"We took off, hoping to push straight through to Nome, Alaska, two thousand miles east.  It was 40 below and the cold was affecting the way the engines cooled and lubricated themselves.  My job was to manage the engines -- our number-four engine was only delivering about half power.  I had to push the three good engines beyond their safe settings to get us into the air.  We climbed through moonlight and broken clouds for twenty minutes -- I began to think we might make it.  Half an hour after takeoff, the oil temperature on number four went up and its oil pressure went down.  When that happens, something is seriously wrong and you have to act fast because the engine will catch fire.  I said, 'I think we ought to shut down that engine!'

   There was no immediate response.  None of us was thinking terribly clearly -- the flight-deck heaters were broken and it was so cold.  Fiegel didn't say much and General Bradley, who was standing between us, didn't either.  I said, "I don't want to be an s.o.b. here, but if we don't do something about that engine, we may not be able to shut it down.  I recommend we shut down the damn engine!"

   The general said, "Yeah, I think you'd better do that, Tom." 

   I punched it and the engine stopped quite nicely.  We didn't have full power on the other three -- number two was sick -- maybe we had 65 percent power altogether.  We were in real

   We were making no effort to turn.  I sat that out for maybe one minute.  Then I said, "Hey, fellas, don't tell me we're going to fly to Nome on three engines.  We're getting ice right now, and we'll get further and further out here where there's no airport and we'll have a hell of a time."  Finally Bradley said we should turn back.

   The lights of Yakutsk were one of the grandest sights I have ever seen, because I thought we would never make it back alive.  By now it was snowing hard.  Our flaps didn't work and we could barely get the landing gear down.  We started to sink at an alarming rate and I pushed the two good engines past their limits to check us.  The plane was so heavy with ice that it took all the strength of both lee and me at the controls to handle it at all.  We made our last turn just off the ground and it looked to me as though we were going to crack up, but we finally straightened out for the runway, which was dimly visible through the snow.

   We were still sinking.  I saw trees ahead and yelled at Lee, but he couldn't see them because of the ice on his windshield.  So I pulled back on the wheel and blasted the throttles.  The boys in the cabin told me that at that point the general covered his eyes.  We zoomed over the trees and hit the end of the runway without much of a bump.  I think we were all as pleased as if the war were over."