________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
infringement on their rights was felt so strongly--civilization was taking over the town; it
was time to move on again. So, it really was a neat experience.
Anyway, my job for about six weeks was to work this project, and we did. About the end of
my time, Colonel Sawyer asked me to extend another couple of weeks because the Chief of
Engineers, Walter "Weary" Wilson, was coming up to visit the projects. Colonel Sawyer
thought maybe I wouldn't mind being there to show my project off to the Chief when he
came. So, I elected to stay. We had it all arranged that day. I'd borrowed a bus from my
friends at the Naval station, a school bus, the best way to take people around. We were sitting
on the runway waiting for him to come in, and then the plane pulled up from its landing
approach and took off again. We had a radio call that said they had developed a hydraulic
leak and were going back to Anchorage and weren't going to come in.
I released the school bus, jumped into my little pickup truck, and headed back into town. As I
hit the ridge road I looked around, and here comes that airplane in a landing pattern again.
So, I whipped around and turned back and roared back to the airfield. By the time I got there
the plane had landed, come to a stop, and so I whipped on up to the airplane. What had
happened was they were losing hydraulic fluid so quickly they figured they had to come
back. They blew all the tires on the landing and skidded to a stop. They were sitting right in
the middle of the runway when we pulled up.
So, I didn't know what to do now. The Navy had sent their officer of the day back, but he
was coming back now. He at least had a radio so we could call and get the school bus back.
Colonel Sawyer was aboard. As I pulled up, they were all standing around the airplane
already, just looking at it, wondering what was going on. So, we conferred and decided we'd
go ahead with the inspection trip--somebody better try to get another airplane.
There was a lot of anxiety and people were, you know, a little up-tight. "We've got the Chief
of Engineers on our hands; what are we going to do with him?" The most calm, nonplussed
person about was General "Weary" Wilson, who sat there puffing on his pipe and taking
things all in stride like he'd been through it many times before. So, we all got in the school
bus and took a tour around.
Two other things had to take place. One was that we had to load all of the luggage, his
luggage, onto the school bus. I thought, "Well, this is kind of weird. We're just going to run
around for a couple of hours, he'll get another plane and then--." Some years before, he'd
been separated from his luggage, and so his standard procedure was, "My luggage stays with
me. So, they might fix this plane and take it away and then where am I going to be?" So, we
took time for the luggage.
Then there were the fish on board because they'd come from King Salmon and they had a lot
of fish in the hold. So, before we moved, we had to do something with the fish, and there
were a lot of fish. The Navy scrambled a pickup truck and we chucked the fish into the back
of the pickup truck. It was driven into a big drive-in freezer where it stayed while we toured
the island.
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