Frozen in Time Read online

  Despite his fall into the crevasse, the resilient Spencer felt the strongest of the PN9E crewmen. He volunteered to make the trek to the Duck, in case Tucciarone or Puryear needed help along the way. Pritchard roped them all together, separated at thirty-foot intervals, and led them onto the trail that he and Bottoms had made on the way in.

  Nineteen days of vicious cold and little food had sapped the young airmen’s strength more than they’d realized. Puryear could hardly lift his feet, and Pritchard and Bottoms dragged both him and Tucciarone almost as much as they walked. Spencer helped, but he couldn’t do much. Soon both Puryear and Tucciarone fell face-first into the snow from exhaustion. Puryear felt himself surrendering to sleep, a precursor to death on the ice cap. Bottoms propped up Puryear, put a cigarette in his mouth, and lit it for him. He encouraged the young man from Kentucky onward, half carrying him much of the way. Pritchard tried to raise Tucciarone’s spirits by joking that Tucciarone’s mother would have homemade spaghetti waiting for him.

  Fearing the approach of dusk, Pritchard and Spencer hurried ahead to prepare the Duck for takeoff. Pritchard decided to crank up the wheels, so they wouldn’t drag through the snow. But in the four hours since landing, the Duck’s floats had frozen to the glacier. Pritchard and Spencer dug out the wheels and rocked the little plane to break it free of the ice. They turned it in the opposite direction, using the ice as a pivot, so Pritchard could fly out the way he’d come in. By the time Bottoms and the two zombielike PN9E crewmen reached the Duck, it was ready to go.

  Puryear and Tucciarone half climbed and were half carried into the empty compartment below the Duck’s cockpit. Pritchard and Bottoms strapped themselves in and prepared to leave. Pilots seek to take off into a headwind because it’s easier to generate lift, but Pritchard didn’t have that option. Spencer gave the plane a push to help it on its way, then watched as the Duck gained speed for a difficult and dangerous downwind takeoff.

  Tucciarone and Puryear couldn’t see what was happening from inside the cargo compartment. They clasped hands and prayed as they felt the Duck rise, then fall, their stomachs and their hopes doing the same. The plane bounced from frozen hill to frozen hill, icy hummock to icy hummock. The span between impacts became longer and longer. The plane rose higher. The Duck was airborne. Tucciarone heard Pritchard and Bottoms scream for joy. He and Puryear did the same. Pritchard had made history a second time, as the first pilot to land and take off from the Greenland ice cap.

  Before Pritchard began the brief flight back to the Northland, he flew over the wrecked bomber and again waggled his wings.

  The sun was setting, so the Northland shone its big searchlights onto the water of Comanche Bay to help Pritchard gauge his altitude on approach. Twenty minutes after takeoff from the glacier, he came down as smoothly as if he’d been planning a picnic on a midwestern lake. The ship’s crew lined the rail again, cheering as Pritchard taxied the Duck to its side.

  Five hours after watching the Duck fly off, the Northland crew hoisted the plane back onto the deck. Gingerly, they pulled the two rescued men out of the Duck’s belly. Ragged, thin, and frostbitten, but safe.

  AL TUCCIARONE IS CARRIED DOWN FROM THE DUCK AFTER THE PLANE’S RETURN TO THE NORTHLAND ON NOVEMBER 28, 1942. (U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLES DORIAN.)

  Lieutenant Commander Pollard fired off a celebratory message to “Iceberg” Smith reporting that Al Tucciarone and Woody Puryear were onboard, and that the Northland’s Duck was ready and willing to return for more. Smith raised no protest, so Pollard elaborated in a second message, explaining the plan for the first time to his commanding officer. In the process, he torpedoed the idea of relying on motorsledders Max Demorest and Don Tetley for the remaining rescues:

  If weather permits, will evacuate seven B-17 personnel via Northland plane in two flights commencing daylight tomorrow, Sunday. All personnel excepting one are in critically weakened condition. Several serious cases [of] gangrene and one broken arm. . . . Will have two ski/hand sledges constructed within few hours for use in transporting B-17 personnel to Northland plane. B-17 men are not equal to ordeal of 50-mile sledge trip, which may entail being on trail and in Ice Cap Station for two or three more weeks without urgently needed medical attention and hospitalization. Believe present favorable weather will not last beyond tomorrow. Evacuation by plane deemed imperative to prevent deaths and also losses of limbs and extremities from progressive gangrene. Medical officer urges expeditious hospitalization ashore for all B-17 personnel. Two men brought aboard today by Northland plane have grave debility. Puryear also has gangrenous toes and Tucciarone breathes with difficulty because of fractured ribs.

  Smith accepted the rescue plan without objection, asking only that Pritchard ensure the destruction of the PN9E’s Norden Bombsight, along with any other equipment or documents that would help the enemy. Before signing off, Smith asked Pollard to tell the three Canadian crewmen still aboard the Northland that their families had been notified that they were safe.

  When they climbed down from the Duck, Pritchard and Bottoms accepted congratulations and hearty slaps on the back. They secured their plane for the night, ate, then went to their bunks to prepare for a big day ahead.

  Tucciarone and Puryear were carried to sick bay, where the ship’s doctor waved away piles of food and drink offered to them by the Northland’s crew. The doctor prescribed a strict diet of hot soup, hotter coffee, and most of all, rest.

  Before going to sleep, Tucciarone and Puryear had just one request: John Pritchard’s autograph. With that in hand, the two survivors and the pilot who rescued them would be Short Snorters together.

  12

  “MOs—QUICK!”

  NOVEMBER 1942

  AFTER THE DUCK returned to the Northland, the night on the ice cap was clear and the weather tame. It was tempting to imagine that Greenland had surrendered. The seven remaining PN9E crewmen bundled together in the bomber’s tail section, warmed by the thought that two of their friends were safe and their own imprisonment was nearly over. As darkness fell, they fired bright red flares into the starlit sky. The official purpose was to guide the motorsled drivers to the wreck, but the flares also seemed a fitting celebration of the anticipated end of their ordeal.

  Seeing the red starbursts, Max Demorest and Don Tetley knew they were close. In fact, the lights on their sleds were already visible from the PN9E. They shot off a flare of their own to let the bomber crew know they were within range. But a mile or so from the plane, the motorsled drivers halted at a menacing sight: their intended route was across an active glacier beset by crevasses. Demorest, the Princeton PhD glacier expert, and Tetley, the Texas horseman turned Arctic explorer, climbed off their motorsleds to assess the danger. Agreeing that it was too perilous to proceed on their sleds at night, they strapped on skis and grabbed poles to test the way. They’d find a safe trail through the maze of crevasses on foot, and then return to the sleds to drive along that footpath.

  Carrying a bundle of supplies and threading their way around the ice chasms, Demorest and Tetley reached the PN9E after midnight. They found Monteverde’s crew awake and in high spirits. After hearty greetings, the seven remaining survivors broke out a can of chicken that they’d saved for just such an occasion. Demorest dressed O’Hara’s gangrenous feet and treated him with antibacterial sulfa drugs and morphine for the pain. Tetley described O’Hara as suffering from “frozen feet and body poison.” The diagnosis reflected his belief that the navigator’s shriveled feet had become infected and that immediate evacuation was essential for any chance to avoid amputation.

  After treating O’Hara, Demorest checked Spina’s arm to ensure that the bones were knitting properly, then applied fresh bandages. Then he went man to man, wrapping frostbitten fingers and toes. As the ministrations continued, the men of the PN9E told Demorest and Tetley about one further indignity: a steady diet of dry rations, a lack of fruit or vegetables, and little exercise had left most of them constipated.

  Whe
n the medical work was complete, Demorest and Tetley shared news of the war. They regaled the PN9E crew with the triumph of Operation Torch, the joint British-American invasion of North Africa. They also reported the bad news that McDowell’s C-53 still hadn’t been found. Then they explained their plan to take everyone to Ice Cap Station and then on to Beach Head Station, on foot or motorsled, if the Duck didn’t return.

  Even with Tucciarone and Puryear gone, the bomber’s tail section felt too cramped for Demorest and Tetley to spend the night. Also, they worried that a blizzard might cover their sleds while they slept, delaying them in the morning. They told the bomber crew that they’d sleep in tents by their motorsleds and return around 10:00 a.m. The PN9E crew urged them to stay, fearful of the motorsled men walking in the dark amid the crevasses. But Demorest and Tetley wouldn’t hear of it. As the party broke up, Monteverde made plans to greet Demorest and Tetley with a hot breakfast.

  After the motorsled men left, the PN9E crewmen were too excited to sleep. They talked about getting back home and agreed how nice it would be to sleep on a cot again. Monteverde reminisced about the warmth of California, and anticipated a spaghetti feast that Tucciarone had promised everyone. Hearing that, Spencer cranked open a can of spaghetti that Tetley had left behind. He warmed it over the fire and gave his crewmates one forkful each. Spencer joked that he wanted all of them to taste spaghetti before Tucciarone did.

  At O’Hara’s suggestion, they prayed together before turning in. Afterward everyone lay in silence, but Spina knew that no one was asleep.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, November 29, 1942, Winston Churchill delivered a worldwide radio address declaring a turning point in the war, the Allies’ first “bright gleam of victory.” He hailed the defeat of German field marshal Erwin Rommel in Egypt, and the American-led landings in Algeria and Morocco. Despite the good news, for the first time since Pearl Harbor the war was overshadowed in the United States by a homegrown tragedy: nearly five hundred dead, many of them servicemen, in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston.

  Aboard the Coast Guard cutter Northland in Comanche Bay, neither Churchill’s speech nor the nightclub fire was the big news. Thoughts and hopes were focused on the PN9E crew, and on Pritchard, Bottoms, and the Duck.

  When daylight broke, wispy fog and steely clouds replaced the clear sky of the previous night. Pritchard checked the weather reports and saw that snow was on the way and the overcast was thickening. At 8:00 a.m., visibility was approaching twenty miles. But it soon deteriorated, falling to perhaps half that distance an hour later. The fog was getting murkier, the snow heavier, the sky darker. By noon, visibility would be less than one mile. If they chanced it, Pritchard and Bottoms would be flying by the seat of their pants.

  But Pritchard believed that he, his radioman, and the Duck could handle the weather, and it wasn’t likely to improve the next day or the day after. During the previous nine months, he’d become expert in the tricky flying that was required over and around the island. He knew how to hold steady through wild bursts of turbulence, loss of visibility, and dangerous haze that blurred the horizon. Pritchard took those risks seriously, but he’d also seen firsthand how the men of the PN9E were suffering. This was their twentieth day on the ice, and they’d waited long enough. Pollard, the Northland’s captain, trusted Pritchard’s judgment and allowed him to proceed.

  The decision was sealed when Lolly Howarth awoke that morning and radioed the Northland that it was a beautiful day on the glacier, with good visibility.

  As the ship’s crew again lined the rail, Pritchard and Bottoms gained speed along their water runway and took off at 9:29 a.m. The flight normally took no more than twenty minutes, so Pritchard and Bottoms could expect to join Demorest, Tetley, and the remaining seven PN9E men for their scheduled ten o’clock breakfast.

  The flight over Koge Bay was uneventful. As Pritchard flew above the wreck, Bottoms tossed out the stretcher-sleds built by the Northland’s carpenters, so they’d be near the bomber to transport O’Hara and Spina to the Duck. At the sound of the plane, Harry Spencer emerged from the B-17’s tail to retrieve the sleds. Monteverde intended to have Demorest and Tetley use their motorsleds to carry O’Hara and Spina to the Duck, but Spencer decided to assemble the handmade stretcher-sleds nonetheless. Spencer also made a fire to cook breakfast for the rescuers and his fellow crewmen, but the PN9E survivors wanted only coffee. They were saving room for an expected banquet aboard the Northland.

  As he worked, Spencer took several breaks to slip inside the tail and give updates to Spina and O’Hara, who remained in their sleeping bags. On one visit, he said, “It won’t be long now. The sleds are almost here and the plane is due any minute. I guess we can kiss the Ice Cap goodbye.” Several other men came inside to pat O’Hara and Spina on the back for good luck.

  WHILE ASSEMBLING THE hand sleds, Spencer saw the motorsleds bearing Demorest and Tetley approaching from the east, each with a cargo sled in tow. They followed the path of ski tracks they’d made the night before, with Demorest out front and Tetley close behind.

  Motorsleds are heavy and difficult to turn. Demorest wanted his to be facing in the opposite direction, away from the B-17, when the time came to leave. About one hundred yards from the bomber, Demorest turned off the trail and steered the motorsled in a wide arc. When he reached the end of the arc, Demorest expected, he’d be pointing away from the PN9E. Even after Spencer’s fall into the crevasse, Monteverde’s crew had walked around the crash area to gather airdropped supplies. Demorest must have thought the well-trod area was safe from danger.

  But twenty-five yards into the turn, Demorest’s motorsled crossed a snow bridge over a hidden crevasse. The bridge might have supported a man alone on foot, but it was too weak to bear the weight of a man on a loaded motorsled. Without warning, the bridge gave way. Max Demorest and his motorsled plunged headfirst into the blue-white abyss, with the attached cargo sled pulled in behind.

  Tetley jumped off his sled and sprinted to the crevasse, yelling for help as he ran. When he reached the eight-foot-wide opening, he looked down to see the motorsled’s tail and the cargo sled, wedged between the walls about one hundred feet down. But he saw no sign of Demorest. He shouted for his friend but heard no answer.

  Grabbing ropes, Monteverde, Spencer, and Howarth ran to join Tetley at the hole. They called to Demorest, but received no reply. Howarth volunteered to trek as quickly as possible to the Duck’s landing site to tell Pritchard and Bottoms what had happened. He’d ask the Coast Guard pilot to return to the Northland to gather more men and equipment to attempt a rescue. Monteverde gave him the go-ahead and told Howarth that Pritchard should take off as soon as possible, without waiting for more crewmen from the PN9E. They needed help fast, and snow and fog were rolling in from Koge Bay.

  Howarth stopped at the tail section for a fast good-bye to Bill O’Hara, Paul Spina, Clint Best, and Clarence Wedel. They wished him luck, told him to avoid the crevasses, and gave him eight rolls of film they’d taken of themselves. They told Howarth they wanted him to have sets of photos developed for each of them aboard the Northland when they arrived. Howarth tucked away the film and followed the trail Pritchard and Bottoms had made the day before to the Duck.

  At the crevasse, Tetley frantically wove a rope ladder. Monteverde considered lowering a man, but this was much different from Spencer’s fall. With no sign of life from Demorest, Monteverde concluded that sending a man down would recklessly endanger another life. Tetley and Spencer agreed. Trying to reach Demorest would take every healthy man among them, and even then they might not have enough strength or equipment. They had no option but to keep watch and continue calling to the lieutenant. If he answered, they’d send a man down.

  One PN9E crewman rushed to the radio to call for help, but without Howarth’s knowhow, all he could do was send SOS messages. The Northland heard them but misunderstood their purpose. The ship’s radio operator relayed a message to “Iceberg” Smith saying that the bomber was “appa
rently attempting to contact motor sledges in her vicinity or [at] Ice Cap Station.”

  JOHN PRITCHARD AND Ben Bottoms landed the Duck at the same spot where they’d come down the previous day, some two miles from the PN9E. This time, Pritchard landed on the Duck’s pontoon, with the wheels up, as though the ice were water. Bottoms radioed the Northland that they were safely on the glacier.

  When Howarth reached the landing area, he told the Coast Guardsmen about Demorest’s fall. Pritchard and Bottoms brought the young radioman aboard for the return trip to the Northland and prepared for an immediate departure. Pritchard and Bottoms climbed into the cockpit and Howarth crawled down into the empty compartment in the fuselage.

  Pritchard took off in the same direction as he’d flown away the day before, heading toward Koge Bay. As he flew south and passed over the wreck, Pritchard waggled the Duck’s wings in salute.

  Below, at the crevasse, Monteverde, Spencer, and Tetley were still calling to Demorest. He never answered. Soon the fog grew so thick that they had to abandon their vigil, lest they risk falling into a crevasse, too. They returned several times to the hole when the fog cleared, but heard nothing but the echo of their own voices.

  Two years earlier, Max Demorest’s mentor had published a worried insight about his protégé’s fearlessness. Now the prophecy had come true for Max Harrison Demorest of Flint, Michigan, a thirty-two-year-old Ivy League professor and scholar, husband and father, army lieutenant and motorsled rescuer.

  While trying to help a group of desperate men, one of the world’s leading authorities on glaciers had been lost forever at the bottom of one.