The Daily Alaska empire., 1945-02-13
ARCTIC HELL EXPERIENCED
 BY } PLIERS
Forced Down in Morrill, Sleep Under Three
 Feet of Snow


 In a world at war, the Arctic is land afar, but to three men who will long remember the terrors of it's icy grip, the North fights a war all its own.
 The man who will tell you so is Harry Swanton, intrepid Arctic pilot who three weeks ago, forced down while on an Army charter in the frozen wastes north of Kotze- bue, had one of the most narrowing experiences of Alaskan airplane history
 ! Swanton, a pilot for Ferguson Airways of Kotzebue, was headed for Point Barrow with Alaska Scout Sergeant Rheinhard Berg, rugged ex-Fort Yukon trapper, to set up food caches for Army dog teams to be employed in mapping and freighting ventures in an area as yet, for all practical purposes, un- mapped and unknown. Also along was Ferguson Airways Mechanic, Art Flat.
 l The party damaged a ski in a landing to set up cache approxi- mately 150 miles north of Kotze- bue and about 20 miles in from the coast. For the following eight days the trio battled desperately against blizzards and bitter cold to keep alive and were finally res cued by the Army Air Rescue Service.
 Blizzard Starts ! Swanton, who with his boss, Archie Ferguson, passed through Juneau yesterday, shivers when he tells the story.
 "A blizzard started an hour after we tore off the ski, 'Swanton said. She blew harder and harder for four days and I thought the ship was going to blow apart. Wind pressure broke the main spar in one wing during the third night. It must have been blowing at least 30 miles an hour When the storm finally broke, on the fourth day, all the three feet of snow on our landing field had been blown away and you could see the bare ground showing through every where"
 First Four Days Hardest
 It was those first four days the men found hardest.
 We had only one sleeping bag Swanton said, "and We took the bundles of dried fish we intended to cache for the dogs and laid them on the floor of the plane for a mattress. We wedged ourselves in and put the sleeping bag over us, taking turns for the middle posi- tion It was pretty crowded" sF On aathe third night, the wind reached it's peak, and when a sudden Hull came in the gale, to- ward morning, all three men woke to sudden realization that they were buried under three feet of snow that had blown into the plane.
 Under Three Feet of Snow
 Berg was in the sleeping bag, was huddled in the tail of the ship where had been trying to work the firepot, and Art was sitting with his back against the door crack trying to keep the worst of the snow from blowing in. When
 I realized what had happened to us just had to hole up past my face to the top of the snow like an old brownie-bear. looked at Art and he was actually buried clear up to his eyes, with sort of a blow-hole to his mouth. Berg was sleeping like a baby under three feet of snow inside the sleep ing bag. When we snapped out of it, we started throwing snow out of that ship like smadrnen and it took all day-it got us all wet in- side and out and we really began to suffer from the cold. The wing thermometer stood at 48 below. I guess it was'
 Grounded Ship Located
 On the fourth day, an Army DC-3 search plane located the downed ship and dropped supplies.