Operation coldfeet as i remember it, after almost 32 years

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Ukiah Daily Journal (http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com)

Operation Coldfeet: As I remember it, after almost 32 years

By William R. Jordan

Monday, May 24, 2010

Pan Am captain, retired

Editor's note: William R. Jordan, a 1942 graduate of Ukiah High School (and a 1938 graduate of the grammarschool in Redwood Valley), was awarded a CIA medal in 2008 for his part in a 1962 spy mission conducted bythe Office of Naval Research and the CIA. He wrote the following article about the mission, whose code namewas Operation Coldfeet, in the early 1990s.

In May 1962, the Office of Naval Research and the CIA launched one of the most exotic and successful spymissions of the Cold War: the parachuting of two intelligence officers onto a hastily abandoned Soviet driftstation deep in the Arctic ice pack. At this time the CIA had a wholly owned proprietary called IntermountainAviation, based in Marana, Arizona. Connie Seigrist was chief pilot and Doug Price was assistant chief pilot ofthis operation.

Among several other aircraft, Intermountain Aviation operated a newly rebuilt B-17G. This B-17 was outfittedwith a Robert Fulton Skyhook Pickup gear.

The primary reason for this was a plan to rescue Allen L. Pope from a stockade in Indonesia. Allen Pope wasshot down in 1958 while flying a CIA B-26 to assist rebels trying to overthrow the Sukarno government.

At about the time they were ready to head for Indonesia, Bobby Kennedy made a deal with Sukarno and Popewas released. Now, because of this the CIA had the ideal aircraft for Operation Coldfeet, available and ready togo.

Robert Fulton, the inventor of the Skyhook Pickup gear, was at the Marana base supervising the operation of hisinvention. He was closely followed by Air Force Major Jim Smith and Navy Lt. (j.g.) Leonard Le Schack. Thesewere the two intelligence officers that we dropped onto the ice island.

Of course, I was not aware of any of these events. The first I knew about any of this was about mid-May 1962when my Chief Pilot, Capt. Don Kinkel, called me into his office and said that the Navy wanted to borrow aPolar Navigator and was I interested. I immediately said sure. It sounded very interesting. He told me thatsometime in the next couple of days I would be given all the pertinent details.

Rather late one night about mid-May 1962, I received a phone call from someone saying that they were going totest some arctic rescue gear for the Navy and they needed a polar navigator. He went on to say that PanAmerican had informed him that I was an expert in Polar Navigation.

At this point I told him that I didn't know that I was an expert in anything. I then asked him where they wanted togo to do this testing and he said that we would go to Thule, Greenland initially and then go about three hundredmiles Northwest of there to do the testing. I said, "boy you really want to get out in the Boon Docks, don't you?Why don't you just go out into the desert on a really cold day?" He then told me, "No, no, we have to do this inthe actual place so the equipment will be subject to cold soaking and we will know that the stuff will really workor make some modifications if it doesn't."

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I then asked him what kind of an aircraft we would be using. He said, "a B-17." I said, "I don't think I want togo." Then he said, "The B-17 has been completely rebuilt and was like a brand new airplane." I again said that Ididn't think that I wanted to go. He then said that I hadn't even asked how much they would pay me. So I said,"OK, how much will you pay me?" When he told me $100 a day I immediately said "I'll go." He said, "There ismore." And I said, "I don't care, I'll go."

He then said that all my expenses would be covered and that he was authorized to tell me that my companywould continue my base pay while I was away.

He said that they would call me back when they were ready to go. A few days later he called and told me to meetthem in two days at the San Francisco Airport Hilton at 7 a.m. for breakfast, and before coming to breakfast toget the enroute weather and destination weather for Fairbanks, Alaska and to file a flight plan to Fairbanks.

I thought, "Boy, this sure is a strange way to get to Thule, but it's their mission and they can do it anyway theylike."

I made up the flight plan in my home the day before we were due to leave. In fact, I made two plans. One was alittle shorter by being more direct from Seattle North. The other was along the coastal route from Seattle. Thedirect route meant that we had to fly much higher than the Coastal route.

I left both flight plans with our Pan Am dispatcher. That is also where I got my verbal weather briefing and theweather reports for enroute and destination. Our Chief Pilot, Don Kinkel, had instructed the dispatchers to giveus all the help that we might need.

I then went to the Hilton where I met Connie Seigrist, Doug Price and Bob Fulton. After introductions I askedConnie which route he wanted to fly and he said, "the Coastal route, by all means. We don't want to fly that highfor that long." So I called Dispatch and had them file the Coastal route with Air Traffic Control.

A short time later, we took off for Fairbanks. Since I was so familiar with the local area and the local air trafficcontrol I operated the radios until a little after the top of the climb. I then crawled down into the nose of the B-17where the navigation station was. I spent quite a while checking the alignment of the sextant and the operation ofthe one and only gyro.

Shortly after passing Seattle, Bob Fulton came down into the navigation station and told me that I was probablyled astray by their cover story. He then proceeded to tell me that we were not going to Thule but to Point Barrow,Alaska and search for a Russian Ice Island.

He also said that since I had been mis-informed that I could leave the mission in Fairbanks and return home if Iwanted to. After hearing what Bob had to say I told him that I wouldn't miss this trip for the world. I didn't say itto Bob but it did go through my mind that now, maybe I could pay back a little something for the great educationI had received first in Naval Flight training and then at the University of California under the G.I. bill.

As I remember it now, after almost 32 years, we stopped at Fairbanks for fuel and then went on to Point Barrow.

One of the first people I met in Point Barrow was Dr. Max Brewer, head of the Navy's Arctic ResearchLaboratory, which, incidentally, was operated by the University of Alaska under a Navy Contract.

As it turned out, Max and I became quite close friends and we had many long and interesting conversations inhis office during the mission and on another one a year later to an Ice Station whose name I can't remember. I doknow that it was not T-3. Under Max's able direction we were all issued arctic clothing and settled into a nicewarm quonset hut.

The first thing of an operational nature that I remember doing was going to a "very closed door" meeting withCaptain John Cadwalader. This meeting was attended by our whole flight crew, and the crew of the P2V that hadfound NP-8 that day. (I don't recall our calling it NP-8. We just called it the Russian Ice Island.)



It seems to me that Major James Smith and Lieutenant ( j . g . ) Leonard Le Schack also attended this meeting.

During this meeting, Captain Cadwalader showed us pictures of typical Russian pre-fab buildings that Russiansused in the Arctic. He also used pictures of American quonset huts to emphasize the differences. He then wenton to give us the position of NP-8 as determined by the P2V that same day. He also gave us the estimated speedand direction of drift of the island.

At this point in the briefing, I distinctly remember that Captain Cadwalader seemed to become somewhatperturbed. He saw me making notes in my spiral notebook, the same one that I used in flight to make celestialcalculations. He said directly to me, since I was the only one in the room taking notes, that we do not normallyput anything in writing in this type of meeting. I said, "I'm sorry sir, but I must write down the latitude andlongitude of the Island's position and estimated position so I can put it on my chart. I'm afraid that my memory isnot good enough to do otherwise." He said that seemed reasonable and to please carry on.

To the best of my recollection all of this happened on May 26th. Then after a night's sleep (not really night, thesun was always well above the horizon) we headed out on our first attempt to find the Island.

On May 27th, the airplane was fueled above and beyond its capacity. This aircraft had the normal wing tanksplus Tokyo tanks which were tanks in the outer wing panels. We also had a huge tank in the bomb bay. Inaddition to all of this we had six 55-gallon drums in the main cabin. As the fuel in the bomb bay tank went downthey hand pumped the fuel from the drums into the tank. When the drums were empty they were droppedoverboard through a hatch in the floor of the cabin.

When we finally took off, we had a lot of people on board including Major Smith, LeSchack, CaptainCadwalader and an Army Captain who was a doctor. If Major Smith or Lt. LeSchack were hurt on the jump hewas to parachute in and give aid.

With all of the people on board and all of that fuel we were about 10,000 lbs. over maximum takeoff weight. Weused all but about 100 feet of that 4,000-foot Pierced Steel Plank runway. (PCP)

For that takeoff I was right up in the glass nose. All other takeoffs I was as far back in the tail as possible.

We immediately headed out on a Northerly heading (I don't remember exactly where it was) toward the positionof NP-8 that I had plotted on my grid navigation chart. This was the position provided by the crew of the P2V.

This part of the world is a very difficult area in which to navigate during Northern Hemisphere summer. At thisparticular time of the month, the moon was not visible and Venus was too close to the sun to be seen duringdaylight, which was 24 hours a day.

Even though my grid charts had a loran overlay it was not possible to use it because of the continuing daylight.The loran stations were so far away that the ground waves could not reach us and there were no skywaves. Thisagain was due to the perpetual daylight. The heaviside layer which bounces radio waves back to earth only formsat night.

Also, at these high latitudes only grid charts are practical. All meridians and parallels of latitude are laid out instraight lines. Each chart is laid out with a specified reference. Other types of charts have the meridians convergeto a point at the poles. All headings are in reference to grid North (essentially true North) rather than to magneticNorth.

Another problem associated with these high latitudes is that the magnetic compass is virtually useless so allheadings had to be flown with reference to a very precise gyro.

When we lined up on the runway for takeoff I set the gyro to the runway heading which gave us a rough settingfor establishing an initial heading to our objective.



As soon as we were settled down on our climb out and I had sufficient time to make my celestial calculations Ishot the sun, the only heavenly body available. (There were no stewardesses on board. )

My first shot of the sun showed that my initial setting of the gyro on the runway was a few degrees in error so Ireset the gyro and had the pilots turn to the proper heading.

From this point on I shot the sun every 20 minutes. On each of these shots I checked our heading and plotted asun line on the chart.

These single sun lines are quite accurate and you know you are on the sun line but without anything to cross theline with you are somewhat in doubt as to just where you are on this line.

At last we have something that works better at high latitudes. In fact, in general, the higher the better. This iscalled a PLOP line, a "pressure line of position." This is calculated by comparing the reading on a high rangeradio altimeter (absolute altitude) to the reading on a pressure altimeter (pressure altitude) . Since the airplane isbeing flown by reference to the pressure altitude, that reading stays relatively constant while the absolute altitudewill change relative to the air mast into which you are flying. If the absolute altitude is descending you are goinginto a low pressure area so your drift will be to the right and if ascending will be to the left (in the NorthernHemisphere). By using a rotary slide rule, especially made for this purpose, you can calculate the lateraldisplacement in miles and thus have a crossing line of position.

So my routine for the entire flight was to shoot the sun on the hour and at 20 and 40 after the hour and takealtimeter readings at 10, 30 and 50 past the hour.

As I recall, we did cruise at 8,000 feet until we neared the Ice Station's predicted position and then we descendedso as to cross the position at 1,500 feet.

As we crossed the position, I had the pilots initiate a fixed square search. After flying several legs of the searchpattern (I can't remember how many) the pilots called on the interphone and said that they could see the Russianisland. They then turned and flew directly to what they thought was the island. When we got close we could seethat it wasn't the Russian island but a huge, flattened pyramid of what appeared to be 55-gallon fuel drums. Thiswas a very large Russian fuel dump.

When we reached the fuel dump, Captain Cadwalader came down to my navigation station and told me to writedown the latitude and longitude of the fuel dump so he could radio it to Washington immediately. He then saidfor me to also write down an estimated time of arrival back to Point Barrow.

Even though I was quite confident of my positions, I was a little stressed by that request for an ETA. Here wewere some 600 miles north of Point Barrow in a slow airplane, and the slower the airplane and the greater thedistance the more small errors can exacerbate an estimated time of arrival.

I quickly reviewed my outbound ground speed calculations and wind drifts and put it all in my E6B navigationcalculator and came up with an ETA for Captain Cadwalader.

I'm very happy to say that we turned down wind at Point Barrow within 1 1/2 minutes of my written ETA. I willalso, reluctantly, admit that there was a little luck involved.

While we were walking in from the airplane Captain Cadwalader told me that he made the same request to thenavigators of the P2V when they were leaving the Russian Ice Station and they were 25 minutes late arriving atPoint Barrow.

We again set out on May 28th for another try at locating NP-8. I know that we made a second try on our ownbecause of what happened that day.

This second day was almost a carbon copy of the first day. Just as before, when we reached the position given tous by the P2V we started our square search. After a few legs of the search, the pilots called down and said that



they could see the Island. This time I stayed at my station and when the airplane settled down on a heading to the"Island," I plotted it on my chart and sure enough we were heading right to the fuel dump that we had found theday before. I called the pilots and told them what I thought. In a few more minutes, there we were, right over thefuel dump. Needless to say, this gave me a great deal of confidence in the accuracy of my positions.

Again, at this point, we had to head to Point Barrow due to fuel constraints. I would like to point out thatreturning to Point Barrow was not much of a problem because a few hours after we would leave Point Barrowthe people there would put their radio beacon on high power which made it possible for our aircraft's AutomaticDirection Finders to pick up the beacon a long way out.

On the 29th, the P2V took off about two hours ahead of us and with the help of their highly sensitive radar (goodenough to pick up a submarine's snorkel) they were able to find NP-8; thanks also to a nice big tractor left by theRussians.

When we got within ultra high frequency radio range, the P2V was able to give us bearings to their position bythe use of their UHF direction finding equipment.

Every few minutes, I would give them a short count and they would give us a bearing. Before I could use thesebearings directly, I had to confirm that we were using charts with the same reference grid.

By using these bearings, we arrived at NP-8 and prepared to drop Smith and Le Schack, along with a lot ofequipment.

Very shortly after our arrival at NP-8, the P2V had to head out for Pt. Barrow.

The insertion went very smoothly and luckily the good services of the Army Captain doctor were not needed.

With all the other things that we left at the Ice Station, we also dropped a radio beacon which our automaticdirection finders could home-in on. It worked fine while we were there and during our departure, but it must havebeen a Radio Shack discount special because it never worked again.

To be continued on the next Reminisce page, Sunday, June 6.

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Operation coldfeet as i remember it, after almost 32 years