{"id":7527,"date":"2021-02-10T11:38:53","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T16:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7527"},"modified":"2021-02-10T11:46:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T16:46:00","slug":"episode-248-tragic-death-of-livingston-wernecke-air-rescue-that-failed-horribly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7527","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 248 TRAGIC DEATH OF LIVINGSTON WERNECKE … AIR RESCUE THAT FAILED HORRIBLY"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE 248   YUKON DIARY    THE TRAGIC DEATH OF  LIVINGSTON WERNECKE  \u2026 AIR RESCUE THAT FAILED <\/p>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb. 2021<\/div>\n

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Such a complicated  man.  Livingston Wernecke.  A man whose force of will shaped so much of the<\/div>\n
mining history of the Yukon.  A man who realized that silver was more important than gold.  A man who<\/div>\n
watched the Treadwell disaster on Douglas  Island, Alaska in 1917 then shifted his attention Keno Hill, Yukon <\/div>\n
Territory, Canada.  So complicated.  A man of few words\u2026action\u2026irritable at times\u2026soft at others.<\/div>\n
Loyal throughout.  Loyal to the Treadwell Corporation.<\/div>\n

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Maybe I can gat a handle on his life by the account of  his death in 1941.  Two months before Pearl Harbour<\/div>\n
(Dec. 7, 1941) The  Treadwell Yukon Corporation was<\/div>\n
bankrupt.  Livingston Wernecke was frantic.  What could he do to save the company.?   Maybe tungsten was<\/div>\n
the answer rather than the silver\/lead veins of Keno Hill.  Something had to be done.  <\/div>\n

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Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour<\/div>\n

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Wernecke was always in a rush\u2026recklessly so.  It was late fall.  Foggy.  Not good flying weather but Wernecke<\/div>\n
was a man on a mission.  How to save Treadwell from total collapse?  His pilot, Charles  Gropstis was not a bush <\/div>\n
pilot but he was a  fine airman in normal weather.  The weather was  not normal that final day  in 1941.  Fogged<\/div>\n
as dense as a  blanket in places.  Not all over\u2026just in places.  The wrong places as thing turned  out.<\/div>\n

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 No matter.  Wenrecke wanted to check out a tungsten property Hyder, Alaska, and then<\/div>\n
head down the west coast to Settle.  They never made it.<\/div>\n

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America was  not yet at war but the war in Europe was forcing the United States into commitment.  And events in the <\/div>\n
East were also troubling.  Tungsten is an important part of weaponry.  Wernecke thought the US would need more tungsten shortly.<\/div>\n

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Applications of Tungsten in the Military<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As we know, the service life of steel barrels is not long. Therefore, in order to prolong the service life of the barrel, that is, to enhance the barrel\u2019s resistance to the corrosion of gunpowder burning, people added tungsten to gun steel as early as 1822.<\/p>\n

By the time of World War I, German ordnance engineers had paid special attention to tungsten barrels. There are data records that at that time, the light machine guns of Russia and France could only fire about 6,000 rounds and were damaged, while the light machine guns of Germany could fire 15,000 rounds, which was more than doubled. To this day, the German ordnance industry is still well-known in the world. And tungsten steel has been applied to all kinds of military equipment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Armour piercing tungsten bullets<\/div>\n

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Nothing wrong with the airplane.  It was brand new\u2026a five passenger Bellanca Skyrocket float plane powered by<\/div>\n
a 550 horsepower Pratt andWhitney radial engine.  Even the lousy weather was not a big problem.  Flyable.<\/div>\n
The problem was Livingston Wernecke.  He was a reckless person\u2026always a rush.  Rushing places was normal<\/div>\n
for mining geologists.   Get to sites first.  Get claims tagged.  Get fast assays on ore  samples.  Get what was<\/div>\n
needed to open a mine and get whatever needed fast.  He  drove  a car with abandon.  He encouraged  his  pilots<\/div>\n
to take  chances.  He pushed  men and machines to get mines in production as fast as possible.   Faster.<\/div>\n

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Although he  never said  much\u2026some called him irascible\u2026he was a good man.  Prepared to make life<\/div>\n
pleasant for his miners.  Loved the wilderness life  and the men and women with whom that life was shared.<\/div>\n

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The next Episode will provide a  better picture of Livingston Wernecke.  <\/div>\n

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Wernicke wanted to rescue Treadwell Yukon which faced a 10 million dollar debt and a board of directors that did not seem to <\/div>\n
 give a sweet goddamn about Keno Hill and Yukon Silver prospects.  I can just imagine the torment he felt.  He had spent<\/div>\n
20 years of his life loyally supporting his company and now, with a world war raging, no one seemed  to shar his concern that<\/div>\n
Treadwell Yukon was finished.   Perhaps the wartime need for Tungsten would resuscitate things.  <\/div>\n

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Livingstone  was in<\/div>\n
a rush when Gropstis was told to take off and fly down the  coastline towards Seattle.   The  weather closed in.  Visibility<\/div>\n
was OK but reducing fast.  The pilot sought a lower altitude.  Thick clouds above\u2026whispy patches of fog below.<\/div>\n

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Then Gropstis spotted something unusual.  A plane floating upside down  in the ocean with two  victims waving frantically<\/div>\n
on the  wreckage.   Wernecke and Gropstis must have agreed  on the rescue.  Their plane  was in fine  shape\u2026almost <\/div>\n
brand new and outfitted with pontoons for the ocean landing.  The rescue  should have  been easy.  Circle. Then come<\/div>\n
around for a final approach into the wind.<\/div>\n

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They never saw the tree that was hidden in a fog bank. WHAM!  Later the victims in the water would describe  the horror<\/div>\n
they felt when Wernecke\u2019s Bellanca just disintegrate before their eyes.   Livingston Wenrekce and his pilot<\/div>\n
were killed instantly.    <\/div>\n

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Two  days later the men in the water were rescued and described the last few minutes of Livingtons life.<\/div>\n

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The death of Livingston Wernecke paralleled the death of Treadwell Yukon.   Wernecke  was buried in<\/div>\n
Berkeley, California.  Treadwell Yukon was mothballed on Keno Hill, Yukon Territory.  Other assets were  sold including<\/div>\n
his to compete with INCO in Sudbury, Ontario ..Errington Mine property.  Whatever high grade  silver\/lead concentrates remained<\/div>\n
at Elsa were sent to the refinery.   The  camps were stripped bare and abandoned.  Much of the remaining gear  was sold to the Alcan <\/div>\n
highway. <\/div>\n
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In 1946 Thayr Lindsay bought the now derelict Treadwell mines.<\/div>\n

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A double tragedy for Keno Hill.   <\/div>\n

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Mining continued in the Mayo district however.<\/div>\n

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In 1962 when we arrived  in the Yukon with our sophisticated Turam geophysical equipment, Livingston Wernecke was forgotten except for old timers..<\/div>\n
AND Dr. Aaro Aho who gave Livingston Wernecke recognition in his book Hills  of Silver..  I had never heard  of Livingston Wernecke.<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb. 2021<\/div>\n

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NEXT STORY:    LIVINGSTON  WERNECKE  ON KENO HILL 1920\u2019S AND 1930\u2019S<\/div>\n

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P.S.   See if you can find the SERIOUS ERROR in this document.   It threw me for a loop.  So easy to make errors if a document <\/div>\n
does not have an editor.   When I found this citation by accident I thought the error in spelling was my error so I changed all references<\/div>\n
to Livingston Wernecke.  Turns out it was not my error.  See the error yet?\u2026below. I must contact the publisher.<\/div>\n

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ALASKA MINING HALL OF FAME FOUNDATION<\/div>\n
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Livingston Wenrecke<\/span><\/h2>\n

(1883 – 1941)<\/font><\/h4>\n

Print Friendly Version<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

Livingston Wenrecke, explorer, scientist, and mine executive, was born January 16, 1883 in Livingston, Montana and named for that Rocky Mountain city. Wenrecke graduated with honors in mining engineering and geology from the University of Washington School of Mines in 1906.<\/font><\/p>\n

Wenrecke started his mining career as a draftsman, and later as a construction engineer at the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company plant in Ely, Nevada. He was chief engineer for the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad from 1910 to 1912.<\/font><\/p>\n

From 1913 to 1917, Wenrecke was chief geologist for the Treadwell Mine. During that period he investigated causes of subsidence in the mine and wrote a lengthy report with a recommendation of a 40-month plan of action on controlling the problem. The Treadwell Board of Directors approved his recommendations in September of 1916, but there was not enough time to fully implement it before the mine flooded on April 21, 1917. While investigating the cave-in and flooding of the mine, he was the last man to be lifted out of the mine.<\/font><\/p>\n

During the four years following the flooding of the Treadwell mine, Wenrecke examined hundreds of prospects by dog sled and aircraft throughout Alaska, British Columbia and the Yukon on behalf of the company. His search led to the development of the Nixon Forks mine near McGrath, which he managed from 1919 to 1925.<\/font><\/p>\n

From 1918 until the time of his death, Wenrecke was the chief geologist for the Alaska Juneau mine, vice-president and manager of the Treadwell Yukon Mining Company. In 1921, on behalf of the Treadwell Yukon Company, he purchased and operated the northernmost silver mine in the world in the Mayo district of the Yukon. It was there that he pioneered aviation in northern mining and the use of tractors to haul ore over snow. Much of Wenrecke’s early flying was over territory never before explored by air or ground. His notes and photographs taken on flights east from Point Barrow into the vast reaches of the Canadian arctic were turned over to the Canadian government, which hailed them as valuable contributions to the knowledge of its geography.<\/font><\/p>\n

In 1929, Wenrecke’s geologic report predicted that a rich ore-body would be found at depth in the northern half of the A-J Mine. His prediction came true and led to the most profitable years in the mine’s history.<\/font><\/p>\n

A co-founder of the mine’s loan fund for needy students at the University of Washington, Wenrecke lectured there many times on visits while traveling between his Berkeley home and his northern interests.<\/font><\/p>\n

In his home in Berkeley, California he built an advanced scientific laboratories, which included a rock cutter and thin-section grinder of his own design.<\/font><\/p>\n

On October 21, 1941 Wenrecke and his pilot Charles Gropstis, while returning from an investigation of the Riverside Tungsten mine near Hyder, Alaska, perished in a plane crash on the shore of Millbank Sound, British Columbia.<\/font><\/p>\n

Equally at home in the boardrooms of eastern corporations and in the arctic wilds, Wenrecke died as he would have wanted to die, his friends believed – quickly, and in the wilderness where he won so many victories in life.<\/font><\/p>\n

Written by Charles C. Hawley and John Mulligan, 1999<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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EPISODE 248   YUKON DIARY    THE TRAGIC DEATH OF  LIVINGSTON WERNECKE  \u2026 AIR RESCUE THAT FAILED  alan skeoch Feb. 2021 Such a complicated  man.  Livingston Wernecke.  A man whose force of will shaped so much of the mining history of the Yukon.  A man who realized that silver was more important than gold.  A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}