THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday, Friday, by The Nome
Publishing Company, Nome. Alaska
Telephone Main 114 P. O. Box 518
Entered in the Post Office in Nome as 2nd Class Matter
Subscription Rates Payable In Advance
Delivered by carrier in Nome and Little Creek far $2.00 per month
By mail, postage paid, outside of Nome & vicinity, $1.50 per month.
MEMBER OF ASSOCIATED PRESS
__ —
Urge Flying Gross For Floe Rescue
P J “
Award of the Distinguished Flying Cross to two
officers of the Alaska Defense Command was recom
mended by Major General Simon B. Buckner, Jlr., com
manding, in documents enroute to Lieutenant General
J. L. Dewitt, commanding the Western Defense Com
mand and the Fourth Army.
Recommended for the award were First Lieuten
ants E. T. Yarbrough and Frank L. O'Brien.
The recommendation for the officers was insnired
by their rescue of First Lieutenant Elmer E. Booth
from an ce floe in dangerous Turnagain Army on Dec
ember 11, 1941, three days after the United States
declaration of war on Japan.
Booth had parachuted to safety from his spinning
plane on the morning of December 10, 1941, and had
spent more than 24 hours on the grinding, drifting ice.
Details of the story, made public officially, revail
that Lieut. Yarbrough landed an Army plane on an
other drifting ice floe, and that attempts to reach Booth
failed until a CAA plane dropped a pneutmatic rubber
boat which permitted the rescuers to traverse the
churning, floe-filled tide.
Documents assembled by Lieut. Col. W. O. Ear
eckson and forwarded with recommendation for favor
able consideration by Brigadier General Jesse A. Ladd,
commanding Fort Richardson, reveal the following
story:
Falls In Icy Water
Lt. Booth “bailed out” of his spinning plane in a
cloud bank on the morning of Wednesday, December
10, at an altitude of about 2,000 feet.
lie landed in the icy waters of Turnagain Arm.
(Turnagain Arm, according to the U. S. Coast
idiot, is noted for violent winds and is locally referred
to the the “Cannon,” has strong currents and tide rips,
and is dangerous for heavy seas and a tidal bore under
certain conditions).
Lt. Booth’s parachute dragged him to an ice floe
e en u j: to bear his weight.
Low ceilings prevaied over Turnagain Arm the
rest of that day and the following night.
Lt. Booth, who had lost his flying boots and hel
met when he “bailed out,” wrapped his head and feet
:n parachute silk to keep them from freezing.
Floe Breaks Up
During the night the churning tides broke up the
floe. In the darkness, Lt. Booth made his way across
the heaving floes to another which would bear his
weight.
Search was resumed the following morning,
Thursday, December 11, 1941.
First Lieutenant Anthony V. Grosseta guided the
plane piloted by Lt. Yarbrough to Booth’s plane after
discovering the strander flyer. Lt. Yarbrough sighted
a floe some 1.500 to 2,000 feet away from Booth’s and
which he believed might support the weight of his
plane.
Lt. O’Brien, Yarbrough’s companion, gave enthus
iastic consent to Yarbrough's proposal to attempt a
landing, though he knew that an error in skill or judge
ment might mean instant death for both.
Lt. Yarbrough headed into the wind and landed
successfully. While Lt. Yarbrough gunned the engine
wheels with their parachutes.
Cross Angry Tide
The two officers tied themselves together with the
plane’s ‘tie?dowm-ropes,” and attempted to thread
their w’ay aross open leads to Booth’s side.
At least twice Yarbrough fell into the icy water
and was pulled to safety from probable death. Finally
the officers gave up this effort when they found leads
too wide to cross.
They talked to Booth over 50 feet of open water,
’[’hen they decided to go back and get a rubber boat.
The currents left them floating on a cake of loose ice.
It looked as though they could go no further. Lt. Yar
brough threw his hat to a nearby floe and remarked to
O’Brien: “I’ve never left that hat anyplace yet and I
don’t intend to now'.” Instructing O’Brien to'hold fast
to the little block of soft ice, he dived to the next one.
For seconds, Yarbrough was half in the water and
hail on the ice. He finally climbed up and pulled
O'Brien over. The wind wras rocking the ship danger
ously.
Lash Gale-Tossed Plane
The flyers took from their waists the hold-down
ropes that had saved their lives on the ice floes. They
lashed down the ship to protect it from being wrecked
or flung into the churning water by easterly gusts of
the sort that won the name of “Cannon” locally. They
radioed companion ships overhead to drop them some
rope and a rubber boat.
Soon alter a CAA plane dropped O’Brien and Yar
/
Little* jiipitii Is Not So Small
WASHINGTON—They call it “Little Japan.” But
is it? There are 148,756 square miles of it. That’s about
a hundred thousand more square miles than there are
of England. The population is 72,697,700 in Japan pro
per. That’s 7 million less Japanese than there are Ger
mans.
And the Japanese don’t concentrate in sukiyaki
either. Mostly they concentrate on fighting. They are
known as natively belligerent. They have a reputation
for being sadistically cruel, possibly because their
small physical structure has developed within them an
inferiority complex.
Every Japanese boy goes into service for two years
when he reaches the age of 20. After that he is liable
for service until he is forty years old.
When not fighting, the greater part of the Japan
ese people are farming. Rice is, ofcourse, the main
food of all classes but fish is so plentiful that it too, is
a staple diet.
Tere are some other things that you may not have
known about Japan:
She produces three - fourths of the world’s total
output of silk. Until the war with China, Japan’s larg
est import and export trade was with the U. S.
They have compulsory elementary education and
only 10 percent of the nation is counted illiterate. In
the United States there is 1.3 percent illiteracy among
Negroes and 1.5 per cent among native whites.
For more than a year Japan has had a eugenics
law, which compels the sterilization of mentally de
ranged and physically unfit persons.
By Lucrece Mudgins, AP Feature Service Writer
brough the boat, coffee, blankets and a rope. It also I
dropped a pair of flying boots and a helmet to Booth
The officers inflated the boat, tied the rope about them
selves and crossed through the soft ice and open water
to Lt. Booth. Each was linked to one end of the boat
by a length of rope. One of the officers would pick his
way across jagged ice until he arrived at a compar
atively solid section. Then he would pull the othe"
and the boat to him. The final lead was crossed when
Yarbrough attached a weight to a rope and threw it
to Lt. Booth. He pulled the boat to himself, got it, and
was drawn back to the shifting ice. By the same meth
od, they returned to the larger floe and plane.
The plane would seat only two. Lt. Yarbrough
took the controls. Because Lt. Booth was sufferin'*
from exposure and exhaustion, he was seated inside
the plane. Lt. O’Brien “wound' it up.”
While Lt. Yai brough flew Lt. Booth to hospital
care, Lt. O’Brien deflated the boat and prepared the
equipment for travel, despite the fact that his Nothing
was wet and freezing, and the danger that the floe
might break and no new landing be possible. Lt. Yar
brough returned promptly, picked up the equipment'
i and O'Brien. Both times the takeoff was made frorp 1
the liimted ice floe with a run of not over 50 feet.
After unloading the equipment, the flyers — stil
clad in ic.ng clothing—returned to the search for a
second flyer still missing, Lieut. Robert W. Finwali
whose plane was lost at the same time Booth’s went
into a spin.
Yarbrough’s feat, General Buckner declared, re
tired “Exceptional flying skill and courage.” Genera! i
uadd commented that “the unusual tides and current i
of Turnagain Arm make exceptionally dangerous move ;
ments on its surface.”—Alaska Service Record. <
PIONEER LINE
Oases At
NOME : : : FAIRBANKS
PASSENGER INSURANCE CARRIED
FREIGHT — EXPRESS — MAIL
■- *!•*;*•;• ►;* •!••>*> ►!•*!• *1- !• •!•• v -!• a »;• »;■ •;« v »I* v !• v *1* v !•*!*•!* *h*5* *5*•***!• 4» 4»*(*
"Belter Li^ht—-Better Si"I;t“ •!
>• .»
..
..
I ;J
t appliances rlkctuical si ium iks
:* "
h '*
► vvasiiim; machines irovers ;t
f it
[ _ f
I ::
Northern Li«dit and Power Co.
O * *
l +
r « l
.* *i* 4I* 4* *I4 v **• •£ *5* *> •> *!• v •> *!• > *!« •> *;•a .• -j.a *•.**. k*. /. .
Boatswain’s Mate Robert Fick gets his Laundry, free
of charge, from Geyne Sun, who refused the sailor’s
dollar bill and said: “No money, smack Japs.” Fick had
forgotten his ticket, but the Chinese laundryman sort
ed through several bundles until he found the right one
Augmented by administrators charged with special war-time duties, the cabinet met with President Roose
velt at a regular conference. Clockwise around the ta le, starting at lower left corner, are: Harry Hopkins,
Frances Perkins, Philip B. Fleming, Henry A. Wallac e, F. H. LaGuardia, Paul V. McNutt, Jesse Jones, Har- ^
old L. Ickes, Frank C. Walker, Henry L. Stimson, Cor dell Hull, the President, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Fran- f
cis Biddle Frank Knox and Claude Wickard.