Lost in the wilderness for 81 days: The tortuous tale of Leon Crane’s first Christmas in Alaska

Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

In the mountains east of Fairbanks and near the headwaters of the Charley River, 24-year-old Leon Crane was alone and lost on Christmas, the sole survivor of a crash, and certainly closer to desperation than not. He had gone days without food, living off snow and water. He dreamed as we all dream, of the things we do not have and cannot obtain. He dreamed of milkshakes, thick and creamy concoctions caressing his tongue before the slide down. In time, distance and opportunity, he had never been farther from milkshakes, so he made the dream vivid. He stuffed snow into his mouth and imagined it was a milkshake, just like the ones served on base. And for a moment, nothing more, he could trick himself into thinking he was drinking a sweet treat.

Around 9:45 in the morning of Dec. 21, 1943, an Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator lifted off from Ladd Field, now Fort Wainwright. This specific Liberator was the Iceberg Inez. Five men were aboard: pilot 2nd Lt. Harold Hoskin, copilot 1st Lt. Leon Crane, flight engineer Master Sgt. Richard Pompeo, radio operator Staff Sgt. Ralph Wenz, and propeller specialist 1st Lt. James Sibert. The purpose of the flight was to conduct high-altitude feathering tests, to shut down one of the four propellers and angle it to reduce drag.

Hoskin turned the Inez southeast. At 10:03, they were 40 miles out from Ladd. At 11:08, they were 65 miles out, near Big Delta, when they sent their last message back to base. The crew continued their search for a patch of clear sky necessary for the feathering exercise. A little shy of noon, they sighted their opening and conducted their test.

They were ascending toward 25,000 feet when one of the engines malfunctioned and failed. As the Inez succumbed to gravity, it began to spin violently. Hoskin and Crane fought to regain control without working instruments before the elevator controls blew apart. The airspeed gauge was redlined, past 300 miles per hour. Hoskin knew the plane was lost and ordered the crew to bail out. Only Crane and Pompeo managed to don parachutes and jump. As Crane drifted down, he saw the other chute drifting a mile or more away. And he saw the Inez spiral and crash into a mountain slope before erupting into a ball of flame.

Amid the peaks, rocks and trees, Crane himself touched down relatively gently, without additional bodily harm at least. After a quick personal inspection, he inventoried his possessions. There was his flight helmet, trusty pocketknife, 40 matches, and a letter from his father. His feet were warm enough, covered in three pairs of heavy socks inside some mukluks. The Army frequently tested its cold weather gear in Alaska, so he was wearing one of the newer models of down-filled parkas designed by Eddie Bauer. His sheepskin-lined mittens, however, were left behind in the Inez, forgotten in the frantic dash to escape. He also had his silk parachute, which could be gathered together as insulation. That was it. Everything else from the Liberator that might have helped — including food, guns and cold-weather gear — was on fire about 2 miles away.

The fire and smoke from the wreck would have been a beacon for the subsequent search mission, but Crane was realistic. The last check-in with the base had been over an hour earlier, and they had journeyed far beyond that position by the time of the crash. Neither he nor the Army knew where he was. So, he built an SOS message from spruce branches before focusing on the immediate concern: his survival.

Downhill, he could see a stream covered in ice. This was the Charley River, and Crane had landed near its headwaters. From there, the river ran north for around a hundred miles before emptying into the Yukon. Again, Crane did not know that. At that moment, he knew it as a possible source of freshwater lined with flammable driftwood, the latter more interesting amid the minus 20-degree and dropping temperature. After several failed attempts, he used his father’s letter as kindling to start a fire, wrapped himself in the parachute, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

When he woke on Dec. 22, he was unsurprisingly cold and hungry. Staying there felt like conceding to the circumstances, so he headed downstream. For most of the day, he trudged through an unrelenting succession of rocks, snow and ice in subzero weather before finally discovering a small stretch of flat ground surrounded by trees. There, the river bubbled through the ice in little bits, and he crawled across the ice to drink his fill, his mouth soon frosted from the effort.

For the next few days, this little campsite was his home. The day of the crash had been the start of Hanukkah, and Crane, who was Jewish, would have perhaps celebrated in Fairbanks with others in the small community there. His stretch huddled by the Charley River also covered his first Christmas in the territory, as he had arrived only that October. He had flown turkeys and other Christmas feast goods in from Anchorage, food devoured by his fellow soldiers. Meanwhile, he ate snow while staring at the red squirrels, chirping and mocking him from the trees.

From the driftwood, branches and meager possessions, he fashioned a series of weapons to kill the squirrels. They were his new enemy, a food source so close and so far away. First, there was the driftwood club. Second, there was the spear sharpened in the fire. Third, there was the bow and arrow, of parachute string and spruce needle fletchings. Last, there was a slingshot using cord from the parachute. Each time he missed or the squirrels moved away. Maybe he yelled at the squirrels, screamed and raged with the waning remnants of his strength.

After some days of this, he knew he could either die at this remote campsite or strike out for a chance at survival. On the ninth day, with the first light of dawn, he turned his back to the Charley River and headed into the wilderness. A side note for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation: Do not eat large amounts of snow, and if you have any options, avoid striking out blindly. Alaska history is rife with stories that end a lot less pleasantly than this one.

Working against the terrain and inclines, he was only a few hundred feet away from the river after a few hours. There was a pause and a surrender before he turned around and followed his path back to the campsite. For another night, he slept with the squirrels overhead.

[14 people in Anchorage have been awarded Carnegie Medals for heroism. Here are their stories]

On Dec. 30, he left again, this time downstream, a more accessible and smarter path. As the light darkened into night, he was about to set up another camp before he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A cabin — a small, roughly 9-by-10-foot log cabin — materialized in his direct path. Inside, he found a stove and fully stocked larder. A cache stood outside, full of other supplies including a .22 rifle, ammunition, winter clothing, mittens and more food. Ten minutes before, he had been dreading another night exposed to the cold. Now, he was making hot cocoa over a stove.

Crane was from Philadelphia and, despite his crash course in Alaska, assumed that such a cabin must be near a town. The following day, he filled his pockets with raisins and headed downstream again, thinking he would be exiting the wilderness at any moment. The day dragged into the night before he accepted reality and returned to the cabin. Upon arrival, he collapsed into the bunk where he lay for the next two days.

For the next few weeks, he recovered in the cabin, slowly regaining his strength and treating the cracked skin on his hands. He was secure, protected from the elements, and with enough supplies to last a little longer, though not through the end of the thaw. Another trek was required.

He built a makeshift sled and, on Feb. 12, left the cabin for good and headed downstream again. These simple words make it seem easier than it was. The sled was soon abandoned as too heavy, and he barely survived a fall through thin ice. Unlike the first part of his journey, from parachute landing to the cabin, he now had mittens, food, and gear, but each day was still a monotonous trudge.

Finally, on March 10, he came across a bush pilot landing area. From there, a dog sled trail led into the trails. Following it, he came across a happy little homestead, the home of trapper Albert Ames and his family. After nearly three months, he spoke to another person. When Ames peeked out of the cabin, Crane said, “I’m Lt. Crane of the United States Army Air Forces. I’ve been in a little trouble. Boy, am I glad to see you.”

At the Ames home, Crane also encountered his first mirror in nearly three months. In a 1944 account attributed to Crane, he noted, “I had a two-inch beard, black as coal; my hair was long and matted, covering my ears and coming down over my forehead almost to my eyes, so that I looked like some strange species of prehistoric man. I was dirty and sunburned and wind-burned, and my eyes stared back at me from the centers of two deep black circles.”

Crane rested there, near the mouth of the Charley River, where it flows into the Yukon River. By Ames’ reckoning, Crane had walked somewhere around 120 miles. Crane was lost for 81 days, though some accounts of the adventure describe it as 84 days, including the days spent with Ames. After his brief respite, Ames took Crane to nearby Woodchopper, where the pilot met Phil Berail, who built the cabin that saved his life. Berail was a notorious hard man in the area, a near-legendary character who once cut off half a finger, wrapped it with a clean cloth, and kept going.

On March 14, 1943, Leon Crane returned to Ladd Field, now a celebrated victor at life. His first question was for the rest of the Inez crew, but there had been no sign of Hoskin, Pompeo, Wenz or Sibert. He called his parents in Philadelphia. When he arrived, he was still wearing the now ragged flight suit from December, so he took a welcome hot shower. Then, before a medical examination, he hit the post exchange and ordered a milkshake.

A few days later, Crane took part in an aerial reconnaissance mission to identify the wreck site, information used by subsequent recovery teams that located the last remains of Ralph Wenz and James Sibert. In 2006, a research team found bone fragments from Harold Hoskin near the wreckage. No trace of Richard Pompeo was ever found. Leon Crane died in 2002, hopefully having enjoyed many more milkshakes.

[The mysterious fate of the Baychimo, the ghost ship that haunted the Arctic for decades]

Key sources:

Cole, Dermot. “Crane’s Winter Trek Endures as Classic Alaska Survival Story.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, September 23, 2006, B1.

“Continue Search for Lost Fliers.” March 27, 1944, Anchorage Daily Times, 3.

Frisbee, John L. “Alone in the Arctic.” Air Force Magazine, April 1997, 44.

Murphy, Brian. 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska’s Frozen Wilderness. New York City: Hachette Books, 2021.

Vander Lugt, Russ. “Surviving the Subarctic: A Soldier’s Story.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, November 7, 2010, E1, E5.

“A World War II Survival Story from the Charley River.” National Park Service.