familiar with tundra tires instructed him: 'Since the tires can't be retracted, no tight turns at low or even moderate speed. The tundras will drag you into a spin. Your maximum altitude will be cut by about two thousand feet. When you land, don't rush things, just sort of skip along. And most important, the wind drag of these monsters cuts your maximum range on a full tank by a large factor.'

LeRoy said: 'You sound as if using the tundras converts the Waco into a whole new plane,' and the pilot said: 'You've learned your lesson. Now respect it.' But once Flatch adjusted to this plane with its monstrous tires, he gained the ultimate refinement in his career as a bush pilot. Now he really could land almost anywhere.

Confident but never cocky, he flew over the most forbidding terrain, landing occasionally at sites that would have caused the average pilot to shudder, and in the air he exercised stern command, for no matter what some frightened general shouted at him, he would say quietly: 'Sit back, sir. I'm gonna land on that stuff right below us, so keep your belt tight.' Half a dozen times he terrified Shatter, but after one such flight ended safely, Shatter said: 'You did the right thing, son. You bush pilots seem to operate under your own rules of aerodynamics.'

As paperwork for the route neared completion, Flatch underwent three emotional experiences.

The first came on the Sunday when news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor reached the temporary base at Chicken at about the same time as a long American P-40 fighter plane reached that field on a multistop flight from a point near Pittsburgh. The war that Captain Shatter had so clearly foreseen had erupted, and that night, before a startled judge stopping over in Chicken, LeRoy Flatch was sworn into the Air Corps as a second lieutenant, ordinary requirements having been waived.

The second moment he would never forget came in the following January when he received word that his old two-seater Cub had crashed at Fort Nelson, over in Canada. He flew General Shatter there to investigate, and found that a young pilot straight from training camp in California had become engulfed in a whiteout: 'General, you couldn't see nothing. Sky, snow, ground all the same. We got two planes down by lighting fires.

This boy never knew where he was, but he says calm as you please, I was on the radio: ”Pretty soupy up here . . . everywhere,” and two minutes later he comes roaring down, nose right into the snow, as you see it 847

over there.' The plane was a wipeout, its loss more grievous because Flatch was certain that had he been at the controls, it could have been saved.

'You want a photograph of it?' the general asked, and LeRoy said: 'No.'

'Come on, lad. It was a part of your life. Fifty years from now you'll cherish the memory of this day,' and he led LeRoy to the shattered plane, indistinguishable as to make or number, and they were photographed together, the tough young general, the quiet young lieutenant and the 1927 Cub they had both respected.

The third experience was an extraordinary one, for when huge cadres of young Russian pilots began flooding into Ladd Field, Fairbanks, in late 1942 to pick up the American planes they would fly across to Siberia, General Shafter assigned Flatch to special duty at Nome, where a large segment of the historic gold field was converted into the last staging point prior to flight into Siberia. Here LeRoy was to give the daring Russian fliers who would convoy the planes all the way to Moscow, then under dreadful siege, whatever assistance they required, and he was on duty one morning when an unusual Russian pilot came to him, speaking not perfect but very good English: 'I am Lieutenant Maxim Voronov. My ancestor Arkady Voronov turned Alaska over to you Americans,

18 and 67. No planes coming, I like to see maybe Sitka. You can take me, yes?'

The idea was so startling that Flatch tried to get in touch with Shafter, but when that proved impossible, he said to the Russian: 'General Shafter told me to do everything within reason to help you. If you make a formal request, we'll go.' So Voronov made his request; LeRoy wrote it down; an enlisted man at Nome Base phoned the message over to Fairbanks; and without waiting for a reply, Flatch and Voronov were on their way to the big base at Anchorage, where they obtained a seaplane for the flight to Sitka, which at that time had no landing facilities except in the sound.

It was a bright day, with the sun glistening off the glaciers and the manifold little islands shining in the Pacific like drops of crystal resting on blue satin. Voronov had apparently studied the history of Russian Alaska with some care, for when the seaplane was well aloft he told the pilot from the right front seat, which he occupied: 'I would to appreciate much if you show me Kayak Island,' and when the plane flew over that strange elongated island on which Vitus Bering's Russians had first landed, LeRoy, sitting in the back seat, saw that Voronov had tears in his eyes. Flatch, never having heard of Kayak Island and seeing it now only as a desolate 848

place which no one would want to bother with, asked what the island signified, but Voronov, studying the terrain with unusual care, indicated that he would explain later.

The visit to Sitka, which LeRoy had seen only twice before when dropping down to pick up military guests for General Shatter, was a powerful experience for both men.

Voronov tried to pick out the places where his ancestors had lived: he recognized the Russian church with its onion dome, and he very much wanted to go to the hill on which Baranov's Castle had stood, but during these war years, when an invasion by the Japanese was always a possibility, the mount was restricted to the few military personnel who manned batteries there and in the vicinity.

But Voronov astonished Flatch by knowing in the most intimate detail the conduct of the various battles that had marked the prolonged combat between Russian and Tlingit warriors, and the probable location of the palisades that had once enclosed the town.

He knew where the old Tlingit village had been outside the walls and where the lake was from which one of his ancestors had cut ice for sale in San Francisco. He was particularly interested in where the ships had been built for the trade with Hawaii, and he quite startled both Flatch and the pilot of the seaplane by asking whether they could fly down to the famous hot springs south of Sitka.

Permission to do so was difficult to arrange, but an Aleut with a Russian name was designated to take the three travelers, and when the seaplane landed in the bay that fronted the hill from whose side the springs erupted, the pilot remained with the plane while the others climbed up the slope to the springs, where in a rickety house built decades before, they stripped and let themselves down into the hot and sulfurous waters.

As they luxuriated, Flatch thought how strange it was that a great war should have been the instrument which brought this Russian back to the land where his ancestors had served with apparent distinction, but it was the Aleut-Russian guide who was most deeply moved. He spoke no Russian, of course, but he told Voronov of how his

ancestors had served the Russians in Kodiak Island and then later just north of San Francisco, and Voronov listened attentively, asking many questions as to how the American possessors had treated the Aleuts when they occupied the area. The guide said: 'Pretty well. They let us keep our church here. Up till the 1917 revolution, our priest got his salary from Moscow,' and Voronov, splashing water on his face, nodded.

When the time came to depart Sitka a local woman who attended the Russian church came to Voronov with a curious 849

reminder of the Russian days: it was an invitation to a dance held annually in Sitka, this one dated 1940, and it had been issued in the name of Prince and Princess Maksutov as if they still occupied the palace: 'When we dance, sir, we imagine that the nobility sits on the sidelines as in the old day up in the castle, watching us with approval.'

She kissed Voronov's hand and said: 'We remember your great ancestor well. May you enjoy victory.'

When she was gone, Flatch asked: 'What great ancestor?' and Voronov explained: 'A Voronov who served in that church over there, wonderful man, in touch with God, I'

think. Served out here on the edge of nowhere and became so holy that they called him back to Moscow to become head of all the churches in Russia.'

'Catholic?' LeRoy asked.

'Not Roman, Orthodox. He married an Aleut woman, one of God's great messengers. So I'm part Aleut. That's why the man in the bath . . .' He surprised Flatch by asking: 'On the way back to Nome, could we to stop by the Totem Salmon Cannery, on Taku Inlet?'

'You know these waters better than I do,' LeRoy said, and Voronov replied: 'A son of the great religious leader I think it was he discovered that place where the cannery was. Our family has all the records.'

So they flew the short detour to Taku Inlet, and up toward the closed end, where the great glaciers came snouting down, Flatch saw the cannery buildings about which he'd previously had no knowledge. 'They're immense!' he shouted to the front seat.

'Want me to land?' the pilot asked.

'No need,' Voronov said. 'But I would like you to fly up that little river. One of my family, Arkady, wrote a poem about it. Pleiades the lake is called at the source.'

So the seaplane wound its way inland the short distance to Lake Pleiades, where the three men saw the seven lovely mountains and the cool waters in which salmon bred, and from there they flew along the chain of glaciers back to Anchorage, where Hatch's plane waited for the direct hop to Nome. There American pilots were delivering specially equipped planes for the Moscow front, and Lieutenant Maxim Voronov, twenty-two years old, climbed into one of them, listened to fifteen minutes of instruction, and took off for Siberia. He did not offer any emotional farewells to LeRoy Flatch, merely said: 'Thank you,' and was off to the wars. In succeeding days some forty of these special planes passed through Nome, and to each of the Russians who took 850

them over, some American said: 'Give Hitler hell!' or 'Hold fast till we get there,'

or something like that.

Next morning as LeRoy shaved he reflected on his somewhat perplexing experience with Lieutenant Voronov, and concluded that he had better report it to General Shafter: 'He said his name was Lieutenant Maxim Voronov and we had better record his name, for I'm sure he'll be back this way again,' but when he did not reappear, LeRoy assumed he had been killed in the air battles over Moscow.

EACH MALE MEMBER OF THE FLATCH FAMILY HAD HIS

life seriously disrupted by World War II, and each made a signal contribution to the defense of Alaska, and thereby of the United States itself: LeRoy in the construction of the aviation lifeline which helped save Moscow; brother-in-law Nate Coop as a foot soldier in one of the most confused and demanding battles of the war; and father Elmer in an activity he could never have anticipated. The two young men participated in ways that were extensions of their civilian lives, aviation and outdoor activity, but Elmer was propelled into a life for which he had practically no preparation.

He did know how to drive a car, and that was about it.

He was drafted into civilian service by Missy Peckham. As representative of the territorial government she appeared at the cabin one morning with astounding news: 'Elmer, the United States has wakened up at last. The dunderheads in Washington see that Alaska's of vital importance. Japanese might land here at any moment and cut our connections with Russia.'

'LeRoy's busy building them emergency airfields.'

'You're gonna be buildin' a lot more than a bunch of puny airstrips.'

'Like what?'

She evaded this direct challenge: 'Alaskans always dream of somethin' additional.

When I was young we wanted a railroad, Anchorage to Fairbanks. Nothin' but empty land. But in 1923, President Harding himself came here to drive the golden spike.

Of course, he died right after. Some blamed poisoned clams he ate here, others claimed his lady friend in California did him in.'

'And what do you want us to build now?'

'A highway for automobiles. Right across the worst land in the world. Bindin' us to the Lower Forty-eight.'

'And we always decided it was an impossibility. Have a beer?'

As they sat in the Flatch kitchen, with Hilda watching 851

from her corner, Missy unrolled a map provided her by an army detachment based in Anchorage: 'We're gonna build a first-class military highway parallelin' the airstrips your son is buildin',' and she revealed the thin red line that would connect Edmonton down in Canada with all the airfields coming into being across the bleakest part of the northwest and into Fairbanks. If building the little airstrips in that wilderness had staggered General Shafter and his airmen, constructing a highway would present difficulties that were unimaginable.