Another St. Patrick's Day

(Author's Note: This is a repost from last year updated with an additional photograph I received courtesy of Mr. Charles Fitzpatrick who is mentioned herein. He, along with the daughter of Mr. Patrick Tierney, stumbled upon this entry and were kind enough to leave comments to the original post, which is noted on the sidebar. Also, Mr. Fitzpatrick sent me his personal recollection of these events, including a copy of a letter my father wrote him about the incident. I should note, I owe Mr. Fitzpatrick an apology. In my original post, I refer to him as "The Navigator." In truth, his position was "Third Pilot/Navigator" and he later went on to command his own ship (plane) and crew later in the war. I hope this makes up for that error. -- RDS)

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, wherein we celebrate our Gaelic heritage by doing nothing productive, eating bad food, drinking heavily and insulting people who have the temerity not to wear green clothes.

Today is also Day Two of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament which we Americans celebrate by doing nothing productive, eating bad food, drinking heavily and insulting people who went to a different college than we did.

All in all, a "perfect storm" of indigestion, alcoholism and general misbehavior.

Before all of that starts, however, let us pause to think back sixty-one years to this day in 1945. Let us transport ourselves to Kodiak Island, Alaska, specifically to the Aleut village of Karluk, sitting on the west shore of the island. It is foggy. Visibility is nil. The sun has set. The temperature is barely above freezing. Fortunately, it is unusually calm.

A Baptist missionary is in the village. He teaches school. He is standing outside his house when he hears the drone of an airplane overhead. This is not unusual as planes constantly traverse the island between Seattle and the outlying Aleutian Islands, where they are stationed and from which they fly to drop bombs on the Empire of Japan.

Nonetheless, there is something strange about the sound of the plane. It doesn’t fade away but continues circling above the village, out of sight in the dark and fog. The missionary wonders if there is a problem.

Fade to the interior of the plane. There are six crew and a passenger. They are on their way home after many months stationed on the island of Attu. They are happy to have survived and anxious to see their wives and sweethearts in Seattle. Against better judgment, they have left Umnak Naval Air Station late in the day and are trying to get a few hundred more miles behind them.

Now, they are lost. They cannot find the commercial landing strip on Kodiak, which is on the other side of the island. They are running out of gas and are running out of options. They are preparing to ditch the plane in the frigid waters below.

Zoom to the back of the fuselage. There, sitting on the luggage is the passenger. He is a 27 year old Lieutenant in the Navy Reserve, the squadron’s radar officer. If one could see the name tag sewn onto his flight suit underneath all the foul weather gear, one would see it reads "Sherman." He had been assigned to ride on this plane when the squadron transferred back to the States. He is not a warrior. He is a technician. But he is an officer and therefore, he is in charge of a life raft.

The Lieutenant is scared; scared that he will die; scared that he will not do what he is supposed to do; scared he will make some blunder which will cost someone his life.

As the plane descends toward the ocean, the Lieutenant grips the duffle bag holding the raft and stares straight ahead. He marvels that so many things can be going through his mind at one time with a clarity that comes only in dire circumstances. He rehearses what he will do when the plane touches the water. He thinks about his family and friends in Missouri. He searches his soul for each and every imperfection and beseeches God to forgive him.

Most of all, he prays that he won’t screw up.

In the midst of these thoughts and prayers, the Lieutenant hears the pilot order "Brace for impact" and immediately, he feels the first bump of waves against the underside of the aircraft. Then there is another, stronger this time; and a third, stronger still.

Finally there is a fourth which throws the occupants of the plane against the bulkhead and causes the Lieutenant to lose his grip on the raft. He watches it slide out the hatch that had been braced open while the plane is still moving. He panics because he sees failure in front of him and dives out the hatch after the raft into the water.

It is dark, but the Lieutenant catches a glimpse of the raft in the water. He inflates his Mae West and dog paddles over to where the raft is. He takes the bundle and pushes it under the water and lays on top of it, pulling the inflation lanyard at the same time. He hears the reassuring "hiss" of CO2 and the raft inflates, lifting him out of the water. He looks toward where the plane is to see its empennage disappearing into the black water.

It is silent. The Lieutenant wonders if he is alone.

The Lieutenant finds the raft’s paddle and begins searching for his shipmates. He begins to hear voices in the darkness and following them he finds first one, then another, and another until all seven who were on board are accounted for.

The seven are huddled in a four-man raft. They fire flares, but they wonder if anyone can see them. One of the men, the co-pilot, decides to try swim the mile or so to shore to see if he can find help. He does so against orders and eventually they lose sight of him. They think he’s lost.

Then they hear voices in the distance. They have one more usable flare and as they attempt to load it into the Very pistol, it misfires, shooting out horizontally a few feet above the ocean.

Fade back to the village of Karluk. The missionary listens intently and realizes that the plane is in distress and that it will ditch offshore. He summons the villagers and they launch a boat to begin a search in the dark for any survivors. They see flares and row in their direction. Finally, they see one last flare shooting out directly at them. It explodes a few hundred feet in front of them and in its glow they see a body in the water. They row to the body and pull it into their boat. It is the co-pilot.

He is alive.

The villagers then row in the direction of the flight of the last flare until they see the raft with the other six crewman. The officers and crew are rescued, rowed to shore, given hot food and drink, dry clothes and have the run of the village until a Navy ship picks them up two days later.

The officers and sailors go on their lives. One transfers to another squadron and is killed later in the war. The rest go back to the States, marry, have children and grandchildren. Some pass away.

Ultimately, forty years later, the remaining three survivors of that night meet again at a reunion in Seattle. They are the co-pilot, the navigator and the passenger. They begin to call each other on St. Patrick’s Day and on one such day, they learn that the navigator has located the Baptist missionary. A year later, the four, together with their wives meet for a weekend. They talk about the twists and turns their lives have taken since they all shared an experience many years before.

Within a fews years after that reunion in New Jersey, three of the four are gone. Only the navigator remains. Sometime today, he will pick up the phone in his home in Maryland and call my mother in Missouri to check on her. They will talk for a while and she will listen to him recount the events of that night. And when she hangs up she will wonder whether there will be another such call next year on March 17th. She knows that on some St. Patrick’s Day in the future, the phone will not ring.

Then it will be up to the rest of us to preserve this memory of St. Patrick’s Day.

Cheers.

R. Sherman


Supplement:For those who enjoy reading military reports, the orignal report of the above in the Navy archives may be found here. Of interest, is that the plane, a PB-1 Ventura Bomber pictured above, was in contact with a civilian airliner from an entity known as "Randall Airways." Interesting coincidence, I guess.

As for the other photos, the second is Dad as a freshly minted Ensign in the United States Navy Reserve.

The third is the crew, taken the morning after the rescue on the beach at Karluk. Front row, left to right: Radioman Fred Beurskens, gunner Bill Glennon, Plane Chief Harry Moran. Back Row, left to right: Dad, Co-Pilot Lt. (jg) Patrick Tierney, Pilot Lt. A. F. "Jim" Moorehead, Navigator Ens. Charles Fitzpatrick, all of Squadron VPB-136. (A big bundle of Irishmen for a St. Patrick's Day rescue.)

The fourth is a posed Official Navy Photo taken in Seattle upon the crew's return to the states. I believe it may have been published orginally in the Seattle daily newspaper. From left to right: Pilot, Lt. Jim Moorehead; Gunner, Bill Glennon; VPB (Patrol Bomber) Squadron 136 Electronics Officer, Lt. Kenneth Sherman; Co-Pilot, Lt.(jg) Pat Tierney; Radio Man, Fred "Rollo" Buerskens;Chief Mechanic, John "Harry" Moran;Third Pilot/Navigator, Ens. Charles Fitzpatrick.

The last image is a scan of the local newspaper article in New Jersey when the three survivors of the ditching met with the Baptist missionary who rescued them. From left to right, Stephen Zdepski, the missionary; Dad; Charles Fitzpatrick, the navigator; Patrick Tierney, the Co-Pilot.

Finally, I've yet to find any official commendation or thanks to the villagers of Karluk for what they did that night. My letters to the Department of the Navy have been ignored. This entry in my journal makes up for that oversight, at least slightly, I hope.

RDS