But we get it done.'
ON THE MORNING OF 3 JUNE 1942, WHEN ELMER AND THE black troops had barely begun building the life-saving Alcan, the people of the United States, and especially those living in Alaska, were shocked by the news that a daring Japanese task force, containing two aircraft carriers and hiding behind the storm clouds which clustered permanently in this area of the Aleutians, had crept close to Unalaska, one of the first big islands off the end of the Alaska peninsula, launched bombing planes precisely as its predecessor had done six months before at Pearl Harbor, and brazenly bombed Dutch Harbor.
No great damage was done this time, for in the preceding months America's 11th Army Air Force had secretly constructed undetected airfields in the Dutch Harbor region, so that when the Japanese planes from the carriers attacked, our fighters sprang off the unknown fields and drove them off. The enemy landing that had been planned could not take place, for the Japanese, learning that a frightening number of land-based planes were ready to attack, prudently withdrew, seeking protective cover under the storm clouds.
But enough damage was done by this attempted invasion to send a chill through the Alaskan command, because the generals knew that had the Japanese come in greater force and with more planes, they might well have established a foothold close to Anchorage from which they would be able to subdue all of Alaska, and thus place great pressure upon cities like Seattle, Portland and Vancouver. As then-Captain Shatter had predicted at his 1940 meetings throughout the territory, the invasion from Asia was under way.
The response was quick, but during the first three months, not very effective. Waterfront towns like Sitka constructed shore installations with which to hold off Japanese landing forces. The little airfields of the Northwest Staging Route were beefed up, and the big air bases at Fairbanks, Anchorage and Nome were patrolled twenty-four hours a day by dogs, jeeps and combat aircraft. The frontiersmen of Alaska enlisted in a group called the Alaska Scouts, an official branch of the American armed forces, and some of the more daring men, middle-aged or young, were sent on scouting missions involving extreme danger.
On 10 June 1942, a week after the bombing of Dutch Harbor, one of these scouts riding in a small plane radioed appalling news to headquarters in Anchorage: 'The big Japanese task force that bombed Dutch Harbor, it sailed west under cover of fog and captured Attu Island.... And it looks like they've captured Kiska, too.' American territory, a substantial chunk of it and strategically placed, had been occupied by enemy forces, the first time this had happened since the War of 1812, and all America shuddered.
This was the week that young Nate Coop, the half-breed son-in-law that the Flatches had considered illiterate, left Matanuska to volunteer for duty with the Alaska Scouts.
The army officers serving as liaison with the scouts quickly determined that Nate was too poorly educated to be of much use in any demanding job, but as they watched how capably he handled himself, they concluded: 'He's tough. He seems to have guts.
And he knows the land. He might make a good scout.' And four nights later a solemn-faced officer, a woodsman from Idaho, sat with the three most promising volunteers and issued their instructions: 'We must know what's happening on the islands between here and Attu and Kiska. I can't tell you our plans, and you wouldn't want to know them ... in case you're captured. But you are entitled to know that we have no intention of allowing the Japs to hold those two islands. And if you're caught, you're free to tell them so.'
By this time the three young men could guess what their assignment entailed: 'Teschinoff, you know the Aleutians well. We're putting you on Amlia Island. Small boat launched from a destroyer escort. Middle of the night. Food. Radio. Code. Tell us what's happening.'
When Teschinoff, who was almost pure Aleut except for that Russian great great-grandfather, saluted, the officer added: 'We're sure everyone got off that island, but we need confirmation.'
Kretzbikoff, another Aleut, was dispatched to Atka, an important island. And now came Nate's assignment: 'We must have information about Lapak. Two of our scout planes reported people there. They could be very troublesome if they're Japs.' He studied the three scouts and thought: My God, they look young. Then he asked: 'You understand your missions?' When they nodded, he gave them one further command: 'Master your radios.
If you don't send us reports in code, you'll be pretty useless.' But as they prepared to leave his office, a ramshackle affair that had been used for salting fish, he felt a deep, fatherly affection for these youngsters and gave them a promise: 'The army never leaves a scout stranded ... never.'
Nate spent one more week at Dutch Harbor, mastering his radio and poring over two old, conflicting maps of Lapak Island, and in early August he gathered his gear, marched down to the shore where a small boat was ready to ferry him out to a waiting destroyer, and saluted the officers who had come down to see him off and who would be responsible eight days hence for recovering him from Lapak, always supposing that the Japanese, if they were there, didn't get him first. As he stepped into the boat, the officer from Idaho said: 'It has about a hundred and thirty square miles. Lots of room to hide, if they are there.'
Nate had never before been aboard a ship of any kind, and the severe weather of the Aleutians was hardly the kind one would have chosen for an initiation. Within an hour of leaving Dutch Harbor he was wildly seasick, but so were many of the crew.
A sailor who was not gave him good advice as the destroyer dodged westward through heavy fog and heavier seas: 'Stretch out when you can. Eat a lot of bread, slowly.
Stay away from things like cocoa. And if they serve anything like canned peaches or pears, eat a lot.'
When Nate asked, between vomiting spells, how this small warship could stay afloat in such seas, the sailor explained: 'This tub can stay upright in anything. No matter how far it heels over, it always comes back. Built that way.'
'Where do these waves come from?' Nate asked, and now he had hit upon a subject the sailor enjoyed discussing: 'Up there to starboard, the Bering Sea whipped by arctic gales into choppy swells. Down there, to port, the great Pacific Ocean with its endless reach and massive seas. Up above, a constant flow of stupendous clouds roaring in from Asia. Mix that all together, you got yourself one of the hairiest weather cauldrons in the world.'
At this point Nate had to hit the railing again, and when he saw those violent seas hammering at the destroyer, he accepted the fact that this was a breeding ground for horrendous weather. But the sailor had good news for him when he returned to lean against the outer wall of the captain's quarters: 'You be damned glad, soldier, you're not an aviator. Imagine flying in that stuff?' and he pointed aloft. About an hour later, when Nate heard a plane flying overhead through the incredible storm, the sailor came back: 'Let's say a prayer for the bastards involved in that one,' and Nate asked: 'What do you mean?' and the sailor replied:
'I don't know who has it worse, the guys in the plane or the ones in the sea.'
'I don't understand,' Nate said, and the sailor pointed toward the sound of the plane:
'PBY, big flying boat. If it goes out in weather like this, somebody's lost at sea.
In these waters you rescue them in fifteen minutes or they're dead.' He listened to the droning engines of the big, slow plane and bowed his head.
The destroyer, following a jagged course to confuse any Japanese submarine that might be tailing it, waited for morning light so it could spot the location of Qugang Volcano, the one that guarded Lapak on the north, and when that beautiful cone showed clear, the navigator assured the captain: 'Course two hundred ten degrees straight in for the central promontory. Air cover promises no Japanese guns in that region.' So into the beautiful land-enclosed Lapak harbor the destroyer came, its guns ready to fire at any prying Japanese aircraft, and when it looked as if all was clear, a rubber boat with oars lashed to the locks was dropped over the side and held fast by a rope extending from the prow. Gingerly, Nate dropped into the rubber craft, adjusted his oars, and se
t out for shore.
As the destroyer pulled away, vanishing behind the eastern headland for its hurried return to Dutch Harbor, Nate rowed himself toward the central headland, and as he approached it, looking for the deep cove that was supposed to exist on its western face, he was startled to see a middle-aged man striding forward unafraid, attended by what seemed to be either a young boy or a girl in boy's clothing. For one dreadful moment he was afraid he might have to use his revolver if these two were Japanese, but the man shouted in good English: 'What in hell is all the secrecy about?'
When Nate got his craft onto the beach, the man and his young companion ran forward to drag it safely inland, and now Nate saw that the helper was a girl. 'I'm Ben Krickel,' the man said in some irritation. 'This is my daughter Sandy, and why in hell didn't that ship, whatever it was ...?'
Nate felt it prudent not to reveal that he had come from an American destroyer, but he did ask, 'Are you Americans?' and when the man snapped: 'We sure as hell are,' he confided: 'They wanted to know if the island had any people on it.'
This infuriated Krickel, who almost roared: 'Of course it's inhabited! They know that back in Dutch Harbor You come from Dutch?'
Nate refused to answer this, so the man continued: 'The officials in Dutch know I have the lease on Lapak. Blue fox!'
'What?'
'I have the whole island. I grow fox here.'
'You mean ... the little animals?'
'I lease the whole island. Let the fox run wild.'
'What do you do with them?'
'Ship them to St. Louis. They've been buying our Aleutian pelts for seventy years.'
Nate halted the conversation by asking: 'Where's the best place for me to stay?' and Krickel said: 'Our cabin. Down where the village used to be. Mind if we ride there with you?' so the rubber boat was refloated, the gear repacked, and the girl placed in the rear as the two men took oars and rowed swiftly down the bay, with the high mountains of Lapak guarding them. As they neared land, Nate informed his passengers: 'You know that the Japs bombed Dutch Harbor?' When they expressed shock, he added: 'And they captured Attu and Kiska.'
'Kiska!' Ben cried. 'I had my grays on Kiska. It's less than three hundred miles from here. Much less.'
And now for the first time the girl spoke. She was seventeen, with a big placid face that bespoke a native mother and a smile that warmed the island air. She was neither tall nor slim, but she did have a grace in the way she carried her head, cocked to one side as if she were about to laugh, that made her a delightful little elf, even in the rough clothes she wore. It was midsummer, and her man's shirt was carelessly buttoned, revealing a tawny skin that looked as if it was intended to be kissed.
'We're glad to have you here,' she said from the stern of the boat, and she smiled so engagingly that Nate knew he must clarify the situation right now: 'My wife has a smile like yours. But she's from Outside. I'm Athapascan.'
The girl laughed and pretended to spit in the bay: 'Aleuts, Athapascans not a good mix.'
'Are you Aleut?' Nate asked, and her father broke in: 'Is she! Her mother doted on the Russian Orthodox. Named Sandy for Alexandra, last Russian tsarina, the one they murdered in that cellar ... What date was it, Sandy?'
'Ekaterinburg, 17 July 1918. Every year Mom made me dress in black and she did, too.
She used to call me her little tsarina,' and Ben added: 'Her name was Poletnikova, my wife's, that is.'
When they reached the deserted cabin which Ben occupied when trapping his fox on Lapak, Nate explained just enough of his mission to quieten any apprehensions they might have: 'The government has removed all Aleuts to the mainland.
Camps in the south. We think the Japanese have done the same on Attu and Kiska. Camps somewhere in Japan. I came to see if this island, and maybe Tanaga, is free.'
'If they're on Kiska,' Krickel said, 'they'll be coming here next. Maybe we ought to get out ... now.'
Nate explained that the army men would not be coming back for eight days, at which Sandy chuckled with that freedom that was so appealing: 'Our boat wasn't due for eight weeks. If there's war, like you say, they'll probably never come.'
Krickel asked: 'What if the Japs move east before your boys move west?'
Nate showed them his radio: 'To be used only in extreme emergency. They promised they'd come get us ...' As soon as he said this he stopped; there was no reason why these strangers should know of the two other explorations.
But Sandy caught the slip: 'Us?' and he said quietly: 'Yes, they meant if there were any people like you on the island.'
It was her father who said: 'If the Japs are that close, they might fly over at any time. We better hide your boat,' and he carried the oars as Nate and Sandy dragged the heavy rubber craft well inland and concealed it behind some trees and under a little nest of branches.
Two days later an airplane, followed by two more, flew low over the island, but they were from the 11th Air Force in Dutch Harbor, so Nate ran out and signaled them with two white handkerchiefs as he had been taught. His message was simple: 'No Japanese.
No signs of any.' He had no prearranged signals for explaining the presence of the two Americans, but when the planes returned to check his message, he wigwagged: 'No Japanese. No signs,' and then led Krickel and his daughter to where they could be clearly seen. The lead plane dipped its wings alternately and flew back toward Dutch Harbor.
His remaining days on Lapak were some of the best Nate would know during this strange war, for he found Ben Krickel to be a fascinating raconteur about life in the Aleutians, while Sandy was a bright young woman who seemed to know a great deal about life in Alaska: 'The churches in Kodiak fight something awful. The Russian Orthodox, that's what I am, thinks it's so high and mighty. The Catholics know they're superior to everyone else. And the Presbyterians are quite impossible. Pop's a Presbyterian.'
Nate found his keenest delight in talking with Sandy and walking with her to the old sites on the island. One morning when they returned for lunch her father summoned them both before him in the old cabin: 'Nate, you told us honest that you were a married man. Seems mighty young to me, but so be it. You and my daughter, no foolin' around. You hear that, Sandy?' He said that Sandy's mother was dead and that if the war hadn't come, Sandy was to have attended Sheldon Jackson School in Sitka when they returned to Dutch Harbor with their furs: 'No foolin', you understand?'
They said they did, but that afternoon such matters were forgotten, because when a lone plane flew over the island and they ran out to greet it, they saw that it bore strange markings, which had to signify that it was Japanese.
'My God!' Ben shouted. 'They've seen us!'
He was right, for the plane wheeled and came back low, its guns blazing. If there were people on Lapak, they had to be Americans and therefore the pilot's enemies.
He struck no one on that first run, but upon his second try he came perilously close to the cabin, and on his third, lower and slower, he would certainly have wiped them out had not at this moment two American planes sped in from the east. There was a furious air battle, with all advantages to the Americans, for they were higher and they flew in close tandem, one protecting the other. But the Japanese pilot showed skill and courage, and after throwing one of his pursuers off his track, he turned his nose upward, gave his engine an immense burst of gas, and tried to escape to the west, toward Attu.
But the second American plane had not been deceived by his maneuvering, and as he tried to speed past, this plane turned sharply and threw a full blast from his guns right into the fuselage and engine of the Japanese plane. It exploded and pieces fell across Lapak Island, the corpse of the pilot landing somewhere in the high western mountains. In a graceful sweep, the two American planes re-formed, turned west to authenticate the breakup of the enemy plane, then flew a salute to the three American watchers.
His brush with death, the first he had ever had to face as a real possibility, launched a major change in Nate Coop, but even if someone had pointed
out what was happening, and especially why, he would not have believed it. The rough treatment he had received from the Matanuska settlers when he sought to marry one of their daughters had scarred him; he had accepted their assessment of half-breeds as worthless and not entitled to the respect accorded white people. In a score of insulting ways it had been hammered into him that he was of a lower category, and he had accepted this judgment. But now to see what a superior young woman Sandy was wise, informed, neat when she wanted to be, and qualified in every way to take her place in Matanuska society or any other, despite her half-breed status made him reevaluate himself, and what struck him with great force was that Sandy spoke excellent English while he could barely manage the language, and he swore to himself: If an Aleut can learn, an Athapascan can. And he saw both Sandy and himself as acceptable American citizens, real Alaskans tied to the earth and children of it, and in respecting her he came to respect himself.
On the night before the destroyer returned, Nate borrowed Ben Krickel's lantern and in its flickering light composed a letter to his brother-in-law, LeRoy, in which he spoke of meeting on a remote island a wonderful girl named Sandy Krickel: 'She's just the right age for you and you've got to meet her as soon as possible, because you'll never do any better.' Then he added a sentence which revealed his resentment of past treatment by the Flatches: 'You'll be surprised to hear that she's American-Aleut, like me, and I tell you this even though you gave your sister merry hell for going with me.' He ended with a prediction: 'When you see her, LeRoy, you'll grab her, and I'll be your best man, and later you'll thank me.'
But that was not the end of the letter, because when he showed it to Ben Krickel for his approval, Ben scratched a postscript: 'Young man, your brother-in-law is telling the truth. Signed, Her Father.'