Part 13 (1/2)

Walter and Cann became fast friends. The captain soaked up the wisdom and the lessons that Cann had learned from what Walter called ”experience and hard knocks.” They spent hours talking, playing poker, swimming in the river, hiking around the valley, and arguing about sports figures and military policies. Cann believed that the military shouldn't censor reporters' stories from war zones. Walter disagreed, vehemently. ”I like to get a man like that riled up,” Walter wrote in his journal, ”as I can then really learn something.” Walter paid his highest compliment to Cann, declaring him ”one h.e.l.l of a swell egg.”

With Cann's arrival, the camp that Walter renamed ”United States Army Outpost at Shangri-La, D.N.G. [Dutch New Guinea]”-”Camp Shangri-La” for short-reached its full and final complement of fifteen people: commanding officer Captain C. Earl Walter Jr.; ten enlisted paratroopers; three crash survivors; and one Canadian-born engineer-turned-actor-turned-jewel-thief-turned-sailor-turned-war-correspondent.

Alexander Cann filming in ”Shangri-La.” (Photos courtesy of B. B. McCollom.) They settled into a ”pretty little city,” in Walter's phrase, spread out in the shadow of the mountain wall, on a mostly flat area of the valley floor. The three sergeants who'd stayed behind organized the camp as a cl.u.s.ter of canopies and tents, including a red one for supplies and a pink one for a mess hall.

The camp also featured an improvised pigpen made of rough-cut branches, filled with seven pigs that Abrenica, Baylon, and Velasco had ”purchased” from the natives with cowrie sh.e.l.ls dropped by the supply plane. One pig was a runt, ”cute as a b.u.t.ton,” Margaret wrote. The sergeants named it ”Peggy” in her honor.

”Peggy must have thought she was a dog,” Margaret wrote. ”She followed everyone around, and the moment any of us sat down, climbed on our laps. The paratroopers scrubbed Peggy every day until she shone.”

The most elaborate structure was a pyramidal tent outfitted as VIP and officers' quarters. One section, part.i.tioned off for Margaret's privacy, had a deep bed made from dried, golden valley gra.s.s, over which hung a canopy made from a yellow cargo parachute. Artfully arranged mosquito netting completed the fit-for-a-queen decor. Lest her feet touch ground without shoes, empty parachute bags became a bedside rug.

”I was so touched I wanted to cry,” Margaret wrote in her diary. ”Everything about the camp was deluxe, including a bathroom! The three sergeants had even made a tub of empty, waterproof ration cartons. They had dug a well nearby, and filling the tub was very easy work.”

Young warriors from different worlds. The Filipino-American soldiers are (from left) Camilo Ramirez, Custodio Alerta, Don Ruiz, and Juan ”Johnny” Javonillo. (Photos courtesy of C. Earl Walter Jr.) As officers, McCollom and Walter were a.s.signed bunks on the men's side of the pyramidal tent. But Walter insisted that his bed go to Decker, to speed the sergeant's ongoing recovery. Walter and his men strung up jungle hammocks, amusing Margaret with the sight of the oversize captain pretzeling his frame into the hanging sack.

On the first full day that all fifteen of them were together at the base camp, the paratroopers celebrated by roasting two suckling pigs in a Filipino lechon lechon feast, slowly turning them on spits until they were golden brown. Margaret made sure that ”Peggy” was spared that honor. The meal reminded Walter of his boyhood; almost a decade had pa.s.sed since his last feast, slowly turning them on spits until they were golden brown. Margaret made sure that ”Peggy” was spared that honor. The meal reminded Walter of his boyhood; almost a decade had pa.s.sed since his last lechon lechon. ”After making a pig of myself (on pig), I staggered over to the supply tent and laid down in agony,” Walter wrote in his journal. ”The boys are really great cooks.”

The following day, the survivors and paratroopers indulged Alex Cann in his role as filmmaking auteur. Although he was supposed to be making a fact-based doc.u.mentary, Cann wasn't above a bit of Hollywood staging. He'd missed the survivors' entrance into base camp, yet he wanted the arrival as a plot point in his film. He persuaded everyone to re-create the last leg of the journey. No one wanted to lug a seventy-five-pound backpack up and down the mountain, so they filled their bags with empty ration boxes that gave the appearance of bulk without the weight.

This time they skipped the Kotex pads.

Chapter 23

GLIDERS?

AFTER THE INITIAL exhilaration about the discovery of the survivors wore off, Colonel Elsmore and his staff at Fee-Ask struggled to devise the best way to empty Shangri-La of U.S. Army personnel and, now, a filmmaker for the Dutch government. exhilaration about the discovery of the survivors wore off, Colonel Elsmore and his staff at Fee-Ask struggled to devise the best way to empty Shangri-La of U.S. Army personnel and, now, a filmmaker for the Dutch government.

Throughout their deliberations, the planners' top priority was safety. Fifteen lives depended on their judgment. More, really, taking into account the risk to pilots, crew, and anyone else who took part in the operation. Yet the planners also must have known that success or failure would affect their own lives as well, personally and professionally. They cared about the survivors and the paratroopers not just as soldiers but as individuals, and they were responsible for Alex Cann. Also, they knew how the military worked: there'd be h.e.l.l to pay if the widely publicized story of Shangri-La ended tragically because of a poorly planned or executed rescue effort.

Elsmore and his team debated numerous possibilities, rejecting one after another as impractical, illogical, impossible, or just plain doomed to fail. After crossing off rescue by blimp, helicopter, amphibious plane, PT boat, and overland hike back to Hollandia, they briefly debated dropping into the valley members of a U.S. Navy construction battalion-the Seabees-with small bulldozers to create a temporary landing strip. That plan foundered when Elsmore decided that landing a C-47 at high alt.i.tude on a short, improvised airstrip, then trying to take off again over the surrounding mountains, carried too great a risk of becoming a Gremlin Special Gremlin Special sequel. sequel.

Next they discussed using a small, versatile plane called the L-5 Sentinel, affectionately known as the Flying Jeep. Used throughout the war for reconnaissance missions and as frontline airborne ambulances, Sentinels had what the army called ”short field landing and takeoff capability.” That meant they might be useful on the b.u.mpy ground of the valley floor, without the need for a Seabee-built runway. But Sentinels had drawbacks, too.

One concern was that a flight from Hollandia to the valley would take a Sentinel approximately three hours and consume all its fuel. Cans of fuel would have to be parachuted to the valley floor for each return trip. Also, each Sentinel could carry only a pilot and one pa.s.senger, which meant that fifteen round trips would be needed, with each flight carrying the same risk. Still, the planners kept the L-5 Sentinel under consideration.

As Elsmore weighed the Sentinel's pros and cons, he sought advice from an expert: Henry E. Palmer, a thirty-one-year-old lieutenant from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Palmer, a lanky country boy nicknamed ”Red,” had extensive experience with Sentinels and other light aircraft. He was stationed nearby, at an airstrip on the tropical island of Biak, off the northern coast of New Guinea.

Elsmore arranged for Palmer to fly low over Shangri-La in a B-25 bomber to a.s.sess the situation. One pa.s.s convinced Palmer that the Sentinel was wrong for the job. He had another idea, involving another type of aircraft altogether. Like the Sentinel, it was designed to land in tight s.p.a.ces, on rough terrain. But Palmer thought this other type of aircraft had a better chance of safely clearing the mountains with pa.s.sengers aboard. Plus, it wouldn't require a drop of fuel.

When Palmer returned to Hollandia, he walked into the planners' headquarters and headed for a blackboard. With chalk dust flying, Palmer drew what must have looked like a child's ill.u.s.tration of a mother plane and a baby plane, connected by an umbilical cord.

The sketch, he explained, depicted a motorless aircraft being pulled through the sky by a twin-engine tow plane. Lieutenant Henry E. Palmer had just made a case for the highest-alt.i.tude and downright strangest mission in the history of military gliders.

THE FIRST MOTORLESS flight is credited to Icarus, whose mythical journey ended with melted wings and a fatal plummet into the sea. Military glider pilots, an especially wry bunch, considered Icarus a fitting mascot. Their aircraft seemed to have been designed for crash landings, too. In the words of General William Westmoreland, ”They were the only aviators during World War II who had no motors, no parachutes, and no second chances.” flight is credited to Icarus, whose mythical journey ended with melted wings and a fatal plummet into the sea. Military glider pilots, an especially wry bunch, considered Icarus a fitting mascot. Their aircraft seemed to have been designed for crash landings, too. In the words of General William Westmoreland, ”They were the only aviators during World War II who had no motors, no parachutes, and no second chances.”

The Wright brothers and other aircraft pioneers experimented with gliders on the path to motorized flight. But after the Wrights' triumph at Kitty Hawk, gliders became almost-forgotten second cousins to airplanes. During the early decades of the twentieth century, gliders were used primarily for sport, by enthusiasts who competed for distance records and bragging rights. Still, glider aficionados built larger and more elaborate craft, capable of carrying multiple pa.s.sengers and soaring long distances once in flight with help from motorized airplanes.

In the 1930s Germany became a leader in glider technology, largely because after its defeat in World War I the country was banned from having a motorized air force. Hitler overturned that ban in 1935, but he didn't forget about German glider pilots. His generals began plotting possible uses for them in war. German engineers designed gliders that resembled small airplanes without motors, able to carry a pilot and nine soldiers or a ton of equipment. They could land on rough fields in the heart of combat zones, as opposed to the manicured runways needed by planes. Equally appealing to the n.a.z.is, manned gliders could be released from tow planes many miles from their destinations; once freed from their tethers, they were silent in flight.

The Germans saw an opportunity to test their quiet war machines in May 1940, nineteen months before the United States entered the fight. Poland had already fallen, and Hitler wanted to sweep through Belgium into France. Standing between him and Paris was Belgium's ma.s.sive Fort Eben Emael, on the German-Belgian border. Dug deep into the ground, reinforced by several feet of concrete, the newly built fort was considered impregnable. A traditional a.s.sault might have taken weeks, and success was hardly a.s.sured. Even if the Belgian fort fell, a long, costly battle would have spoiled the Germans' hope for a blitzkrieg, a surprise lightning invasion. Helicopters might have speeded the effort, but the incessant thwomp-thwomp thwomp-thwomp of their rotors would have alerted the fort's defenders long before the German troops' arrival. The same disadvantages applied for planes delivering paratroopers, who would have been sitting ducks as they floated under their parachutes to earth. of their rotors would have alerted the fort's defenders long before the German troops' arrival. The same disadvantages applied for planes delivering paratroopers, who would have been sitting ducks as they floated under their parachutes to earth.

Gliders provided a stealth answer for the Germans' invasion plans. On May 10, 1940, tow planes from the Luftwaffe pulled a small fleet of gliders aloft into the skies approaching Belgium. Once released from their tow planes, the gliders, each carrying nine heavily armed German infantrymen, soared silently through the predawn darkness. Ten gliders landed on the ”roof” of the dug-in fort-a gra.s.sy plain the length of ten football fields. German soldiers poured out of the gliders in full attack mode. Though badly outnumbered, they overwhelmed the stunned Belgians, deployed heavy explosives to destroy Fort Eben Emael's big guns, and captured the fort within the day. Columns of German tanks rolled past on their way to northern France.

Though the United States still wasn't at war, the Belgian disaster at Fort Eben Emael was a wake-up call. It suggested that gliders might play a significant role in future combat. An American military glider program began in earnest immediately after Pearl Harbor, with a sudden call to train one thousand qualified glider pilots, a number that within months rose to six thousand. Design work on military-grade gliders got under way at Wright Field in Ohio, where two young flight engineers, Lieutenants John and Robert McCollom, were soon stationed. The McCollom twins weren't directly involved in the glider program, but they watched with interest as it took shape.

The American aircraft industry was already at full capacity, trying to build enough planes to meet the military's growing demand. Consequently, the glider program took a more entrepreneurial approach, and government contracts for motorless flying combat and cargo aircraft went to a mix of unlikely bidders, including a refrigerator manufacturer, a furniture company, and a coffin maker. Eventually, the military settled on the fourth version of a cargo glider made by the Waco Aircraft Company of Ohio, called the Waco CG-4A, or the Waco (p.r.o.nounced ”Wah-coh”), for short.

A Waco CG4A glider in flight. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force.) Waco gliders were more fowl than falcon-clumsy, unarmored flying boxcars made from plywood and metal tubing covered with canvas. Wacos had a wingspan of eighty-three feet, eight inches, stood more than twelve feet high, and stretched more than forty-eight feet in length. Each glider weighed 3,700 pounds empty but could carry a payload greater than its own weight in cargo and troops. Guided by a pilot and copilot, a Waco glider could transport up to thirteen fully equipped soldiers, or a quarter-ton truck, or a serious piece of rolling thunder such as a 75mm howitzer, complete with ammunition and two artillerymen. Most were towed into the air by thick 350-foot-long nylon ropes attached to C-47s, though some were pulled aloft by C-46s.

Before the war was over, the U.S. military would take delivery of nearly 14,000 Wacos. Ironically, for a motorless aircraft, a major supplier was the Ford Motor Company, which built the gliders for about $15,000 each. For the same price as one glider, the government could have bought seventeen deluxe, eight-cylinder Ford sedans.

Wacos got their first taste of combat during the July 1943 invasion of Sicily. A year later, gliders delivered troops in the Normandy landing on D-Day, though scores fell prey to ten-foot-high wooden spikes that German field marshal Erwin Rommel had ordered placed in French fields where he thought Wacos might land. Gliders also partic.i.p.ated in Operation Dragoon in southern France and Operation Varsity in Germany. They delivered supplies during the Battle of the Bulge and were used in a variety of other combat missions in Europe. They also served in the China-Burma-India theater of operations, and in Luzon, in the Philippines.

A major advantage of Waco gliders as troop-delivery aircraft was that, if the pilot braked hard enough on landing, he could stop quickly-within two hundred yards of touchdown-on uneven ground. Not infrequently, however, the glider came to rest with its nose buried in the dirt and its tail in the air. More than a few flipped over completely. Yet those landings were relative successes. Many others missed their intended landing zones entirely, as a result of weather, broken tow cables, pilot error, and other mishaps. Even when everything worked perfectly, Waco gliders made slow, fat targets for enemy antiaircraft guns.

In short order, Wacos earned the nicknames ”flak bait,” ”bamboo bombers,” and ”flying coffins.” Glider pilots were known as ”suicide jockeys” who made oxymoronic ”controlled crash landings.” When they gathered to drink, glider pilots saluted each other with a mordant toast: ”To the Glider Pilots-conceived in error, suffering a long and painful period of gestation, and finally delivered at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

In September 1944, a young London-based reporter for the United Press named Walter Cronkite was a.s.signed to fly in a Waco glider during Operation Market Garden in Holland. Years later Cronkite admitted, ”I came close to disgracing myself” by refusing the mission. He ultimately agreed only to save face with his fellow reporters. ”I had seen what had happened to the gliders in Normandy. The wreckage of hundreds of them was scattered across the countryside.” Cronkite landed safely, but he never forgot the experience: ”I'll tell you straight out: If you've got to go into combat, don't go by glider. Walk, crawl, parachute, swim, float-anything. But don't go by glider!”

During the early phase of the war, Waco gliders were regarded as almost disposable-once they landed and discharged their troops or supplies, they were abandoned. But as costs mounted, efforts were made to retrieve Wacos that hadn't been reduced to kindling. However, because most touched down in areas far from conventional airstrips, their tow planes couldn't simply land, reconnect their tethers, and pull the gliders aloft. As a solution, engineers developed a retrieval system in which low-flying aircraft-low, as in twenty feet off the ground-could zoom past and ”s.n.a.t.c.h” a Waco glider back into the air.

Nearly five hundred glider retrievals were executed from battlefields in France, Burma, Holland, and Germany, with nearly all the gliders empty except for the pilots. But in March 1945, two Wacos retrofitted as medevac aircraft landed in a clearing near Remagen, Germany. Twenty-five wounded American and German soldiers were loaded aboard the two gliders. C-47s s.n.a.t.c.hed the Wacos off the ground, and soon afterward they landed safely at a military hospital in France.

Now, three months after those successful s.n.a.t.c.hes, Lieutenant Henry Palmer wanted to borrow a page from that mission, albeit with a much higher degree of difficulty.

PALMER'S SCHEME WAS a plan only the military or Hollywood could love. Fortunately for Palmer, it just so happened that both had representatives in Shangri-La. a plan only the military or Hollywood could love. Fortunately for Palmer, it just so happened that both had representatives in Shangri-La.

As Palmer envisioned it, the operation would begin in Hollandia. A C-46 would pull a Waco airborne and tow it a hundred and fifty miles, into the skies over the valley. Once safely through the mountain pa.s.s, the glider pilot would disengage from the tow plane and guide the Waco down to the valley floor, where pa.s.sengers would board. At such a high alt.i.tude, at least a mile above sea level, the glider couldn't carry its usual load. Only five people would clamber aboard for each trip, with priority going to the survivors. Then the glider and its pa.s.sengers would brace for the s.n.a.t.c.h.

The basic premise was that a C-47 would fly over the glider and, using a hook extending from the fuselage, pull the glider back into the air. Tethered together, the tow plane and the trailing glider would fly up and over the surrounding mountains and soar toward Hollandia. After separating, both pilots would make smooth landings and enjoy a celebratory welcome home, ticker tape optional.

That's how it worked on Palmer's blackboard. In practice, several dozen potential malfunctions or miscalculations could turn the gliders into free-falling kites, the tow planes into fireb.a.l.l.s, and their pa.s.sengers into casualties. Beyond the usual dangers that came with gliders, an attempted s.n.a.t.c.h in Shangri-La carried a host of added perils.