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The AIH transcript for December 24, 2024

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NIL KÖKSAL: Hello, I’m Nil Köksal.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[theme]

CH: Tonight:

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FIRESIDE AL MAITLAND: It was Christmas Eve in 1957, and I was a pilot trying to get home for Christmas.

NK: Charlie, delta. Buckle your seatbelt and prepare for take-off: "Fireside" Al Maitland's classic reading of The Shepherd, by Frederick Forsyth is coming up in T-minus 90 seconds.

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FREDERICK FORSYTH: I was sitting in this little writing room in this hotel and it was getting spookier and spookier. [both chuckle] What about the pilot? Over the night's sky, I wonder, you know?

CH: Directing air traffic. Nearly 50 years after Mr. Forsyth wrote that holiday story on a whim on Christmas Day 1974, British director Iain Softley turned it into a short film. He told Nil that had a lot to do with John Travolta -- and, possibly, As It Happens.

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IAN SOFTLEY: And, I think he heard the and really enjoyed the Christmas Eve broadcast with his family.

NK: Holiday tree-dition. The story of Si Spiegel, who flew dozens of missions during the Second World War, and was at one point declared missing in action -- but survived to help perfect the design of the artificial Christmas tree.

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LAURIE GWEN SHAPIRO: And, he told me that he wrote a telegram that said, "I'm safe and well. Letters following. Happy birthday. Love."

CH: And...sticking the landing. Believe it or not, tonight's story of a lost pilot almost never made it to air. But after it first aired in 1979, it was clear that The Shepherd was a runway hit.

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BOB CAMPBELL: And they were riveted to the radio and they sat there when they were expecting to be going out to cocktail parties and going about their business, they couldn't get out of their cars. They had to stay and hear how the story ended."

CH: As It Happens, The Shepherd edition. Radio that's glad they decided to take a flyer.

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FIRESIDE AL MAITLAND: Bam bam bamdity bam. Rumble rumble. She was down! The main wheels had stuck and held."

[theme]

Part 1: ‘The Shepherd’:

Reading: ‘The Shepherd’

CH: As we have nearly every December for the past 45 years on our last show before Christmas, we begin tonight with our annual reading of Frederick Forsyth's The Shepherd, as read by former As It Happens host, the late great Alan Maitland. The year is 1957. An RAF pilot is heading home from Germany for Christmas. Fog sets in. All radio communication is lost. And here now is "Fireside Al" with The Shepherd.

Reading:

AM: While waiting for control tower to clear me for takeoff, I glanced out through the cockpit canopy at the German countryside, white and crisp beneath the December moon. Behind me lay the boundary fence of the Royal Air Force Base. Far away to my right, the airfield tower stood up like a glowing candle. Inside the tower I knew all was warmth and merriment — the staff waiting only for my departure to close down and head back to the parties in the mess. Within minutes of my going, the lights would die out, leaving only the flickering red station light beating out in Morse code the name of the station: C.E.L.L.E. to an unheeding sky. For tonight, there would be no wandering aviators to look down and check their bearings. Tonight was Christmas Eve in 1957, and I was a pilot trying to get home for Christmas.

AM: My watch read 10:15 by the dim, blue glow of the control panel where the rows of dials quivered and danced. It was warm and snug inside the cockpit, the heating turned up full to prevent the Perspex icing up. It was like a cocoon, small, and warm and safe, shielding me from the bitter cold outside. From the freezing night that can kill a man inside a minute of use exposed to it at 600 miles per hour.

AM: “Charlie Delta, clear takeoff”. The controller's voice sounding in my headphones woke me. I eased the throttle forward slowly with the left hand, holding the Vampire steady down the central line with the right hand. Behind me, the low whine of the Goblin engine rose into a scream. The snub-nosed fighter rolled, the lights each side of the runway past till they were flashing and a continuous blur.

AM: As the end of the runway whizzed beneath my feet, I pulled the Vampire into a gently climbing turn. Down on my right thigh was strapped the map with my course charted on it in blue ink. But I did not need it. I knew the details by heart: Turn overhead C.E.L.L.E. airfield onto course 265 degrees. Continue climbing to 27,000 feet. On reaching height, maintain course and keep speed at 485 knots. Check in with channel D, the RAF’s North German air control frequency, to let them know you're in their airspace. Then a straight run over the Dutch coast and the North Sea. After 44 minutes flying time, change to channel F, and call Lakenheath control to give you a steer. 14 minutes later, you will be overhead Lakenheath. After that, follow instructions and they'll bring you down on a radio-controlled descent.

AM: 66 Minutes flying time with the descent and landing and the Vampire had enough fuel for over 80 minutes in the air. From Lakenheath, I knew I could get a lift down to London after midnight. By breakfast time, I’d be in my parents’ home in Kent, celebrating with my own family. The altimeter read 27,000 feet. I eased the nose forward, reduced the throttle setting to give me an air speed of 485 knots, and held her steady on 265 degrees. Somewhere beneath me, the Dutch border would be slipping away, and I had been airborne for 21 minutes. All well.

AM: The problem started ten minutes out over the North Sea. And it started so quietly that it was several minutes before I realized I had one at all. The first warning I had was when I flicked a glance downward to check my course on the compass. Instead of being rock steady on 265 degrees, the needle was drifting lazily round the clock. I swore a most unseasonal sentiment against the compass and the instrument fitter who should have checked it. Still, it was not too serious. There was a stand by compass; the alcohol kind. When I glanced at it, the needle was swinging wildly too. Apparently, something had jarred the case, which isn't uncommon. In any event, I could call up Lakenheath and a few minutes and they'd give me a G.C.A — a ground-control approach — the second-by-second instructions a well-equipped airfield can give a pilot to bring him home in the worst of weathers.

AM: I glanced at my watch: 34 minutes airborne. Before trying Lakenheath, the correct procedure would be to inform channel D, to which I was tuned, of my little problem so they could advise Lakenheath that I was on my way without a compass. I pressed the transmit button, but instead of the lively crackle of static and the sharp sound of my own voice coming back into my own ears. There was a muffled murmur inside my oxygen mask: my own voice speaking, and going nowhere.

AM: The radio was dead. Fighting down the rising sense of panic, I swallowed and slowly counted to ten. Then I switched the channel F, and tried to raise Lakenheath. But the steady whistle of my own jet engine behind me was my only answer. While I was vainly testing my radio channels, my eyes scanned the instrument panel in front of me. The instruments told their own message. It was no coincidence the compass and the radio had failed together. Both worked off the aircraft's electrical circuits. Somewhere beneath my feet, amid the miles of brightly-coloured wiring that make up the circuits, there had been a main fuel blowout. The first thing to do in such a case, I remembered old Flight Sergeant Norris telling us, is to reduce throttle setting to give maximum flight endurance.

AM: "We don't want to waste valuable fuel don't we, gentlemen? We might need it later. So we reduce the power settings from 10,000 revolutions per minute to 7,200. That way we will fly a little slower, but we will stay in the air rather longer won't we, gentlemen?"

AM: I eased the throttle back and watch the rev counter. It operates on its own generator and so I hadn't lost that at least. I waited until the Goblin was turning over at about 7,200 RPM and felt the aircraft slow down. The main instruments in front of a pilot's eye are six, including the compass. The five others are the airspeed indicator, the altimeter, the vertical speed indicator, the bank indicator, which tells him if he's turning to left or right, and the slip indicator — which tells him if he's skidding crab-wise across the sky. Two of these are electrically operated, and they had gone the same way as my compass. That left me with a three pressure operated instruments: airspeed indicator, altimeter, and vertical speed indicator. I knew how fast I was going, how high I was, and if I were either diving or climbing.

AM: It is perfectly possible to land that aircraft with only these three instruments, judging the rest by those old navigational aids the human eyes. Possible, that is, in conditions of brilliant weather by daylight and with no cloud in the sky. By night, it is not possible. The only things that show up at night, even on a bright moonlight night, are the lights. These have patterns when seen from the sky. I knew Norwich very well, and if I could identify the great curving bulge of the Norfolk coastline, I could find Norwich, the only major sprawl of lights set 20 miles inland from the coast. Five miles north of the city I knew was the fighter airfield of Merriam St. George, who’s red indicator beacon would be blipping out its Morse identification signal into the night.

AM: I began to let the Vampire down slowly toward the oncoming coast. As the fighter slipped toward Norfolk, the sense of loneliness gripped me tighter and tighter. The night sky — its stratospheric temperature fixed, night and day alike at an unchanging minus 56 — became in my mind a timeless prison creaking with the cold. Below me lay the worst of them all: the heavy brutality of the North Sea, waiting to swallow me and my plane, and bury us in a liquid, black crypt. At 15,000 feet and still diving, I began to realize that a fresh enemy had entered the field far away, to right and left, ahead, and no doubt behind me, the light of the moon reflected on a flat an endless sea of white. The East Anglian fog had moved in. There was no question of trying to overfly the fog to westward. Without navigational aids or radio, I'd be lost over a strange, unfamiliar country. Also out of the question was to try to fly back to Holland. I had not the fuel. Relying only on my eyes to guide me, it was a question of landing at Merriam St. George or dying amid the wreckage of the Vampire somewhere in the fog-wreathed fens. At 10,000 feet, I pulled out of my dive, increasing power slightly to keep airborne, using up more of my precious fuel. Still a creature of my training, I recalled again the instructions of Flight Sergeant Norris: "When we are totally lost above unbroken cloud, gentlemen, we must consider the necessity of bailing out of our aircraft, must we not?" Of course, Sergeant. Unfortunately, the single seat Vampire is notoriously difficult to bail out of. What else, Sergeant? "Our first move therefore is to turn our aircraft towards the open sea, away from all areas of intense human habitation." The procedures were well worked out. They did not mention that the chances of a pilot bobbing about on a winter's night in the North Sea were one and a hundred of living more than half an hour. "One last procedure, gentlemen, to be used in extreme emergency." That's better, Sergeant Norris. That's what I'm in now.

AM: "All aircraft approaching Britain's coast are visible on the radar scanners of early warning system. If therefore we have lost our radio and cannot transmit our emergency, we try to attract the attention of our radar scanners by adopting an odd form of behaviour. We do this by moving out to sea, then flying in small triangles turning left, left, left again. Each leg of the triangle being of a duration of 2 minutes flying time. In this way, we hope to attract attention. When we have been spotted, the air traffic control is informed and he diverts another aircraft to find us. When discovered by the rescue aircraft, we formate on him, and he brings us down to the cloud or fog to a safe landing."

AM: Yes, it was the last attempt to save one's life. I recall the details better now. The rescue aircraft which would lead you back to a safe landing, flying wingtip to wingtip was called The Shepherd. I glanced at my watch; 51 minutes airborne. About 30 minutes left of fuel. I pulled the Vampire into a left hand turn and began my first leg of the first triangle. Below me, the fog reached back as far as I could see. And ahead toward Norfolk, it was the same. Ten minutes went by; nearly two complete triangles. I had not prayed — not really prayed — for many years. And the habit came hard. Lord, please get me out of this bloody mess.

AM: When I had been airborne for 72 minutes, I knew no one would come. I felt the rage of despair welling up. I began screaming into the dead microphone, "You bastards! Why don't you look at your radar screens? Why can't somebody see me? So damn drunk you can't do your job properly." The anger subsides. Five minutes later, I knew that I was going to die that night. Strangely, I wasn't even afraid anymore — just enormously sad. It's a bad thing to die at 20 years of age with your life unlived. And the worst thing is not the fact of dying, but the fact of all the things never done. I dropped the left wing of the Vampire toward the moon to bring the aircraft onto the final leg of the last triangle. Down below the wing tip, against the sheen of the fog bank, a black shadow crossed the whiteness. It was another aircraft, low against the fog bank, keeping station with me through my turn a mile down with the sky toward the fog.

AM: Being below me, I kept turning wing down to keep it in sight. The other aircraft also kept turning until the two of us had done one complete circle. Only then did I realize why he did not climb to my height and take up station on my wingtip. I eased the throttle back and began to slip down toward him. He kept turning, so did I. At 5,000 feet, I knew I was still going too fast for him. To reduce speed even more, I put out the air brakes, slowing down to 280 knots. Then he was with me, 100 feet off my wing tip. And we straightened out together, rocking as we tried to keep formation. The moon was to my right, and my own shadow masked his shape and form. Even so, I could make out the shimmer of two propellers whirling through the sky ahead of him. Of course, he could not fly at my speed.

AM: I was in a jet fighter; he in a piston-engined aircraft of an earlier generation. He held station alongside me for a few seconds then banked gently to the left. I followed, keeping formation with him for he was, obviously, the shepherd sent up to bring me down. And he had the compass and the radio, not I. For the first time I could see him well. To my surprise, my shepherd was a de Havilland Mosquito, fighter-bomber of World War II vintage. And then I remembered that the meteorological squadron at Gloucester used Mosquitos to help in the preparation of weather forecasts. Inside the cockpit of the Mosquito, I could make out against the light of the moon a muffled head of its pilot, and the twin circles of his goggles as he looked out the side window toward me. Carefully, he raised his right hand till I could see it in the window, fingers straight, palm downwards. He jabbed the fingers forward, and down, meaning we are going to descend, formate on me. I nodded, and quickly brought up my own left hand so he could see it. Pointing forward to my own control panel with one forefinger, then holding up five splayed fingers. Finally. I drew my hand across my throat. By common agreement, this sign means I have only five minutes fuel left. Then my engine cuts out. I saw the muffled, goggled, oxygen masked head nod in understanding. Then we were heading downward toward the sheet of fog. He pulled out at three hundred feet. The fog was still below us. I could imagine the stream of GCA instructions coming from the radar hut into the earphones of the man flying beside me.

AM: I kept my eyes on him, afraid of losing sight, watching for his every hand signal. Two minutes later, he held up his clenched left fist in the window. Then opened the fist to splay all five fingers against the glass. Please lower your undercarriage. I moved the lever downward and felt the dull thunk as all three wheels went down. In the moonlight, I caught sight of the nose of the Mosquito. It had the letters “JK” painted on it, large and black. Probably for call sign “Jig King”. He leveled out just above the fog layers, so low the tendrils of candyfloss were lashing at our fuselages. And we went into a steady circular turn. I glanced at my fuel gauge, it was on zero, flickering feebly. For god’s sake! Hurry up I prayed. I saw his left hand flash that dive signal to me. Then he dipped toward the fog bank. I followed and we were in it. The visibility was down to near zero. No shape, no size, no form, no substance, except that off my left wing tip — now only 40 feet away — was the form of a Mosquito flying with absolute certainty towards something I could not see. Only then did I realize he was flying without lights. For a second I was amazed, horrified by my discovery. Then I realized the wisdom of the man. Lights in fog are treacherous, hallucinatory, mesmeric, you can be attracted to them not knowing whether they are 40 or 100 feet away from you. The tendency is to move toward them; for two aircraft in the fog, flying formation that could easily spell disaster. Without warning, the shepherd pointed to a single forefinger at me. Then forward through the windscreen. it meant there you are, fly on, and land. I stared forward through the now streaming windshield, nothing, blackness. Then a streak of paint running underneath my feet; the centerline. Frantically, I closed down the power and held her steady, praying for the Vampire to settle. Bang, we touched. Bang, bang, another touch. She was drifting again, inches above the wet, black runway. Bam, bam, bam ditty bam, rumble, rumble. She was down, the main wheels had stuck and held.

AM: Slowly the Vampire came to a stop. I found both of my hands clenched around the control column, squeezing the brake lever inward. I forget now how many seconds I held them there before I would believe we were stopped. There was no need to turn off the engine. It had finally run out of fuel as the Vampire careered down the runway. I shut off the remaining systems, and slowly began to unstrap myself from the seat. As I did so, to my left, through the fog, no more than 50 feet away, the Mosquito roared past me. I caught the flash of the pilot's hand in the side window, and then he was gone up into the fog before he could see my answering wave of acknowledgment. But I had already decided to call up Gloucester and thank him personally. I expected the control tower truck to be alongside in seconds, for with an emergency landing — even on Christmas Eve — the fire truck, ambulance, and half a dozen other vehicles were always standing by. Eventually, two headlights came dropping out of the mist and stopped 20 feet away. A voice called hello there.

AM: I stepped out of the cockpit, jumped from the wing to the tarmac, and ran toward the lights. At the wheel of the car was a puffed, bearded face and a handlebar mustache. Is that yours? He nodded toward the dim shape of the Vampire. "Yes," I said. "Yes, I just landed it." "Extraordinary! Quite extraordinary! You'd better jump in, I’ll run you back to the mess." As we moved away from the Vampire, I saw that I had stopped 20 feet short of a plowed field at the very end of the runway. You’re damn lucky he shouted. And he seemed to be having trouble with the foot controls. Judging by the smell of whiskey on his breath, that wasn't surprising. Damn lucky I agreed. I ran out of fuel just as I was landing. My radio and all the electrical systems failed nearly 50 minutes to go over the North Sea. He digested the information carefully. No radio? No radio I said; a dead box and all channels. Then how did you find this place? He said. I was guided in I explained patiently. They sent up a shepherd aircraft to bring me down. It was one of the weather aircraft from R.A.F. Gloster. Obviously, he had radio. So we came in here in formation on GCA. Then when I saw the lights of the threshold of the runway I landed myself. The man was obviously dense as well as drunk. Extraordinary he said. We don’t have a GCA. We don’t have any navigation equipment at all, not even a beacon. Now it's my turn to let the information sink in. "This isn't the RAF Merriam St. George? No he said. This is RAF Minton." "I've never heard of it." "I'm not surprised; we’re not an operational station. Haven't been for years. Minton's a storage depot." He stopped the car and got out. I saw we were standing a few feet from the dim ship of a control tower adjoining a long row of huts, evidently once flight rooms, navigational, and briefing huts. the man returned and climbed shakily back behind the wheel. "Just turning the runway lights off," he said, and he belched. My mind was whirling. "Why did you switch them on?" I asked. "Well, it was the sound of your engine," he said. "I was in the officers’ mess having a nog, and Old Joe suggested I listen out the window for a second. You sounded damn low, almost as if you're going to come down in a hurry. Thought I might be of some use. Remember they never disconnected the old runway lights when they dismantled the station. So I ran down the control tower and switched them on."

AM: "I see," I said. But I didn't. "Where is RAF Minton, exactly?" I asked him. Five miles in from the coast he said. And where's the nearest operational RAF station with all the radio aids, including GCA? He thought for a moment. "Must be Merriam St George," he said. "Mind you I am just as stores Johnny." That was the explanation. My unknown friend in the weather plane had been leading me straight in from the coast of Merriam St. George. By chance, abandoned old storage depot Minton lay right along the in flight path of Merriam’s runway. And this old fool had switched on his lights as well. Result coming in on the last ten mile stretch, I had plucked to my Vampire down into the wrong airfield. I was about to tell him not to interfere with modern procedures that he couldn't understand when I choked the words back my fuel had run out halfway down the runway. I'd never have made Merriam ten miles away. I'd have crashed in the field short of the touchdown.

AM: We stopped at the officers’ mess and went in. The place had seen better days. My host the Flight Lieutenant Marx shrugged off a sheepskin coat and threw it over a chair. "I'm sorry it's not very hospitable, old boy," said Marx, going to the door and shouting for someone called Joe. "Not to worry," I said, "though I could do with a bath and a meal." "I think me can manage that," he said, trying hard to play the genial host. "I’ll get Joe to fix up a spare room. God knows we have enough of them. He’ll also rough up a meal. Bacon and eggs do?" "That'll do fine. While I'm waiting, do you mind if I use your phone?" He ushered me into the mess secretary's office, and then went off to supervise the steward. My watch told me it was close to midnight. Hell of a way to spend Christmas I thought. Then I recalled how 30 minutes earlier, I had been crying to god for help, and I felt ashamed. After a few minutes the phone was ringing.

AM: "RAF Merriam St George." "Duty controller air traffic control please," I said. There was a pause. "I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid there's no flying tonight, sir. No one on duty in air traffic control." "Then give me the station duty officer, please." When I got through to him, I explained about the emergency and that his station had been alerted to receive a Vampire fighter coming in on emergency landing without radio. He listened attentively. "I don’t know about that. I don't think we've been operational since we closed down at 5:00 this afternoon, but I'm not on air traffic. I'll get the wing commander." An older voice came on the line. "Where are you speaking from?" "RAF Minton, sir. I've just made an emergency landing here. I thought I was heading for your airfield on a ground-controlled approach." "Well, make up your mind. Were you or weren’t you? You ought to know." I took a deep breath and started at the beginning. "You see sir, I was intercepted by the weather plane from Gloucester, and he brought me. But in this fog it must have been on a GCA. No other way to get down. Yet, when I saw the lights of Minton, I landed assuming it to be Merriam St. George. I’m ringing to alert you to stand on your radar and air traffic control crews, sir. They must be waiting for a Vampire that's never going to arrive. It's already arrived here at Minton." "But we shut all the systems down at 5 o'clock. There has been no call for us to turn up." "But Merriam St. George has a GCA." "I know we have, but it's been shut down since 5 o'clock."

AM: I asked the next and last question slowly and carefully. "Do you know sir, where is the nearest RAF station that maintains 24 hour emergency listening? Yes, to the west. To the south. Good night to you. Happy Christmas." I put the phone down, on the fuel I was carrying. Not only could I not have made Merriam St. George. It wasn't even open. It began to dawn on me that I didn't really owe my life to the weather pilot from Gloucester, but the bearded, bumbling old, passed over, Flight Lieutenant Marx, who couldn't tell one end of an aircraft from another. Still, the Mosquito must be back at Gloucester by now. And he ought to know that despite everything, I was alive.

AM "Gloucester?" said the operator. "At this time of night!" "Yes," I replied firmly. "Gloucester, even at this time of night." The duty meteorologist took the call and I explained the position to him. "I am afraid there must be some mistake, Flying Officer," he said. "It could not have been one of our Mosquitos went out of service three months ago. We now use Canberras." I stared at the telephone in disbelief. Then an idea came to me. "What happened to them?" "They were scrapped I think or sent off to a museum is more likely." "Could one of them been sold privately?" I asked. "I suppose it's possible." "Thank you. Thank you very much. And happy Christmas." I put the phone down and shook my head in bewilderment. What an incredible night. First, I lose my radio and all my instruments. Then I get lost and short of fuel. Then I'm taken in by some moonlighting hair-brain with a passion for veteran aircraft, flying his own Mosquito through the night, who happens to spot me, comes within an inch of killing me, and finally a half drunk ground duty officer has the sense to put his runaway lights on in time to save me.

AM: Luck doesn't come in much bigger slices. Flight Lieutenant Marx put his head through the doorway. "You're room is ready," he said. Number 17 just down the corridor. Joe’s making up a fire, and bath water is heating. If you don't mind I think I'll turn in. Be all right on your own?" "Yes, sure I'll be fine. Many thanks for all your help." I took my helmet and wandered down the corridor. From the doorway of 17 a bar of light shone into the passage. As I entered the room an, elderly man began to rise from his knees in front of the fireplace.

AM: "Good evening, sir," he said. "I'm Joe, sir, the mess steward." "Yes Joe," Mr. Marx told me about you. Sorry to cause you so much trouble at this hour of the night. I just dropped in, as you might say." "Yes, Mr. Marx told me. I'll have your room ready directly, soon as this fire burns up it’ll get quite cozy." I ate the plate of sizzling bacon and eggs. The old steward stayed to talk. "You been here long, Joe? "I asked him, more out of politeness than genuine curiosity. "Oh yes sir, nigh on twenty years now. Since just before the war, when the station opened."

AM: He told me of the days where the rooms were crammed with eager young pilots. The dining room noisy, the bar roaring with songs of months and years when the sky above the airfields snarled to the sound of piston engines driving planes the war and bringing them back again. I rose from the table, fished a cigarette from the pocket of my flying suit, lit it, and sauntered around the room. The steward began to tidy up the plates. I halted before an old photograph in a frame standing on a mantel above the crackling fire. I stopped with my cigarette half raised my lips, feeling the room go suddenly cold. The photo was old but it was still clear enough. It showed a young man in his early 20s, dressed in flying gear, but not the gray suits and plastic crash helmets of today. He wore thick sheepskin-lined boots, rough Serge trousers and a heavy sheepskin zip up jacket. From his left hand dangled one of the soft leather flying helmets they used to wear with goggles attached instead of the modern pilots’ tinted visor. He stood with legs apart, right hand on hip, a defiant stance. But he was not smiling. It was something sad about his eyes. Behind him stood his aircraft, there was no mistaking the lean, sleek silhouette of the Mosquito fighter-bomber. I was about to say something to Joe and I felt the gust of cold air in my back. One of the windows had blown open. It took me two strides to cross to where the window swung on its steel frame. To get a better hold I stepped inside the curtain and stared out. Somewhere far away in the fog I thought I heard the snarl of engines. But it was probably just a motorcycle of some farm boy. I closed the window, made sure it was secure, and turned back into the room. "Who's the pilot, Joe?" I nodded toward the lonely photograph on the mantel. "That's a photo of Mr. John Kavanagh, sir. He was here during the war, sir. An Irish gentleman. Very fine man if I may say so. As a matter of fact, sir, this was his room." "What squadron was that, Joe?" I was still peering at the aircraft in the background. "Pathfinders, sir. Mosquitos, they flew. Very fine pilots all of them, sir. But I believe Mr. Johnny was the best of them all. But then I’m biased, sir. I was his batman you see." There was no doubting it. The faint letters on the nose of the Mosquito behind the figure in the photo read 'JK’. Not “Jig King”, but “Johnny Kavanagh”. The whole thing was clear as day.

AM: Kavanagh had been a fine pilot flying with one of the crack squadrons during the war. After the war, he'd made a pile of money, bought an old Mosquito in one of the periodic auctions of obsolescent aircraft, refitted it, and flew it privately whenever he wished. Not a bad way to spend your spare time if you had the money. So he'd been flying back from some trip to Europe, but spotted me turning in triangles above the cloud bank, realized I was stuck, and taken me in tow. Pinpointing his position precisely by crossed radio beacons. Knowing this stretch of the coast by heart, he'd taken a chance on finding his old airfield at Minton, even in the thick fog. It was a hell of a risk. But then I had no fuel left. So it was that or bust. I had no doubt I could trace the man, probably through the Royal Aero Club. "He was certainly a good pilot," I said reflectively, thinking of this evening's performance. "Oh, the best, sir said Old Joe. They reckon he had eyes like a cat did Mr. Johnny. I recall many's a time the squadron returned. He’d have his Mosquito re-fueled and take off again alone, going back over the channel or the North Sea to see if he could find some crippled bomber making for the coast and guide it home." "I've seen pictures of them," I said. "And he used to guide them back?" I could imagine them in my mind's eye, gaping holes in the body, the wings and the tail creaking and swaying as the pilot sought to hold them steady for home, a wounded or dying crew, and the radio shot to bits.

AM: I turned from the photograph and stubbed my cigarette butt into the ashtray by the bed. "Quite a man," I said, and I meant it. Even today, middle-aged, he was a superb flyer. "Oh yes, sir, quite a man, Mr. Johnny." I nodded gravely. The old man so obviously worshipped his wartime officer. "Well," I said. "By the look of it, he's still doing it." Now Joe smiled. "Oh, I hardly think so, sir. My Johnny went out on his last patrol Christmas Eve, 1943, just over 14 years ago tonight. He never come back, sir. Went down with his plane somewhere in the North Sea, he did. Good night, sir. Happy Christmas."

[I’m Walking in the Air” the Grimethorpe Colliery Band/instrumental]

CH: That was the Grimethorpe Colliery Band with an instrumental version of I'm Walking in the Air. And, before that, of course "Fireside Al" Maitland reading The Shepherd -- by Frederick Forsyth. Now, if you are just tuning in and are worried you missed this year's reading, you might be thinking:

SOUNDCLIP

AM: You bastards! All so damn drunk you can't do your jobs properly!

‘The Shepherd’: Si Spiegel

Guest: Laurie Gwen Shapiro

CH: And I understand that you're upset, but there's no need for that kind of language. Anyway, don't fret. You can stream The Shepherd to your heart's content at our website: www.cbc.ca/aih. Now, you can cross the most important item -- listening to The Shepherd -- off your list of holiday traditions. And if you celebrate Christmas, I assume that by this point you have crossed another key task off that list: securing a good tree, which is a subtle art. It can be too tall or too short. It has to be full and lush, but with well-spaced out branches that are sturdy enough to support all my enormous homemade paper mache ornaments. They're heavier than they look. And they look heavy. But maybe you prefer to skip the painstaking process of picking a new tree every year. Maybe you've opted for an artificial one. And if so, you should know that that tradition was made popular, in part, by a Jewish-American Second World War pilot and war hero named Si Spiegel -- who was known as "the king of the artificial Christmas tree." Si Spiegel died this past January. He was 99 years old. He told his life story to author Laurie Gwen Shapiro -- from his first time inside a cockpit as a teenager, to returning home to the U.S. after being declared missing in action during the war -- and his later years revolutionizing the artificial Christmas tree business. Ms. Shapiro wrote about Si Spiegel for the New York Times, after years of meeting with him over coffee or lunch -- and eventually the pair became friends. But their first meeting was just a chance encounter on a windy December morning. We reached Laurie Gwen Shapiro in New York City.

NK: Laurie, I know you've described yourself as a chronic native New Yorker eavesdropper. So, what were you hearing that day in, in that park in December 2019 that, that caught your attention?

LAURIE GWEN SHAPIRO: Well, it was interesting. I have a busy brain. I'm a chatty, caffeinated New Yorker [NK chuckles] and I take walks. I mean, that's one of the luxuries of places like Toronto or New York City that you can actually walk around and think. And I lived down on the Lower East Side and I got myself uptown in Manhattan near Riverside Park. And there was a large statue of Eleanor Roosevelt that is still there at the base of the park, the southern base. And I was just kind of pausing after a long walk. It was a chilly day. And I heard a gentleman talking to someone else about how wonderful Eleanor Roosevelt was with aviation, how she really supported aviation. And I, I realized that this could possibly could, I mean, maybe could he be somebody from World War Two? And some of my clues on this were that my father had kids close to 50. And so, he comes from the same era. And I just thought, I'm going to just get in a little closer. And after a while, I actually interrupted and said, I'm a journalist. I sometimes write articles for The New Yorker, for The Times, and I've just sold a biography about Amelia Earhart that I'm just beginning. May I speak with you? And he kind of looked at me a little bit dismissively. [laughing]

NK: He's a suspicious New Yorker maybe as well.

LGS: Yeah, he's a New Yorker. But he just looked at me like, what does this kid know? I'm not really a kid. But to him.

NK: To him, sure.

LGS: What does this kid know about aviation? And I gave him my card, my business card. And in, in a sort of a crazy moment, I live in an apartment building. I'm a native New Yorker. And it was where his parents had their last address. And he said, this is too fun. You know what? Just come over, I'll give you a talk. And I made an appointment the next day. [laughing]

NK: He invited you over. So, so many points of connection just in those, in these few moments. But you, you go over, you start talking, you become friends. In those conversations, what stood out to you about, about the kind of person he was?

LGS: Well, Si told me that he was born in Greenwich Village in 1924. And he started by telling me that it was the first year you could listen to the AM radio. And he said, I'm old. [both laugh] And, you know, we started at the very beginning. He, he was full of energy at this point. And I was actually in a very sad place because my father, who would die at 99.5, was coming to the end of his life. But he, he, he encouraged me to have some connection there. And I, I just wanted to speak to him. And I had no plans to write it as an article, but maybe there was something there. And what I did smartly was I hit the audio button on my phone and I got that very, very first recording. And he started in on the beginning. And I got to tell you, and he never sat down the entire time I knew him. [chuckling] I mean, this first story he told me three hours standing without a cup of coffee.

NK: Like the star of The Shepherd, Si I was a pilot. What did he tell you about how he first got into the cockpit?

LGS: Well, one of the things you need to know about Si is that he's a Jewish New Yorker. His name was originally Isaiah, and it was Chaya in Yiddish. And the guy he told me who filled out the birth certificate left out the age. [both chuckle] So he became Isay, and then he became Si. And this was his heritage. And I got to be honest, there is not a long tradition of a lot of Jewish pilots. And part of that is due to anti-Semitism so prevalent in that era. But in World War Two, everybody wanted to fight, particularly Jewish men. I mean, this was a personal thing. You know, this was, they were fighting against Hitler. But he originally signed up and he had never gone to college. He was very young. And he signed up to, to be a mechanic. And so, he was already in the army. And then he just felt that he wasn't actually doing enough. And what he told me was, how was he going to fight Hitler with a wrench? [NK chuckles] This is what he was always thinking about. And so, he got into a conversation with someone who was a pilot while he was fixing the plane. And he said, well, if you want to be a pilot, go across the street, get on the bus and go about two miles to Mitchell Field and see if they'll take you. But what he told me, and this is part of the craziness of the story, is that he signed up in this unusual place. He was already in uniform because he was a mechanic and there were only two people that showed up that day. And the other one had bad eyesight, and he had perfect vision. [chuckling] And then he was learning barrel rolls and loops. And then he got his wings. I mean, I assume we have some aviation fans listening. [NK chuckles] When you get your wings, you're no longer an aviation cadet, right?

NK: You're ready to fly.

LGS: So, he was an officer.

NK: And he, he ended up flying dozens of missions. But there was one in particular that, that he told you about when he had to make an emergency landing in Poland. Tell our listeners about that story.

LGS: Here's what was going on. It was his 33 mission. And they were gathered, the pilots and the crews, and they were told that they were going to be bombing Berlin headquarters. And what happened was that there was an engine malfunction, which was not that uncommon. But then they lost the second engine to flak, which is, you know, the ammunition being hit at them and gas was leaking. And so, he couldn't keep up with the formation. He only had, he had one engine gone and with two, he absolutely couldn't. And they had half the trip to go. So, what he did is that he asked his navigator and his name was Ray Patulski to get them to Poland, where there had been Russian troops who had already passed Warsaw. And they, he thought that maybe they would be safe if they got past Russian lines. And they landed on this basically this Polish field. And it was quite a scene. I mean, it was just, you know, here's this B-17 lit landing in the middle of Poland. And soon they found out that there was another B-17 that, that landed at the same exact spot. So, they thought they were going to get out, you know, in a couple of days. Everybody you know, everybody is going to know that they're okay. They're safe. But what really happened is that no one knew where they were. The Russian officers weren't telling anyone. They thought there was value in having these Americans there. You know, they were treated well as officers, you know, but they were, kept asking, when are we, when are we, you know, where's the communication? When are we going to get out? And the two pilots started to plan. And could they possibly combine the parts on their two planes without the people supervising them watching? And so, they started this crazy nutty plan to kind of create a Frankenstein vehicle aircraft. And, you know, and what would happen is that one pilot would go out drinking with,. With the, you know, the Russian officers watching them while the other crew was working on it. And then the other team would go out drinking. And eventually they were doing these fixes and they put together this plane.

NK: It's remarkable that they [chuckling] somehow, by distracting the Russians, are able to put together this Frankenstein plane, as you've described it. How do they get to freedom after that?

LGS: So, so he's working with this other pilot who's named George Ruckman. And so, this escape from their sort of alternative universe took place on St Patrick's Day in 1945. So you have the two B-17 bomber crews, and there was also a downed P-17 pilot. And the crew took off, and it was 19 men on this plane that's not meant for 19 men. And they landed at an allied base. And I my Italian is terrible, but it's I think it's Foggia, Italy. And it was about eight hours of flight later, and they were safe. And people were shocked. They couldn't believe they were like they're were supposed to be dead. And, in fact, one of the people I spoke to when I was doing my research was Si's younger brother, who told me that they got a telegram in New York that Si was missing in action. So, I can imagine the shock back in New York as well.

NK: When they get the news, yeah.

LGS: No one knew what had happened to him. They were there for several months. We're not talking a couple of days.

NK: Was he surprised that they got out alive?

LGS: Oh, absolutely. And he told me he hadn't brushed his teeth since leaving the base.

NK: Oh wow!

LGS: And here's what's crazy. When the family heard that a Si was alive, it was a shared birthday with his little brother, Lenny. Who was, who told me he was 10 years old at that time. And it was just like the greatest birthday gift. And he told me that he wrote a telegram that said, I'm safe and well, letters following. Happy birthday. Love. [both chuckle] And so, but what happens is that Ruckman, the other pilot, comes back, gets a advance in placement. But what Si told me is that he noticed that he couldn't, he wasn't getting a promotion. He wasn't as a Jewish man allowed in the famous Wings Club.

NK: So, that same anti-Semitism that you talked about, that he talked about, that kept a lot of people out is what he faced when he got back as well?

LGS: Yeah. And, and he's just embittered. He goes back into the machine shops. What is he going to do?

NK: But then he ends up working in this, in this, in this factory. It's making small, multicoloured brushes that people would see in shop windows. And then something clicks that, that this, these can be reused and make Christmas trees.

LGS: Yes. Now, here's the thing. It's not that he invented the idea of an artificial Christmas tree, but his, he was, you know, put in a company that was making them and they were selling a few of these sort of, you know, sort of soulless looking trees. And pretty soon he was given his own division. Let's see what you could do with it. And he had people studying trees. And the idea of why can't an artificial tree look like a real tree? It's a real Si Spiegal achievement. [NK chuckles] Which if you have an artificial Christmas tree and you're listening to this program, that is directly because of Si Spiegal he was called the artificial Christmas tree king.

NK: And that's where that fortune, that, that, that fortune for the rest of his life came in. But, you know, there's so many, I think there's at least two or three films that could come out of his life. He had been married and then, you know, that marriage fizzles out. He marries again and he marries Motoko Ikeda, who was a Japanese-American whose family had been put in internment camps. You know, so he has children who are taught to celebrate their Jewish and Japanese heritage. How did he feel about the life he lived? What did he tell you, Si, about having those two, well, many legacies, but specifically that, that, the legacy of his work in the Second World War, but also the Christmas tree business.

LGS: I will tell you that when I met him again, he was in his 90s. He had sold his company in 1992 for $12 million. So this is someone who grew up in poverty, who couldn't get back into the aviation world. He was very proud of that. His love of his life, he had three marriages, but his love of his life was his second wife, Motoko Ikeda. And he had three kids. And he was very, very proud of his family and his grandchildren. But what he really wanted to talk to me about was the war. And it was because he was, at this point, the only surviving member of his crew. And it wasn't that he wanted to talk about himself so much. He wanted me to know the names of the crew. And he knew that people from his age group were dying off. He was one of the youngest people in World War Two because he was so young when he signed up, and is 17, and to be a pilot. And he knew that he had witnessed things that no one else would believe. And he found out I was a journalist. And there was sort of a desperation because I was at the same time working on my Amelia Earhart book, which is actually finally coming out in July. But he kept saying, am I going to read the book? And then he would say in the next sentence, And when's my article coming out? Laurie, you have to get this article coming out. And then my, my New York Times editor said this would be a great Christmas story.

NK: What did he think of it?

LGS: Oh, he loved it. And what was really amazing was this came out during the pandemic. So, there was a loneliness. Even though he wore a mask and we would meet outside at this point, there was a lot of loneliness with elders. But here he was suddenly a viral, you know, in a, in a journalistic viral sensation. We're not talking [chuckle] a rockstar.

NK: Not a TikTok video, but still. [chuckling]

LGS: Yeah, but, but he was getting, I mean, the head of the Met wanted to meet him. That was pretty exciting for him. But what was more exciting was that many World War Two veterans were reaching out to him. Many people who had been in the Air Force, pilots, not just Jewish pilots, all pilots. And he started to do these Zoom meetings with other, other veterans during the middle of the pandemic. And he told me that was incredible. But he also just was so thrilled to have this happen. He couldn't believe I finished the story, to be honest. [both laugh]

NK: That must have been rewarding for you too. I mean, I know before you, before doing a story or publishing a story, there's always that anxiety. You want to make sure you get it right and then you hope it's well received, you know? And then something like this, you've become close with this person. So was it rewarding for you?

LGS: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I felt very emotionally connected to him, which you're not always supposed to feel when you're writing a story. But, you know, he was my --

NK: This is different.

LGS: You have to also see the pictures of him from World War Two.

NK: So handsome. Oh my goodness!

LGS: Yeah, he was so handsome.

NK: The leather jacket, the cap.

LGS: There's my, well, I used to joke with him. This was my World War Two pilot boyfriend. [NK chuckles] Who doesn't want a World War Two pilot boyfriend. But one of the things that was amazing for him was just that his story was out there. Actually, during the pandemic, they, they had him lead the Veterans Day parade in New York in a, in a car with a mask on. [chuckling] You know, he had liked the moments like that.

NK: The last time, as I understand it, that you saw each other was on Christmas Eve, shortly before he died. What do you remember of about that last visit?

LGS: He, he mentally was 100 per cent. He was still, you know, able to talk, but he wasn't able to stand the way he was. He was much skinnier. And he just wanted me to come over. And he just wanted to thank me for our friendship. And I went over there, and I haden't seen him in a while. And it was just a moment. He just said, thank you. And I just said, No thank you. And it was a very emotional moment. And then I got word that he had passed away. And there was a very large obituary that ran in The New York Times. And, of course, I felt this wonderful pride knowing that he probably wouldn't have gotten an obituary if I hadn't written that article. And so, the legacy really lives on. And his, his children and his grandchildren live on. And, I mean, anyone that has an artificial Christmas tree listening in Canada or the United States, that's part of his legacy as well.

NK: What a beautiful thing, Laurie, and beautiful that you got to know each other. I'm so glad we could speak. Thank you for this.

LGS: Thank you so much.

CH: Laurie Gwen Shapiro is a journalist and author in New York City. She was talking to Nil about Si Spiegel, the Jewish-American Second World War pilot and "king of the artificial Christmas tree."

The AIH Transcript For December 24, 2024

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