Hunt, a World War II Lend-Lease pilot, stood next to a vintage bright yellow Harvard Mark IV in historic Hangar 1 telling stories about his time ferrying planes to Alaska during Fort Wainwright’s celebration of Ladd Field’s 70th anniversary on Saturday. The event featured food, live music, demonstrations from the smokejumpers and Eielson Air Force Base’s F-16s, and a history lesson about the early years of what eventually became known as Fort Wainwright.
“This hangar was here, but they’ve fixed it up a lot,” Hunt said. “Things were pretty primitive back then. There were a lot of tents and Herman Nelson heaters.”
As a Lend-Lease pilot, Hunt, now 88, flew planes from South Dakota to Alaska, where they were handed over to America’s Soviet allies. Though these weren’t combat missions, they were still dangerous.
Hunt, still a slender man who on Saturday wore the original leather Air Transport Command jacket and patch issued to him seven decades ago, described how he could just barely fit in the cockpits of the small planes he ferried and still needed to find room for maps.
He recounted how on one flight in 1942 the single engine in a P-39 he was flying went out on the plane as he was 5,000 feet over the Rocky Mountains.
“They always said that if the engine quit, just bail out. We can replace the planes. We can’t replace the pilots,” he said. “I looked down and saw the snow on the mountains. If I had parachuted out, I wouldn’t have survived long.”
Hunt was able to change his fuel source and get a boost from the electrical system that allowed him to right the plane and successfully complete the flight.
“It was the best flying job you could have,” he said. “I enjoyed every minute of it.”
Hunt, who now lives in Anchorage, left the military after World War II. He founded two airlines that have since folded and also worked for the FAA.
He now works with the Commemorative Air Force, a group dedicated to preserving World War II-era planes and keeping them in flying condition. In fact, Hunt donated the Canadian Harvard Mark IV to the organization three years ago.
“It honors the people who flew them and us to remember what they did for our country,” said Leigh Ross, whose husband Donald founded the Alaska Wing of the Commemorative Air Force.
Contact staff writer Chris Freiberg at 459-7545.
I would almost be afraid of trying to explain to that guy about what his name really means to some people.