The Indomitable Reeve Aleutian Airways

When I graduated from high school, I couldn’t wait to enlist in the Navy. I wanted to be on a ship and visit exotic ports like Venice and Papeete and Singapore. “Join the Navy and See the World” was the recruitment poster, and I was all in.

I spent six years in the U.S. Navy, and, unfortunately, the only ship I saw was the mock-up vessel, permanently aground, which was used for training us recruits in boot camp. After basic training, I was stationed at various Navy bases on the west coast for two of those years, and the next three years at Ft. Meade, MD, an army base of all places. In my sixth and last year, I got my orders to report for duty in Adak, Alaska.

I had to go to the library to figure out where the hell Adak actually was. I discovered that it’s a small island waaaay out in the Aleutians. There are a few islands further out and closer to Russia, but not many.

The next question was how to get there from Baltimore or D.C. with my military airline travel voucher. It turned out there were lots of alternatives that would get me to Anchorage, but from there to Adak, there was only one option… Reeve Aleutian Airways.

I don’t remember what type of plane was used for that last leg, but I do know it was a prop plane. Probably a DC-3 or DC-6. At any rate, the pilot and co-pilot greeted us as we climbed up the steps, and pointed us to our seats. The trip was a little bumpy at times, but otherwise uneventful.

During my year at Adak, I got to really appreciate Reeve Aleutian and their intrepid pilots. My memory of Adak summer was drizzle followed by rain, changing in winter to freezing drizzle alternating with light snow. Reeve had three flights a week into Adak which were rarely canceled, no matter what the weather. Besides passengers, they also delivered the mail and packages. Thus, it was pretty unusual not to have mail call three times a week - and, believe me, we looked forward to getting mail and packages from home.

On the other hand, our food and supplies were flown in by Air Force cargo plane. The flight was scheduled once a week, but, for reasons unknown to this lowly petty officer, it was unusual for it to make it two weeks in a row without a cancellation. Perhaps the runway was short and required ideal conditions for the big cargo plane to land and take off? Maybe the plane assigned to our route had lots of maintenance issues? Or maybe the pilot checked the weather, saw that the flight would be a little bumpy and decided that “those swabbies on Adak can wait another week”? I do know, however, that after three or four weeks without a cargo flight, all our freshies were long gone and we were getting powdered eggs and milk for breakfast. It was a good thing we still got our mail - otherwise we would have really started to get grumpy.

I know… you ex-Marines and ex-soldiers are thinking, “wow, you got powdered eggs and milk to put in your water!? We only got that on Christmas as a special treat to go with our mealy bugs and grubs!”. Another reason I joined the Navy; the great, gourmet food.

A little history

Reeve Aleutian Airways was started by Bob Reeve, an intrepid adventurer who had quite an interesting life. He tried everything from gold mining to aircraft mechanics to bush piloting.

He had a short-lived college career. He flunked out of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, after spending more time at the local airfield hanging out with the barnstormers than at school.  Bob traded work for flight lessons to get his pilot’s license, and after a short career of barnstorming, got a job with PanAm, delivering mail from Lima to Santiago, Chile, at the time, the longest mail route in the world at 1,900 miles. He set a speed record for the distance and was doing well until he crashed his plane at Santiago. He quit before being fired, and returned home to Wisconsin, completely broke.

While in South America, he had heard tales of the wild frontier in Alaska, and decided to find his fortune there. He stowed away on a steamship and arrived in Alaska with $2 in his pocket. His first job was $1 an hour rebuilding a wrecked Eaglerock aircraft. When it was airworthy, he leased it from the owner and began delivering supplies to the small mining town of Chisana. It was often so cold during the winter months that he had to drain the oil from the engine at night and heat it on the stove in the morning to keep it from freezing. The profits from this route enabled him to buy his first plane, a Fairchild 51.

Over the years, with the combination of hard work, perseverance, ingenuity and a little luck, his business and reputation grew, but not without a number of close calls. On one flight, he was flying a family of four to Nome when he got caught in a complete whiteout. He landed on a frozen river and camped until the weather cleared, then flew another few hundred miles until he was forced to land on another river. It took him three days to get to Nome, then another ten days before the weather cleared enough to get out of Nome. On his return, he made a stop to pick up a medical emergency, then had to land in yet another river when he hit more bad weather. He eventually made it to Seward, and the injured man recovered.

On another trip, returning to Valdez after making a delivery to Chisana, his engine quit, forcing an emergency landing near Mount Wrangell. He and his passenger walked 20 miles on snowshoes to a mine. The owner of the mine helped the two men make their way to Valdez, where Bob located the repair parts, after which he flew back to his plane and, using a block and tackle attached to a tree limb, pulled the engine, rebuilt it, and flew home.

When trying to grow his business, Bob had his share of setbacks. Using his plane as a trade and the money he’d managed to save working fifteen hour days for months on end delivering mining supplies, he was able to finance three used planes in Seattle. He flew the first one up from Washington to ferry army surveyors along a route planned for a new railway. On the trip home, the plane broke through the ice on Kluane Lake and had to be abandoned. Reeve hired a pilot to fly the second plane to Alaska, but it crashed en route, killing the pilot. Reeve still had the third, but by then he was so strapped for cash, he had to borrow more money to buy the gas to fly it to Alaska.

Later, he had once again built his fleet up to three planes, when a storm flipped one of them upside down while it was parked. He spent the summer repairing it, and it had just become airworthy again when the hangar caught fire, destroying both it and his plane.

Reeve also had a bit of good luck along the way, however. In 1949, he was given notice that the air base on Shemya, far out in the Aleutians, was being closed. This was important to Reeve as it was the only all weather landing strip for planes servicing Attu and Adak. He flew to Washington to petition the Air Force and Congress to keep the base open, but was unsuccessful. Back at his hotel, he ran into an Air Force general who, as luck would have it, happened to have served with Bob’s brother during the war. After listening to his story, the general agreed to keep the airbase open, thus saving Reeve’s airline.

Over the years, Reeve Aleutian Airways developed a reputation as a dependable, reliable airline. For example, in 1979, Reeve started a non-stop service between Cold Bay, Alaska and Seattle. Over the three and a half years they flew the route, out of 458 flights, only eight were cancelled due to weather and another two for mechanical reasons.

One of the two mechanical failures on that route, if not for the amazing skill of the Reeve pilots, would probably have ended in disaster. On June 8, 1983, the flight out of Cold Bay lost a propeller not long after takeoff. The prop damaged the fuselage, causing the cabin to lose pressure and the loss of almost all the flight controls. The pilots could raise and lower the landing gear, and using the autopilot, could turn and gain or lose altitude, but couldn’t control the flaps or engine speed. They turned towards Anchorage and radioed that they needed to make an emergency landing. Shutting down a second engine (the Lockheed L-188 Electra was a four engine plane) to slow their speed as much as possible, the pilots began their approach. They knew they were coming in too fast, but had no reasonable alternative. Immediately after touching down, the pilots shut both remaining engines down and applied the brakes. The plane veered, skidded, blew out one tire, and set one of the brakes on fire before coming to a stop in a ditch. The crew and all passengers walked away. Whew!

Bob served as the president of Reeve Aleutian Airways from its founding until his death in 1980, after which his son, Robert D. Reeve, took over as president. The operation grew from the one leased plane Bob started with, to seven planes by 1990, but began a slow decline after that, due primarily to increased competition. It finally ceased operations in 2000.

Among his many awards, Reeve was named “Alaskan of the Year” in 1972, made honorary mayor of Shemya in 1978, and inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the Alaska Aviation Pioneer Hall of Fame and the International Aerospace Hall of Fame.

It wasn’t until this trip during our time in Anchorage that I learned that the airline is no more, and I have to say, I was a little saddened. My year in Adak wasn’t all that fun, but it was a little better knowing that come rain, sleet or snow, the indomitable Reeve Aleutian Airways would always be there to deliver our mail and those wonderful care packages from home.

See you next week…