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Air Force Teaches Fliers How To Survive After TheyLand In Icy Maine WildsPRESQUE ISLE —Your planeis afire, you are floating on a parachute toward a frozen, desolate wilderness deep in snow.What would you do to survive when you land? That’s what the U. S. Air Force asks its men. Then it teaches them what to do. It takes the airmen into the woods as part of the course and says, in effect, “survive—or die.” The bleak area near the Canadian border used by the 4711th Air Defense Wing of the Presque Isle AFB is one of the toughest. Twenty jet plane crew members make the tests weekly.Long ago, explains Lt. Frank Pounders, the school supervisor,the Air Force realized the need for training fliers how to beat the elements while equipped with only elemental tools of survival. Now there are training groundsfrom the ice cap of Thule, Greenland, to the jungles of SouthAmerica and the swamps cfFlorida.Col. Wayne B. Curren, deputy for operations, set up the 4711th Wing’s training. He picked a staff of men experienced in the ways of nature. They talked with trappers. game wardens and others, building up the lore that mightsave lives. Col. Curren was the first student.Before heading for the outdoors and realistic survival conditions, the men have classroom work for two days. They learnabout their survival kits, small lightweight packages hooked to the parachute. These contain a sleeping bag, rugged shoes, socks, gloves, mittens, signal mirrors, a hatchet and emergency food rations.Maine Game Warden Supervisor Wilford Atkins lectures on hunting and fishing. Films onsurvival techniques are shown. The men are taught how to signal, to build life-saving fires nnd shelters. They learn to fashion snowshoes from green tree branches and parachute shroud lines and fishing lines from ’chute lines.An important item is the “paratepee,” built like an Indian tepee except that the wind-re-sistent, water-repellant canopy of a parachute substitutes for animal skins.Dr. David H. Darling talks about the “physiological and psychological effects of survival. And lastly hand-made “game-getting gadgets” are demonstrated.The actual tests start on the third day. Instead of parachuting to earth, how’ever, the men travel 18 miles by bus to the banks of Squa Pan Lake in Aroostook County.From the road, the men travel on snowshoes to the cabin-head-quarters for the field trip. There they are paired—for two is the normal crew of an interceptor jet.From this time the men arepretty much on their own. Fourexperienced woodsmen—instructors, however, move from camp to camp checking operations.SMART BUYIs a Safety Tested Used CarCHADWICKOLDSMOBILE CO.(Home of Good Service) Open Friday Nite ’Til 9 P. M.366 Elm St., BiddefordDial 3-3491
Newspaper Details
Biddeford Daily Journal
Biddeford, Maine, US
Fri, Apr 01, 1955
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
NH, USA 19 Feb 2022
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