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'Deeds of Valor,' Lt. John A. Pritchard Jr., WWII

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Contributed by: Linda Mustion on 5/23/2007

War's tragic emergencies result in many acts of heroism, but none more courageous or dramatic than the story of the rescues attempted and made by a Burbank flyer - Lt. John A. Pritchard Jr. of the U.S. Coast Guard on the ice caps of Greenland during World War II.

Lt. Pritchard's story was incomplete in many details until several months after the rescue attempts when a Coast Guard cutter returned to the states from Greenland in April 1943. Soon, the events started to unfold.

On Nov. 9, 1942, a U.S. Army B-17F Flying Fortress, PNE (#42-5088), with a crew of nine, departed for a search mission over the Greenland ice cap, searching for a missing C-53 plane. Two hours into the mission, while passing under some overcast, the B-17 made a left turn and the left wing struck the top of a glacier, causing it to crash.

They radioed for help, but soon the radio went dead. After two weeks, they got the radio repaired and contacted the Army for help.

On Nov. 28, 1942, the Northland, a coast guard cutter, under the command of CDR Francis C. Pollard, received a message that the Army had made contact with the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress that had gone down on an ice cap 40 miles inland, and soon arrived at Comanche Bay, on the east coast of Greenland.

The cutter had just nine months ago exchanged its obsolete SOC-4 floatplane for a Grumman J2F-5 Duck amphibian, flown by Lt. Pritchard. Despite heavy fog and bad weather, Lt. Pritchard and his radioman, Arm1c Benjamin Bottoms of Salem, Mass., took off in the old, battered, single-engine plane in which for nine months he had patrolled thousands of miles of sea and ice, and mapped countless air fields and danger spots. They soon located the bomber on a 2,000-foot-high ice cap.

While still overhead, Pritchard dropped a note asking for landing conditions. The pilot of the bomber, 1st Lt. Armand Monteverd, signaled for him not to land as the Army had already decided it was suicidal to try to land there, and a Danish explorer was stalled with his dog team trying to get to them. However, the intrepid Lt. Pritchard was determined to try to rescue the men - two suffering from gangrene.

Lt. Pritchard and Bottoms dropped medicines to the stricken men and signaled that he was going to land. The Army men frantically signaled for him not to try it, that the ice cap was far too treacherous.

But skillfully, Lt. Pritchard brought the old plane in, the wheels caught, and finally the ship came to a halt on a long ice slope, sinking wing-deep into the snow. He was four miles away from the bomber.

It was decided that Bottoms would stay with the plane and keep radio contact. Lt. Pritchard would hike the four miles to the bomber, slipping once into a fissure.

As he could take only two men out at a time, SSgt Lloyd Puryear, Camelsville, Ky., and Pvt Alexander Tucciarone, Bronx, N.Y., were selected because, although injured, they could walk with some assistance. A third flyer assisted while Lt. Pritchard guided them through the Artic wastes.

Remembering the difficulty of the landing, the pilot took off on pontoons, careening from one ice hummock to another. In a vivid description of the take-off down the treacherous ice-bound field, Tucciarone said, " I can only explain it by saying that God was with us, as we bumped from hill to hill, until we were airborne."

By the time Pritchard reached the coast, darkness had set in. CDR Pollard on the Northland ordered the cutters searchlights turned on to serve as a beacon. As the J2F landed, the cutter's crew lined the rails and cheered until the aircraft taxied alongside.

The next morning, Lt. Pritchard and radioman Bottoms stripped the Grumman down to the bare necessities, so that they could bring out three flyers the next trip. Though it started snowing, the pair took off anyway.

While the crew of the downed bomber was cooking breakfast, Pritchard flew over the crash site. From the air, Bottoms dropped two ski sleds with a note that they were to be used to pull the injured to the landing site they had used the day before.

As they were attempting to land to the north of the site, from the east came an Army rescue team on motor sled. Just about 100 yards from the PN9E, the sled with one of the two rescuers fell through the ice into a deep crevasse and he was killed.

Bottoms radioed that they had landed. Later, he reported that they had taken one Army flyer aboard and were returning. Why they took only one man has never been learned.

The snow was falling hard. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, when Bottoms radioed they had taken off. He asked for weather conditions. Suddenly Pritchard cut in for "bearings." Then the radio went dead.

Search parties were organized,but they were not able to find the wreckage. The Northland had received orders to leave at once. With the weather the way it was, they had to leave. It would not be until December of 1942 that five volunteers from the Northland landed and began to search for Pritchard's J2F, as well as for the PN9E.

After more than a month of fighting the Greenland winter, they gave up. It was four months later that an Army aircraft found the wreckage of Pritchard's J2F, but Pritchard, Bottoms and the army passenger were never found. The remaining seven airmen were later rescued after being on the Greenland ice cap for five months. A total of five men died trying to rescue them.

Lt .John A. Pritchard Jr. and Arm1c Benjamin Bottoms were both posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for their deeds of valor. The citation read in part: " The courage, fine judgment and skillful airmanship displayed by Lt. Pritchard in the rescue operations, at the risk of his own life, was outstanding and reflects great credit and honor to the service."

Lt. John A. Pritchard was the son of John A. Pritchard, Sr., a district manager of the Los Angeles Times newspaper. His mother would later in 1944 be named "California Mother for 1944." John grew up in Hollywood and was a graduate of Beverly Hills High School.

After graduation, the family moved to Burbank. Lt. Pritchard served three years in the U.S. Navy before being accepted to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

He ranked eighth among the 1,800 taking the entrance exam and out of 75 chosen to enter; only 33 have completed the requirements. He graduated with the Class of 1938. While at the academy, his activities were the advertising managership of the academy student newspaper, also on the school annual, and a member of the marksmanship team.

Lt. Pritchard is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England. His DFC medal is on display in the USCG Museum in New London, Conn.

He was survived by his parents, Mr. And Mrs. John A. Pritchard Sr., 1500 Morningside Drive, Burbank, California, two brothers, Gilbert L. Pritchard, who served in the Army Air Forces during WW II and passed away in 1990 as a Brigadier General, David Pritchard, also a flyer, and one sister, Nancy.

On thisMemorial Day weekend, I hope you take a few minutes of your time and pause to remember those who gave their lives for this great country of ours. All they ask is to: " Remember Them, and Do Not Forget, If You Forget, Then They Have Surely Died."

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