In 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in order to set up the movement of arms to Russia and Britain. This legislation set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the United States.” Many items shipped to these countries were aircraft that couldn’t be transported by ship because of enemy activity on both oceans, and so to get aircraft to Russia, a system of airfields was established to facilitate that movement of material. At the same time, and for the same reason, the ALCAN Highway was built. From Wikipedia: “In 1942, the Army Corps of Engineers assigned more than 10,000 men, about a third of whom were Black soldiers, members of three newly formed African-American regiments.” Their assignment given was to complete the 1,600 miles from Dawson Creek, BC, to Delta Junction, AK, in one year.
As part of the movement of planes, the Northwest Staging Route was established. Beginning at Great Falls, MT, it set up airfields every 100 miles and included Edmonton, Alberta, and stops in Ft. Nelson, Liard River, and various up to Alaska and places like Burwash Landing, Teslin Lake, and Whitehorse. Ft. Wainwright was built as one of several airstrips that allowed the aircraft to hop from the U.S., up the ALCAN and across Alaska to Siberia. Also, the Americans set up fueling stations for the Russians at Galena and Marks Airfield (just west of Nome).
Three main types of combat aircraft were ferried to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. Fighter aircraft were the Bell P-39 Airacobra and later its successor, the Bell P-63 Kingcobra, favored by the Red Air Force, which used the two types with great success. The majority of the P-39s shipped to the Soviet Union were the definitive Q models. Bombers included the Douglas A-20 Havoc light-attack bomber and North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. Transport aircraft were made up predominantly of the Douglas C-47 Skytrain.
The Bell fighters and the B-25 Mitchells were flown up to Ladd via Minneapolis; the C-47s and A-20s came up via Great Falls. A handful of other aircraft types—North American AT-6 Texan trainers, some North American Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighters, three Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and one Curtiss C-46 Commando transport—were also ferried to Russia. The aircraft were supplied with Russian-language operations and maintenance manuals, as well as painted in Red Air Force camouflage colors and national markings.
The Russians set up a command at Ladd Field and Nome, where their pilots were trained to take over the aircraft and fly them to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia and on to various fronts in Western Russia. The first group of Russian pilots arrived at Nome on August 14, 1942, on their way to Ladd Field. Along with the pilots were civilians from the Soviet Purchasing Commission and a group of Red Air Force mechanics. Most were located at Ladd, with a secondary group at Marks Field. The first Lend-Lease aircraft, a group of 12 A-20 Havocs, arrived at Ladd on September 3, 1942. The first Russian pilots, after five days of training on the aircraft, took off for Nome and the long trip to the Eastern Front.
Initially, the USAAF provided the training on how to operate and maintain the Lend-Lease aircraft. Later, after an experienced cadre was developed, the Russians assumed the responsibility. The Russians also meticulously inspected each aircraft and would reject any aircraft that presented the slightest problem.
The USAAF was then left with the chore of correcting them. It was sometimes quite exasperating, as the USAAF would work long hours of overtime to get the aircraft into first-class condition so that all the Russians had to do was fly them from Fairbanks to the Eastern Front. Nearly 8,000 aircraft were transported to Russia, most of them through Ladd Field. In 1947, Ladd Field was renamed Ft. Wainwright after General Jonathan Wainwright, a hero of Bataan.
In the mid-70s, the Alaska oil pipeline was under construction on a north-south line spanning the entire state. It was 800 miles long and crossed some of the wildest country in the world: two major mountain ranges, the mighty Yukon River and mostly roadless wilderness. There were also huge herds of caribou—moose that are about halfway in size between a deer and an elephant—tons of grizzly and black bear, wolverines, lynx, musk oxen and a bunch of very cool native villages. Access to those villages is still by riverboat or airplane to this day.
Fairbanks was dead center, the only town of any size in the interior. The original cost estimate to complete the project was $2 billion, but for reasons I won’t bother to explain here, nobody really cared how much it ran over budget. The final tally was $11 billion (and remember, this is 1976), with maybe half of that total funneling through a town of 30,000 residents. If you do the inflation calculation for modern days, that would be like running about $40 billion through Pocatello, ID, or Redding, CA, in a three-year period.
It was a full-fledged boomtown. Pipeliners would cash their checks from six weeks of labor, and the smart ones would head home to momma back in Louisiana or Texas for a week. But the rest would head into downtown Fairbanks. Two Street, we called it, after 2nd Avenue. The nine square blocks that made up downtown Fairbanks had 25 to 30 bars, most of which were open 23 hours a day; they’d close up from 6:00-7:00 am to mop the floors. You could just sit outside on the sidewalk for an hour with your beer and then head back inside when they reopened. The Flame Lounge, a topless dance club, was the center point. There were 50- 100 professional women walking the street all night, mostly Black ladies from Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle. A few weren’t hookers at all, just professional pickpockets. Several of them would get tired of “working” and would borrow my ’64 Chevy Impala junker just to cruise around for a while. It didn’t need a key, being hot-wired, and they would just take it and then tell me later where they had parked it. There were two illegal gambling halls, Sam’s being the most well-known. You could walk into Sam’s place, order a free steak dinner, eat it, order another if you so chose and walk out without even gambling if that was your preference for that evening. I saw a guy in there one night with a pickle jar almost full of gold dust from one of the far-flung mines. Dead center in the middle of all this broad-daylight debauchery was a popcorn stand. The scene was halfway between a Hieronymus Bosch painting and a carnival. The Alyeska Pipeline Company headquarters was in that Army building straight across from the New Shack. There were literally hundreds of brand spankin’ new white Chevy Blazers all over the base and all over Fairbanks with “EXEMPT CARRIER” stenciled on both sides.
Meanwhile, the Alaska smokejumpers were operating out of the T-Hangar on Ft. Wainwright. It was a junky old WWII airplane hangar that didn’t even have indoor plumbing. The paint was peeling off the walls, there was no heat, and the interior was dark and dingy. It was definitely the hobo camp of jump shacks and had a crew to match. Sixty-five guys were on the list, many of whom were rejects from other bases, all of whom loved jumping the enormous, wild and scenic Alaska country and seeing giant moose, huge brown bears, midnight sun and northern lights. We had epic outdoor pig-roast beer parties—the first pig party was at Gordy Henson’s (MSO-63) house in ’76 and was my 100th jump—parachuted into some of the most beautiful country imaginable (also into some of the nastiest mosquito-infested swamps anywhere, but that just made for good stories) and survived endless numbers of all-nighters in those bars downtown. One night I got tossed in jail twice . . . two different jails.
We called Building 1542 home from 1974-1977. No bathrooms, no running water. One porta-potty for 65 jumpers sat next to the parking area on the other side. We called it the Astrocrapper. The loft was still at “Three and a Half Mile” (where the State Forestry complex is, on the corner of Gaffney and University) in ’74 and ’75. In ’76, all loft operations were moved to Ft. Wainwright, just west of where the New Shack now sits.
On the south end of the T-Hangar were the ready racks and a tiny office where the term The Box originated. Inside were a desk, two chairs and one phone connected to dispatch. The jump list was outside of The Box on the east wall. There was a big rack of Dexion bins facing The Box and forming a wall that in turn separated the ready room from PC. Every jumper had one of those Dexion bins for his jump gear. If you were on the first two loads, your gear was on the ready racks, so your bin was empty. Everybody had a government sleeping bag (mostly those old brown Army bags) and a pillow from the barracks in their bin. That allowed you to use the bin for naps. Most of the time, every jumper had an assigned task each day just like now, but there was one big difference. If you were on first load, you were expected to stay very handy to the ready racks because we were competing against Helitack for fires. Everybody’s job for the day was listed on your tag on the jump list, and the guys on first load just had “First Load” on their tag. No additional assignment. This meant most of the first load was either reading in chairs in front of the Dexion wall or sleeping in their bins. (Most of the bins had burlap curtains across the front so you could nap in private.) Consequently, a guy on first load could go downtown and party all night, as long as he drove up to the T-Hangar in time to say “here” when his name was called at 0800. After roll call and PT, you just hopped in your bin and dozed off, got up to go to the mess-hall for lunch and headed back to your bin for the afternoon. You either jumped a fire that afternoon or got off work after standby and went back to your barracks room or back downtown for more barhopping.
When the siren went off, eight of those burlap curtains would explode open, and guys would scramble down to the floor level and over to the racks. Also in the ready room was the “I Hear Ya Walkin” chair made by Gary “Pops” Johnson (FBX-74) and Buck McCoy (RDD-73) out of a cable spool. It was intended for anybody for whom things weren’t going great that day. Maybe you had a spat with your girlfriend or were down for some reason or just needed some quiet time. If you were sitting in that chair, nobody would bother you. If you happened to be walking by and saw one of your buddies sitting there, you wouldn’t say a word, just give the chair a couple rocks and move on. On the outside wall of the T-Hangar, there was an empty can of Copenhagen nailed to the wall. That was the “Snooce Locker.” If you happened to have bought a brand-new can, you’d go to the Snooce Locker, open the can and put in a healthy pinch of tobacco, then put the lid back on. That way, if anybody ran out of Copenhagen, they could get a chew. That was another of Pops Johnson’s additions.
Back then, there weren’t any swaths of territory on the map of Alaska labeled “Full” or “Limited.” Every fire was fair game. The main sub-bases were Galena, McGrath and Ft. Yukon, with occasional standby at Bettles, Tanana, Minchumina and Dahl Creek. (Palmer didn’t happen until about mid-80s or so.) All six of those had BLM kitchens and at least minimal warehouse capacity. And federal regulations were less rigid; any BLM employee could ride in any available seat in any aircraft. So if you had a girlfriend in Galena and you were off the clock, you’d hitch a ride on “BLM Airlines” and go visit your honey Friday night. Then, late Sunday, there would probably be another plane to get you back for Monday morning. If not, you’d just call in on Annual Leave and fly the next day.
The jumper situation was thus pretty wild. Every fire was full attack until resources ran thin. The pipeline construction was also in full-attack mode, going both directions up and down the Haul Road, and downtown Fairbanks was nuts. And the fire season always involved a ton of native village crews. Statewide, we could put together probably 50 village crews, each one 16 persons. The first 20 or so were damn good crews. We were all jumping T-10 round canopies and flying all over the state in DC-3s and Volpars (a 210-knot twin-tail Beech 18 converted to turbines). The Units were in the same position as they are now, right next to the Chena. Ft. Wainwright security was very lax compared to now, and the military population was probably about a third of current staffing. The mess-halls at all the BLM stations (McGrath was in the BLM system back then) were extremely good! The Howling Dog moved from Ester to Fox in about 1976 and has been in the same spot ever since.
After about ten days on a big fire southwest of Nenana, 32 guys, including some Lower-48ers, demobed back to Ft. Wainwright. Eight of them flew back. The other 24, including yours truly, rode home in the back of a two-ton stake-bed truck along with five cases of beer. John Wallock (FBX-74) spent virtually the entire time sitting on the roof of the truck, facing backwards, rolling joints and handing them out (marijuana was legal in Alaska back then). It took us four hours to do the 50 miles because of multiple piss stops and a halfhour “heads out” coin flip. Everybody put in $5, and the winner was required to use the money to buy an evening with the hooker of his choice down on “Two Street.” John Dube (RAC-70) won. We got passed by a cyclist whom we later re-passed and regaled with a beer. He stopped in the middle of the highway and chugged it to huge applause from the guys in the truck. When we finally arrived at the military gate, we were pretty drunk, so Michael Clarkson (RAC-65) got us all singing some sappy Boy Scout song, and the guards just waved us through. When we got to the T-Hangar, at least two guys—Eric “the Blak” Schoenfeld (CJ- 64) and one other—were passed out on the bed of the truck. Turns out, we arrived at the T-Hangar just a few minutes after the District Manager had left, following his only visit of the year to the jumpers.
