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The RCAF in Alaska

The RCAF in Alaska continued from page 2

Life dropped into a pattern that varied little from day to day. Hot water for shaving came from a five-gallon gasoline can if you had thoughtfully placed one on the oil stove the night before. At first the water had to be lugged from a central tank, but the Canucks soon installed "running water" in their Quonsets by putting up a big gasoline drum outside the hut and connecting to it a length of pipe. Sinks were made from galvanized tin and soon the luxury in which the Canadians were living was noteworthy. They scrounged old packing cases and contrived armchairs, tables and desks. The Quonset huts lost that bare look.

After breakfast the details would split up for the day's work. Flying Officer Bob Kennedy, all the way from the Atlantic coast, would take his maintenance crews out to cheek the aeroplanes, working in nose hangars-canvas boxes about 20 ft. high, 10 ft. deep, 15 ft. wide. They'd run the nose of the aircraft into it, drop the flaps, and enjoy comparative shelter from the weather as cold fingers fumbled with nuts and bolts.

Try fooling around with an aeroplane motor in a nose hangar some time, when it's freezing outside, and maybe with a williwaw whipping up. A williwaw is a wind that's peculiar to the Aleutians. It blows in all directions at the same time and seldom at less than 50 miles an hour velocity. One really good Aleutian twister tossed five U.S. dive bombers the length of a runway, piling them into two big transport aeroplanes.

Dress in the Aleutians took the weather well into account. A couple of airmen or officers hiking down the road would be unrecognizable as members of the RCAF. The "spit and polish" which characterize the force in Canada disappeared in the island outposts. There they dressed to warm and to keep the chill damp out.

However, there were times when they did dress up-parade days. Squadron Leader Walker ordered regular "Pukka... parades, when every man on the station turned out in full blues. Formal inspection was followed by a drill period. They were excellent for morale. They marked a certain period in a dull routine. The parades were to the RCAF in the Aleutians what dressing for dinner was for that traditional Englishman in the jungle.

There weren't many Jap aircraft. The Nips never did manage to base them on Kiska or Attu in appreciable numbers. When they failed to take Dutch Harbour and fell back to the outer islands, they didn't land heavy equipment, and the terrain in both places was so rugged that airport construction by manual labour was nearly out of the question. They had one sketchy strip on Kiska, and their Zero floatplanes, which occasionally appeared, were cold meat for the land-based fighters that the Canadians and the RCAF were able to send over. By the time the Canadians really got wheeling in the Aleutians, this phase was pretty nearly over, although Squadron Leader Ken Boomer bagged himself a Zero. He became the first Canadian to shoot down a German aeroplane, an Italian aeroplane and a Jap aeroplane. He got the other Axis numbers when he served in Europe.

RCAF in Alaska

Squadron Leader Boomer added to Canada's laurels a few days later when he caught a Jap submarine surfaced in the Kiska harbour. He led his squadron down at it, flying into an infilade of Jap fire from the headlands that dominate the harbour. "We poured so much 50-calibre stuff on to the decks of that thing that it glowed red hot," he recalled. "Killed three different gun crews." He isn't sure whether the submarine went down because they "didn't stick around." "The boys just waited their turn and came down at it, "he said. "Then they got out of there fast. We didn't wait to see what happened to the submarine." He got the U.S. Air Force Medal to add to his British D.F.C., and Air Force Medals also went to Flying Officer Jim Gohl and Flying Officer Hal Gooding.

So far as actual warfare was concerned, it came in fits and starts, depending on the weather. Pilots based at Umnak detailed for the striking force would move 400 miles to Adak, which was the first advanced base. From August of 1942 to well into the winter the men would take off from Adak, with belly tanks, for the 250 mile hop to Kiska, and there they'd strafe and bomb. They gave the U.S. airmen a big hand with this chore until they were called back to Kodiak as a defensive force and replaced by the fighter squadron under "Brad" Walker.

By the time the fighter squadron got there, United States forces were developing Amchitka, within 75 miles of Kiska, as an advanced base. They did this right under the noses of the Japs, stealing in under cover of fog and laying down steel runways before the surprised enemy even knew they were there.

From Amchitka the squadron worked as part of the U.S. fighter Command.

Half the squadron would remain at Umnak, and the other half would move up to Amchitka for a month's tour or combat duty. With the exception of Squadron Leader Boomer's encounter with the Zero. it was strictly aeroplane versus ground forces. It was a weird sort of warfare. The Japs sat on Attu and Kiska, with an estimated 15,000 to 18,000 men, who always burrowed into the ground when the aeroplanes came over. The Canadians seldom saw their enemy in the flesh, and only by tremendous doses of flak did he reveal his presence.

Up to the time the RCAF got there the U.S. high-level bombers had been working on the islands. They'd take off any day their own aerodromes were clear and head for Kiska, which was usually shrouded in clouds. Taking a line on the big volcano peak that is a feature of the island, they'd made a timed run on a compass course, and, through close figuring of speed and distance, they'd be able to drop bombs in approximately the camp area. They figured that if you started the watch when you passed over the volcano and kept going in the right direction you'd be over the Jap camp in about two minutes, depending on the wind and other factors. When the watch had ticked off the two minutes they'd let their bombs go. It was not the most accurate bombing, but it kept the Japs busy and did achieve a lot of results.

On clear days, of course, the bombers went in low. One crew made a name for themselves by coming in over the bluffs that edge the island and roaring down a valley to take the camp by surprise. The next time they tried this stunt they narrowly missed a cable the Japs had strung between the hills.

The first RCAF unit got to Arnchitka in the Spring of 1943, just about the time the U.S. task force came all the way from the States to win the grim and bloody battle of Attu. With Attu, the outermost island, taken, Kiska was cut off, so a methodical campaign began to soften it to the point where the ground forces could move in. The RCAF boys were flying Curtiss Kittyhawk fighters, rugged little aeroplanes that could stand a lot of stress. The U.S. ground crews rigged them with racks, under the fuselage, and into these racks they'd load a single 550lb. high explosive bomb.