Wild Blue Murder

By Donald Young and Bernard Nolan

A fiery crash at a remote air force base in the Azores archipelago takes the lives of five USAF airmen and a civilian farmer. Captain Jim Welch joins the ensuing accident investigation. After a finding of pilot error, it is determined that the crash was no accident. Absent a logical explanation, a criminal investigation begins. Several suspects surface each having motive, means and opportunity. A briefcase found at the crash scene leads Welch and Alberto Zagame, an irascible local lawyer, through a complex web of evidence and relationships as the investigation unfolds on two continents.

An apparent suicide is thought to provide answers, but an autopsy reveals that death also to be murder. The protagonist grasps the connection, and is certain he knows who the killer is, but not that he can prove it. He is very nearly another murder victim before the truth is revealed in a confrontation with the killer.

The main characters are introduced in the early chapters, and flash backs examine their personas. Relationships are rooted in the aerial combat arena of WW II and the culture of pre war America. As the criminal investigation winds to its climax, a penetrating overview of the military justice system of the era is offered. History, mystery and romance along with an introduction to the islands beauty and Portuguese culture are all captured in this saga.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 20, 2007
• ISBN: 9781465330697

Donald Young

Nolan the airman – spent a lifetime in aerospace activities. Nolan’s Air Force career spanned 22 years during which he flew combat missions in the air campaign in Europe in 1944 followed by ten years as a transport pilot flying North Atlantic routes. After leaving the Air Force Nolan joined NASA where he was active managing an airborne research program and several satellite projects. He is the author of the book Isaiah’s Eagles Rising. Young the lawyer - served as both a prosecutor and defense counsel as a Navy Judge Advocate before serving in a variety of legal positions in private life. This is his first foray into fiction reaching deeply into life’s experiences for material. He lives in Alexandria and Louisa County, Virginia. The airman and the lawyer collaborate to bring you Wild Blue Murder.

Book preview

Chapter 1

September 21, 1951, We Have an Emergency

It was the old dream—the recurring one that so often invaded his sleep. Jim Welch is in the cockpit of an airplane somewhat resembling in his nocturnal distortions that of a C-54. He is at the controls in the left seat—desperately trying to climb above the ridge looming ahead, the summit of which is still above. One moment, it is layered rock and another, sparsely covered by huge trees. All the fears of entrapment saturate his subconsciousness. The airplane of his dream is always caught unexpectedly in a cavernous valley with no room to reverse course and exit. He must climb over the crest turning this way and that seeking a saddle through which to pass. Now he approaches the top but knows he won’t clear it. He summons full power from the four Pratt and Whitney engines to no avail.

The dream fantasy always has the same components—the overpowering dread of entrapment, the sense of motion and actual feel of the airplane brought about by pressures fed back to his hands and feet in response to the movement of flight-control surfaces. Welch is never able to fathom the sensation of actually feeling the aircraft’s reaction to his control inputs in his dream. In the tight turns of his reverie, he reaches for the elevator trim tab to ease the back pressure on the control column and feels also the increased gravity induced by the sharp evasive turns that press his body into the seat. While the aspects of feel are very real, all else is distorted. Approaching a state of sheer terror, Welch executes a series of sharp maneuvers to escape the trees. At the same time, he looks for a clear spot to put the airplane down as the dream yields to the phone’s urgent summons. Welch awakens abruptly; he is bathed in a sweat, and the trauma is gone without resolution. But it will return—it always does.

Fantasy now gives way to reality as Welch rolls over in his bed in the darkness that engulfs him to reach for the light on the night table and retrieve the phone, whose urgent ring is repeated. He notes the time—10:45 PM; his restless sleep has lasted less than an hour.

Captain Welch here.

Hello, Captain Welch. It is a voice trembling with emotion. This is Sergeant Harris at Base Operations. One of our aircraft is down about a half mile beyond the end of runway 16. It happened on takeoff. Looks bad; the tower reports that the aircraft is in flames. Crash trucks are on the way to the site now.

Welch’s mind races forward. He knows the scenario too well. As the base aircraft accident investigating officer, Welch can anticipate that the events yet to unfold will follow a familiar pattern. There have been three fatal accidents at this Portuguese island air base called Lajes in the past two years. Two were air force B-29s about a year apart. One crashed on takeoff in the winter of 1950 and the second in January 1951 during an attempted landing on runway 16 with two dead engines in bad weather. The third was a Portuguese Air Force C-54 that went into the bay a few months after the second accident about a half mile beyond the small Azorean village of Praia da Vitoria after taking off on the same runway. There were no survivors. Only a few bodies and some debris were retrieved from the hostile waters of the Praia bay. The Portuguese were never able to determine the cause of the accident even with some help on the aircraft aspects from our people. Jim Welch served on both B-29 accident investigation boards and as an advisor to the Portuguese investigators.

Was it our crew, Harris?

Yes, sir. Flight A 132 bound for Westover by way of Stephensville, Newfoundland. Takeoff time was 0030 Zebra. The aircraft was airborne only a couple of minutes.

Who was the pilot?

Captain Henry Allen, Harris replied. Copilot was George Collins; the navigator was Russ Kazcinski, the radio operator Kevin Costello, and the flight engineer Harry Jewel.

There were no passengers, continued Harris. I have alerted Colonel Cochrane. He wants you to meet him at Base Operations immediately.

Send one of the operations Jeeps to get me. I should be there in a few minutes, Welch responded. Sounds like you better add Father O’Malley to your crash-alert list.

Jesus, thought Welch. Allen was one of the best. He had over three thousand hours in the cockpit of the C-54 without incident, some six thousand total pilot hours with combat experience during the war. He had a reputation for stability under pressure and reliability in all his flight commitments. He never took unnecessary chances. The guys would fight to crew up with Allen. Welch had flown with Allen on numerous occasions and regarded him as a truly professional airman.

That was the limit of Jim Welch’s positive regard for Allen. The downside was linked to Welch’s latent envy that bordered on hostility at times. Allen was a Naval Academy product, who upon graduation in 1943 chose to serve in the army air corps rather than the navy. Like the West Pointers of the period—relatively few in number compared to the huge influx of WWII people into the officers’ corps—Allen’s progress through the ranks was smooth and destined for rapid promotion. At least that is what Welch thought, as did many of his contemporaries. There was a sort of professional arrogance about Allen concocted in part by his nonprofessional life. Allen had married Lydia Welker, the daughter of a prominent Annapolis family when he graduated from the academy. The Allens had it all: independent wealth, two beautiful children, and above all that charismatic something that drew people toward them. Allen, however, regarded his presence at Lajes as something of a professional anomaly. He had much better assignments in mind as he made his way up the career ladder. Allen never doubted that he would one day wear a star, and that idea seemed to leak out in his demeanor and attitudes toward others.

Welch’s own marriage had failed two years earlier. For three years prior to his transfer to Lajes he had been flying the Military Air Transport Service’s overseas routes to Europe and Africa from Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts as an aircraft commander with the 1703rd Air Transport Group. The flight schedule typically involved trips away from the nest that lasted from a week to ten days on the average with only three days off between trips on return. The wives of all married flight crewmen were subjected to the same unstable marital setting, some completely isolated in the urban scene around Westover. Such absences were utterly devastating in terms of their impact on family continuity. The Welch living abodes began in Springfield with rented rooms in private homes until an inexpensive small furnished apartment could be found to bring at least some privacy into their relationship. Welch’s wife, Irene, like Welch, a New York City native, was plunged into isolation when he was gone and became more and more dependent on a small circle of friends. She was caught in the vortex of emotions in the lonely long days spent in alien surroundings. The marital scenario evolving only compounded Irene’s sense of abandonment leading slowly to periods of frustration and brooding.

Welch was well aware of the destructive forces at work in his marriage, but his passion for flying the North Atlantic as a Military Air Transport Service (MATS) aircraft commander biased his judgment in favor of his profession. There was no way he could or would give it up. Irene’s increasingly dark moods at length led her to seek company, if for no other reason but the mobility she needed to escape the dungeon of her lonely Springfield flat. Close relationships with wives of other crew members were common in these circumstances. It was a sort of circle-the-wagons mind-set that brought them together. But with Irene, friendships began to extend beyond the circle of lonely wives to experiments with other men. Irene was sexually active as one might expect with a woman of her tender years. Welch was equally active in bed, and when they were together, the sexual draw lacked nothing. Yet both became active outside of the marriage as a result of the separations. Welch’s assignations came from random encounters with women in European cities along his flight path. He never dabbled sexually outside the marriage when at Westover. Irene’s experiments early on were driven by liaisons with several men in the local military community. Nor were any of Irene’s liaisons much of a secret as wagging tongues would assure. However, with one Captain Colin Fitzgerald, the relationship became serious. Fitz, as she called him, was a navigator with the transport group who had been grounded as the result of a heart murmur and reassigned to an administrative position in the personnel office at Westover. Fitz was very much available, and the encounters between the two began to repeat in Welch’s absences. Welch knew of the budding romance between Irene and Fitzgerald but was hardly in a position to challenge her fidelity. He made feeble attempts to recover the marriage. Just let’s get through this year, Irene, and I’ll land a ground job in group headquarters. We can have a life if we work at it, Welch told her. But it wasn’t working, and they both knew that the marriage could not survive under the pressures it was subjected to by the unending prospects of separation. Welch’s transfer to Lajes was the last straw. Irene could not join him until living quarters were provided, and they were scarce to the point of at least a six-month wait even for minimum housing. That did it. Separation now was followed by an uncontested divorce obtained by Irene in Reno.

As Welch groped for his uniform shirt and trousers, he became aware of the rain pounding against the single glass composite window in his bedroom in the bachelor officers’ quarters. God, he hated the place. After two years in semi isolation in an alien culture, the subtle beauty of the island Terceira, one of nine in the Azores archipelago, had long since faded from his interest. As the name suggests, Terceira is the third principal island in the group with a population of about fifty thousand people. The main island is San Miguel, and it is much larger than all the others are and has the regional capital, Ponta Delgada. The other prominent island is Pico with its seven-thousand-seven-hundred-foot mountain. There are only two towns of significance on Terceira, and only one of the two, Angra do Heroismo, can emulate a city environment—hard to reach and with little to do for Americans.

Terceira is an egg-shaped landmass of volcanic origin, about eighteen miles across at the widest part of the oval. Its vertical profile somewhat like a dome, the terrain rises to three thousand feet above sea level. On fair days, a gathering of cumulus clouds typically embraces the crest as moisture-laden winds are lifted by the upslope, forming clouds as the moisture condenses in a way that underscores the island’s beauty. The setting is essentially pastoral, reflecting an agrarian economy that is driven primarily by farming, fishing, and cattle. Since the early 1940s, another significant factor in the local economy is the American presence at the airfield Lajes located near the village of Praia da Vitoria. From the apex of Terceira’s domed mountain, sloping agricultural plains comprised of patchwork fields prevail in the landscape. There are copses of trees and shrubs scattered randomly among the fields, but the setting seems largely treeless although there are trees in more abundance at the higher levels. The dominant scene one frames visually is a mix of greens and browns woven in an irregular pattern of fields outlined by the fences farmers create out of the abundant lava rock. The fields get smaller and smaller when split up as the ownership passes from generation to generation in the same families. Terceira’s people are gentle and friendly, yet they are seemingly trapped in a culture unchanged by the centuries since the islands were settled in 1452.

Temperate in climate, temperatures rarely exceeded eighty degrees Fahrenheit in the summer nor below about forty-five degrees in the dead of the winter. There is a stunning beauty about Terceira when bathed in sunlight, especially when viewed from the airfield Lajes where Welch has been stationed since mid-1950.

Lajes is a Portuguese Air Force base. The USAF is in fact a tenant, operating under a protocol agreement with the Portuguese government. The USAF contingent numbers 350 officers and airmen supported by a host of indigenous workers living at nearby farms and in tiny villages near the base. Lajes is a very busy place—a vital refueling operation for the USAF’s transoceanic flights between North America, Africa, and Europe. Aircraft operations at Lajes take place on a round-the-clock basis.

The rain deepens Welch’s feeling of gloom and isolation in his island prison. In the wet season, rains are relentless, always heavy and driven in horizontal sheets by the high winds spawned by low-pressure systems exiting North America and making their way into the Atlantic Ocean. These weather systems, no longer slowed by terrain, accelerate over the expanse of the Atlantic generating ever-tightening wind patterns approaching hurricane velocities at the same time sopping up the moisture from the sea to feed the heavy rainfall. Such are the systems that define the Azorean weather. The weather in turn defines moods furthering the feelings of isolation as activities are limited by confinement. Thankfully, in Welch’s mind, only six months remain on his tour.

Even more important, Azorean weather has a deep impact on flight operations. This is especially true at Lajes where the winds are far more limiting than rainfall. The runway used at Lajes in bad weather operations is ten thousand feet in length, oriented to 160-340 degrees magnetic. Unfortunately, with approaching weather fronts, winds quarter as much as forty-five degrees across the long runway with velocities often exceeding thirty-five knots and gusts sometimes reaching fifty knots. In such conditions, Lajes will shut down and divert all flights to the nearby commercial base at the island of Santa Maria or Lisbon, depending on fuel reserves of those aircraft waved off. Welch felt that he could deal safely with twenty-five-knot winds up to thirty degrees across the runway direction, but thirty-five knots with heavy gusts was outside the operating envelope as far as he was concerned.

Welch’s mind went to the wind equation as he dressed. It well may have factored into the accident causes. Without even knowing the actual wind conditions at the time of takeoff, Welch knew intuitively that there would have been a strong crosswind from the right as a result of the weather system now passing through the islands. Yet takeoffs in such wind conditions are not all that critical. Landings, on the other hand, can be dicey.

Pulling his hat firmly in place and his trench coat collar up to protect the neck, Welch struggled against the windswept rain as he exited the jeep and made his way into the base operations building where Colonel Sam Cochrane was waiting. Harris was behind the counter in the operations office on the telephone, notifying key people of the accident.

Sensing Cochrane’s displeasure, Welch said, I got here as soon as I could.

Welch held enormous respect for the character and competence of the base commander now before him but was ambivalent about shortcomings of note. On these, Welch held his tongue when among peers who were often vocal in the art of nit-picking.

Sam Cochrane was in his mid forties at the summer of an unremarkable air force career. He entered the aviation cadet program at the height of the Great Depression and went on to several prewar assignments as a flight instructor. He migrated from cadet training to multiengine-aircraft, checking out eventually in B-24s. Because of his experience as an instructor, in 1943 Cochrane was sent to the B-24 training base at Smyrna, Tennessee. Then a major, late in 1944 he was retrained in transport operations and assigned to the operations directorate of the Air Transport Command’s headquarters at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington DC. Cochrane was promoted to full colonel in 1949. With his transfer to Lajes in 1950, which Cochrane equated with a Siberian gulag, he knew he would never reach star rank and would probably retire when his tour of duty at Lajes was complete.

Although he held a command pilot’s rating, Cochrane had grown notoriously weak in the cockpit, flying now only enough to meet minimum proficiency requirements. Welch regarded this as a negative in aviation professionalism but at the same time accepted the fact that Cochrane’s life as a base commander offered little time for assuming the role of an air force hot pilot. He was chained to his desk rather than the cockpit. Another facet of Cochrane’s character that raised a discerning eyebrow or two was his physical appearance. Cochrane’s body as he aged went from overweight to near obesity, and his head had long since yielded all its hair except for unsightly clumps around the ears. His dress was such that the overall effect was, in Welch’s mind, a bit raunchy—shoes never polished with an ever-rumpled uniform, the shirt of which with collar tips askew never seemed to meet at the neck. Sam Cochrane was no George Patton, thought Welch, but what the hell—he got things done.

Cochrane was as steady as a spinning gyroscope, rock solid, stable, and above all fair and impartial in dealing with subordinates. He was quick to separate performers from the drones. Cochrane was not only discerning of his minions, he also demanded loyalty coupled with responsive performance, perhaps too much so of Welch who at times served as a convenient whipping boy. Cochrane could really lay it on, knowing that Welch would always come up with timely quality products. Cochrane especially liked to toss difficult operational issues to Welch, knowing that he would chew on the problem until he came up with a solution. In a sense, their relationship was at arms’ length—formal to a point yet bonded by mutual respect.

James Welch grew up during the Depression in Jackson Heights, one of New York City’s numerous suburban communities in the Queens section of Long Island. The Welch family lived in a large apartment complex on Eighty-fifth Street near the elevated rail station on Roosevelt Avenue. The grinding poverty of the Depression never deeply affected the Welch family. His father, Eugene Welch, owned and ran a grocery store in Jackson Heights through those tragic years. Many poverty-stricken people in Jackson Heights during the 1930s were provisioned by Eugene Welch. He carried them on the book, as they would say, when they were broke, recording the details of their purchases. These people invariably settled up when they had money to keep the book open to them. The process hardly yielded haute cuisine, but it kept food that fed hungry bellies on the table. When they had means and did not pay up, the book closed until they did settle accounts.

James Welch had a lifelong passion for airplanes, and he knew what he wanted to do with his life. He performed well in New York City’s public school system. In 1940, he graduated from Aviation High School in Manhattan and entered Purdue University in 1941 as an aeronautical engineering student knowing that he would need two years of college credits to enter the army’s aviation cadet program where he had set his sights. Three months after Pearl Harbor, Welch left Purdue to apply for aviation cadet training when the entry requirements were lowered to high school diploma. By January 1943, he was selected for pilot training at the classification center in Nashville, Tennessee. Welch would have been devastated had he been assigned to navigator or bombardier training. He breezed through primary and basic flight training and went to twin-engine advanced training at Freeman Field in Indiana for the final step to winning his pilot rating and commission, graduating in October 1943.

Harris, who is the operations officer on the swing shift with you tonight? Cochrane queried. Lieutenant Olds, Harris responded and continued, "he went up into the control tower when the aircraft went in. Manuel da Costa is the Portuguese air controller on duty. Olds was trying to get a visual perspective on the scene and to see if there was any radio transmission from the pilot.

Get Olds on the squawk box and tell him to get down here.

Yes, sir.

Where the hell is Fred Roberts? Cochrane blustered.

Harris replied defensively, I called him, sir, just after I called you. He should be here in a few minutes.

Roberts was the base operations officer at Lajes. All of the flight operations and training functions were under his jurisdiction. Welch knew he would have a lead role in the ensuing accident investigation.

Welch, you get your ass out to the scene. I’ll join you there as soon I can. I want a firsthand look.

I’m on my way, sir.

Olds had made his way down from the control tower that nested on a rise in the terrain well above the base operations building. He was sopping wet as he approached Sam Cochrane.

Learn anything up there, Olds? Cochrane asked.

Not much, sir. The tower operator said it appeared as though the aircraft had cleared the far end of runway 16 and disappeared almost immediately in the low-cloud deck. He had little to go on other than the running lights on the aircraft. Olds went on, There was one radio call from the crew—probably Collins.

We have an emergency.

That was it, according to da Costa.

What da Costa saw next was the fireball.

Olds went on, The only other thing to report is that the low-frequency locator beacon at the far end of runway 16 stopped transmitting about the time of the crash.

Jim Welch was in the operations Jeep on his way to the accident scene. The canvas top on the vehicle provided little protection as the wind-driven rain entered the vehicle through the open sides, soaking the interior and seeping at length through Welch’s porous trench coat. He passed the large tar paper–covered warehouses in the industrial area at the south end of the field, peering intently through the windshield kept at least partially clear by what Jeep manufacturers called a windshield wiper, a single external blade on the driver’s side manually operated with a lever located at the top of the windshield. Rain in horizontal sheets was visible across his path in the shafts of light from the Jeep’s headlights that danced on the soaked black top surface of the roadway as he sped toward the scene. Ahead and to his right, the glow of the still-burning aircraft became apparent. The fierce fuel-fed fire that followed the initial explosion on impact had subsided as residual burning continued—now fed by other components in the aircraft’s structure. Welch pulled up behind several crash trucks parked on the Praia road as near as they could get to the wreckage and dismounted. The crash crews were doing their best to get fire-suppressing foam in position to douse the now-near-smoldering flames but were as yet unsuccessful because of the undulating terrain and the rock walls bordering fields they must traverse. There was no way to get close to the wreck except by foot. Two ambulances were in position behind the crash trucks; their medics were already near the burning aircraft with body bags at the ready. It would be hours before the unsuppressed embers could be searched for human remains.

"At this point, thought Welch, it really didn’t matter. No one walked away from this one."

Welch made his way across the furrowed fields and scrambled over the low walls toward the wreck, guided to some extent by the now-flickering flames that illuminated the scene and danced on the tail section of the aircraft. The vertical stabilizer was leaning at a precarious angle but was intact. On it, the blue and yellow stripe bearing MATS was faintly visible in the artificial glow along with the aircraft serial number 43-72673.

The guts of the aircraft were now nothing more than charred aluminum chunks with larger components such as wheel struts, smoldering tires, and wing tips still identifiable. Two of the engines had been thrown clear on impact. Welch noted that the propeller of one of the two was in the full-feathered position suggesting that the engine had failed and was shut down by the crew before impact. The location and form of the nose section could not be discerned. Obviously it had taken the full brunt of the impact, and it had not escaped the fire that enveloped it. Lying near what was left of the nose area was something Welch had seen many times that still filled him with revulsion. He assumed it was the blackened remains of one of the crew—nothing but charred stumps for arms and legs and what was left of the torso. God knows where the remains of the others lay. Welch wanted to run somewhere and throw up. The one thing that put the fear of God into Jim Welch’s head was an aircraft burning. He had seen similar events many times in combat, but at accident scenes such as this one, the full horror of what a burning aircraft does to the human body penetrated into his soul. Welch noted that the wreckage was fairly confined, suggesting that the aircraft was intact and in a nose-down attitude when it made contact with the ground.

He stood there for an hour watching the crash crew struggling to get into position to deal with what remained of the fire. Colonel Cochrane and Major Roberts joined him in the downpour, like Welch, now thoroughly soaked. Welch took them in tow, noting the salient points of his observations. There was nothing else any of them could do at the scene.

Cochrane, visibly shaken, at last spoke, Christ Almighty, let’s get the hell out of here. I’ve seen enough. Jim Welch knew the next couple of hours at the crash site would involve extinguishing the remnants of the fire and recovery of human remains. There was no need for him to witness the carnage.

To Welch’s great relief, Cochrane raised his voice over that of the wind, Welch, you get back to operations and get the Teletype report together notifying MATS and air force headquarters that we have had a major fatal accident here at Lajes. Call me when it is ready—I don’t care what time it is. I want to review it before it goes out. I’m going to see if I can get through to General Olds in Atlantic Division and Kuter in MATS Headquarters by phone in the meantime. The three of us will meet in my office tomorrow morning to set up the investigating board.

There was little sleep for Jim Welch in what remained of the night after he completed the preliminary accident report and ran it by Sam Cochrane for review. Cochrane accepted the report as prepared, and Welch went directly to the communications office and had it sent via priority Teletype. In the few hours remaining in the night, he did try to sleep; however, he was haunted by the surreal scene to which he had been exposed the previous night. It was and would be forever stamped visibly in his mind’s eye like a color photograph. He rose essentially sleepless and prepared to face the unrelenting questions arising from the accident that he knew must be answered. The rain had ended near daybreak with a frontal passage and wind shift. Welch looked out of his small window and noted the sunbathed beauty of Terceira’s morning landscape. Little of that sunshine rubbed any positive beams on Welch’s musings.

The officers’ club at Lajes sits prominently at the top of the ridge overlooking the runways. A large dining room, where Welch takes his meals, occupies that same end of the building—thus offering a panorama not only of Terceira’s pastoral beauty but also of aircraft operations. Cochrane, more rumpled than ever as though he had slept in his uniform, is there with Major Fred Roberts at a corner table staring idly toward the southeast, where the remains of C-54 2673 lie. Welch joins them. None has had much sleep, and moods are tenuous and a bit testy at best. They were supposed to meet at Cochran’s direction at 0800 in the conference room at base headquarters, but they might just as well meet now over breakfast.

Cochrane has already eaten and sits over coffee, lost in thought as he toys with his cigarette, one of the several he had already consumed in the early hours of the day. As the discussion ensues, Cochrane focuses his thoughts on the investigation. Jim, we need to get the right people for the accident investigation, and we need to get them organized as a board of investigation today. The proceedings are going to be strictly in accordance with regulations and the manual. Who do you have in mind for board members?

Well, sir, Welch replied, I hope we can have a small group, but I agree, they have to be right. We need Major Roberts, and I think he should be the board’s presiding officer. The base aircraft maintenance officer, Jim Gammal; he should be involved. Also, Sergeant Brock; he’s an expert on anything bearing the name Pratt and Whitney. He’s a must. Brock also knows more about the C-54 than Donald Douglas does. We need a weatherman, preferably Lieutenant Gavin. Doc Shaffer should be involved. It might also be a good idea to have somebody from legal. Of course, I will serve on the board as a voting member and handle the minutes of the meetings and get the accident report together.

Roberts said little during the discussion.

What do you think, Fred? Does Jim’s plan sound reasonable?

Roberts toyed with the omelet set before him as he composed his thoughts. Sounds good to me, but I would like to add another experienced pilot to the mix. That has to be our chief pilot, John Ford. He has a good head and the right level of experience to fit in nicely.

Cochrane finished his coffee and stood up signaling the end of the meeting. Jim, get over to headquarters and get orders cut this morning. Fred, you will lead the investigation. Let’s get the board together later today. Report to me by the close of business. I also want daily updates on your progress.

As they broke up, Roberts and Welch agreed to meet with the other members of the board in the base headquarters conference room. Welch then made his way to his office at base operations to contact the other members of the board and advise them of the meeting.

Chapter 2

Flight A 132

Both Jim Welch and Henry Allen were among the few-experienced pilots sent to Lajes in support of C-54 operations. Both had flown the MATS-scheduled operations on North Atlantic routes extensively, and both were intimately familiar with the aircraft. When he was not absent from the island on flights, Welch worked as one of the duty officers in the base operations office that was manned round the clock. His additional assigned duties were base aircraft accident officer and flight safety. Allen when not on trips was one of the duty officers at base operations. He also was responsible for training and flight examinations involving the other pilots stationed at Lajes.

The aircraft complement at Lajes was compact but completely functional in supporting the base’s mission. There were six twin-engine C-47 Gooney Birds used mainly for pilot proficiency and interisland flights. An air rescue squadron positioned at the base operated three B-17s equipped with droppable lifeboats for search-and-rescue operations involving downed aircraft. Six C-54s were positioned at Lajes in 1950 to clear backlogs of cargo and passengers that were bumped mostly from westbound flights. MATS C-54 Atlantic operations were most vulnerable to off-loading cargo and passengers at Lajes when strong headwind components demanded larger fuel loads. MATS C-121 Constellations and Boeing C-97s had the legs to fly from Lajes direct to Westover on westbound flights, but the prevailing westerly winds often impacted their payloads. The MATS C-54s were limited by the all-too-frequent trade-offs between fuel and payload on westbound flights. Thus, the Lajes C-54 complement was essential for minimizing the accumulation of such backlogs. C-54 flights originating from Lajes were not on a regular scheduled basis; rather, they were scheduled by the demands of the backlog.

The C-54s were also used for weather reconnaissance. Weather forecasters of the Lajes observation unit had little or no data on atmospheric conditions between the two continents. There was one coast guard–operated observation vessel between Lajes and Newfoundland and another between Lajes and Bermuda. Both provided some localized data. But beyond the pilot reports from en route aircraft, there was precious little data for accurate forecasts. Weather reconnaissance flights from Lajes to some degree filled that gap.

Allen was alerted for a flight to Westover with a refueling stop at Stephensville, Newfoundland, earlier in the day. He had picked up the operations order before noon and noted the familiar names of the other crew members. Allen flew regularly with Harry Jewel, the flight engineer, and Kevin Costello, the radio operator. The three fit together like a precision drill team, which in a sense they were as they meshed their individual skills into the unity of teamwork so essential in operating multiengine aircraft. Copilot and navigator assignments were more random, but Allen had flown often with George Collins and Russ Kazcinski and considered them competent if indeed Collins could be kept out of the bars. He would depend much more on the navigation skills of Kazcinski than those of a backup pilot. Allen got along well enough with Collins in the cockpit but had little respect for him as an individual. Collins’s primary job assignment was in the base personnel office; he had yet to check out as a C-54 aircraft commander. He was good enough in the cockpit as copilot but hardly at a level of proficiency that would qualify him as a MATS aircraft commander. Collins was the male version of an alcoholic nymphomaniac. Unmarried, he played the field with women anywhere he could, including a few locally—married and unmarried. His notable talents aside from carousing were gambling and drinking although he was careful never to let the latter interfere with duty. Nonetheless, Collins was an alcohol abuser, if not yet at the stage of dependency. For Collins, that state of alcoholism was no doubt yet to come. On any given Sunday morning, Collins could be found wrestling with a monumental hangover that blanketed his being like a fiery dragon.

It’s six thirty, Hank, Lydia called out, we had better get to the table if we’re going to get you to base operations on time. That’s 1830 by my clock, Henry chided with a wry smile. Lydia would never learn the twenty-four-hour-time reference. Typically, family banter at the dinner table involved the usual bickering between siblings and the parental harangues about cleaning plates and drinking milk to build sturdy bones and bodies.

Allen’s thoughts had already migrated to flight preparation and related concerns. The rain had begun several hours earlier with winds increasing steadily as the afternoon progressed. Nothing all that unusual, Allen thought in his musings, what the hell, it’s September. Fall had arrived and with it an unexpectedly early rainy season. He had already contacted the base weather office for the local forecast and saw nothing in it of a magnitude that would delay or cancel his flight. Scheduled departure was set for 2220 local from the terminal ramp and 2230 for takeoff. Allen would report to base operations at 2030, allowing the usual two hours for detailed flight planning and preparation of the aircraft.

Between admonitions aimed at the children, Lydia broached a new subject cautiously, Hank, what time will you arrive at Westover? How long will you be there? I really need some things if you can get into Steiger’s department store in Holyoke. Just what I need, thought Allen. He had already collected a few lists from other wives desperate for sundry items of household maintenance that were unavailable in Lajes’s very limited post exchange. Other crew members would have similar lists. The shopping tasks had become routine to the point that the aircrews became surrogate supply officers. Lay it on me, Lydia, Allen replied. "I’ve already got enough lists to keep me busy for the day at Westover. We should arrive there about noon