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First Lieutenant Leon Crane fumbles with the clasp of his parachute harness, trying to get it to clip across his chest. But his hands are trembling, and he's wearing thick mittens to protect against the cold of high altitude.
Through the cockpit window, he sees the Alaskan landscape spinning by. Glimpses of forest, snow, and mountains rush past as the plane corkscrews downward. He knows he has only minutes, maybe seconds, before they crash.
Crane yanks hard, trying to get the buckle to clip over his layers. He's wearing a parka and a thick downed flight suit. You need all of these layers when the air outside is minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit. But buckling a parachute harness over them is a struggle.
It's December 21st, 1943. Crane is inside the cramped cockpit of a B-24 bomber. He and his four fellow crewmen are flying over a remote stretch of Alaska on what was supposed to be a routine test flight. But just moments ago, something went horribly wrong.
Crane looks over at the pilot, Second Lieutenant Harold Hoskin, who's wrestling with the yoke, trying to level the plane. But Crane knows it's no use. The plane is going down, and the only way to survive is to parachute out. He yells to Hoskin, "Hos! We have to bail out! Now!" Crane pulls harder on the harness clasp. Still no luck. He yanks off his mittens and tries again.
Finally, he snaps the harness closed. He gets up and staggers out of the cockpit. The G-forces from the plane's death spiral fight him with every step as he drags himself back into the body of the plane.
Crane steps out onto a narrow catwalk over the bomb bay doors which are now gaping open. He sees one member of the crew, Master Sergeant Richard Pompeo, standing on the catwalk, staring down at the ground spinning below.
He's wearing a parachute, but seems to be frozen. He looks up at Crane, eyes wide. "Should I bail? Jesus Christ, yes! Go!" Without another word, Pompeo jumps through the open doors. Crane looks around, but there's no sign of the other crewmen, Wendt and Seibert. They must have jumped already. Crane glances back at the cockpit, where Hoskin is still wrestling with the controls.
"Damn it, Haas! What are you waiting for?" Haaskyn doesn't look up. "Haas! Come on! Now!" Crane looks down at the snowy ground, rushing ever closer. They're out of time. It's either jump now or go down with the plane.
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In 1943, Leon Crane, a 24-year-old co-pilot, was stationed at Ladd Airfield, an Army airbase outside Fairbanks, Alaska. World War II was raging, and Ladd was a testing ground for aircraft being shipped to allies in Russia to make sure they could withstand extreme cold. On December 21st, Crane and four other crewmen were on a test flight when a mysterious mechanical failure took the plane down.
After the crash, Crane found himself alone in the Alaskan wilderness in the dead of winter, with no survival gear and no rescue in sight. To save himself, he would have to trek through the harsh Alaskan backcountry, raving blizzards and minus 40 degree temperatures, in a desperate search for help. This is Episode 1, Survival Mode. Survival Mode
First Lieutenant Leon Crane runs through a tunnel beneath the tarmac of Ladd Airfield. It's 8:30 in the morning on December 21st, 1943, and he's late. He was supposed to report to Hangar 1 an hour ago, but he forgot to set his alarm. Blame last night's poker game. He hopes the pilot, Second Lieutenant Harold Hoskin, won't be too mad.
Crane's flown just three missions with him, so he's not sure how Hoskin will react.
The tunnels that run under Ladd Field are nothing fancy. They're lined with wires and pipes, illuminated by bare bulbs. But they keep the men out of the elements. And in this part of Alaska, that's a godsend. Ladd Field lies about four miles east of Fairbanks. Here, just 140 miles from the Arctic Circle, the winter temperature sometimes drops to 40 below zero. Cold enough to cause frostbite in 10 minutes.
Crane rounds a corner and skids to a stop in front of The Exchange, a small general store. He ducks inside and asks the clerk for two boxes of matches, a peace offering for Hoskin, who likes to smoke a pipe on the longer flights.
As Crane slips the matches into the pocket of his parka, he feels an envelope. A letter from his father that arrived yesterday. After quickly scanning it, he had stashed it in the parka, hoping he could read it again over breakfast. But breakfast is for people who wake up on time. The letter will have to wait until after the flight. He glances at his watch. With this stop at the exchange, he's now running even later.
He hurries back down the tunnel towards Hangar 1, hoping that the matches will buy him some goodwill with Hoskin. Leon Crane runs across the vast hangar toward his plane, a B-24 bomber. Lieutenant Hoskin is leaning against the fuselage. From this distance, Crane can't tell if Hoss, as everyone calls him, is relaxed or annoyed.
The bomber is named the Iceberg Inez, and it's one of the thousands of planes the US has built to fuel the Allied war machine. This one is likely bound for Russia as part of America's commitment to help the Soviets fight the Nazis on the Eastern Front. Crane's task today is to run tests to make sure the plane is ready for combat in cold weather. He approaches Haas again sheepishly. "Sorry I'm late." Haas just waves his hand.
Haas grins, and Crane breathes a sigh of relief. He should have known Haaskin wouldn't be wound up over this. He doesn't let the little things get to him.
Crane starts in his pre-flight duties, visually inspecting the whole plane, checking the fuel, loading the parachutes. Along the way, he greets the rest of the crew. Staff Sergeant Ralph Wenz, the radio operator. Master Sergeant Richard Pompeo, the crew chief. And First Lieutenant James Seibert, the propeller specialist. Seibert looks up when he sees Crane. Hey Crane, be sure to triple check the props before we take off. Got a feathering test today.
You got it. Feathering tests involve adjusting the propeller blades to find the angle that gives the least resistance to wind flow. It's crucial for a plane's propellers to have the correct feathering position so it can glide properly in case of an engine failure.
Crane wraps up his visual inspection of the iceberg Enis. Officially, the B-24 is the more advanced successor to the B-17. But to most pilots, it's just bigger and clunkier. Some pilots call it the flying boxcar, or joke that the B-24 is the crate that the B-17 was shipped in. Compared to older bombers, it's a behemoth. 67 feet long, with a 110-foot wingspan.
Once Crane has confirmed everything is A-OK, he gives Hoskin a thumbs up. They're ready for takeoff. The crew climbs aboard. Crane takes his co-pilot's seat to the right of Hoskin, who glances at him. "OK, let's get rolling. I want to be back in time for meatloaf."
Crane sets the fuel mixture for takeoff. Then he adjusts the flaps to 20 degrees. Hoskin pushes the throttle forward. At 9:40 AM, the iceberg Inez rolls through the open doors of Hangar 1 onto the tarmac. Within seconds, it's accelerating down the runway. As the plane starts to climb, Crane can see the first orange glow of the Alaskan winter sun just starting to brighten the horizon.
Lieutenant Harold Hoskin angles the B-24 toward a break in the clouds. They've been flying for over two hours and still haven't found the right conditions for the feathering test. They need clear skies so Specialist James Seibert can check the propellers through a window by his station in the rear of the plane. But...
There's been too much cloud cover and too much turbulence. Hoskin started out heading southeast toward an area known as Big Delta, about 60 miles from Ladd Field. There's a small Army airfield there, little more than a refueling station and a radio tower. But it's a good landmark, and Hoskin is still learning the geography of Alaska.
Flying over the vast wilderness gives Hoskin time to think about home. He's a New England boy from Holton, Maine, and his wife Mary is expecting a baby, their first. He and Mary exchange letters every few days, sharing predictions about their child's future. He wonders what she's doing right in this moment.
Hoskin jerks himself out of his reverie. He knows they don't have much time to find the right conditions. The winter sun sets early this far north, at 2:41 PM, and it's closing in on noon. They need to run the test while they still have daylight. The cloud cover is low today. Maybe they'll have better luck at higher altitude.
Hoskin puts the plane into a gradual corkscrew climb and toggles the plane's internal radio. Oxygen masks, everyone.
He straps his own mask to his face, taking in the smell of rubber that comes through the hoses. At 15,000 feet, they finally emerge from the clouds into a clear patch of air. Hoskin levels the plane off so they can run the first feathering test. Crane uses a set of controls in the cockpit to angle the propeller blades back and forth, while Seibert in the back makes note of the plane's performance.
Then Hoskin takes the plane higher, to 20,000 feet, and they run the test again. They need to see how the propellers perform at different altitudes. Hoskin hears Seibert's voice over his earphones. Looking good at 20,000. Roger. Climbing to 25,000.
Hoskin turns the yoke and sets the plane on a corkscrew path, ascending slowly. They're in a column of clear air, framed by banks of cottony gray and white clouds. Shafts of golden sunlight rotate in and out of the cockpit window on each turn. It's almost heavenly.
Then, from the corner of his eye, Hoskins sees something on the instrument panel. Did one of the gauges just spike? But when he looks more closely, everything appears to be fine. It must have been just a momentary glitch. Or maybe sunlight reflecting off a metal gauge. Nothing to worry about. Stay back!
Suddenly, Hoskin is pinned against his seat. The yoke wrenches in his hands. The plane banks hard, plunging into a layer of clouds. The B-24 is losing altitude, caught in a spin. But Hoskin doesn't panic. They're plenty high enough for him to level off.
But no matter how hard he pulls on the yoke, the plane doesn't respond. Wind screams over the cockpit window. Hoskin checks the flight instruments. The speed gauge has redlined, way past the maximum cruising speed of 300 miles per hour. Hoskin can also see that one of the plane's four engines has failed. Now he's worried. He white knuckles the yoke, trying to level the plane, but the rudder won't cooperate.
The B-24 is hard to steer in good conditions, but now that they're in a downward spiral, the G-forces are almost impossible to overcome. He glances over and sees Crane struggling at the co-pilot's yoke. Hoskin rips off his oxygen mask and screams. "Keep pulling!" Hoskin looks back at the panel to find that the instruments have now frozen. What is happening to his plane?
The view clears as they break through the bottom of the clouds. The same scenery spins past the cockpit window again and again. Snow, mountains, forest, snow, mountains, forest, over and over. Then the plane begins to level off. Hoskin feels control returning. His heartbeat begins to slow. Hold on, hold on. I think we got her. I think we got her.
But Hoskin still holds his breath. They may have stopped the spin. The plane is still going way too fast. He checks the instruments again. They're all dark or locked up.
He tries to tip the nose of the plane upward to create some wind resistance. If we could just slow her down a little. Suddenly, the plane jerks and its nose dips again towards Earth. They're in an uncontrolled descent again. Hoskin and Crane fight with the controls, desperately trying to bring the nose up.
Then Hoskin hears something that makes his blood freeze. A loud snapping sound from the tail end of the plane, followed by cracking noises spreading through the fuselage. Now the rudder won't respond. Hoskin realizes that they've lost their last chance at saving the plummeting aircraft. He bellows into his mic. We're going to crash!
Lieutenant Leon Crane slaps his mittened hand on the crash alarm. He turns around and shouts to Pompeo, sitting just behind him in the cockpit. Quick! Open the bomb bay doors!
Pompeyo yanks a lever. Crane feels the sting of freezing arctic air as it enters the cabin. He shouts to Pompeyo, who looks caught in a moment of panic. "Bail out! Bail out!" Pompeyo struggles to his feet and lurches toward the back of the ship. The plane bounces wildly. It levels out for a moment, then dips downward again. Crane knows they have just minutes before impact.
He fumbles with his parachute buckles. He yanks his mittens off to get a better grip. The cold bites at his fingers as he finally fastens the metal clasps around his torso. Then he turns and looks at Hoskin.
For some reason, Haas is still at the controls. Crane tugs on his flight suit. "Haas! We have to bail out! Now!" Crane stands and struggles out of the cockpit toward the back of the plane. The force of the descent makes every step feel like he's carrying a load of bricks uphill. Crane glances at the radio operator's station just beyond the cockpit. The chair is empty.
Where is Wentz? He couldn't have bailed out so soon. And Cyber, where is he? In the back, Crane finds Pompeo, one hand on a support beam, hesitating on the narrow catwalk over the open bomb bay.
The snowy landscape spins by as the plane corkscrews downward. Pompeo turns to Crane. Should I bail? Jesus Christ, yes, go! Pompeo jumps out of the open bomb bay. Crane looks back to the cockpit. Damn it, Haas! What are you waiting for? Haas, come on, now!
Crane can't wait anymore for the pilot. He takes a step through the open bay doors and is sucked out of the plane. In an instant, his face freezes, his lips cracking like old plastic. With the wind chill, the temperature must be minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Then he pulls the parachute's ripcord and he's yanked from a fearsome plummet to a slow drift downward.
Crane sees the white bloom of another parachute drift behind a ridge at least a mile away. He wonders if it's Pompeo, or maybe Hoskin finally abandoned the controls and got out. Then he sees an unforgettable sight. The iceberg Enis. Flames spouting from one engine, leaving a trail of smoke as it spirals down.
He watches it slam into a rocky slope covered in snow and pine trees. A fireball blossoms into the air. Crane hopes all his crewmates got out in time. No one could have survived that. Then it all goes quiet, except for the flapping of his parachute and the icy wind.
The rush of adrenaline fades as Crane looks down at the white expanse below him. Endless miles of snow and trees stretch in all directions. The panic he felt moments ago drains away, replaced by a cold sense of dread. He scans the horizon for any signs of civilization, but sees nothing. No town, no houses, not even a hut.
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Judging from where he saw the B-24 explode as it hit the ground, he guesses he's about two miles from the crash site. He's at least another 60 miles from Ladd Field. Maybe more. It's impossible to know how far off course they went in those last minutes before the crash.
He looks around at his surroundings. It's a landscape dotted with dense clusters of evergreen trees and open patches of low scrub. Snow blankets everything. Crane casts his eyes over the white-dusted pines. From the direction of the crash, a distant column of smoke rises over the treetops. Did anyone else make it out? He thought he saw another parachute.
Pompeo! Haas! Wins! Cyber!
Silence. If anyone did make it out, they're too far away to hear him. Crane feels a lump of sadness in his throat, but before he can grieve over his comrades, he makes a horrible realization. In the frenzy of putting on his parachute, he took off his mittens and forgot to put them back on.
His hands are bare. Knowing how quickly the Alaskan cold can freeze fingers, he shoves his hands into his armpits to warm them.
"Okay," Crane thinks. "No mittens. But what does he have?" He takes a quick inventory of his possessions. The good news? He has on three layers of wool socks under a pair of army-issue mukluk boots. Plus, he's wearing a downed insulated flight suit beneath a winter parka. He also jumped with his flight helmet on. That should keep his head warmer under his hood.
He checks his pockets. He finds his old boy scout knife, which he always carries with him for sentimental reasons. It's like a Swiss army knife with a small blade and a few other tools. And, in a stroke of luck, he finds the two packs of wooden matches he picked up for Haas' pipe. At 20 matches per pack, that makes 40 chances to light a fire. He
He also has his parachute. It's made of silk, and survival training taught him it's excellent insulation against the cold. He can wrap himself in it like a sleeping bag if he has to spend the night here, and there's probably no avoiding that. The plane was out of radio range when it went down, so they couldn't issue a mayday. The base won't think anything's amiss until the sun goes down in a few hours.
and the plane hasn't returned. So it's unlikely anyone will be looking for him until tomorrow. For now, he needs to make himself easy to find when they do come for him.
Crane starts hiking up the ridge in the direction of the downed plane. The crash site should be easy to spot from the air. The closer he can get to it, the better his chances of being found. But just after a few steps, Crane stumbles on a rock buried in the snow. Then another.
And another. The terrain between him and the crash must be loose rock under all that powder. Precarious, uphill, and not worth the risk. If he twists an ankle, he'll be sunk.
He turns and looks the other way, into the valley below him. About two or three hundred yards away, he spots a river frozen over. That's a better destination. The riverbank has fewer trees, so he'll be easy to spot. And a river means he'll have plenty of drinking water. Crane thinks about how to make himself even easier to spot from a search plane. An idea springs into his head.
He'll use his Boy Scout knife to cut branches off the pine trees and use them to spell out SOS on the ground. But how? His hands are still jammed into his armpits for warmth. Crane decides he'll have to expose his hands to the cold to work, but he can pause every few seconds to warm them.
Crane walks down toward the river until he comes to a grove of pine trees. He hacks at the low branches with his knife, careful not to leave his fingers exposed for too long. Crane has heard the stories of careless airmen who lingered outside too long and got frostbite. The cold blackened and numbed their extremities. The recovery is a painful soak in hot water. The
the nerves on fire from the damage. In extreme cases, some guys have had their fingers and toes amputated.
An hour later, Crane has assembled an SOS sign in 10-foot letters made of tree branches. But in the process, he cut and scratched his fingers, and they're going numb. He's tried wrapping them in the parachute for insulation, but that doesn't seem to be helping much. He turns his hands over and examines them, trying to assess the damage.
Then he realizes something else. The light is fading. The sun is already going down. This close to the Arctic Circle, daylight lasts only a few hours. Soon, the bitter cold of night will be upon him.
Crane tries to reassure himself he can get through this. He has survival training, and he has a rational mind. He studied engineering at MIT and prides himself on his ability to assess the odds in any situation. It's how he wins at poker. He can do it out here, too. Freezing to death is the most imminent danger. If he's going to survive through the night, he needs to build a fire, and quickly before darkness falls.
Crane strikes a match and holds the flame close to the pile of branches and pine needles he's assembled in the snow. He found plenty of driftwood by the river, so he has no shortage of fuel. He's arranged the wood into a little pyramid, like he learned back in Boy Scouts. Now he just has to figure out how to light it.
Damn it! The match scorches his fingertips, then goes out. That's three matches gone. Is the problem his firewood or his hands? His fingers are numb. It feels like they're moving in slow motion. Shoving them into his armpits between lighting matches has done next to nothing to warm them. He needs the heat of a fire to restore blood flow. If he doesn't have full use of his hands, he's as good as dead.
Crane lights another match, and almost fumbles it onto the snow. He grips tighter and brings the small flame closer to his pile of branches and pine needles. Maybe this time… It goes out again. That's four matches gone out of forty. He can't go on at this rate.
Crane had hoped the dry pine needles might serve as kindling, but clearly they're not doing the job. He looks around, wondering what else he can use to get the fire going. Then it hits him. His father's letter is still in his pocket.
Crane digs into his parka and pulls out the crumpled paper. He had hoped to read it again, but there's no time for that now. He's in survival mode. He puts the letter under the Pyramid of Driftwood, on top of the pile of pine needles. Then he pulls a fifth match from the box. "Come on!" He lights the letter and watches as the orange flame starts to spread to the pine needles. He blows on them until the needles glow orange.
After what feels like an eternity, the orange glow turns into a flame. It rises and curls around the branches, until finally they catch fire. Crane sits back and breathes a sigh of relief. He now has a campfire. He holds his hands close to the flames. The warmth spreads through his aching fingers. They prickle and throb as they come back to life.
At least now he has a fighting chance until rescue comes. He just wonders how long that will be. He looks at the darkening sky, hoping against hope to see the blinking light of a rescue plane. But all he sees are stars.
Major R.C. Regal looks over the map on his desk and rubs his eyes. It's 1900 hours, 7 p.m., nearly eight hours since the last radio contact from a B-24 bomber called Iceberg Inez. That was at 11.08 this morning, about 10 miles east of Big Delta. Since then, silence. ♪
Military aircraft go out of radio range all of the time, but contact is usually re-established when they've turned back to base. If this were the European or Pacific theater, Regal would assume the plane was lost to enemy fire. But here in Alaska, if a plane goes down, it's probably due to weather. It happens at least once every couple weeks. The cold and the winds can wreak havoc on aircraft systems.
That's part of the reason they test them here in the icy north. If these aircraft can function in the Alaskan cold, they can function almost anywhere.
And if the iceberg Inez had catastrophic mechanical failure, Regal hopes the crew either bailed out in time or they were able to bring the plane down safely somewhere in the wilderness. Either way, he hopes a search party can spot them from the air. The weather right now is terrible near Ladd, with snow squalls and heavy ground fog. Not ideal for finding a downed plane.
Rhaegal considers what to do. He knows the number one rule of search and rescue. You don't want to turn one tragedy into two. Sending planes out at night in this kind of weather could be begging for more disaster. But Rhaegal would never leave men in the field to die. These are his brothers in arms, and he will not abandon them. A sergeant knocks on his open door. Major, it's been eight hours.
Eight hours since last radio contact is the Army's designated length of time before a plane is declared missing and the search can begin. Regal sits forward in his chair and tugs on his shirt. Time to mobilize. Even at night, in bad conditions, there's still a chance they could spot a burning wreck from the air. Regal hands a list of pilots and planes to the sergeant.
Notify the pilots and prep the aircraft. Their last known location was close to Big Delta. We'll start there. The sergeant salutes and turns to leave. And Raggle settles in for a very long night.
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Leon Crane peeks out from under his parachute and sees that his fire is dwindling. The flames are flickering lower as the pine branches slowly burn down to embers. He needs to rekindle it quickly. If it goes out, he's probably done for. But this is the coldest night yet, and he's reluctant to leave the warm cocoon of the silk parachute.
It's been three days since the iceberg Enis went down. That was on December 21st, which makes tonight Christmas Eve.
Back at Ladd Airfield, the men will be downing another helping of turkey, raising another glass, and missing their families back home. Crane is Jewish, and Christmas never meant much to his family. He thinks of what his father often said: "Leave Christmas to the Christians. We've got our own holidays." At the thought of his parents, Crane feels a lump in his chest.
How long before they're notified he's officially missing? His mother is tough, but he knows that the news will make her sick with worry. His father will try to be reassuring, and she'll pretend everything is okay. But both of them will wonder if their son is dead.
Which he will be if he doesn't get this fire going again. He extracts himself from the parachute as quickly as he can. The cold stings at his fingers and his face as he grabs a piece of driftwood from the pile. It slips from his fingers onto the ground, but he picks it up and tosses it onto the fire. He tosses another, just to be safe. Then Crane bundles himself back into his silk cocoon before the cold can seep further into his bones.
As he watches the fire burn brighter, he remembers that tonight is also the third night of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Crane isn't particularly religious, but he takes a moment to thank God for this light, the campfire that's keeping him alive. Then he lets himself fantasize for a moment about Christmas dinner back at the base.
Roast turkey, chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, plum pudding with brandy sauce. Hunger has begun to gnaw at him and he marvels at how vividly he can remember all the flavors. Merry Christmas, he thinks, as he watches the wood burn and hopes he'll live to celebrate the new year.
The recon pilot looks out his cockpit window as he passes over Big Delta on his way eastward. Below, he can see the small army airfield and the juncture where the frozen Tanana and Delta rivers meet. But there's no trace of the iceberg Enis, the B-24 bomber that went missing six days ago.
The pilot and his crew have flown search missions every day since the bomber and its five-man crew were reported missing. It's an all-too-common procedure at Ladd Field. Hardly a week goes by without a plane going down somewhere in the wilderness. Sometimes they easily spot the wreck and find the crew camped out next to it. Other times, they find nothing.
So far, this has been one of those times. Their only tools are their eyes and a map. Snowstorms and fog have hampered their vision, and high winds have meant they couldn't risk being out any longer than necessary. Every day, back at base, the recon pilot writes his findings on a report that's sent to Major Ragle's office. The report is always the same. Results? Negative.
Today, the weather is cooperating, with only a few clouds dotting the blue late December sky. They started the search in the area just east of Big Delta, the iceberg Inez's last known location. Then they circled outward, checking the ground for hundreds of miles in every direction. A fellow pilot once said these missions were like trying to find a button on a football field.
But the B-24 is a big plane, and it should be easier than most to spot from the air. But now, here they are on day six, and he knows the longer the search goes on, the less likely that anyone who may have survived the crash has also survived the cold. If there's still no sign by tomorrow, day seven, they'll call off the search.
That's army regulations, a matter of balancing the risk to the search crews against the diminishing chance of finding anyone alive. The pilot circles around and scans the ground. No glint of metal, no sign of a crash site. But wait, is that something shiny? He banks the plane to get a better view.
No, it's just sunlight reflecting off a frozen pond. He's starting to doubt the plane went down anywhere near this area at all, but all he can do is follow orders. He flies on, hoping he'll get lucky this time, but he suspects that tonight he'll once again write the same words in his report. Results? Negative.
Leon Crane crouches down and holds his breath, trying desperately to stay silent. In one hand, he holds a long, thick piece of driftwood, a club picked especially for this purpose. A few feet away, digging in the snow, he sees his target, a small red-tailed squirrel, oblivious to its future as Crane's dinner. At least, that's what Crane is hoping.
It's afternoon on December 28th, and Crane hasn't eaten in seven days. The only thing in his stomach is the water he's drunk from the river that seeps up from the cracks in the ice. Once, early on, he tried swallowing a muddy chunk of moss he found under the snow, but he gagged and coughed it up. Now, he is literally starving.
Crane watches the squirrel gnaw on a piece of pine cone, then scratch at its ear. The squirrels here are completely unafraid of him. He's probably the first human they've ever seen. That's why he's hoping he can get close enough to this one before it realizes he's a threat. Crane inches closer and lifts his driftwood club. The squirrel stops and looks up, sensing Crane's movement.
Crane freezes. The squirrel pauses a moment longer, then turns its attention back to the pinecone. Crane pulls back his arm and swings the club, but instantly the squirrel scampers away and races up a tree. "Dammit." Crane curses under his breath. If he's going to catch one of these critters, he needs a more sophisticated weapon.
He collects a couple smaller branches from the ground. Using his boy scout knife, he files one of them into a sharp-pointed arrow. Then he cuts a length of rubber parachute cord and strings up a makeshift bow from the other branch. He plucks the parachute cord and it makes a satisfying "twang" sound. Not bad. Time to test it out. Crane crouches and waits. He doesn't have to wait long.
Soon, another squirrel crawls out on a nearby branch, its bushy tail waving. Crane raises the bow, draws back the arrow, and... The arrow misses by a country mile, spinning off into the snow as the squirrel scurries away. Crane screams to the high heavens, "Agh! Why can't you give me a break?!" He's not in danger of starving to death.
At least not yet. But he knows the signs from his survival training. First, the body burns its fat reserves, which makes it harder to stay warm. Then, when the fat stores are depleted, the body burns its muscle tissue. He'll start to grow weaker and less able to fend for himself in the wilderness.
Worst of all, his judgment will start to falter. He'll start making dumb decisions, dumber even than trying to kill a squirrel with a tree branch. And he has to face another grim reality. He knows that searches for missing planes are called off after seven days. And it's now been seven days since the crash. The army will simply list him as missing and move on. There is no rescue coming.
If he stays here, he will surely die. His only recourse is to hike to civilization. He can either head down the river and hope he runs into some trappers or a hunter's cabin, or he can head toward Big Delta and the small airbase there. He knows his plane went down roughly east of it, and he can use the sun to navigate during daylight hours.
Crane weighs his odds and makes a decision. At first light tomorrow, he'll pack up and trek west, hoping he can reach Big Delta before starvation leaves him too weak to continue. Better to head toward the certainty of the airbase than simply hoping to run into help along the river. He figures that this is his best chance for survival.
This is episode one of our three-part series, Alone in the Alaska Wilderness. A quick note about our scenes. In most cases, we can't exactly know what was said, but everything is based on historical research. If you'd like to learn more about this event, we highly recommend the book 81 Days Below Zero by Brian Murphy. I'm your host, Mike Corey. Eric Trueheart wrote this episode. Our
Our editor is Steve Fennessy. Script consulting by Brian Murphy. Sound design and Dobie Atmos mix by Othouse Audio. Audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock. Produced by Emily Frost and Alita Rosensky. Managing producer is Matt Gant. Senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr. Senior producer is Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis for Wondery.
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