Jack Bell, in Second Series of Two Articles on Air Mail Work,
Tells More of Life of the Men Who Brave Dangers of "Hump"
to Add Speed to World's Business

PART TWO
By Jack Bell
Copyright, by Jack Bell

Through the haze of rising moisture, around and circling the mists and clouds, driving through the dense barriers of snow, of hail and rain, the intrepids of Uncle Sam's air mail carry on.

The real danger season is here now. As late as November 29 a "hump" flier drove through the density of the record snowstorm and through this wall of solid white landed his ship, without mishap, in the darkness miles and miles from Reno - broke trail through the heaviest snowfall of the season, was given assistance by a rancher, delivered his mail to the postoffice at Reno, and scored his end of the 100 per cent delivery under hardships that would try the seasoned musher.

Patriotism, self-effacement in line of duty, is of a surety the keynote of these picked men that fly the airways, and ever-present deadly dangers of the "hump," the crossing over of the highest ridges of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the divide between Reno Indian summer, then into the deep snow-covered range and on down into the summer of California.

The names of Winslow, Huking, Vance and a few others of the famous "hump" messengers will always be referred to in terms of unstinted praise by rising generations as premier examples of sturdy, faithful Americans, who paved the way over this 100 miles of country where a landing, a safe landing is impossible.

Vance Pioneer Pilot

Pilot Clair K. Vance is one of the earliest fliers of the mail. He has flown every leg on the Red Line road. A mechanical engineer of ability, a natural air mahout, he has had many spectacular experiences. He shows the scars of crashes, a body that indicates the narrow escapes from the final "washout." On the morning of November 23, 1921, Vance broke the Red Line trail record by flying from Elko to Reno, a distance recorded by the postoffice department of 235 miles. It is true that all flights are much longer in mileage. The flying time from wheel touch to wheel touch was exactly one hour and 20 minutes, or an average of 176.4 miles per hour, a record sustained flight in commercial aviation that will long stand.

The unusual circumstances and the attendant dangers of the many obstacles to surmount makes this exhibition stand out as an example of the near coming of greater speed and even safer delivery of mail by the government by the air routes. It takes brains and initiative of the super-class to take advantage of the air currents, mountain peaks and divides of the four great valleys that are separated by ranges on this route.

Vance, on his final trip on the Elko-Reno run, bumped into a blizzard that was a red letter day for all the flying men of the air mail. He went as low as 50 feet over the great desert area of the Carson sink to try and get his bearings. There is absolutely no way to determine the flying level of a ship in a snowstorm - the planes have no instrument that records the level keel. The pilot may be almost upside down, and not even the strain of the belts will appear changed as the ship flies through the blinding snow. Finally Vance found the railway tracks. This is a dangerous game as a wind may take the ship and crash it against the canyon walls. He flew 50 feet over the rails and landed at the Reno field with his plane covered with ice and snow and almost frozen. Like the other men of this run, all he would say was:

"A rotten day to fly."

Relieves Sufferers

On February 23, last year, during the deep snow and blizzard weather, word came to Major Tomlinson that a family 30 miles north of Reno, over the Peavine range, was marooned without food. For days the women had endeavored to break trail for help. The father was in bed sick. Pilot Vance volunteered his services for a relief to the homesteaders. The ship was loaded with sacks of supplies, anchored to the ship in the manner of bombs.

Vance went over the mountain in the howling storm, circled his ship, and attracting the attention of the mother and two children, flew dangerously low, and cut away the ropes that held the food, dropping the sacks in a corral within easy reach of the starving family. Vance was just a little over a half hour in the air, as the wonder ships of the mail are rated at 120 miles per hour. Vance was the miracle man to the suffering ranchers, sure enough.

The death tailspin, that bugaboo of every man that flies a ship, is a position of the plane that is seldom, if ever, righted. Hundreds of flyers have lost their lives in one of these spins.

Vance was flying blindly through a terrific blizzard in the High Sierras. He had lost all sense of direction. This was last December during the unusual storm period. His ship, without warning, swerved into a tailspin and in the twinkling of an eye the ship spun tail down from 12,000 feet to within 4,000 feet of the ground. With the instruments frozen and the stick ice-covered and levers clogged, Vance fought the battle of his spectacular career in trying to right his plane. Coming out of the smother of snow, he found himself over Donner lake, the body of water that lies in the lap of the crests of the "hump" on the great divide of the Sierra mountains.

"I was not even scared until I got out of the ship at the San Francisco field," said Vance. "It was just then that I realized what a narrow escape from my final crash I had, and it actually made my legs tremble and the perspiration break out all over me. That was almost the nearest I came to cracking up and going out in my final 'washout'".

Vance is now engaged in building a plane in San Francisco. He is making the ship after his own ideas, in wing and other construction. He purposes to make a try for the non-stop flight to New York. He expects to have his plane ready for a tryout some time during early spring. His hosts of friends are of the opinion that if the trip is ever made in record-breaking time this flyer will make the grade.

Huking Also Old-Timer

Pilot Harry V. Huking is the third member of the trio that flies the "hump." His service dates from the experimental stage of the United States air mail. He has flown on every leg and over the trial routes that were at first inaugurated by the postoffice department. Like the other two men of the Reno-San Francisco leg of the Red Line road, he has met and conquered the almost impossible, and been delivered from situations that were the essence of danger. He is the latest one of the air service to take marriage - of course not as a flight - but for the long trail. The following telegram received in Reno tells of the circumstances in a wire from San Diego, Cal., last month:

"Did fatal tailspin into sea of matrimony. Recovery impossible. Huk"

Made Record Flight

Huking flew with 450 pounds, 18,000 letters, in the record made from Salt Lake to San Francisco. He made the trip in inclement weather in two hours flat. The record was made in mid-August. Pilot Levisee taxied off the Salt Lake field at 1:15 a. m. Blanchfield sat in his ship ready with his propellor idling at Elko and the service crew scurried in record time in making the transfer. Blanchfield leaving at 6:13 a. m. The "motor macks" were all keyed up and made the transfer at Reno field in jig time and Huking was in the air at 8:32 a. m. Huking, with his load over the "hump," "stepped on her" and landed at San Francisco field at 10:32 a. m. The actual time in this record-breaking, phenomenal run being just six hours and 12 minutes, the service crew at Reno making the transfer in the remarkable time of just one minute.

There was no special preparation made for this flight. All of the mail carried was mailed in the Salt Lake postoffice after 12 o'clock midnight. The distance traveled was approximately 650 miles air line, through this end of the division. That is the most perilous on the Red Line air road.

Has Close Call

Hukng had his closest call to death on the evening of May 20, this year. He was piloting ship No. 167 and left the San Francisco field for Reno with the usual consignment of mail. The fog over the bay was thick when he took the air. He got above the clouds and started for Reno. As he was flying through the light mist above the dense, black banks of solid clouds he was soon lost as to his whereabouts.

Then at a 16,000-foot altitude the mist began to thicken and the rain began pouring in streams from the tail of his ship. When he reached what he thought was the "hump" the atmosphere thickened. He still endeavored to find a hole to make the landing at Reno. The heavy rain soon darkened the surroundings.

He circled back towards San Francisco. He was afraid to lower his altitude. His plight was as a cork on the ocean with the impenetrable mist a solid wall and it was with difficulty that he made out his wings. On land this day the tule fog lay close to the earth and rose to meet the clouds that lay like a black blanket over the plane.

The surroundings were dungeon black. Think for a moment of the loneliness, the lack of human companionshp. Lost, lost in the darkness miles above the earth. The uncanniness, the surroundings makes one shudder to think of a situation like this.

He throttled down a bit after flying for hours. Ahead a dark patch seemed to stand out, and looked like a hole that had visibility.

Motor Stops

When he reached the spot there was nothing to indicate a point for direction. Then the motor began to drop off, would sputter, and idle and then it began dropping to night and the propeller stopped as the plane headed downward through the blackness.

Huking realized that only an act of God would help him in his awful plight. A dark object again appeared ahead of the ship. Huking drove the ship at it. A wing smashed into a treetop, a stick over a hundred feet high, and tore it away from the fuselage (the wing remains in this tree to this day), the plane nosed in a dive and crashed through the limbs of the great spruces and on down into the thick growth of the smaller timber, smashed into a mass of debris that looked for all the world like some monster with a hammer had pounded and broken it into a thousand parts.

The crash occured at a lumber camp called Blue Tent, four miles into the mountains from the town of Nevada City, Cal. The noise of the plane crashing into the swirl of broken limbs and felled trees was heard by timbermen a half a mile away. They hurried through the fog and darkness. The silver wing of the giant bird of the air they could see up the hillside, where the rain could be heard beating a devil's tattoo on its surface far up in the treetop.

"Couldn't Keep Her Up"

Huking was walking about the wreck muttering. He was covered with dirt and blood. His speech was incoherent. "I couldn't keep her up with only one wing," was the last he spoke before collapsing into unconsciousness. Hurried communication notified the postmaster at Nevada City.

Surgeons were called to the Nevada City sanitarium to await the arrival of the unconscious flying man. The wood chopper, Jack Zanocco, was especially mentioned for his speedy solution of transportation of the injured man into the hospital. At the same time the rainstorm increased.

Postmaster Phillip Seaddon made his way through the cloudburst that had followed the terrific rain down a canyon side and loaded 11 sacks of mail, which was delivered on the last mail train, delaying it but a few hours, as the mail brought from San Francisco is again handled here in Reno.

Huking was in the hospital but a matter of 10 days and was again on his new ship packing the mail across the "hump" - and he now flies every other day.

"Pretty close, pretty close." says Huking, and that's about all he will say.

Bucks Heavy Storm

Huking left the San Francisco field at 2:07 p. m. November 29. The heaviest snowfall of record, in a given period of time, began falling on the Sierra mountains and in the vicinity of Reno at about this time. Major Tomlinson, at Reno field with the personnel, closed shop and went home after the day's work. The idea that Huking would try the "hump" in the face of the raging blizzard was not even given a thought, and all expected to hear that the pilot was reported back into San Francisco.

At 6 o'clock Assistant Superintendent LaFollette radioed Major Tomlinson for a report on Huking. In less time than it takes to tell the radio, telegraph and telephone service for a radius of 100 miles on either side of the Red Line road were buzzing with inquiries of the missing flyer.

He was heard over Reno miles high, but the faint growl of the Liberty motor passed away. Again as had happened with Winslow and Vance the offices of Superintendent Nelson at Salt Lake, Assistant Superintendent La Follette and Field Manager Tomlinson were making every effort humanely possible to locate the aviator. The entire organization walked the floor, then from out the night came a telephone call in faint buzzing, broken sentences over a "whoop and holler" line that Hukin had landed at 5:55 p. m. at Silver Lake, 16 miles north of Reno, a couple of miles from the Barnes ranch.

Huking landed his ship - in the tense darkness and in the flying spume of white, and landed safely, which proves the stability and wonderful artisans' craft of the shipbuilders at Reno field. Breaking trail to the dim and flickering light in the [xx], Huking plowed his way, a tired, sorry-looking figure to the ranch owner and surrounding sympathizing cowboys.

"Please notify Major Tomlinson and the postmaster at Reno that I will soon be in with the mail and will get it on the eastbound train and there will be no default," he said.

The ever-ready, hospitable rancher hurried to the ship in an automobile, loaded the mail and arrived at the Reno postoffice at 11:15 p. m. and the 100 per cent delivery carried the record of the "hump" to that enviable mail.

Darn Mean Flying

"By Christmas, that was a whale of a storm. I could not see beyond my windshield. I nosed her straight into the blinding snow at the foothills below the "hump" and just let 'her ride straight away as I could. Of course, I knew that I was off the Red Line, but that time told me that I had arrived over the 'chump' somewhere near Reno. Darn mean flying. Then I thought I had better take a chance, and I came down a bit - just a gamble, I thought I saw a light - I nosed her, and down I came. Gee, but I felt relieved when I felt the wheels hit the ocean of white and realized I was on the ground," said Huking.

"Bad weather," that's all from him - all that could be pried out of him.

The next morning Chief Mechanic Frank Caldwell, Mechanic Case and McGuire drove a small truck out to the ranch. Huking climbed into the cockpit of the ship, the mechanics turned her over, the pilot took off, landed at the Reno field, the ship was serviced, tuned up again and was ready for the pilot in a few minutes. Huking took the air at 2:05 p. m. and landed at San Francisco at 4:48 p. m. and delivered the mail.

Was British Flyer

William F. Blanchfield, but recently one of the 'hump' crew, now flies the Elko-Reno run. A lifetime of adventure, and many close calls upon the grim reaper, have been crowded into his life since 1911. He mustered out of the R. F. C. after long combat service over Mons, Bruges and other early war places of history. He has one official German plane and three unofficial to his credit, that service demanding eight flying hours each day from the pursuit groups. He closed his war career as a major of the R. F. C.

After the war he came to the United States and immediately applied for citizenship. He entered the air mail service after the Transcontinental Red Line air road was established. He was assigned to the San Francisco-Reno run, which he flew with many honors, and was then transferred to the run he now flies with such wonderful, uncanny success.

During his life as an aviator he has flown a trifle over 3,000 hours. This figures 300,000 miles travel in the air, or a little matter of 12 times around the earth. All ships he has piloted are rated not less than 100 miles per hour.

Was Air Courier

After the armistice he was assigned the honor place among the host of flyers as courier between the general headquarters in France to the war office in London. During all his flying experience on the other side he never but once encountered a "bump," and that was so slight that it was almost unnoticeable. When he flew the "hump" for the initial time he was, as he puts it, scared as he never was in his life before.

Worse Than Combat

The impacts of the bumps in the air were heavier, the danger of a crash more imminent, than the vacuums caused by bursting shells in all combat under fighting conditions. The shock of impact almost throwing the pilot from his cockpit, and the charge against the air change in hurricane conditions with a power that can only be likened to irresistible force against an immovable object.

Blanchfield has had experiences on the "hump" and the Elko-Reno run that make one wonder if the weather and atmospheric conditions don't direct their energies against him personally. Many times his plane has been enveloped in a sand twister-tornado spiral. One instance he was dragged down to the ground 25 miles from the nearest habitation and 15 miles from the nearest railroad point. Another time he fought the greatest battle of his long career when he ran into a hurricane over Granite mountain, where the velocity of the wind swirled him down 3,000 feet into the maw of a narrow, rocky canyon.

Another sensational escape from death was when his plane, upon landing at the Elko field with 11 sacks of mail for the east, broke out in flames caused by a broken gas connection. Risking his life, he salvaged the mail. "Save the mail." Yes, that is what is uppermost in the minds of these crack flying men.

During the month of November, 1921, Nevada experienced the worst storm carnival in its history. Gales and excess of snow were reported from all over the desert country. Colder weather obtained than ever before in the annals of the weather bureau.

Flyer Braves Blizzard

On this particular day, November 28, Blanchfield made his phenomenal run to Elko - on the wings of a hurricane. The thermometer at Elko field registered 16 degrees below zero. Blanchfield was dressed in his Esquimaux outfit. The field manager told him it was impossible to make a flight against the elements, that he would order him to remain in for that day. Blanchfield, with that inbred soldier tradition of generations, demurred. He said that the mail should fly.

His argument won. He took the air in a smother of blinding snow and into the teeth of the 80-mile wind. It took him a good half hour's flight to gain headway in the general direction of the Red Line air road.

Pretty soon he was lost to view from the ground. No sound of the thunder roar of the giant Liberty motor could be heard. The mail had gone on its flight for San Francisco.

Part of the route of the Red Line air road follows the railway and during inclement weather the telegraph operators report the sound of the ships as they roar by, thousands of feet up in the desert vastness.

Hour after hour went by and no report of the missing ship was received at the Reno field. Three hours went by. The storm increased in velocity. The snow was blinding. The entire web of [xx] throughout northern and central Nevada was brought into service. No word of the missing pilot and his plane.

Three hours and a half went by, and arguments and opinions at the Reno field were rife as to where the flyer had cracked up, arguing that there was absolutely no chance for a ship to live in the terrible weather conditions that almost demolished the buildings and hangar, shaking those buildings loose from their very foundations, and rattling, and creaking with the powerful smashes of the gale. The Reno field was covered with three feet of snow, and the drifts were 20 feet high along the runways. Blanchfield's ship was equipped with skids.

The conversation had changed to the many lovable personalities and characteristics of the missing pilot. In a way it was pathetic. Worriment was depicted on every face, as it always is when a pilot is long overdue.

The faint sighing of a motor was heard. Then the chairs all dropped to the office floor of the hangar with a crash. "'Blanch' coming'" The cry was taken up by members of the whole personnel. The wind shrieked and the wave upon wave of driven snow spit against the windows and building, making ordinary conversation a difficult matter. Now there was nothing but the fierce song of the elements. Then again that faint roar of a motor was carried through the fitful lapses of the awful wind drive.

Arrives at Reno

Then there was a roar that brought every man up standing - the roar of the motor on the ground, and the wavering force of the great ship being throttled down.

There was a rush to the door, upon the field, and willing hands grasped the snow-covered wing of the ship. The pilot could not be seen for the mass of snow that was piled over him and filling the cockpit. Instruments were ice-hidden. Blanchfield was literally frozen in his seat with his hands bent on the stick and his feet stiffened on the motive gear.

The ship was worked into the hangar and the great door lowered. Tenderly and carefully the crew cut the stiffened belts of the aviator and lifted him out of his seat. His stiffened flying clothes were stripped from him by the roughened but tender hands of the "motor macks." The boy was absolutely done in. The lines on his face told the battle for life he had made, and of his narrow escape from "going west."

This trip consumed three hours and 45 minutes, every second of which was a battle for life. Blanchfield's first words when he thawed out, and after his frosted fingers were taken care of, were:

"There are 11 sacks of mail on the ship - the mail will go through on time."

He said that he was absolutely powerless to handle the ship. The cold was terrific. At times the good ship stood absolutely motionless in the air for minutes, unable to make a foot's advance. He could neither rise above the storm sheet nor maneuver his plane below. He said that the air was so full of bumps and pockets that every second he expected it to fold and fall in a thousand pieces.

He likened the action of the ship to a cork on a swollen, turbulent mountain stream. For 15 minutes at one time the ship stood still. At times the gales controlled the ship - he was powerless to do anything. This experience is still talked about, with the tales of the sensational experiences of the other men of the "hump."

Another Fierce Battle

March 20, 1921, Blanchfield had another battle with the elements.

The same story of the snowstorm and the 80 to 100-mile gale. He left Elko about on schedule time. After passing Battle Mountain he ran into the full force of the storm. It was zero weather. He ran head-on into the worst of the storm - no visibility at all. He tried for a landing. He knew he was miles from the Red Line air road.

He took a chance. He "set her down in mid-desert, no object being visible. He had absolutely no means of knowing where he was. The snow was deep - he flew without the aid of skiis. Walking in circles for five hours, he came upon a little shack built into the side of a hill. There were sagebrushed corrals about, filled with sheep. He knocked on the door of the shack.

An Indian, white-haired, wrinkled and bent, opened the door a trifle. He made a noise from his throat that was neither a squeal nor a yell, and slammed the door. The appearnace of the helmeted, goggled flying-suit covered figure was too much for him. He had never before seen an aviator in his regalia.

It took Blanchfield a half hour to convince and allay the fears of the red man that he was a mere human. When at last the Indian opened the door he stood well back with a cocked Winchester carbine in his hand and motioned Bloanchfield to a seat on a box near the primitive fireplace.

Blanchfield's Story

"I never realized before that I was an orator," he says. "But I had to be to convince that native American that I was real and that I was in trouble and wanted his help. I soon convinced the old chap that I was a man and not some sort of a devil. He fed me and warmed me. I could not make him talk. Just as I was becoming discouraged an old man, a white man, came into the dugout. He was also long past the three score and ten in age - a simple-minded, clear-eyed old fellow whose vision and every thought was clean and wholesome and far beyond the ken of men of the world. He had not much to say.

"He and the Indian knew what a plane was, having seen pictures and once in a great while would see the ship above them and hear the roar of the motor.

"This old man also had a little band of sheep. He told me that I was 25 miles from the nearest habitation of any kind. Fifteen miles from the railroad, I prevailed upon them to accompany me to the ship, a couple of miles away. I wanted their assistance in cranking the great engine. When we arrived at the ship it was covered with snow and the motor ice cold.

"The Indian would not come within a hundred yards of the plane. 'Sky devil' is all he would say. The old white man said he would have nothing to do with it."

Blanchfield was in a quandry. On the field it takes three "motor macks" to turn the propeller, and start the motor.

"I put on the gas and sucked in the mixture, put on the switches and on the third try she kicked off," he says. "When the motor belched her roar those two old fellows took to their heels in a flurry of snow dust, and that was the last I ever saw of them except when I got in the air - which was some job, believe me, through that snow. The storm had abated somewhat and I made the Reno field late in the afternoon and did not default the mail."

Defaults But Once

Blanchfield has defaulted the mail on his run but by a very narrow percentage and, when he did, it was not for the reason he did not try, but from the fact that orders from the superintendents expressed direct instructions.

During one of the initial blizzards early in the spring of 1922, Blanchfield left the Reno field with about 400 pounds of mail for the east. The thermometer registered five degrees below zero when he took the air. Facing a gale, he made out into the canyon of the Truckee. He "hedge-hopped" through this dangerous defile, over the railway, a matter of 50 feet. He traveled this canyon without mishap. He was forced to take altitude to get into the Carson sink. It was here that the full fury of the storm caught him.

He drove into the teeth of the drifting sheets of cutting white, now up in the furies of leveled snow dust, the blizzard howling, screeching and tearing through the rigging of the ship - nerve racking, heart-breaking, as control was almost negative. Then down, down with the force of the upper currents, swirled through space with lightning flash suddenness.

Lost, lost in that deadly energy of the elements. Then the tops of brush appeared, and the telegraph and telephone lines appear as upon a fast moving screen; he had found the railway again. Wiping the snow and ice from his compass - glory be! He was headed west and on the air road again. The fight against the oncoming rushes was beginning to tell on both the pilot and the plane.

Into the canyon of the Palisades - a rocky defile, with only a very few feet of leeway, the plane staggered, Blanchfield working and driving as he never did before to save himself and ship from destruction. It was the tournament of death. The fury of the storm abated just a trifle. Blanchfield made out the terrain from the water tank of Palisade.

Lands at Palisade

It was a chance to save his hide and he took it. Into a ditch, with all the force of the 4,200-pound machine, it landed, overturning in that fraction of time incalculable. Stunned for just a moment and almost smothered with the snow, the pilot unfastened his belts and after a half hour struggle freed himself from the wreck.

He then began dragging the mail sacks and broke trail to the railway right-of-way. He piled his cargo on the right-of-way, took all his instruments from the board and stamped and milled around his freight for a couple of hours waiting for a passing train. (cold, hungry and half frozen, he flagged a limited. He loaded his mail and accompanied it to Elko, in time for the Salt Lake run to take Uncle Sam's valuables.

He did not default the mail.

Levisee Faces Perils

Rexford Levisee is another of the old "hump" flying men that had his mountain air trial. The month of November will long be remembered by the men of the service as one of the storm period sort that taxes all a flyer's ingenuity to maintain his bearings and to fly the standard 100 per cent.

On a November day Levisee started on schedule from San Francisco field with about 300 pounds of mail. When over the high points of the mountains at Lake Tahoe he developed engine trouble - pretty soon the feed pipe burst and the motor stopped. He started to glide down towards one of the valleys in the vicinity of Strawberry and Phillips, Cal.

He was down to an altitude of 3,000 feet. It was impossible to glide over Echo summit into Sly park where there was a chance for a decent landing.

This entire country, adjacent to Placerville, is covered with a dense growth of pine and fir. After trying to maintain altitude that would enable him to at least find a clearing where he would not have to chance a death smash. Slowly the big ship responded to his efforts and was slow in making its certain descent.

He circled wide, looking for some chance for a place to "sit her down." Then he made out a little clearing in the deep timber, which afterwards proved to be a patch of two acres with streams cutting it and severals trees and row upon row of stumps.

Like the game flying man of his service, he edged the fast falling ship (and they land at a speed of 60 to 80 miles per hour) around and round this little space, and then made a wonderful turn by side-slipping the plane and took around a tree.

The ship turned turtle and crashed into a thousand pieces, with Levisee under the wreckage. Osborn and Bryan, forest rangers, heard the ship crash and hurrying to the pile of what had once been a beautiful man-made bird of the air, worked and pulled and finally released Levisee, who was pinned under the smashed plane.

He was bruised and cut all over his entire body. When he was taken from the wreck, he, like all the men of the mail, said: "I must get the mail to the railroad - I will not default." This ship was absolutely washed out - there was nothing to salvage but the motor.

Levisee has been with the mail ever since it was inauguarated and now flies the Salt Lake-Elko run.

The few of the foregoing records of the air mail pilots show the staying qualities that make American air men the go-getters of the world.

Wear Artic Clothing

During the terrible blizzards of last winter most of the pilots sent to the great northern fur companies for their Esquimaux clothing. They received the mukluks, skin mukluks that come hip high. They are as light as a feather. The wind annot piece the hide, which is of the hair seal. They are waterproof. The bottoms are packed with hay or straw, and then the ordinary woolsen socks are worn.

There was not a pilot flying the "hump" or the Reno-Elko run during the long storm season last year who escaped frozen feet, face and fingers. There were days without number when these boys were literally carried from their ships into the warm offices of the field managers to thaw out and deliver their reports by word of mouth, their stiffened, frozen fingers being unable to function. Many times they came in and with face stiffened with the cold, remained sphinx-like for a half hour at a time before they could talk and be understood. Their reports would read something like this.

"Encountered heavy winds from the northwest."

"Delayed account radiator freezing - stiff head winds."

That's about all.

Render Valuable Service

These boys are doing a work of invaluable service for the government. At this present time (December) the flyers are already "prospecting" - meaning that they are flying the different angles, over the north and over the south boundaries of their usual Red Line air road, making note of the first fall of snow, where the winds are the fiercest, where the drifting is piled highest, and the variations of the currents.

There is no way, as yet discovered, whereby the currents over the town of Verdi can be reckoned. All the long valleys between the high mountain ranges of the Sierras and the other ranges seem to meet at this point and vie for supremacy.

The tales of the air mail of the "hump" would already fill a volume.

Other Men Flew Here

There are other men that flew it, among them are Boggs, who made the phenomenal record from San Francisco to Reno in one hour and 19 minutes, Ray Little, Morgan and a few others.

Danger Season Here

The snow and storm season has already opened. There is a 35-inch snow on the "hump" at this time. Pretty soon that will be in many feet of measurement. The icy winds of the Polar regions are already here. From now until the last of May, 1923, these men of the air mail will carry their lives, literally, in their hands. Their work is the essence of danger and hazard.

They are a crowd of men that the authorities at Washington must certainly be very proud of, because every man or woman who knows their sturdy fighting manhood is inordinantly proud of them.