Harry Hopkins Meets Joseph Stalin. Chapter Three: The Flight: Lost, Found, Safe, a Pilot Shot
The flight was delayed but Gen. McNarney outranked weather. Magnetic forces compromised navigation. A beautiful interpreter met them and drooled over Lt. Alison. A banquet followed. A pilot was shot.
This Episode: Stalin was losing ground steadily as he was under siege from Hitler’s superior Nazi army. Roosevelt and Churchill were looking for some way to stem the tide and open a partnership of some kind with Stalin if he could hold out until “Mother Nature came to the defense of Mother Russia.” Harry Hopkins was in England to settle final details on the secret and soon-scheduled meeting between his boss and Winston when the Russian Ambassador to the Court of St. James asked Harry if he was strong enough to travel to Moscow to discuss Lend Lease support with Stalin. The suggestion advanced to a dangerous plan that would require Harry’s getting there, meeting with Stalin, and getting back in time to travel with Winston to the mid-ocean meeting with Roosevelt. If he could pull it off and return with an informal agreement, the balance of power could shift to the advantage of the Allies.
This Chapter: PBY Captain McKinley configured his plane by leaving his four gunners at home to allow for the three passengers he would carry. He was encouraged by the versatility of General McNarney and Lt. Alison that he had read in his mission statement. Harry’s appearance worried him but he was the mission so he would be accommodated. Harry said if they encountered trouble he would man one of the side-blister gun stations. McKinley said okay because the guns could only shoot outbound bullets. Weather stalled their departure until Gen. McNarney overruled the weather analysts. The flight was uneventful until their proximity to the magnetic forces of the North Pole got them lost. On arrival, an airborne incident with one of the Russian planes that found them got its pilot shot before the welcoming banquet began.
Contents of “Harry Hopkins meets Joseph Stalin”:
Requesting Approval
The Sendoff: Winston, Pamela, and Kathleen
The Flight: Lost, Found. Safe, a Pilot Shot
Famous People: In the Little Corner. An Air Raid
Historic Photo Confirms Historic Meeting
Chapter Three: The Flight: Lost, Found, Safe, a Pilot Shot
Reading time: Nineteen minutes
Clementine, like all her sister PBY-5s, had twin engines emerging from a hundred-foot “parasol wing,” the name connoting its high placement at about midship. She carried ten crewmen in the sixty-foot fuselage under normal conditions. Four were gunners, one each in the nose and tail, and one in each of the side “blister” stations. The other six were pilot, co-pilot, radio operator, flight engineer, navigator, and radar operator. Captain McKinley, informed on Sunday that he would carry three passengers — one of them a “high grade VIP” — faced a trade-off between fuel allocation, his crew positions, and his bomb load, with lift-off weight as the complicator.
He was told that one passenger would remain in Archangel. That meant he could pick up additional fuel there for the return flight that would require more for the head winds he would face coming home. He added two auxiliary interior tanks, half full for the first leg. That would balance their weight, but seriously reduce the interior space. It couldn’t be helped. He would carry no bombs or depth charges. They were useful when he found a U-Boat running shallow, but that wasn’t part of this mission. Reluctantly, he chose to pull three gunners off the flight. His experience with the Arctic route was that it wasn’t much troubled by the enemy. If anything came up, he had one gunner, and if anything real bad came up, that man could show the passengers how to pull the triggers on the other thirty-caliber guns. The reality of the PBY was that it was a patrol aircraft and not much of an attack weapon because it was slow. He would hope Clementine looked innocent and not worth the trouble if she was spotted.
Twenty-fours aloft was a problem the crew had mastered on their flight the previous week. McKinley wanted the controls on takeoff and descending. He and his co-pilot, Carl Owen, would share the first seat on three-hour shifts for the first twelve hours, and four-hour shifts for the second twelve. They could nap in the back, with Redding, the flight engineer who was pursuing his credentials for the first seat, taking the co-pilot seat if necessary. The others all did double duty. The navigator and the radar operator were interchangeable and their stations were side by side, so one man could do both jobs until something came up; the same with the radioman and the flight engineer, and the gunner was full utility.
There were four cots in the fuselage, along with the food prep area and the head. It was tight, and tighter still now with the auxiliary fuel tanks, but he forced two more bunks in anyway. Access to the tail gun was possible only by crawling through a narrow passage. His remaining gunner could do it easily, but he didn’t want him back there with rookies manning the guns up front if it came to that. That was an unresolved issue until he learned that the fates, or the brass, had given him the answer with the passengers.
John Alison, the flight lieutenant among the passengers, had been in England for four months training RAF pilots on the P-40 Tomahawks that were arriving through Lend Lease. He could probably fly anything above a bathtub, and surely had weapons training and the fitness to make it to the tail. More, General McNarney had been an ace in the Great War, and had commanded the U.S. Air Force’s Primary Training School. Surely, he could still fly, and McKinley guessed he could slip into and get out of the nose gun station. That put three skilled pilots on board, with two others who were competent, and gave him gunners at three of the four stations. As for the VIP, well … he was the VIP and that was the point of the mission.
Invergordon was well north in Scotland, on the eastern coast and tucked inside the vast Cromarty Firth. The weather was bad that morning, and the flight was delayed. The seven crewmen and the three passengers got acquainted over coffee and “Mrs. Simpson’s scones and honey.”
McKinley was stunned by the appearance of Harry Hopkins. He looked like he might not survive a day on the beach, much less the flight to Archangel. Harry noticed. McKinley explained the configuration of the interior, apologized for its crowding, and discussed the “unlikely” possibility of manning the gun stations under an attack. He said, “The tail gun is a hard crawl uphill going in, but an easy descent coming out. I think Lieutenant Alison can handle it.”
Harry said, “Uphill?” He hadn’t yet had a good look at Clementine’s configuration.
“Yes. The tail on this baby is raised, to our great advantage and relief, and the passageway is narrow.”
Harry said, “To your relief?”
“Yes. Patrol boats are vulnerable on takeoff as the front ascends and the tail has an inclination to settle in the water. In an active sea, we’ve had real problems with it, but this model — made by your American craftsmen, Mr. Hopkins — has raised the tail to reduce that concern to nothing much at all.”
Harry said, “I would like to nominate myself for the fourth gun station.”
“Have you had weapons training?”
“No, but I’ll bet I can learn in a hurry is some sonofabitch is shooting at us.”
“Okay. If it comes up, I’ll not stand in your way. In defense of your request, the good news is the range of motion of the gun restricts its firing anywhere other than outbound. So, there’s no downside. But these thirty caliber guns are big bastards.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. You’ll find I’m sturdier than I look.”
“I’m sure, Mr. Hopkins, but if I let anything happen to you I’ll be doing kitchen duty for the next six months. If I’m lucky.”
“I’m your rabbit’s foot, Lieutenant. I’m the luckiest man you’ve ever met.”
“Make it Mac, Mr. Hopkins. We don’t stand on ceremony here. Not when we’re aloft.”
“Harry, Mac.”
General McNarney said, “Joe. I also answer to Mac, but one Mac is plenty. I’m Joe.”
“Johnny,” said Alison. “Let’s dance.”
“The brass is sweating the weather. Overruling them is above my rank.”
Harry said, “Would you fly in this weather?”
“Sure. We’ve laughed at worse.”
“So, they’re being cautious for my sake.”
“That’s my guess.”
“I’ve got the rank to overrule them. Or I could get it with a phone call.”
“Let’s give the nervous nannies an hour or two before we drop the Prime Minister on their heads. By the by, we named our lovely lady Clementine just yesterday. Painted it on her cheek in lipstick red.”
*
Joe McNarney picked up the cudgel of screw-the-weather. He went to the base commander, whom he outranked by about ten levels of promotions, and put it to him.
“How long is this flight expected to take?”
“We estimate close to twenty-three hours outbound and longer on the return. The winds will be westerly, accounting for that.”
“I see. For the purposes of this discussion, which is brought on by the flight’s delay for weather, would you agree that the inbound flight is irrelevant?”
“Certainly.”
“And that, as we fly two thousand miles east to west at a very low level, we will encounter a range of weather conditions that may vary from benign to horrible?”
“Yes.”
“Through which there will be no turning back, and no place to stop no matter how bad it gets?”
“Yes.”
“Now, speaking only of the weather cell that concerns you here at the base at this moment, how long would you expect the flight to take to reach its northern extremity?”
“Perhaps as much as an hour.”
“And how long do you expect the weather cell to linger?”
“That’s hard to say because it’s stable right now.”
“Is it worse than the kinds of weather that can be expected on the balance of the flight?”
“I have no way of knowing.”
“Typically? Worse than what is typical?”
“In the mid-range of that, you might say.”
“Finally, this. Do you realize that this flight is both important and time-critical?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think we should cancel it? Go back to our homes?”
“I suppose not.”
“Have you heard your answers to each of my questions?”
“Of course.”
“Would you like to repeat them to the Prime Minister?”
“No.”
“May we depart?”
“Yes. But let me ask you this. What do think is the purpose of weather analysis if not to determine acceptably safe conditions?”
“That’s the purpose, and I make no criticism of your standards nor of your professional application of them. But they must not any longer delay this flight.”
“Very well. You are cleared, but over my objections.”
“You won’t be blamed if anything should happen. If I survive, I’ll see to that. Thank you.”
Joe, Johnny, and Harry stayed out of the way for the first hour, or as much out of the way as was possible in the limited space. Harry decided he would be the steward, preparing and delivering the meals, but as he rummaged through the food prep area he discovered there was nothing that required cooking, or even heating. It was all dry. Dried fruit, dried beef, dry nuts, candy, and biscuits. After it was consumed, there would be no remains, and so, no dishes. It was possible to make coffee, though problematic in rough air. The first pot he made ended up as a half-pot after nature took her course.
Johnny Alison was unable to sit still on his cot, and so spent all his time learning from each of the crew what their work entailed, how their equipment worked, and how much respect they had for its functionality. He was a sponge — happy, polite, professional, and deferential — and his attention was taken not as an interference, but as an honor.
Harry was impressed with the aircraft’s elevated tail, and pleased with its American invention. Joe said that was typical of the ways in which the American observers had been helpful, said the British gratitude for what they were receiving, and their innate good manners, kept them from suggesting how it could be improved. The observers penetrated that by going far beyond observing into becoming partners, sleeves rolled up and making criticism part of the regular conversations that resulted in seeing problems like the drag of the tail. He said, “All military guys bitch about their gear. It’s never good enough, and they’re always right. So we just bitch right along with them. Sometimes we’ve gone so far as to blame you. By name. Well, not sometimes, but usually. When something goes really wrong, Harry Hopkins becomes a three-word curse.”
Harry and Joe speculated on Joe’s service as they sat on their cots. Harry admitted he didn’t know, he was unaccustomed to having an aide in his work, largely because he didn’t know what his work was until it arrived at his nose. Joe said Harry should just ignore him until he needed something, anything, and not be concerned about him until he did. He said Harry could depend on his “absolute, iron-clad confidence and support. I’ve always got your back and never your front.”
“Good. The only military guy I’ve ever been completely comfortable with is George Marshall.”
“Well, he’s as tough as we get, so you and I will get along fine.”
Harry’s comfort with him grew to the point where he mentioned the problem of America’s Russian Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt and his military attaché, Major Ivan Yeaton. Their view of the Russian chances against Hitler had gone beyond concern to such extreme defeatism that they were considered cowardly in the Kremlin, where that was a capital offense.
“That’s the last thing, the very last thing, I want Stalin to think about us. In the long run … no, in the short run, they will both have to be replaced as evidence that America does not share their opinions. But I don’t want to spend my time on this trip as the harbinger of the boss’s dissatisfaction with Steinhardt. Nor waste my time trying to reëducate him. At the same time, I want to upgrade the Russians’ opinion of him to make him a more effective ambassador for as long as he’s here.”
McNarney said, “It may be helpful to use me in that. I assume you’ll want him with you when you present your credentials.”
“Yes.”
“But at some point you believe the conversations will go better if he’s not in on them.”
“Yes.”
“When that time comes, if you could contrive to have me present, you could brush us both off at the same time, and he may see it as you simply wanting time alone with the General Secretary, and not as a personal affront.” Harry liked that and said he might use it.
McKinley kept Clementine low, about one hundred feet, or a little more, off the surface of the seas, the North Sea, leading to the Norwegian Sea, and then the Barents Sea just south of the Arctic Ocean, though it was all just open water. They flew along Norway’s western coast, not within sight of it, and then around that country’s northern border, to its meeting with northernmost Russia. There was no night. Their proximity to the top of the planet took care of that.
Harry asked Mac, on one of his breaks, why he had chosen the RAF’s Coastal Command.
“I didn’t. They chose me. But I love it so much that you may be only the second luckiest man on this flight.”
“Why?”
“For the beauty of its coast, of my nation’s watery borders. I love a good fight. I love blowing up a Nazi submarine, of finding something lurking on one of our convoys and giving it hell until bigger help comes along on my call. Chasing the Bismarck was great fun. A PBY killed that bastard, you know. Found it skulking away and called its position. But I love the quiet patrols even more than the combat for the chance to get great views of our coastlines.
“It’s a great and singular honor, Harry, to be chosen to carry you out and back on your mission to save the democracies. You appear to be not as well as you would like, as well as I would like.”
“I’m well enough to do my job, Mac. Nothing else matters to me.”
“Nor to me, Harry. We will, by God, get you there and back. Woe betide any bastard who gets in our way. We’ll win this war. You know that, don’t you?”
“As sure as God made green apples, Mac. As sure as that.”
The temperature dropped into the forties across the Barents Sea passage north of Norway. Harriman’s topcoat came in handy. Murmansk had been the terminus of McKinley’s flight the previous week, and now, after twenty-two elapsed hours, they sighted the great port as expected. Proceeding southeast from Murmansk on their right, they would encounter Kanin Point, marking the entrance to the White Sea where they would head due south to Archangel. But George Bryand, the navigator, was experiencing flutter with his gauges, which he attributed to the magnetic forces of the Arctic Pole, and he headed more east than southeast, missed Kanin Point entirely, and found Clementine approaching something that his maps suggested was Kolzuev Island. Bryand was lost, and Johnny Alison, hovering over Bryand, made his way to McNarney and Hopkins and told them of it.
He said, appearing more amused than concerned, “We’re temporarily lost.”
Joe said, “Is ‘temporarily’ an optimistic opinion, or is it supported by actual evidence?”
Johnny said, “I would say the former, but there is no doubt of an enormous landmass to our south, called Russia. So perhaps I should have said, ‘We are recoverably lost.’ ” He returned to the navigation station. In a few minutes, he came back to Joe and Harry and said, “It appears we have entered the White Sea.”
Harry said, “Appears?”
“Yes. Unless it is Cheshskaya Bay, which looks very much like the White Sea at this altitude since they are both vast bodies of water.”
“Are you optimistic?”
“Yes in the long run, less in the short. We are expected and have been told that Soviet aircraft will lead us to Archangel. But, of course, they have to find us first, visually, and if this is actually Cheshskaya Bay, they will not likely be looking for us here.”
Joe said, “Is our fuel adequate?”
“Somewhat. An issue would arise if we entered Russia off target. We couldn’t land there, naturally, since we have no wheels, and if we become involved in a lot of wandering around, one thing could lead to another. On this heading, we should very soon pick up the signal from Archangel radio. That would help quite a lot.”
A cheer went up from the cockpit, and Johnny hurried to it, and hurried back to Joe and Harry. “Three Soviet fighters have seen us. I believe we are saved.”
“No more worries?”
“Well, if it is Cheshskaya Bay, the approach to Archangel will be over land, and there are mountains.”
Harry said, “Which are you enjoying more? The experience, or our discomfort with it?”
Johnny scratched his head and rubbed his chin.
“Well … which?”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”
It had been the Bay, but the Soviet planes led them across the narrow neck of the Kanin Peninsula into the White Sea. The approach to Archangel was through a near numberless scattering of small islands where the Dvina River emptied into the sea. Small boats were scattered and many people were on the beaches in the sunny, seventy-degree day. McKinley made a low pass over the landing zone and stayed aloft as he surveyed a huge number of logs floating through there to the sea. He circled — “cutting grommets,” Johnny called it — until the logs thinned enough to permit his descent. Near the water, one of the fighters dipped low in an apparent welcome and its wheel caught the antenna that stretched from Clementine’s high wing to her higher tail and snapped it off. She wobbled a bit from the incursion, but McKinley righted her and found safe and tranquil water. It was 4:00 p.m. Tuesday in Russia.
A launch came to the PBY and led her to the dock beside a houseboat. After shaking so many hands that Harry thought he was running for Mayor of Archangel, they got the lay of the land from a beautiful interpreter whose name Harry caught as Katya and who spoke looking only at Johnny as though he was a ham sandwich.
No planes were allowed to approach Moscow at night so their four-hour flight would not depart until 7:00 a.m. Wednesday. Hopkins, McNarney, and Alison, as guests of the USSR would be lodged in a nearby hotel. Clementine’s crew would have the houseboat. They did not have the status of invited guests, would not have to clear customs, and would not be allowed to visit the city while Harry and Joe were in Moscow. Mac told Harry that had been the routine of their trip to Murmansk, and it was neither surprising nor troubling.
Harry thought a good night’s sleep would be nirvana, but a large, older man in a uniform with fringed epaulets, battle ribbons, and medals calling himself the “Admiral of Archangel,” as if it were a joke, said it was his “instruction and pleasure” to have them as his guests for a welcoming banquet on his yacht. Harry said that would be an honor, but as the yacht was on water and not in the city, he would insist on the attendance of the flight crew that had brought him there. “We are citizens of a democracy in which all people are held equal, even as I understand that to be also the case in the Soviet Union.” It was a bit of a bluff, but this guy looked like a bit of a bluff himself, so he played it. The Admiral said something with a shrug that Katya reported as “Sure! What the hell!”
Johnny Alison didn’t drink, as they had learned in their long hours together, so as they gathered their luggage, Joe McNarney told him that might be a problem. “There will be toasts, more than you can count, and each of them involves a long line of bullshit followed by knocking back a shot of vodka. You may be able to avoid many of them, but at some point, dollars to doughnuts, your time will come. If you don’t drink, you will embarrass the man who toasts you and drag America into an international incident, perhaps resulting in a declaration of war and your own imprisonment, torture, and execution.”
“Damn, that’s enough to drive anybody to drink.”
“Here’s the secret. You want to have a piece of bread, the dark brown, with caviar on it, and you start chewing on that at the perfect moment, which is right when the guy is finishing toasting you for being so wonderful, and just before you knock back the vodka. If you time it just right, the vodka will hit the bread about halfway down and the bread will act as a shock absorber. You might want to practice that with water before the main event. You have to swallow the bread before you toss the vodka because if you drink with your mouth full, you will have insulted the vodka.”
“You’re getting even with me for fucking with you over getting lost, aren’t you? I thought Generals were above that sort of thing.”
“Lieutenant Alison, you can stay in your room like a candyass, but you’ll miss out on Katya.”
“General McNarney! Sir! If I stay in my room, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts so will Katya.”
Before they left for the hotel, they heard a gunshot. Harry said to Katya, “What was that?”
“The pilot of the plane that interfered with your plane has been shot.”