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The RCAF in Alaska

The RCAF in Alaska continued from page 1

In a matter of hours a Bomber Reconnaissance Squadron was winging its way to a base on Kodiak, with Squadron Leader Charles Willes in command. And those old Bristol Bolingbrokes were welcome. The United States didn't have much there, and the enemy was close. It was only a matter of hours after the Canadian squadron arrived that this signal came through from "Operations": "Canadians will load with 550 pound bombs and take off to seek enemy submarine sighted at Lat Long (Signed) "Buckner."

Meanwhile Air Vice-Marshal Stevenson cast about for more help for Alaska. He assigned a Fighter Squadron, which started from a West Coast station in British Columbia, around the beginning of June, under Squadron Leader Deane Nesbitt, D.F.C. It was quite a chore for Squadron Leader Nesbitt to guide that flotilla of fighters to Kodiak. But he did it without loss of a man or of very much time.

RCAF in Alaska

The Canadian flying patrols from Kodiak for a time found no signs of Japs, which indicated that the West Coast was in no immediate peril. Later, they fell back to protect Anchorage, Alaska, but when time went by and the Japs still didn't hit, the fighter squadron got their orders to proceed down the chain.They left the last vestige of civilization behind and the last tree they were to see for months. They began to view dreary lands below, and great stretches of open, grey water that lay between the islands. And they encountered the fog.

Five of them never lived to tell about their particular encounter with the fog. They were flying echelon and smashed into one of those Aleutian peaks that seem to rise up for no reason at all where a pilot least expects one to be. The aircraft probably plunged into that mountain one behind the other, like machine-gun bullets. Up on Boot Hill, on dreary Umnak, the bodies he today, along with the men who died later in treacherous flying weather. There are 11 Canadians there now, in one of the world's loneliest graveyards.

For seven months the fighter squadron stood guard with U.S. forces, and then another RCAF fighter squadron, under the command of Squadron Leader Bradley R. Walker, of London, Ontario, was ordered into the field. This squadron took its own ground crews. The ground crews went straight out from Canada by boat and were pitched cold into the worst the Aleutians had to offer.

From a West Coast port they embarked on a troopship for an interminable voyage through strange, angry seas. Finally, they came to a bleak harbour. Picture yourself there.

This is Umnak. This is what we came for. If we happen to be from Central Canada we have traveled 8,500 miles from home. (Africa would be nearer.) Take trucks from the dock to the place where the US guide officer says we are to be quartered. Boy, this is what you are going to live in! It's called a Quonset hut.

It's about 18ft. long, 16ft. wide, 12ft. high at the rooftree- shaped like a big sewer pipe split lengthwise. It's made of sections of sheet steel, bolted together, lined with fiberboard and floored in veneered wood. US Army engineers have dug down into the volcanic ash and "planted" these structures so that very little of them shows-a precaution against Jap bombs. The hut is furnished with US Army canvas cots.

RCAF in Alaska

Food? The US Army supplies its regular issue. Every bit of food has to be brought in by boat, and what the boys eat conies in cans, or in dehydrated form. It says a lot for the skill of the cooks that they can keep the men happy on what could be a deadly monotonous diet. If you don't think food can be a morale builder, sit down some time to five kinds of beans at the same meal when the supply boats have not been getting through.

This whole island you're on is cut by ranges of peaks and ridges, with the valley flatlands laying in between them. The peaks rise to about 2,000 ft., and the snow is on their tops for 10 months of the year-though snow doesn't last long on the flats below. Every so often one of these volcanic peaks lets off a belch of smoke. They don't give any trouble, but living next door to a volcano gives you something in common with the primitives who crawled around on the face of the World when it was a new place.

The US engineering troops have cut roads across the tundra, put in strong gun positions, tom airfields into the face of the grim landscape and thrown up buildings by the thousands. They have set up fair-sized cities in this remote land. But they're strange cities. They have no women and all the men wear uniforms and carry guns-even when they go to the movies. They have electric lights, and motor traffic pours through there at all hours of the day. Maybe some day an invading army will pass through there on its way to Japan.

A trick of Nature gives the Aleutians what pilots swear is the worst flying weather in the World. The warm Japanese current skirts the island chain on the Pacific side. On the other side is the black, cold Bering Sea. These two bodies of water come together around the islands and that means fog. Fog that rises from the ground up, building itself into thick laYears almost as high as you can go. Where those laYears of ground fog stop, the clouds commence.

A pilot hops into his aircraft for a patrol. There is a 1,000 -ft. level, he can fly. But over the ridge that borders his field heavy mist is coming in off the ocean. It sweeps in low, clinging to the ground, and is held away from his field by that high ridge. After a while it piles up on the other side of the ridge and commences to spill down his side. It looks for all the world like a huge mass of condensed milk, and it just seems to pour downhill into the flatlands.

The pilot knows that if he takes off he may not be able to get back to his own aerodrome. He has an idea that within half an hour it will be "socked right down to the deck." There will be fog over one area of those islands, and it will be clear 10 miles away. When it is perfectly clear as high as you can see, and yet within half an hour it will be "docked right down to the deck." There will be fogs over one area of those islands, and it will be clear 10 miles away.

RCAF in Alaska

Canadians back in civilization from the Aleutians are often asked: "How did you live? What did you do for amusement?" Answer to the first one is: "As best we could." Answer to the second one: "Not much."

Letters from home could run as much as six weeks late - there was one time when there was no mail for two months. Newspapers seldom got through, and it was easier to tune in radio Tokyo than Seattle or Vancouver to get the news. The first thing that hit the Canadians as strange was the internal economy of the islands. Many of the US troops had been there for as long as 18 months when the Canadians arrived. They drew high pay, and they had nothing on which to spend it. Private soldiers were walking around with hundreds of dollars in their pockets. Some of the luckier ones counted their cash in the thousands-one US trooper had a shoe box full of $20 bills.

As soon as the Canadians began circulating they were besieged with offers. They had just come from the mainland, therefore they must have things like fountain pens, wrist watches and other desirable knickknacks. It was startling at first to get an offer of $50 for a wrist watch that had cost about $10 in Canada, but after a while they got used to it, and were sorry they had accepted such offers, because, while a $40 profit is nice to have, you can't tell time with it. And there was no way of getting another wrist watch in a hurry.