ON THIN ICEA Memoir of the Aleutians Campaignby Commander Oliver Glenn, USNR,courtesy of Mr. Larry Glenn and Mr. Roy Balke

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A PBY–5A Catalina with VP–61 on patrol over the frozen Aleutians in early 1943. USN photo

The following memoir is derived from a letter written by Commander Oliver Glenn, USNR, recounting his experiences with Patrol Squadron (VP) 61 during the Aleutians Campaign, to John Haile Cloe, author of The Aleutian Warriors: A History of the 11th Air Force & Fleet Air Wing 4. Commander Glenn has written for Foundation in the past, detailing the rescue of a P–40 pilot in our Fall 1996 edition (he gives a brief account of this event in this article). Sadly, Commander Glenn passed away 5 July 2013; this article has been prepared and provided to us by his son Larry Glenn and friend and fellow Foundation author, Mr. Roy Balke. It is dedicated in his memory.

I was a Navy patrol plane commander, lieutenant junior grade in VP–61 flying PBY–5s and PBY–5As. We had formed

our squadron in April 1942 at NAS Alameda, California, along with VP–62. Originally we were slated for duty in the South Atlantic, hence the VP–6 series of numbers rather than the Patrol Wing 4 numbers assigned to Aleutian squadrons. The Japanese changed our assignment for us when they took Attu and Kiska in June 1942.

One of my first jobs was to ferry a PBY–5A from Seattle to Dutch Harbor to replace the planes burned up by the Japanese during their June attacks. Patrol Wing 4 commander Captain Leslie E. Gehres wanted to keep us when we arrived, as his VP–41, 42 and 43 crews were working overtime, but our orders were explicit

that we were to return to our squadron in Alameda.

There were three crews ferrying three planes in our little group; we were about the second or third group from our squadron assigned to this ferry duty. In an earlier group, Lieutenant Charlie Holt, our squadron operations officer, had dunked into Womens Bay, Kodiak, when a williwaw (a sudden blast of wind from the mountainous coast) caught him just as he was breaking water on takeoff. He was ferrying a torpedo on his right wing at the time. The torpedo broke loose when the plane crashed and ran hot and true down the length of Womens Bay, exploding on the beach just a few hundred yards aft of an ammunition ship that was unloading at an isolated dock. I believe he

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Dutch Harbor after the 3–4 June 1942 air raids, just prior to the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska. EBNAL

lost one crewman in that accident. Around the same time, someone found a Zero on the next island that had been shot in the oil cooler during the June raids on Dutch Harbor. The Japanese pilot had thought he could land on the muskeg, repair his cooler and make it back to his carrier. Muskeg that looks so flat and beautiful from the air, however, doesn’t make a very good landing field. The plane flipped over on its back breaking the pilot’s neck and was cushioned so beautifully that cotton batting couldn’t have been gentler. They brought the Zero to Dutch Harbor on board a lighter and prepared it for shipment back to the States. That was our very first Zero that could be flown.

By the flip of a coin or some other manner of selection, VP–62 got to go to the Aleutians about a month prior to VP–61. We departed NAS Alameda 15 August 1942, 12 PBY–5s, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Frank Bruner, Annapolis class 1927. Our executive officer was Lieutenant Murray Hanson, class 1932. About half of our patrol plane commanders were Annapolis graduates. There were 18 of us altogether. I was crew number 13, having been a flight instructor in p-boats at Pensacola prior to being assigned to VP–61. It was a bit unusual to get a crew without having been on a previous combat cruise as a co-pilot or navigator. We had been allowed three months of daily flying in Alameda to shake down our crews, sharpen our navigation and radar operation and practice our bombing and instrument flying.

Radar was brand new and super-secret at the time. We had the ASE type with an A-scope in the navigation compartment aft of the co-

pilot. That was our lifesaver. Without it, most of us wouldn’t be alive today and our searches would have been next to useless. We patrolled 100 to 200 feet altitude but with our radar had excellent coverage out to 15 or 20 miles on either side of our track. Visibility was usually 100 to 500 yards with occasional open spots up to five miles. In the fall (September—October) there is a phenomenon known as senatorial weather (because some senators came up on an inspection trip and didn’t know what we were griping about) where the visibilities open up to 150 to 200 miles. One time, flying at 10,000 feet and counting islands down the chain, I saw a mountain top sticking above the horizon that was 200 miles from my known position. By the formula for distance to the horizon, this was the

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Oliver Glenn served as an instructor at NAS Pensacola after receiving his wings in 1941 (top right), fly-ing early model PBY Catalinas (above) prior to joining VP–61. Oliver Glenn collection

theoretical maximum, so the air was absolutely clear (something we never see in Los Angeles).

Having left Alameda on 15 August, we overnighted at NAS Seattle and departed for Sitka on 16 August. The skipper started up the inland waterway, but about halfway up the weather socked in, forcing us to turn all 12 planes around and fly outside the islands. We overnighted at Sitka. On takeoff the next morning, the skipper began porpoising during his takeoff run. This lengthened his takeoff and he just about took the roof off of a cannery. He missed, but it must

have shaken him badly, because he never put himself in the left seat again during the entire 13-month cruise. He was still one of the best skippers I ever had, and was at the radio shack mothering his planes anytime even one was in the air. Occasionally he would ride the right seat on a flight just to see how we were conducting our patrols and handling our crew. Being a former fighter pilot aboard USS Langley (CV–1), he must have figured the big-boats just weren’t his meat.

We went from Sitka to Kodiak and picked up orders to go to Sand Point in the Shumagin Islands off Cold Bay to set up our base. Proceeding to Sand Point, we found a little gravel beaching ramp and hard stands cleared away to beach all 12 planes. There was a motor whaleboat which took us about five miles across the bay to an abandoned hospital. This was our BOQ. Nearly all the natives had been evacuated and there were only a few dozen left to man a little cannery, packing crab and fish. We performed daily patrols to the southwest for about 10 days and were ordered to Dutch Harbor to cover the Adak occupation. Three planes from our squadron and a like number from one of the other squadrons at Dutch Harbor went at about three day intervals to perform antisubmarine patrols for the enormous number of ships in the bay at Adak.

At Adak we were based off USS Williamson (AVD–2), an old four stack destroyer from World War I converted into a tender by removing the

forward two stacks, forward boilers and engine room. She could still do about 26 knots on the remaining aft boilers and machinery. We all had our turns at Adak and performed routine patrols out of Dutch Harbor in the interim. It seemed to take an awfully long time getting a landing field operational at Adak; it must have been a month or so. Meanwhile we were sitting at Adak with fighter protection only during the midday hours. B–24s and B–17s came out from Umnak with four to six fighters on their wing tips to protect us during the day, but they didn’t arrive

until two or three hours after first light and left us by ourselves a like period before dark. The Japanese coming out of Paramushiro had much better weather at their base and could chance night flying. They came over several times before our fighters arrived or after they had left and harassed us. I don’t remember that they hit much, but they did make us feel awfully naked without fighter cover.

We were very successful at preventing Japanese subs from bothering our shipping. I don’t remember them doing any damage at Adak. A little east of us at Nazan Bay on Atka one of their subs (RO–61) did get USS Casco (AVP–12) right in the forward engine room and almost blew the ship in half. Commander Willis Cleaves, a top rate ship handler, laid Casco aground broadside on a soft sandy beach and saved the ship. The attack had been made at twilight and the Japanese waited around to get another shot in the morning. Lieutenant Carl Amme of VP–43, however, was off before daylight and spotted the sub before he could fire. Between Lieutenant Amme and a couple of other PBYs, they sank the sub. A few days later, our divers were able to recover the Japanese communication code books from the hulk, a big break at that time in the war.

After the field was operational at Adak and a seaplane base was established at Andrew Lagoon (really a lake with fresh water), we returned to Dutch Harbor for routine patrols. Every once in a while we caught Japanese transports trying to

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The Japanese coming out of Paramushiro had much better weather at their base and could chance night flying. They came over several times before our fighters arrived or after they had left and harassed us. I don’t remember that they hit much, but they did make us feel awfully naked without fighter cover.

sneak into Kiska or Attu. A PBY was not much of a combat plane, so other than shadowing them and reporting their type, position, course and speed every half hour or so, we couldn’t do very much. We had to hope our submarines or the Army B–26s and B–17s could do something about them. The Bering Sea and North Pacific are almost certain death if you are shot up and have to ditch, so we weren’t too brave. We were too slow and had inadequate armament to do much good. We must have done some good, though, because the Japanese didn’t get too fat at Kiska or Attu.

On 16 October 1942, I was flying one of the first PBY patrols east of Adak when I spotted two Japanese destroyers heading for Kiska. It was about midmorning when I made my contact report and the weather was clear under a solid overcast at approximately 4,000 feet. Venturing as close as I felt reasonably safe, I drew anti-aircraft fire from both ships. Withdrawing to a safer distance, I continued to shadow them and report course and speed at regular intervals for over five hours when fuel minimums required me to return to Adak. When I first found them they were on course and speed that would have put them in Kiska Harbor within the time I shadowed them, but after about one hour they retreated for a time before returning to their original course.

Just before leaving the Japanese ships I attempted to bomb them. I pulled up into the overcast and flew to an estimated position over them where I dropped my bombs. Timing my drop, probably four 350 pound bombs, for about 20 seconds, I dropped out of the forecast again to have a look before pulling back into it. I had missed by two or three ships lengths, but a PBY is no match for two fully alert destroyers. Shortly after leaving the Japanese ships I saw a B–26 attack group heading for them. They were successful, sinking the lead ship, Oboro, and successful damaging the second ship, Hatsuharu, so badly she had to return to Japan for repair. The Army lost one B–26 and a bombardier was killed in another.

About Christmas time 1942, we were having increasing trouble operating PBYs from the water. It was getting too cold and a lot of our takeoffs had to be aborted because ice formed over the wings and propellers on our takeoff runs. It was our squadron’s turn to return to the States anyway, so about 10 days before Christmas we were ordered to Seattle to pick up

PBY–5As. These were not quite as good as the PBY–5 because you picked up a ton of water in the nose wheel well which slowed your takeoff when operating from water. If you could operate from a field, however, they were fine and you didn’t have to waste time coming to the stern of a tender to gas up, then wait for a motor whaler to pick you up after you had secured to your buoy. That seemed a long time after an eight-hour patrol. The preparation of getting into the boat, going out to your plane in the dark (no lights showing), starting your engines, casting off from the buoy, taxiing in circles to warm up, checking mags and propellers, and preparing for takeoff took an hour or so. Much better we should have 5As and avoid all this. Lieutenant Commander Bruner was a smart cookie. He delayed our arrival in Seattle until about two days before Christmas by blaming the weather and everything else. This allowed us past New Years before we had to return to Seattle. With two weeks leave, everyone could make it home and back even if he lived in Florida or Maine. Good man, Commander Bruner.

Arriving back in Seattle, we had a few familiarization flights in our 5A amphibians before we departed. This time we went straight to Umnak. I’m not sure who had been there before us, but we came into an established base with Yakutat huts and hot showers about a mile up the road. Quite a sight, about 60 officers making their way up the snow covered road with their clean clothes under their arms and toting back sacks of laundry. It seems to me the Army at Fort Glenn did our laundry for us. They had about a division over there, maybe more, and had all the conveniences of a stateside post. Only thing was, the Army had so little to do besides occasional maneuvers with their tanks, that a number of guys got despondent and blew the tops of their heads off. That area from about Cold Bay west is so gloomy that we all said we should make the Japanese keep it as a punishment.

At Umnak, we just had routine patrols over the Bering and the Pacific. Our patrols gave the Aleutians thorough coverage in all sectors. With our radar and five squadrons (VP–41 through 43, VP–61 and 62) covering all approaches, no Japanese were going to sneak through. Knowing the conditions we were going to return to while we were in Seattle at Christmas, we brought skis and ice skates with us, and enjoyed some skiing at Umnak.

One of those days at Umnak brought us a

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nasty jolt. The Japanese brought up a task force of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and four destroyers. We listened to their progress over the Fox Islands circuit while our armament boys were slinging torpedoes under the wings of all our aircraft. USS Salt Lake City (CA–25) along with USS Richmond (CL–9) plus four destroyers tangled with the Japanese. It was very uneven, and we were standing by to make suicide torpedo attacks against a powerful, alert task force. That was about as close as any of us came to feeling certain death in that theater. There could have been one compensating factor, radar. The Japanese probably didn’t have it and we did. They hit Salt Lake City and stopped her dead in the water, but our destroyers made smoke and the Japanese couldn’t hit her before she got underway again. Salt Lake City exhausted all her ammunition from her aft magazine and we heard they trucked ammo down the deck from the forward magazine to service the aft turrets. Richmond was ordered to cover the unexposed flank. The Japanese turned around and headed for home while we tried to calm our nerves with a Pinch Bottle (whisky) saved for such occasions.

Things ran pretty normally at Umnak for a couple of months, an eight-hour patrol (optimistically) every third or fourth day. Sometimes the weather cut our patrols short. We had the world’s best weather guesser, Commander Tatum, Naval Academy, class unknown. He frequently flew patrol with us, selecting the sector from which he expected the weather to approach. Upon reaching the front, we tried to penetrate at various levels from 50 feet to seven or eight thousand. If we could penetrate without too much ice buildup, we continued our patrols on the far side. If not, we patrolled on the east side and timed the progress of the front. By calculating the speed of the front, he forecast the time of closing of various bases along the Aleutian chain. Armed with information (the patrol carrying Commander Tatum was the only plane allowed to break radio silence), the commanders of the various squadrons ordered their planes home for a certain time, an hour or two before forecast closing time. Sometimes we didn’t make it and had to return to a base further up the chain. We always carried clothes for several days when we went on patrols, never being sure what base would be available when we returned. On the other hand, we frequently took off when the Ptarmigan (a small, native bird) were grounded. The Army waited for

decent weather for takeoff and came back when the birds were walking, leading to lots of lost aircraft. I don’t know why they didn’t use our weather service. Weather was our chief enemy and the Japanese only a minor problem. When the weather broke, as it infrequently did, we worried about float plane Zeroes out of Kiska. At that time we loved to see the Army B–17s and B–24s because we knew where we were and they could follow us home, if worse came to worst.

We paid extremely close attention to our navigation, always flying in contact with the water. Sometimes that meant flying at 50 feet up and down 80 foot swells. We could get our wind direction and our strength within five knots. At times with wind strength up to 80 knots and blowing spume, our drift exceeded 30 degrees, the maximum we could read on our Norden bombsight. At that time we had to estimate how much it exceeded 30 degrees. Wind streaks and sea state were our primary reliance, although at times we ran wind stars (60 degrees left, 120 degrees right and back on course, subtracting one minute from our time on course if we ran one minute legs). By these methods, we could make landfall within five minutes and five miles after an eight-hour patrol, all on dead reckoning. Our radar helped us on making landfalls.

About May 1943, our squadron moved from Umnak to Amchitka to prepare for the invasions of Attu and Kiska. The Army flew strikes against both places out of Amchitka. They had some B–25s, each with a 75mm gun in the nose, some P–38s and P–40s. We flew “Dumbo” missions for them. On one of those fighter sweeps over Kiska, Second Lieutenant J.R. Bradley received a small caliber hit in his oil or cooling system on his P–40 and called “Mayday.” I was outside Kiska harbor and started after him at full throttle (100 knots). He was about five miles ahead of me when his engine froze and he went in. Passing over him at 50 feet, I dropped float (smoke) lights and landed into the wind toward him. His squadronmates were circling overhead. I brought him up between the hull and my left wing tip float. Bradley had been in the water less than five minutes in his heavy leather flying suit, but was already too weak to climb aboard. He held on to a heaving line and we pulled him over to the ladder rigged outside my port waist hatch. One of my mechanics climbed down the ladder and heaved him on board. We were prepared for the job and had a Navy medical corpsman with us. He stripped Bradley and wrapped him in an

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Weather proved as dangerous, if not more so, than the Japanese forces, with low visiblity, icing, storms and williwaws providing significant hazards. A nearby fellow PBY can just be made out through the haze (above), while the battle against ice and snow continued on the ground (below). USN photo

electric blanket. He also gave him a two ounce bottle of 100 proof brandy and had him drink it. The circling P–40s departed after I had Bradley on board. They didn’t know the most hazardous part of the operation was yet to come, our takeoff. Open sea takeoffs are no picnic. Swells were running 12 to 16 feet, which is very calm for those waters I had landed in with my depth charges still on my wings. Dumb me. Now they were a worry. On takeoff, I released them saftied just before I was about to hit the third swell with a teeth jarring, bottom popping thud, and just barely ticked it. We flew back about 90 miles to

Amchitka and Bradley was sufficiently recovered to walk off the airplane. Their skipper wrote our skipper a nice thank you letter and all was well except for one sunken P–40. Dumbo work was very gratifying when we could save someone’s neck like that.

I don’t know why I volunteered, but six of our crews went to VP–45 for the Attu invasion. About 1 May 1943, I went to Andrews Lagoon on Adak joining VP–45. They had brought up six new experimental PBY–5 boats, but no extra crews. These were brand new with heated leading edges on the wing and tail (regular PBYs had de-icer boots) and the Norden bombsight hooked into the Sperry autopilot instead of the Norden Stabilized Bombing Approach Equipment (SBAE) gear (really a second autopilot located under the pilot’s seat). When I got to Attu (13 May), the weather was lousy and with readings on my radar of land a quarter mile away, I couldn’t see it. We knew our charts were inaccurate, so I didn’t want to explore around the

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Left: Then-Lieutenant Glenn’s quarters at Umank from January to May 1943. It housed six officers and had a diesel oil burning stove which kept the tem-perature comfortable. The mess hall and hot showers were about a quarter mile away. Oliver Glenn collection

Below: Lieutenant Glenn in front of his summer quarters at Amchitka, where he stayed from July to August 1943. Oliver Glenn collection

island too much. The actual landing procedure at Massacre Bay at that time required the landing craft be controlled going into the beach by radar from the transports anchored only a few miles away. After several passes at the easternmost point of land at Attu, I picked up a ship on my radar a couple of miles away. It turned out to be the battleship USS Nevada (BB–36) steaming along at five knots with bare steerageway. I put my wingtip on her and circled at about 300 feet for about an hour. I knew she drew too much water to get close ashore so I was safe to circle her waiting for the weather to break. It never did, so I went home to Andrews Lagoon. Next morning I tried again. This time visibility was up to about a mile with a hundred foot ceiling and I went into Massacre Bay.

Reporting aboard Casco (since repaired at Bremerton), I was assigned a sector and ordered out quickly. We had about four PBYs patrolling for submarines to about 10 miles from the entrance to the bay. As the weather closed down intermittently, we were ordered in. We came in three or four times that day when weather deteriorated to about a quarter mile and 50 foot ceilings. Then as visibility opened up to a mile or more, we took off again. We didn’t leave the planes but just came in and idled around Casco Cove or else singled up to a buoy and broke out the food. With a single burner electric stove and auxiliary power unit, we could cook good meals—pork chops, steaks, potatoes, etc. I don’t remember if it was that day or the next, but Lieutenant Jess Jolly (on loan from VP–61) sighted a torpedo headed

for the battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB–38) and called her. She turned and paralleled the torpedo track as it went by her. Jolly then ran back up the torpedo track and dropped his depth charges and smoke lights. Some destroyers came over and thought they made a positive kill on

the submarine (postwar accounts revealed the submarine escaped).

Our assignment was antisubmarine protection for the bombardment forces and the transports during the invasion. We didn’t fly at night, but flew patrols from morning twilight through evening twilight and racked up a lot of air time. I don’t remember any further submarine sightings. The weather improved every day for the next week with the ceiling going up a hundred feet a day and the Japanese retreating with it up the mountains. They kept up an accurate fire across a ridge about half a mile up from the beach and it was suicide to cross. Only two companies of Japanese tied up 10,000 America troops. Our 105mm howitzers kept up a constant fire on the presumed Japanese positions. The howitzers were lined up on the beach firing while the LCVPs brought in ammunition almost to the trail spades of the guns. It was an ideal logistical situation, no motor transport or anything. For about a week we sat on the fantail of Casco after flights and watched our guns firing, then the ceiling lifted far enough that the Japanese had to retreat all the way to the north side of the island.

I went ashore to pick up some souvenirs and ran across an Army sergeant breaking up Japanese rifles. He was about to whack the stock of one across a large rock when I stopped him. The rifle was loaded with the safety engaged. I asked him for the rifle and showed him how to disengage the safety. I kept the rifle and a lot of ammunition, and the sergeant thanked me for probably saving his neck. There were lots

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Lieutenant Glenn with VP–61 plane crew No. 13, 19 March 1943. Top row (left to right) are LT Glenn, PPC; LTJG Simmons, 1st Pilot; ENS Jackson, 2nd Pilot; and AMM1/c Tedder, Plane Captain. Bottom row (left to right) are AMM2/c Heard, 2nd Mechanic; ARM2/c McClelland, 1st Radioman; and ARM3/c Turnbull, 2nd Radio-man. Crewman ARM3/c Barnes not shown in photo. Oliver Glenn collection

of Japanese lying around with their heads split in two—when threatened with capture, they touched off hand grenades and held them under their chins. The American dead were stacked neatly on a large tracked trailer with their dog tags attached to their big toes.

The battle was continuing on the north side of the island around Chichagof Harbor and there were scattered parties of Japanese roaming the mountains. Army Lieutenant General Simon Buckner was aboard our ship taking a shower and getting cleaned up. When he was ready to leave, Commander Cleaves asked me to take

him back to the north side of the island where he had established his headquarters. After takeoff, I invited him up to the co-pilots seat and he asked me to fly him around the island a bit to see from the air where his troops were fighting. We cruised around the island for about an hour until he wanted to land. He was as nice a guy as you’d ever want to meet; he felt like a kindly grandfather. After we landed, he thanked me and said he’d invite me ashore to have dinner, but he didn’t have mess set up and only had K-rations. I felt sorry; here he was with three stars on his collar eating K-rations and I, a measly two stripe lieutenant, was eating on a white tablecloth, cloth napkins and two or three pieces of silverware on each side of my plate.

About a day or two later, an Army colonel came aboard our ship looking for an airplane to drop some propaganda leaflets on the Japanese.

Things were winding down and they couldn’t hold out much longer. This colonel was in intelligence and had some bales of paper Kiri leaves with something printed on them to the effect that when these leaves fall, it bodes ill for the Japanese Empire. Also baled were some surrender leaflets telling how one could surrender (this was early in the war, and we didn’t know yet that the Japanese didn’t surrender). Commander Cleaves looked around the wardroom and volunteered me for the mission. I didn’t trust the Japanese much and snaked around the edges of the bay toward their positions, popping up over a hill

and diving down past their area, passing them at an altitude of about 25 feet. The colonel dumped his stuff to flutter down into their position while I turned as rapidly left, right, up and down as I could as I got the hell out of there. While I was kicking the plane around, the Japanese put a 75mm under my tail. They had time for only one shot before we were gone. No results were achieved by the propaganda as far as I knew. The Japanese weren’t made that way. That night they made their banzai charge and it was all over.

With resistance ended at Attu, we extended our patrols westward toward Paramushiro, a big Japanese base. One of my patrols extended toward Petropavlovsk. I told Commander Cleaves that I would like to see Petropavlovsk and intended to extend my patrol a little bit. He said he wouldn’t order me to go or not, but if I were, he would put a photographer aboard.

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A PBY lands next to USS Casco (AVP–12), which Lieutenant Glenn’s crew was assigned to during the Battle of Attu. USN photo

We were cruising down the coast a mile or two offshore photographing the hell out of the port and not paying any attention to shipping underneath. One of my observers later said a Russian ship below us started to zigzag madly thinking we were going to bomb him. He must have called for help, because up came two I–16 Mosca fighters. There wasn’t a cloud where we could hide for 150 miles, so we continued to cruise along. I told my crew not to break out their guns. The Russians made a diving pass crisscross across my nose firing. I waggled my wings friendly as a puppy dog. Pretty soon they popped up one under each wing tip about 50 feet away. We waved at each other and they went home. I had visions of getting interned, but we were giving them too much war materiel they didn’t want to jeopardize. I went home to Attu. That night in the wardroom, our photographer (Warren Olney) sent up about 100 of the most beautiful photos you’d hope to see. Two of them were portraits of our Russian “friends” in their fighters, so clear you could count every hair in their moustaches and find every misdriven rivet in their planes. We found later that our intelligence officer considered those photos so sensitive he put a high classification on them and no one ever saw them again. In 1999 the photographer told me that the intel officer stood over him while he was processing the pictures and gathered every scrap of paper for burning.

After the show at Attu was over, Carl Amme arrived with the remainder of VP–45. He had been promoted to lieutenant commander and put in charge of the new squadron, partly, I suppose, in recognition of his getting the Japanese sub at Atka the previous fall. He was an academy man and a good pilot, so he certainly deserved it. Our six crews returned to VP–61 on Amchitka about 90 miles from Kiska, obviously our next target. During the ensuing two months, there arrived a period of about 10 days with constant fog so thick we couldn’t even find our planes let alone fly them. The Japanese used this period to sneak past our blockade and rescue the garrison. After heavy bombardment, our troops went ashore with no opposition and shot up every rice kettle the 6,500 troops left cooking in their haste to get on those ships. They didn’t even take their clean socks with them. After our chagrin wore off, someone found there were too many squadrons in the area with no enemy within range, so they ordered our squadron back to the States.

Commander Oliver Glenn, USNR, received his aeronautical engineering degree from Oregon State University June 1940 and entered flight training at Pensac-ola in Class 152C. Receiving his wings and commission in May

1941, he stayed at Pensacola as a flight instructor until May 1942. He was then ordered to VP–61 at NAS Alameda, California, operating PBYs. He flew in the Aleutian Islands from August 1942 until Sep-tember 1943. Leaving VP–61 in October 1943, he retrained in PB4Y–1s at NAS San Diego. He was ordered to VB–109 at Apamama, an island in the Gilbert Group, in January 1944. After this second combat cruise, he was ordered to flight instructor duty in PB4Ys in Miami. Released to inactive duty in August 1945, he became a co-pilot for TWA. He later left TWA and went to China to fly transports for the China National Aviation Corp. Returning to the U.S. in June 1949, he joined Lockheed as an aeronautical engineer which included work at the “Skunk Works” for 14 years. During the summer of 1957, while assigned to Lockheed, he flew as co-pilot for Howard Hughes. He retired from Lockheed in June 1990. Commander Glenn passed away 5 July 2013 at the age of 94.

Mr. Roy L. Balke was born in central Wisconsin in 1925. Be-fore graduating from high school he joined the Navy V–5 Aviation Cadet Program, but after gradu-ation, class of 1943, he was called to active duty in the Navy

V–12 College Training Program where he completed two semesters at Emory and Henry College and was then transferred to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a cadet. After the Navy announced they had too many pilots Roy volunteered for air gunnery school and was then assigned to VPB–109 as an aircrew-man, where he participated in the battles of the Phil-ippines, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. After discharge from the Navy, Roy received a B.S. degree in Electri-cal Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and worked for General Electric Company for 40 years on design of electrical rotating machines. He authored 10 published technical papers and holds 18 U.S. patents. He is a licensed professional engineer, a member of IEEE and a life member of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. Roy is married to Elizabeth K. Behling, a Business Education teacher. They recently celebrated their 64th wedding anniver-sary. They have four children, eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

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