As the days dragged by, the glacier on which the trio lived continued its crawl toward the sea, spawning new crevasses as its forward edge sought rebirth as icebergs. Storms and windblown snow built fresh bridges over the deep gashes, so each time the men went outside to fetch new supplies, they knew that any step could be their last. Their rebuilt quarters were only marginally safer. The PN9E’s tail section had already been swallowed, and nothing could prevent a new crevasse from opening beneath them. All three felt tremors as the ground shifted, but they didn’t talk about it. There was no point.
ON FEBRUARY 5, 1943, the weather on the east coast of Greenland was as good as it gets in winter. By Harry Spencer’s estimate, it had snowed a whopping eighteen feet at the Motorsled Camp since they’d been there. But this was a rare day with clear skies. A scout plane flew overhead and reported to Colonel Balchen that at eight o’clock in the morning the winds were calm, the sky was blue, and the ground temperature was about 10 degrees below zero. Greenland’s version of balmy.
Balchen told his rescue teams to get ready. But just as he ordered the PBY Catalina crews to climb aboard their planes, a messenger handed him a troubling radio dispatch from General Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces. It read, “Factory indicates forward bulkhead of PBY too weak for landing on snow.” The forward bulkhead, Balchen knew, was a wall near the nose of the plane. If it buckled under pressure from a belly-down landing, the PBY would suffer a structural collapse, destroying it and possibly the men and dogs inside. Arnold’s note had one question: “What are you[r] plans?”
Balchen scribbled a reply: “Going ahead as contemplated.” He explained later: “We have had no time to make a test landing, but I figure that if anything is going to happen it will happen anyway, test landing or not.”
THREE PLANES TOOK off that morning from Bluie East Two. Pappy Turner’s B-17 led the way and the two PBYs followed close behind. Because they were on a rescue mission, on this day the PBYs would properly be called Dumbos. When they were over the Motorsled Camp, Turner radioed down to Harry Spencer on the walkie-talkie to discuss ground conditions. Turner worried that the winds were too strong for a PBY to land, but Spencer assured him that it was safe.
At the controls of the lead PBY, Navy Lieutenant Barney Dunlop took one long run over the landing area that Spencer had marked with stakes. On the ground, Spencer and Tetley watched from outside their ice cave as the plane’s nose seemed to dip. Unwashed and unshaven, their heavy beards coated with snow, they looked like a pair of prehistoric icemen hunting a flying dinosaur. When he saw the plane’s nose drop, Tetley feared that the PBY was in peril. But Spencer realized that the plane was hidden behind a small rise and was coming in for a landing.
Earlier, when reviewing the plan with Dunlop, Balchen had explained that the landing area was mostly flat, so he suggested that Dunlop bring the plane down at normal speed, “like a power stall letdown on a glassy sea.” The technique, Balchen hoped, would keep the PBY’s nose high, preventing it from burrowing into the snow. With a gradual rate of descent and a steady hand on the control wheel, Balchen believed, the plane would almost land itself.
Now, just as they’d planned, Dunlop flew at an air speed of about eighty knots, or ninety-two miles per hour. As Turner’s B-17 and the backup PBY circled overhead, Dunlop brought his Dumbo down with the wheels retracted and the wing floats down. The twenty-odd seconds it would take to go from the sky to the ice cap would be just long enough for Balchen to recall the PBY manufacturer’s warning about potentially catastrophic weakness in the forward bulkhead.
The plane’s altitude above the glacier dropped to zero, and the PBY’s rounded hull grazed the snow. Dunlop cut the throttles. The propellers sprayed sparkling clouds of frosty mist. The full weight of the plane settled onto Greenland, and the bulkhead held strong. Dumbo was on ice.
Balchen’s plan had worked, at least so far, and Dunlop’s flying skills had proved first-rate. By the time the plane stopped, its keel had carved an eighteen-inch-deep scar across Greenland’s face.
As he watched, wrung out from all he’d been through, Harry Spencer experienced a strange absence of feeling. Happiness about the Dumbo’s arrival mixed with sadness for all the men lost, and the two emotions canceled each other out. This was the eighty-eighth day since his bomber had crashed. In that time, two crewmates, Loren Howarth and Clarence Wedel, had been killed, along with three men who’d set out to rescue them: John Pritchard, Benjamin Bottoms, and Max Demorest. He knew that the five men in the C-53 that he’d hoped to find remained lost and were presumed dead. Spencer himself had survived a hundred-foot fall into a crevasse, and he’d watched helplessly as O’Hara had lost his feet. Now, the sight of the PBY pulling to a stop to carry him homeward was almost too much to process.
Tetley’s emotions were less conflicted. He felt as though he’d willed the plane to a safe landing. Standing alongside Spencer, he felt soothed by what he called “a beautiful sight.”
The crew poured out of the plane and hustled to the hole to help O’Hara. With Dr. Sweetzer by his side, Balchen described finding the young navigator in his sleeping bag, able to manage a wan smile. O’Hara had lost half his normal body weight of 180 pounds, leaving him as “light as a bundle of rags,” Balchen said. Balchen would recall carrying O’Hara aboard the plane, but Spencer said they used a specially built stretcher-sled. They were too busy for much chatter, but one piece of information the rescuers shared with Spencer and Tetley was that the three men left behind at the PN9E were apparently still alive.
ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES elapsed between the landing and Dunlop’s return to the cockpit to prepare for takeoff. When everyone was in place, he leaned on the throttles. The engines revved and the propellers spun, but the plane wouldn’t move. Dunlop tried again, with the same result. In the brief time since landing, the Dumbo had frozen to the ice. Greenland wasn’t done with them yet.
Balchen ordered the able-bodied men off the plane and onto the ends of the wings. They jumped up and down, and after a while they broke the ice and freed the plane. But it froze again to the glacier before they could climb back inside. On a second try, Balchen positioned the men on the ground at the PBY’s two wing floats. On his signal, they rocked the plane like a seesaw while Dunlop advanced the throttles. After almost two hours of effort, the glacier released its grip.
BARNEY DUNLOP’S PBY DUMBO AFTER A BELLY-DOWN LANDING ON THE ICE CAP. (U.S. ARMY PHOTOGRAPH BY BERNT BALCHEN.)
Dunlop taxied in a wide circle, knowing that if he stopped the plane would freeze again to the surface. The ice-busting crew ran alongside the Dumbo, racing to reach a rounded protrusion on the side of the fuselage aptly called a “blister.” The blister had a door in it, and from inside radioman Harold Larsen reached through it. Outside, the men on the ground fought the powerful wash created by the propellers. They ran toward the blister, each one jumping at the last minute with his arms outstretched. Larson caught one after another and pulled them inside like parachutists in reverse.
Dunlop took off without incident, and the brief flight was uneventful. When the PBY landed at Bluie East Two, Sweetzer rushed O’Hara to the medical ward for the first of what would be several long hospital stays. In the months ahead, surgeons at Walter Reed Army Medical Center would complete the job begun by gangrene: they amputated what remained of both of O’Hara’s legs below the knees.
Spencer and Tetley arrived at the base in remarkably good shape, suffering mainly from fatigue, exposure, and weight gain. Spencer had become so hefty that he split his pants during the rescue. They spent two days in the medical ward, during which they donned new uniforms, shaved their beards, and prepared to fly home to the United States for long leaves.
With that, Harry Spencer and Bill O’Hara joined Al Tucciarone and Woody Puryear as members of the PN9E crew to escape Greenland’s grasp. The tally of the original nine-man B-17 crew was four rescued, two dead, and three still waiting.
AT THE PN9E c
amp, Monteverde, Spina, and Best were on the verge of giving up again.
The stove Tetley left behind had burned out before the end of January. The last three B-17 crash survivors returned to the more primitive cooking method of lighting the bomber’s leftover fuel in the bombsight case. They only had leaded gas, which gave off noxious vapors, so they usually used it outdoors.
Meanwhile, Pappy Turner’s crew finally received a walkie-talkie they could drop to the PN9E. Nearby was a handwritten note: “Hello boys, Get on the Walkie-Talkie we’re dropping with this right now. Let’s talk!” Below was a drawing of the device, with detailed instructions. The note signed off: “We won’t quit until you’re with us.”
The walkie-talkie broke in the fall, but the men fixed it by cannibalizing parts from the useless one that Tetley had left behind. When they connected, Turner’s crew told them about the plans to use PBY Catalinas in a rescue attempt. In a later conversation, Turner told the men at the PN9E that their crewmates were off the ice.
HARRY SPENCER (LEFT) AND DON TETLEY ABOARD THE RESCUE PLANE. (U.S. ARMY PHOTOGRAPH, COURTESY OF CAROL SUE SPENCER PODRAZA.)
Soon after the walkie-talkie’s arrival, however, the three men at the PN9E had no one to talk to but each other. During most of February, Greenland’s weather behaved as though enraged by the audacity of Balchen’s plan and Dunlop’s flying feats. Blizzards roared to life for three weeks, during which no planes could fly.
With their stove broken, the remaining PN9E survivors had no reliable heat. Soon they ran out of candles, so they spent long stretches in darkness. Desperate for warmth and light, they kept a fire burning in the bombsight case. Without a vent, toxic fumes filled their cave and soot blackened their skin and clothes. With no other way to defrost their rations, Monteverde, Spina, and Best burrowed deep into their sleeping bags and held the cans and packages under their armpits. Eight hours of this made the food soft enough to chew. Some ration cans broke when they were dropped from Turner’s B-17, and when they thawed the juices leaked onto the men’s bedding. The smell of rotten food mixed with the stench of burned fuel, body odor, and human waste.
HARRY SPENCER (LEFT) AND DON TETLEY SHORTLY AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL AT BLUIE EAST TWO. (U.S. ARMY PHOTOGRAPH, COURTESY OF CAROL SUE SPENCER PODRAZA.)
Spina’s broken right arm continued to pain him, but his frostbitten left hand regained some feeling and movement. However, all of his fingernails had fallen off, so it hurt whenever he touched something with the tips of his fingers. Monteverde’s feet remained painful, but he hobbled around as much as he could. Physically, Best was the most able among them.
They hadn’t bathed or shaved since the crash, but Turner dropped fresh uniforms, so they made a practice of changing their clothes and underwear at least once every two weeks. They hated stripping down in the cold, but clean underwear and socks always made them feel warmer. As soon as they dressed they’d climb back into their sleeping bags. Spina laid his head on a five-gallon can of dog food. The sled dogs hadn’t reached them, so the can remained full. Monteverde and Best each used an airman’s boot as a pillow.
To fight cabin fever, they played word games. They named all the countries, rivers, capitals, islands, and every other geographical feature they could think of. They told and retold their life stories and talked about whatever came to mind. Still they ran out of things to say, so they spent long periods in silence. The isolation, the wind, the moving glacier beneath their cave, and the relentless cold preyed on their nerves. They seemed to take turns breaking down, wishing their ordeal were over, one way or another. Each time, the other two would comfort the crying man. When the cycle unraveled, all three sank into despair at the same time. They hatched a suicide pact.
They’d been on the ice cap for almost three months. Three men who’d been sent to rescue them were dead, as were two of their crewmates. As Spina put it: “Why should someone else stick his neck out to save ours?” They talked about tying themselves together and hurling themselves into a crevasse. Or maybe they’d leave their igloo and walk until they dropped from exhaustion. Finally, they decided to go quietly. They’d stop fighting, stay in their hole, and let Greenland freeze them to permanent slumber. They agreed that the next time Pappy Turner’s B-17 flew overhead, they’d tell him to end his supply flights, cancel all ongoing rescue plans, and, in Spina’s words, “scratch our names off the books.”
Days passed before the next supply flight arrived, and in that time they reconsidered. They steeled themselves and agreed that suicide was a coward’s way out. They vowed not to break down again, but it was a vow they couldn’t keep. They resumed the cycle of hopelessness, as one man gave up, then the next, and then the next. Pappy Turner’s plane returned as they wallowed in despair. They told him via walkie-talkie that they appreciated all that he and his crew had done, but supply- and morale-sustaining services were no longer required.
Pappy Turner couldn’t believe his ears. Normally even-keeled, he flew into a rage. He and his men had busted their humps to keep the PN9E crew alive, and now they wanted to die? Turner bawled them out, telling the trio that until now he’d thought that they had guts. He’d thought that they were strong enough to stick it out, that they were soldiers, but he must’ve been mistaken. Gaining steam, Turner called them “a bunch of weaklings.” He told them he was so revolted that he felt half tempted to accept their plan and let them freeze or starve to death. But the choice wasn’t his or even theirs to make. Turner told Monteverde, Best, and Spina that they were the last three pieces of the most expensive rescue of the war. The U.S. government had invested too many lives, too much time and effort, and too much money to let them die now. When he calmed down, Turner promised that he and his crew wouldn’t stop flying until the three men were off the ice. In exchange, he made Monteverde, Best, and Spina promise that they’d refuse to quit.
Even if Turner was exaggerating for effect, his outburst had the desired result with Armand Monteverde and Paul Spina. Clint Best was another story.
SEVERAL DAYS AFTER Turner’s tirade, Best sat in the ice cave, warming C rations over an improvised stove made from a can filled with leaded gasoline. He usually cooked carefully, knowing that the flames might ignite nearby tanks of gas or even the fuel-filled wing above them. But Monteverde and Spina watched as Best sat motionless as food atop the can began to burn. They called to him, but Best didn’t react. As flames rose, Best stared blankly at his companions. Spina felt chills down his spine. He called it “the coldest look I ever seen in my life.” Monteverde ignored Best and snuffed out the fire himself.
Best began to shake, so they covered him with blankets. Still he shook. Monteverde thought Best’s strange behavior might be a delayed result of the head injury he suffered in the crash. Not knowing what else to do, Monteverde and Spina agreed that a shock might snap Best from his catatonia. Monteverde snuck up from behind and slapped Best in the face. Stunned, Best emerged from his trance and asked what had happened. When Monteverde explained, Best said he felt as though he’d been lost in another world. In his hallucination, he told his companions, he was surrounded by people saying that he’d abandoned his post and would be court-martialed for going AWOL.
As Best told his story, Spina saw the glassy, vacant stare return to his eyes. Best began to shake again. They zipped him into his sleeping bag and covered him with parkas. When Best fell asleep, Monteverde and Spina discussed whether to tell Pappy Turner about Best’s breakdown. They decided to wait and hope that he snapped out of it, knowing that Best had applied for officer candidate school. Word of mental problems could destroy that dream.
They tried to sleep, but Best and Spina bunked next to each other on the floor. Whenever Best shook, Spina woke. Spina stared into the darkness as Best twisted in his bag. Best’s delirium returned and his movements grew erratic. He yelled that three men were fighting with him. Defending himself against phantoms, he reached out and grabbed Spina’s left hand. Fearing that Best might break his good arm, Spina called for help. Monteverde s
lapped Best a second time, and again Best woke from his trance and asked for an explanation. They told him that he’d had a bad dream and that everything was fine. Monteverde and Spina stayed awake, watching Best as he slept, shook, and sweated through the night.
The next morning, Best remained in a trancelike stupor. The other two tried to keep him covered, but he ripped away the sleeping bag and pressed his head against the snow, as though trying to cool his fevered mind. When they offered him breakfast, he accused them of trying to poison him. Best muttered throughout the day, “talking about things drawn from another world,” as Spina put it.
That night, Monteverde and Spina alternated keeping watch over Best. During the first shift, Spina heard Best stumbling around in the darkness. Spina turned on a flashlight that they saved for emergencies, but he couldn’t find Best in the small cave. He called to Monteverde, who grabbed the flashlight and went to the entrance tunnel. The flap at the far end was open.
Best was gone.
20
ICEHOLES
AUGUST 2012
FIVE HOURS INTO the C-130 flight, we crowd against the windows to watch the sunset over the southern tip of Greenland. Jagged, gray-black mountains rise at the coastline, and beyond them the white shag carpet of the ice cap stretches to the horizon. No settlements are visible, no signs that anyone has ever set foot there. From twenty-seven thousand feet, it looks like the proverbial last place on earth. Bil Thuma asks, “Can you imagine being an airman who goes down out there and says to himself, ‘It’s OK, we’re going to get out of here’?”
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