Month: December 2023

EPISODE 913     PART 3::   ON TO BARREN LANDS OF ALASKA  IN SEARCH OF COPPER     SUMMER 1959 ALAN SKEOCH

alan skeoch

Dec. 4, 2923

ALEUT fishing base near Dilllingham.  Notice salmon drying in open air helped to dry by

ALASKA BOUND- IMMEDIATE DEPARTURE – “DO NOT TALK!”

“Don Vanevery, Ian Rutherford, Mike Chinnery ,  you, Alan, will be flyling to Alaska immediately,…

Get packed…

.one rucsack for the summer.   Bill Morrison will meet you in Anchrage and join you in flight to Dillinghan…South West Alaska, near 

the Aleutian Chain.  Bill knows how to run  the Turam .. .  He wil instruct you.  We have American visas and work permits for each of you.  Best you keep your

mouths shut until you are familiar with the Tram system of magnetic mineral detection.

“Leaving when?”

“Tomorrow.  You will be living in a tent camp with a 25 man drilling crew.  Secret location. 

 The Humble Oil people from Texas insists you 

carry 30.06 rifles in case of trouble with kodiak beers.  Big calibre rifles.  

Another surprise…”there will be two S52. Sikorsky helicopters, to lift you from one site to another.  Our contract covers  a lot of ground.  Tundra…treeless.”

The day after or last exam we were airborne to Sskatoon

 via Air Canada then a connecting flight with Northwest 

Orient Airline to Ancorage then a propellor driven Fokker F27 to the tiny Aleut aboriginal  community of Dilllingham 

which sat on the edge go the Bering Sea 100 or so miles from Russian hostile shores.

How do Communicate the adventures this job entailed?  Pure adventure…true no fiction.   perhaps stress of 

conciseness…

TO FOLLOW the spoor, the Con trail, of the B52 Nuclear bomber that overflew our house each day in 1959.  So high as to be

barely visible.  Unannounced.  Lethal if angered.  Heding North west perps to Minot, North 

dakota or possibly to Anchorsge like would.

TO KNOW that nuclear anihilation wa a possiibility if the Cold War became a Hot War.  In 1934, long long ago, the general in charge of the fledgling

USAir Force said “the nation that controls Alaska controls the world”…an 8 hour flight range to most of word’s populations.

TO KNOW that our Northwest Orient plane was heading to Elmendorf air base where some of the 102 B52 Superfortresses were based.

TO SEE the vally of 10,000 smokes where the molten guts of planet earth are exposed….Part of the Ring of Fire that circles the Pacific Ocean.

TO LAND in ‘Dillingham on the edge of the Berng Sea about 100 miles from Russian missile bases.

…a gravel lamding strip.  picture of Fker F27 prop driven.

TO WALK where once so long ago the hairy mammoths munched their way across the 

bering lsnd bridge to north ameerics followed by Asian people in fits snd start.

TO THINK that another ice age could reopen that land bridge….the reverse of current climate change,

TO BE AWARE that this job in SW Alaskan not far from te Aleution Chain of Islands largely empty,  

stepping stones used by Japanese troops in World war II as a feint to draw US forces away from the

real goal of the Malayan rubber plantations.

TO PAUSE a moment to help an aged Aleut to his feet and realize it was  not age that toppled him but alcohol

TO KNOW that this vast open highland of tundra was cut by deep river valleys where Atlantic Sallmon made their deadly

pilgrimage to the headwaters of these virgin streams to ly their eggs for future generations. 

and then die….their bodies feeding Kodiak bears.

TO HAVE all these thoughts tumbling in my mind Like the rolling wheels of a slot machine.   Like lemons, oranges

and bananas…all different and tumbling in my mind.

TO STAND resplendid in my University of Toronto crested jacket knowing full well I was not even  a student yet.. A fake.

FROIM DILLINGHAM TO OUR SEMI SECRET HOMEBASE

TO BOARD the two Sikorsky S52 helicopters whose throaty ‘Varrom, Varoom’  eclipsed the’ slap slap’ semi silence of an

Aleut fising fsmily hanging split corpses of almond ring racks beside the sea.

TO LIFT off and ascend 2,000 feet with all our gear endangered by the button that allowed the pilot to drop

the load hanging in a net below us. “We had to drop a drilling rig one time,  sudden down draft, It fell like a giant spear.  We never went

down to see it impaled  in the tundra..  A stiletto gravestone.

TO KNOW there is no button  that could drop us.  If the S52 goes down , we all go together.  No parachute in a helicopter.

TO SIT on the copters’ floor with feet extended through the open in the sure and certain knowledge of our immortality.

TO HOVERt then set softly down.  A neat two rows of tents …  specially darkened canvas  to 

simulate nightfall in the land the Minot Sun. our new home.  Remote, isolated, secret.

Midnight and all asleep.  We had to build a wood sidewalk as the tundra ben  to thaw out from foot traffic.
Garbage set out in garbage pail.    The garbage truck never came (a joke)


END  Part 3  — SUMMER 1959 ALASKAN ADVENTURE BEGINS

NEST
PART 4:  SUMMER 1959  ALAKAN ADVENTUE CONTINUED

POST SCRIPT

ELMENDORF AIR BASE ANCHORAGE ALASKA  – STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND

(WIKIPEDIA)  Following World War II, Elmendorf assumed an increasing role in the defense of North America as the uncertain wartime relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated into the Cold War. The Eleventh Air Force was redesignated as the Alaskan Air Command (AAC) on 18 December 1945. The Alaskan Command, established 1 January 1947, also headquartered at Elmendorf, was a unified command under the Joint Chiefs of Staff based on lessons learned during World War II when a lack of unity of command hampered operations to drive the Japanese from the western Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska.

The uncertain world situation in late 1940s and early 1950s caused a major buildup of air defense forces in Alaska. The propeller-driven P-51s were replaced with F-80 jets, which in turn were replaced in succession by F-94s, F-89s, and F-102s interceptor aircraft for defense of North America. The Air Force built an extensive aircraft control and warning radar system with sites located throughout Alaska’s interior and coastal regions. Additionally, the USAF of necessity built the White Alice Communications System (with numerous support facilities around the state) to provide reliable communications to these far-flung, isolated, and often rugged locales. The Alaskan NORAD Regional Operations Control Center (ROCC) at Elmendorf served as the nerve center for all air defense operations in Alaska.

The U.S. Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) activated the 6981st Security Group tasked with monitoring, collecting and interpreting signals intelligenceof concern to the region, including installation of an AN/FLR-9 antenna array as part of a worldwide network known collectively as “Iron Horse”.

Air defense forces reached their zenith in 1957 with almost 200 fighter aircraft assigned to six fighter interceptor squadrons located at Elmendorf AFB and Ladd AFB. Eighteen aircraft control and warning radar sites controlled their operations. Elmendorf earned the motto “Top Cover for North America”. AAC adopted the motto as its own in 1969.

THE BOEING B52 NUCLEAR  ARMED HEAVY BOMBERS

B52’s first came off assembly line in 1955.  By 1962 there were 104 B52’s flying.

During the Cold War there were always some B52’s in the skies each armed with nuclear weapons.  The B52 was expectedto have a lifetime of 20 years.  Today 76 of the original 104 remain

in service. constantly upgraded.  In he 1959 we could look up in the sky each afternoon and see the con trail of a B52 en route to Minot , North Dakota.  perhaps even continuing north west 

to Elmendorf Strategic Air Command base near Anchorafe, Alaska. 

When we landed at Ancorage in June 1959, I do not remember seeing B52 on the ground.

In seven years or so, if everything goes according to plan, the U.S. Air Force should get what looks like a new bomber. A Boeing B-52 with new engines, new radios, new jammers, a new radar and fresh structural components. Even its profile might be new if the Air Force opts to remove redundant sensor pods.

The youngest B-52 left Boeing’s Wichita factory in 1962, meaning the 76 B-52Hs that remain in service are, technically, at least 59 years old. They’ll be at least 66 years old in 2028, the year Boeing and engine-maker Rolls-Royce plan to redeliver the first bomber with new F130 engines replacing the 1960s-vintage TF33s.

The Air Force finally announced the long-expected engine contract last week. Once the F130s are underwing, very little of a B-52 will be in i

Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile components of the United States military’s strategic nuclear forces from 1946 to 1992. SAC was also responsible for the operation of strategic reconnaissance aircraft and airborne command post aircraft as well as most of the USAF’s aerial refueling fleet, including aircraft from the Air Force Reserve (AFRES) and Air National Guard(ANG).