Fatal Incident Read online

  “Jim Proebstle has written a unique and compelling story, a true event cloaked in the fabric of fiction. Though much of Fatal Incident is speculative, every consideration is grounded in rock-solid fact. This narrative works on so many levels that it doesn’t matter whether or not you accept Proebstle’s conclusions concerning the mystery at the heart of the story. Either way, you’ll enjoy a hell of a good read.”

  —William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author

  of the Cork O’Connor series

  “Brimming with intrigue, espionage, and romance, Fatal Incident is a captivating story of determination and grit set against the backdrop of WWII. In this historical novel, author Jim Proebstle leaves the reader questioning the cause of a fatal C-47 airplane crash in Alaska that occurred during the closing years of the war. What really happened? Was there a colossal cover-up by the U.S. government involving the true facts surrounding the disaster and the ensuing rescue and recovery effort? This tale of alternate history will leave you speculating as to what actually did take place on that fateful day in September of 1944.

  “Proebstle does a formidable job developing his characters while constructing a chillingly believable story peppered with brilliantly unexpected twists and turns!”

  —Marilyn Jax, award-winning author of The Find and Road to Omalos

  “Fatal Incident is a heart-pounding tale of espionage, suspense, love, geopolitics, and heroism capturing the Soviet Union’s attempt to steal United States secrets of the atomic bomb. I recommend this book to everyone interested in World War II mysteries. Proebstle offers an exciting and credible scenario in this historical novel based on true-life events that led to the unexplained military casualties of a C-47 transport crash in the starkness of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley Range.”

  —Bob Bao, author and editor of the MSU Alumni Magazine

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published by Emerald Book Company

  Austin, TX

  www.emeraldbookcompany.com

  Copyright ©2011 Jim Proebstle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

  Distributed by Emerald Book Company

  For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Emerald Book Company at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

  Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group LLC and Alex Head

  Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group LLC

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

  Proebstle, Jim.

  Fatal incident : a novel / Jim Proebstle. — 1st ed.

  p. ; cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-934572-96-2

  1. Air pilots, Military—Alaska—20th century—Fiction. 2. Douglas DC-3 (Transport plane)—Fiction. 3. Aircraft accidents—Alaska—20th century—Fiction. 4. United States. Army Air Forces. Air Transport Command—20th century—Fiction. 5. World War, 1939-1945—Aerial operations, American—Fiction. 6. Alaska—Fiction. 7. War stories, American. 8. Historical fiction. 9. Mystery fiction. I. Title.

  PS3616.R64 F28 2011

  813/.6 2011923275

  Part of the Tree Neutral® program, which offsets the number of trees consumed in the production and printing of this book by taking proactive steps, such as planting trees in direct proportion to the number of trees used: www.treeneutral.com

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  11 12 13 14 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  For the crew and passengers of the Air Transport Command,

  C-47 flight lost in the Mt. McKinley National Park of Alaska

  on September 18, 1944.

  PROLOGUE

  In 1941, the war in Europe was escalating, and the need for competent pilots to ferry airplanes for troop and equipment movement intensified. United States Army Brig. Gen. Robert Olds organized the Air Corps Ferrying Command in May of that year. The staff consisted of exactly two officers and one clerk. The new command’s mission, however, was formidable: to move aircraft by air from factories to terminals designated by the chief of the Army Air Corps and to provide special air ferry services as required in order to meet specific situations. Pilots—many of them—were needed and in early 1942, civilian pilots were authorized to fly for the Air Transport Command (ATC), as it was then known. Each pilot was given a ninety-day trial period. Those found competent for transport flying were offered a commission as a service pilot, a rating with qualifications somewhat lower than that of combat pilots. By the end of 1942, more than 1,700 pilots had been recruited for the program, 1,372 of whom were commissioned as service pilots.

  Its original role of primarily delivering planes and supplies to Britain changed dramatically as the United States officially joined the war against Hitler’s Germany and declared war on Japan. Shipping lanes in the Atlantic and Pacific became far too dangerous, too slow, and ineffective. The airlift of supplies into China from bases in India, the delivery of the Flying Fortress to aid the army’s striking power in the decisive battle of Midway, and the C-47 transports loaded with bombs and ammunition sent to the Aleutians at the time of the attack on Dutch Harbor were examples of how the ATC greatly influenced the course of the war.

  The Alaska route went north out of Great Falls, Montana, across Alberta and the Yukon Territory of Canada, to Anchorage, over inhospitable terrain. Initially, the Alaska route was seen as a means of re-supplying American military installations in Alaska, Canadian pipeline locations in the Yukon and Northwest territories, and the Aleutian war zone. The mission also turned out to be one for ferrying airplanes from the United States for delivery to the Soviet Air Force at Ladd Field outside Fairbanks under the Lend-Lease Program. From there Soviet pilots would fly their planes to Russia for combat duty on the western front against Germany. More than eight thousand airplanes were delivered.

  ATC personnel were based at Edmonton as well as other Canadian bases. A major mission for ATC pilots at the en route bases was search and rescue for Ferrying Command pilots and crews who were forced down in the remote wilderness. Much of the transport along the route was an airline responsibility, with Northwest Airlines and Western Airlines operating the routes under contract.

  ATC began the war as an organization with heavy civilian influence. A large number of the staff officers were airline personnel who had been commissioned as army officers. Much of the command’s strength came in the form of airline flight crews who were in military reserve status, while other pilots were civilian pilots who were commissioned on the basis of their civilian flight experience. When the war ended, the Air Transport Command employed more than two hundred thousand people in its service. It was the largest airline in the world, with routes that literally covered the globe.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Nick! Do you know what you’re doing?” Martha screamed from her forward tandem seat. The noise from the sudden hailstorm was deafening.

  “Hang on, Martha,” was all that Nick said in reply. He needed all of his concentration to maneuver the 1936 E-2 Piper over the power lines and alongside the telephone poles for a shadowy forced landing on the two-lane dirt road just north of Mankato, Minnesota. The storm had come out of nowhere. Nothing on the forecast had given him even a hint of a drop in temperature that would cause hail—only a gentle rain shower and some clouds, but nothing more. One minute, he and Martha were enjoying a relaxing rid
e over the farmlands of southern Minnesota, and in the next minute the cloud cover thickened and a noticeable bitter chill filled the air. That’s when the medium-size pellets began to relentlessly drum the surface of the plane.

  Nick knew he needed to set the plane down quickly while he could still see the ground. He was concerned for Martha. It was their first trip together, and he had wanted to impress her, but now he had to stay focused on landing safely. With the E-2 it was strictly seat-of-the-pants flying. There were no flying-related instruments, only engine instruments for measuring things like rpm, oil pressure, and temperature. Nick had to keep the ground and horizon in sight, while listening closely to the sound of the engine.

  A final downdraft dropped the plane on the dirt road like a rock. Nick knew to keep his mouth closed, but Martha bit her lip badly, causing it to bleed and swell up. By the time the plane slowed to a stop, her handkerchief was thoroughly blood stained. “Wow!” Nick exclaimed in relief. “They don’t teach that in pilot training. I guess that qualifies as my first emergency landing. Are you okay up there?” Nick asked with a blend of genuine concern and adrenaline-filled excitement.

  “It definitely took my breath away. Does this happen often?” Martha twisted from her forward seat as best she could to be heard. Her question didn’t undermine her excitement with flying, however. The whole day had been fabulous. It was just that this was her first trip with Nick, and in a plane. Expectations were ambiguous. Her friends thought she was crazy to go flying with Nick. None of them would begin to take this kind of risk, but this was classic Martha. She couldn’t wait.

  “No, this is a first for me, too. I’m glad we’re in one piece.” Nick was impressed with Martha’s bravado considering she was new to flying. They had had a great day together and he didn’t want it to end badly. “Looks as if we’re grounded for a while, though.” Nick was Visual Flight Rules rated; he could fly only during the day. They would have had plenty of time to get back to the Twin Cities, but the storm and the dark clouds had obscured his range of vision so quickly that his best judgment called for a landing.

  “I hope that farm over there has a phone so you can call your mom and tell her you won’t be home until tomorrow,” he continued. “I need for the storm to clear before we can take off again, and we’re likely to run out of daylight by the time it does.”

  “She won’t handle that news very well.”

  “I’m only thinking of your safety, Martha. Besides, I like you too much to get on the wrong side of your mom. Sorry that I wasn’t able to put a blue ribbon on the day, though, but I still had fun. I hope you did, too. If you’re up to it, we can go again next weekend,” he said as she turned to an odd-looking man with a camera dressed in a gray topcoat and felt hat running toward them on the wet, gravel road. Nick couldn’t quite make sense of the man’s actions until he began speaking very excitedly to both of them.

  “That was the most fantastic landing I’ve ever witnessed. I work for the Star Tribune and I can tell you right off that my editor will love the picture I got. I was here for some weather photos, but this is much better. What are your names? I want the exact spelling. Have you flown long? Was this your first emergency landing?” The spontaneous interview went on for ten more minutes, making Nick feel self-conscious and Martha a little like a celebrity.

  From that point on, Martha couldn’t get enough of Nick. At twenty-three, he was very handsome and carried his trim six-foot-two, athletic physique well, just as he had when he was captain of the 1932 Staples, Minnesota high school football and basketball teams. It was his curly light-brown hair, however, that was his defining feature; all his childhood friends called him “Curly.” What really attracted her though, was how smart he was about things. Take flying for instance—he got his pilot’s license, Day VFR, single engine rating, in just a few months of after-hour training following his day job at Montgomery Ward’s in merchandising sales. Didn’t even tell her what he was up to. Just surprised her one day with an offer to go on a picnic. Maybe it was the picnic, or the warm summer day, or the freedom and excitement of being in the sky that got her keyed up, but from that day forward they were a pair.

  As months passed, Nick and Martha spent a lot of time together. Nick even began teaching Martha how to fly. She picked it up quickly. Good enough to put Nick’s buddies in the flying club to shame. With both Nick and Martha’s competency at the stick, their exuberance became addictive as they flew the cloud-filled, Minnesota summer skies.

  “You and Bud are just alike,” she teased, as she watched Nick work. “You’re both so meticulous about your plane.” Nick and his older brother were the first in their age group to own an E-2 Piper, and his pride showed. Because they were enterprising enough to do all their own maintenance work, it put the purchase of the used training plane from the flying club within their means. The brothers represented the best of the Depression: hardship that stimulated self-reliance and a craving for adventure. As teenagers in the late ’20s and early ’30s, they had known only the prosperity of their family’s own hard work on a tenant farm outside Cass Lake, Minnesota—hardly a thriving center of commerce. Most of the land in the county was owned by the Leech Lake Band—an Ojibwe Indian Reservation. Stunning red and white pines were mixed with deciduous hardwoods, making for a spectacular wilderness surrounding the lake. For the family, however, the three-month growing season hardly allowed for much crop surplus that could be sold at the local market in Bemidji fifteen miles away. Paying for a hired hand was not an option. They worked six days a week farming and generally fixed broken equipment after church on Sundays.

  “You’re such a perfectionist.” Martha jibed playfully as she watched him go through his pre-flight routine and adjusted her flight cap. “It’s a perfect spring day. What could go wrong?” She knew that their trip that day would be anything but ordinary and, in reality, she respected Nick’s attention to detail. His established procedure in the pre-flight engine run-up, taxi, and takeoff checks provided her a sense of safety, considering the risks they were about to take. Nonetheless, she loved to poke at his seriousness. “I’m your lucky charm.”

  “It’s simple logic, Hot Shot. This baby’s got to purr for me to be comfortable with the stunts we’re doing. No guesswork. No accidents.” Nick had begun calling Martha Hot Shot right after her first flight with him where she took the stick and flew by herself. She liked the nickname, but more importantly, she liked where their relationship was headed. They dated in high school when she was a sophomore and he was a senior. It was an on-again off-again relationship as Nick was rather fun loving and carefree; it was hard for him to focus on one love interest. After graduating they saw each other more steadily. It seemed like the two were made for each other. She loved being a risk taker. As the high school Minnesota State Champion in golf and tennis, she knew she didn’t fit the mold that polite society expected of fashionable young women of the day. Flying offered the independence both Martha and Nick needed while being a catalyst for a partnership they both agreed had promise.

  “Are you going to trust me at the controls again?” Martha razzed. While she was a “good stick,” according to Nick, and one of the steadiest hands he’d seen—a natural—she was not a licensed pilot. After many hours training together, Nick was convinced that her skills were much better than those of most of his flying buddies at the club.

  “Only if all the conditions are right,” Nick agreed with a wink.

  Martha was pretty and sassy with green eyes, short blond hair, and a petite frame. To him, she was at her best when dressed in men’s tan flight slacks and at the controls of the E-2 while barnstorming small towns around the Midwest. They would pick a sunny day and one of the countless farming towns that interested them, like Owatonna, Savage, or Granite Falls, and fly twenty feet over the buildings with Nick walking the wing. It was a sight to behold. When they landed in a pasture or on a dirt road at the outskirts of town, people would line up for one-dollar rides. Ten minutes each.

  Today w
as going to be a repeat performance in Eau Claire, across the border in Wisconsin. The idea of flying was new and fascinating. Defying the laws of gravity provided a source of excitement unavailable elsewhere. The townspeople were mostly farmers, shopkeepers, and tradesmen. They ate it up.

  “Do you think the airline brass will hire you if they know what you do on your weekends?” She raised her voice to be heard over the engine noise as she teased, knowing he had an interview with Northwest Airlines the following week.

  “There’s a lot Northwest might not approve of, Hot Shot, but I’m still gonna fly for them. What they don’t know won’t hurt ’em. Besides, this just makes me a better pilot. I know everything there is to know about this plane.”

  Martha had high hopes that they’d sell a lot of rides that day. The May sky was crystal clear with small puffy clouds creating a floating three-dimensional collage against blue matting. She felt she could almost touch the checkerboard farms below during the one-hour flight from the Twin Cities. After crossing the Mississippi River it was only another half hour before they approached Eau Claire. Nick prepared himself. They buzzed the town with him in a horizontal position on the wing, head first. On the second pass they readied themselves for their grand entry. Martha steadied the plane. Flying by the seat-of-the-pants, she used the sound of the wind, the tachometer, and the engine and propeller vibration to obtain the right speed. Nick slowly stood and maintained a firm grip on the safety straps, like waterskiing. Martha could hear the crowd’s roar of approval over the engine noise. One pass was enough. They landed on a dirt road at the familiar Eau Claire County Park on the edge of town. A crowd had already begun to form.

  “Nice job, Hot Shot.”

  “Not bad, yourself.” Her radiating smile reflected her confidence and the importance of the part she played.

  They flew most of the townsfolk around the area at least once. It was fun to watch the excitement on their faces, but it made for a long day.