Gambell National Guard members to receive Alaska Heroism Medal for 1955 rescue

The Alaska Nationwide Guard and the Alaska Workplace of Veterans Affairs plan to award the Alaska Heroism Medal to the households of 16 members of the Alaska Nationwide Guard in Gambell. The awards are being offered for the rescue of a downed Navy air crew nearly 70 years after the occasion.

On June 22, 1955, a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft took off from Kodiak with a crew of 11.

The crew’s mission was to patrol U.S. airspace, test navigational aids and doc sea ice, in response to Verdie Bowen, director of the Alaska Workplace of Veterans Affairs.

About 200 miles west of Nome, the crew encountered two Soviet MiG-15 fighter jets, which fired on them. They tried to cover within the cloud cowl, however the MiGs managed to disable one of many patrol aircraft’s engines, and the crew crash-landed on St. Lawrence Island about 9 miles south of Gambell.

David Assard, the navigator, described the touchdown in an interview with Alaska Dispatch Information in 2015.

“The touchdown was as lovely as you can think about, with the notable exception that, as a result of we had no wheels and there have been loads of boulders and rocks on shore, they ruptured the middle tank,” Assad stated.

He stated the gas ignited, inflicting a fireplace contained in the aircraft.

“Because the aircraft decelerated, the fireball didn’t, and it rolled ahead and burned all people,” Assard stated.

June Walunga, daughter of one of many Nationwide Guard members who responded to the crash, remembers being in Gambell and watching the aircraft come down.

“I used to be seven years outdated, and I bear in mind the sound and the aircraft going over Gambell,” she stated. “It was thundering to us. You already know, we by no means heard that type of sound again then. And it’s proper there very near your head. And shortly after that, I noticed smoke.”

Not one of the crew died within the crash, however all of them sustained accidents, together with burns, shrapnel and bullet wounds.

Employees Sgt. Clifford Iknokinok and three different members of the Gambell First Scout Battalion have been seal searching close by and made their method to the crash website regardless of the Soviet fighters persevering with to circle overhead. Upon realizing that they didn’t have the mandatory tools to assist the air crew, Iknokinok set off for Gambell to collect extra help. Earlier than he made it to Gambell, although, he bumped into a number of of his fellow Nationwide Guard members, who have been already on their means to assist.

The Nationwide Guard members used umiaks to move the injured air crew again to Gambell. June Walunga remembers them arriving on the town.

“I bear in mind I used to be holding my mom’s hand, and we have been strolling in direction of the seaside the place the boats have been coming in, they usually have been carrying these folks on stretchers going up the seaside. Some had bandages wrapped on them and their arms; a few of them have been midway up on their shoulders,” Walunga stated.

After arriving in Gambell, the crew’s accidents have been handled. A workforce from Elmendorf Air Power Base retrieved them two days later. Bowen says it was solely because of the fast motion of the Gambell First Scouts that each one 11 members of the air crew survived.

But when this all occurred in 1955, why is the Nationwide Guard awarding medals in 2022? There’s a easy motive, in response to Bowen.

“In 1955, there (have been) no peacetime medals within the lively navy or within the Nationwide Guard,” he defined.

Brigadier Normal John Noyes offered the members of the Gambell First Scout Battalion with letters of commendation for his or her actions.

“For that point, that was applicable for 1955 and, in actuality, that was the one factor that he actually had in his awards department to supply,” Bowen stated.

In November of that yr, the U.S. Navy additionally acknowledged the Gambell First Scouts by awarding Honorary Naval Aviator Designations to Grasp Sergeant Willis Walunga and Employees Sergeant Clifford Iknokinok, the senior members of the unit. The opposite members acquired letters of appreciation from the Navy.

After a overview by Main Normal Torrence Saxe, the present adjutant common of the Alaska Nationwide Guard, the awards have been upgraded to the Alaska Heroism Medal, at the moment the best award for heroism within the Alaska Nationwide Guard. The medals will probably be offered to the households of the members of the Gambell First Scout Battalion and Cpl. Bruce Boolowon, the one surviving member.

The total record of recipients is as follows:

• Grasp Sgt. Willis Walunga
• Employees Sgt. Clifford Iknokinok
• Sgt. Herbert Apassingok
• Sgt. Ralph Apatiki Sr.
• Cpl. Bruce Boolowon
• Cpl. Victor Campbell
• Cpl. Ned Koozaata
• Cpl. Joseph Slwooko
• Pfc. Holden Apatiki
• Pfc. Lane Iyakitan
• Pfc. Leroy Kulukhon
• Pfc. Woodrow Malewotkuk
• Pfc. Roger Slwooko
• Pfc. Vernon Slwooko
• Pfc. Donald Ungott
• Pvt. Luke Kulukhon

The award ceremony was initially scheduled for July 9, however resulting from inclement climate, personnel from the Workplace of Veterans Affairs and the Alaska Nationwide Guard have been unable to land in Gambell that day. The Nationwide Guard and the Workplace of Veterans Affairs say they are going to work with the group and household representatives to reschedule the occasion.

Click on right here to look at the total Strait Science presentation specializing in the Gambell Nationwide Guardsmen and their heroic rescue mission from 1955.