Peter Stekel - Final Flight: The Mystery of a WW II Plane Crash and the Frozen Airmen in the High Sierra

Prologue

W e are the only life here. There are no trees or shrubs, no grasses or sedges. No pretty wildflowers. There are no lichens, no animals or insects. Only granite and ice. The Mendel Glacier sits in a cirque at about 12,000 feet, a coliseum of rock in the Sierra Nevada with cracked walls rising nearly another 2,000 feet. At our boots is a section of airplane enginetwisted, broken metal, oil bleeding into ice.

From the engine wreckage, my climbing partner Michele works her way down the steep slope of the glacier. She has to be careful; the surface is slick. One slip would hurt, though she wouldnt slide far. Large rocks jut out everywhere. I kick at one but its embedded in the glacier and doesnt budge. Meltwater creates model luge courses in the expanse of ice.

Two years ago, in 2005, climbers discovered a body melting out of this glacier and Im certain the remains are linked to the aircraft wreckage Michele and I have discovered. I want to stand on the spot where this Frozen Airman was found and think about the person who died here on November 18, 1942. Holding my GPS unit like a divining rod, I traverse west. Im not paying close attention to anything except where to put my feet. Raising my eyes to check my bearing, Im surprised to see a short tree, bent over and blackened, killed by the frost. Something shines in the sun: a ring hanging on a tiny branch. I stop to think about that. It couldnt be a tree. There are no trees up here. It is a man.

He is hunched over a rock, his left arm curled under him as if hugging something tightly to his chest or favoring a sore shoulder. His body is desiccated, the skin dark and rough. Shreds of a rough-woven wool, olive-drab sweater are wrapped around him. He has blond, wavy hair. Beside him is an undeployed parachute, the cotton canvas pack long ago rotted away. The parachute shrouds appear new and are still tightly arranged.

CHAPTER 1

A Body in the Glacier

I t is first light, October 15, 2005. Michael Nozel and Mark Postle labor across Mendel Glacier. Step, stop, rest. Hearts pound blood. Lungs struggle for air. Muscles strain to carry heavy loads. All they see is ice, rock, and sky. All human sounds across the desolate landscape are held master by the wind.

Pack straps chafe shoulders accustomed to this hard work. The two men move robotically. Step, stop, rest. Step, stop, rest. At 12,600 feet above sea level, the climbers are nearing a point where a third of the earths atmosphere is below them. Do this one thing perfectlyone foot and then the other, upward to the objectivethat is all that matters. Proper conditioning is critical, but even conditioning may fail at this elevation, making the simplest task an exercise in agony.

Linear travel is challenging. The ice underfoot is hard, like city sidewalks, but carved by tiny rivers of meltwater. Sharp granite, rocks and boulders, poke out of the frozen water. A long summer of sun has melted deep divots into the ice called sun cups. Its like walking across overlapping potholes. Nothing grows here but time. The sky is blue, an amazing shade of blue.