ripped apart with a sound like a pistol shot. Just as soon as Hoskin
and Crane got the plane level, the nose moved upward, and the
plane stalled and twisted into another flat spin.

sole—and started wondering who had been on board and what

had happened to them. A thin file in the Yukon-Charley Rivers

park office revealed a few details, including one remarkable fact:

that Leon Crane, the only crew member known to have survived

the crash, spent 83 days in the Alaskan wilderness after the plane

Much of what Beckstead knows of Crane’s trek came

from an article Crane wrote for The American Magazine in 1944,

after which he almost never mentioned his experience again. But

the historian’s research ranged much further. After his first visit

went down.

to the crash site, Beckstead read the few records the military had

Beckstead was intrigued enough to contact Crane. But the

kept and started a Website to post technical questions about

retired aeronautical engineer and construction company owner

the B- 24. He also tracked down relatives of the missing crew

didn’t want to talk about his ordeal. Later Beckstead learned that members, and after six trips to the crash site he had filled a half

Crane had barely shared with his wife and six kids the story of

dozen file boxes with notes, documents and 2,500 photographs.

his long trek. “We had a 15-minute conversation in 1944,” says

Beckstead, now a historian with the U.S. Air Force. “Like so

He says, “I think I know every rivet and bent piece of metal from

hours spent crawling all over the plane.”

many people of that generation who went off to war, Crane felt

Based on what he learned from poring over six volumes of B- 24

he had done what he had to do, come home and gotten on with

service manuals, talking with dozens of people who had flown the

his life.” When Beckstead offered to send Crane the photos and

planes during World War II and corresponding by e-mail with one

video he had taken at the crash site, there was a long pause before of Crane’s college classmates, also an aeronautical engineer, Beck-

Crane said, “Thank you for the offer, but not at this time.”

stead now thinks he knows what went wrong.

“As the crew was angling, or feathering, the propeller blades to

Early on Dec. 21, 1943, Lt. Leon Crane made get the least air resistance, the governor, which controls the pitch of

a quick stop at the PX at Ladd Army Airfield in Fairbanks, Ala.,

the blades, malfunctioned, and the blades started changing angles

to pick up two boxes of matches. A few minutes later he slid into the

as if they had a mind of their own,” Beckstead says. “That in itself

cockpit of a B- 24 Liberator next to 2nd Lt. Harold Hoskin, who, as could cause the engine to tear apart. Then the blades locked up
usual, wanted to bum matches to nurse his pipe.

perpendicular to the airflow, which was akin to having an anchor

With the Alaska sky still dark at 9: 30, the B- 24 took off with

dropped at the end of the wing. That caused the initial spin.”

Hoskin and Crane at the controls. The rest of the crew—1st Lt.
James Sibert, M. Sgt. Richard Pompeo and S. Sgt. Ralph Wenz—
As the B- 24 spiraled out of control, Hoskin gave the order to
settled in for a daylong mission of testing the plane’s propeller-feathering bail out. Pompeo was the first to dive, followed by Crane, who, just before
system, which had been modified to operate efficiently in extreme cold. he jumped, saw Hoskin move into the radio operator’s compartment,
(The military’s mission at Ladd Airfield was to develop systems that ready to follow him out the door. Drifting down under his parachute,
could withstand a frigid climate.)
Crane watched the plane slam into a hillside and explode. As he landed
At the start of the flight, the plane’s far-left engine was running
in waist-deep snow, less than a quarter mile from the burning wreckage,
irregularly, but no one was worried enough to turn back. They
Crane saw Pompeo’s chute disappear over a ridge.
figured if the engine failed, they could return to base on the other
Crane called out for his crewmates. There was no response, just an
three. But when the engine died two hours later, the plane, wrapped unearthly silence. Winter temperatures of – 40°F during the day and
in clouds at 25,000 feet, started spinning like a Frisbee and plunged –70°F at night are typical in the Alaskan interior. Although Crane was
at more than 300 miles per hour. Hoskin and Crane wrestled the
wearing an experimental down parka, the cold cut through to his bones.
control yokes to force the bomber’s nose into a dive, getting enough
Worse, his hands were bare.
air flowing over the wings and tail to stop the spin. But the pilots
His first thought was to get to the crash site, but after an hour he’d
pulled back so hard on the controls that the horizontal stabilizer, on gone less than 100 yards over jagged, snow-covered granite. He had no
the plane’s tail, jammed in the upright position as the control tubes
idea where he was, and he had no food or sleeping bag. Still, he could

PREVIOUS SPREAD: DOUG BECKSTEAD. OPPOSITE: CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEFT: COUR TESY CRANE FAMILY, COURTESY ALLAN BLUE, COURTESY HOSKIN FAMILY, COURTES Y POMPEO FAMILY, COURTESY WENZ FAMILY, COURTESY CRANE FAMILY, DOUG BECKSTEAD