On Jan. 5, 1943, bush pilot Harold "Thrill `em, spill `em, no kill `em" Gillam took off from the Boeing Field in Seattle, with five passengers headed to Anchorage.

According to information from the U.S. Coast Guard site http://www.uscg.mil/history, Gillam's plane crash-landed on a mountain about 30 miles east of Annette Island, where Gillam planned to refuel at the wartime airfield. One passenger, Susan Batzer, died two days after the crash, and passengers Robert Gebo and Dewey Metzdorf were severely injured. Gillam, Percy Cutting and Joe Tippets were injured, but still mobile.

Gillam had contacted Annette Island field on the radio with the message that the plane was in trouble and that one engine had quit. The area was frozen and snow-covered, and the airplane, a Lockheed 10-B, was growing heavy with ice. As the plane fell, Gillam aimed for an open spot on the mountainside, and tried to lift the nose to ease the impact.

About six days after the crash, Gillam headed down the mountain to look for help after building snow shelters, organizing food stores and lighting a fire.

When Gillam did not return, Cutting set out to get help, but returned two days later after fighting deep snow drifts and finding nothing.

Nearly two weeks later, Cutting and Tippets decided they had to risk searching for help, but would do better if they went together. They moved Gebo and Metzdorf to a sheltered spot lower on the mountain, made them as comfortable as possible in a lean-to shelter, then set off.

About a month after the crash, Carl Dudler and Leonard Olsen were piloting the Coast Guard reserve vessel Tuscan when they saw a fire on the beach in Boca de Quadra inlet, leading them to the two missing men.

Olsen is now 91, and although he lived in Ketchikan for 50 years, he now lives in Wrangell. He said in a recent interview that he retired as a halibut longliner only about a year ago.

He said that the day they found Cutting and Tippets, he and Dudler had been checking kerosene lanterns that marked waterway hazards near canneries in the area.

They were very surprised to find the survivors after so long, he said. The men were cold and very hungry, and after warming them up, there was urgent business.

"We fed them pork chops," he said.

After the two men were brought into Ketchikan, Tippets and Cutting joined a team that same day to retrieve what was expected to be the bodies of Gebo and Metzdorf, according to an account written by crewman Jim Gill. The two men were alive, and Gill was on the Coast Guard patrol boat McLane, which was used to rescue Gebo and Metzdorf.

The McLane had to break ice up to 14-inches thick to approach the rescue site. The survivors were carried down the snow drifts in sleds, relay-style to minimize exhaustion from working in the deep snow.

"The two survivors were in terrible condition but they were going to live," Gill wrote.

Gillam's frozen body was found the same day on a nearby shoreline, wrapped in a parachute.

John Tippets, the son of survivor Tippets, self-published a book in 2008 about the ordeal.

In addition to publishing the book and creating a Facebook page about the adventure, John Tippets travels to give presentations about the story about once per month.

There also was a Brigham Young University documentary of the story released in January 2009, and an exhibit at the American Airlines C.R. Smith Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, which has shown in two Idaho museums more recently.

The book features Ketchikan artist Dave Rubin, photographs by Chip Porter and Hall Anderson, and cover art by Terry Pyles.

Tippets said more stories and interesting tidbits have come forward in the past five years. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the crash, the centennial of Alaska Aviation and the year Joe Tippets would have turned 100 years old.

Tippets, who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, said his family always has felt like Ketchikan is a part of its life.

"We've always had a special emotional connection to Ketchikan," he said.

---

Information from: Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News, http://www.ketchikandailynews.com