Loran Yarns
Port Clarence – The Journey Continues
By Jack Morrison
When
assigned to isolated duty you knew that you gave up many things you enjoyed at
other units. Contact with those other than those with you was limited to mail or
an occasional phone patch; television and radio became an unknown, you made do
with sea prints, copies of selected movies (you had no vote in the selection,
you just watched them) or occasionally a B/W copy of Perry Mason, Rawhide or
whatever the selectors thought was a safe TV show for you to see. Naturally all
commercials were excluded which meant an hour-long show lasted 50 minutes. But
the one thing that could not be left behind was beer!
When I first reported
to Port Clarence in May 1963 our logistic needs were met by an airplane from Air
Station Kodiak every two weeks. Part of the cargo was the beer, a round number
like 40 or 50 cases for our 30 man crew was on board. Flying in Alaska is a
little rougher than in the lower 48. Accidents occurred and investigations made.
The primary cause (or so it was said) was
the increase in flight hours due to the bi-weekly log flights made to the Loran
stations (I believe there were four at the time) and it was recommended that
they change the period to three weeks. Now there was a problem. The primary
aircraft used was an HU-16 and occasionally a C-123. Generally
an Albatross was limited in the amount of cargo it could carry. Instead of 26
log flights we now had 17, the additional food carried on each flight had to go
somewhere. The district decided that one case of beer per man per flight was
adequate, 24 cans to be spread out over 21 days. This solved their problem!
Our skipper at the time
(I’ll leave him nameless) loved his beer, so the new restrictions had an
immediate impact on him. Solution: he drafted a station order setting the
drinking age at 21. This opened about 4-6 cases for use as he determined.
This did not go over
well with the crew but what could we do? The engineering department consisted of
seven snipes, six of whom came from those parts of our country where
homebrew was a fact of life. Shortly after the new station order went into
effect, a design was drawn up and the
necessary work accomplished to provide “white lightning” to a selected
group. This continued for many months with only a few knowing where the still
was actually located and strict self-policing to avoid problems.
For the Christmas and
New Years holidays it was decided to widen the choices offered and production
of applejack, orangejack and grapejack commenced. The selection of containers
was limited so the electrician donated the glass containers that his battery
water and acid came in. Each held five gallons. After dinner on Christmas Day,
the captain opened a fifth that he said had been a present from the bush pilots that supplied us -- It
was soon history. The CO commented that he wished that there had been more than
the one bottle, looks passed around the mess deck, heads nodded in agreement and
shortly a five gallon jug of applejack appeared with a ribbon it. I do not know
what surprised the captain more the appearance of the jug and its contents or
the fact that the crew had been able to accomplish the manufacture without him
being any wiser. He wisely said nothing other than, "fill it up” as he
passed his glass forward.