In the forbidding waste of the cold, far north, a chain of giant bases are being built. Some of them have landing strips great enough to handle the largest bomber ever conceived. All of them are our only hope of defense against an atomic-bomb attack.

Men are working feverishly, racing against the tick of Geiger counters.

Joe Crosson is there. Our nation's foremost authority on arctic flying. Joe is old at 46. He has lived more of life and seen more adventure in 46 years than many of us will be privileged to do in four-score and ten.

Joe Crosson's mother was a Warsaw girl, Elizabeth Wynant. Joe's sister, Marvel, who give her life to the air Joe loved, was born in Warsaw, played here.

Local folks can well be proud of the association with these flying Crossons. For more than any other man, living or dead, Joe Crosson represents pioneer flying in Alaska.

He has flown more mercy missions in that terrifying long darkness or the eerie Alaskan twilight than any other pilot. It was Joe Crosson who flew the bodies of Wiley Post and the beloved Will Rogers out of the wastelands. Taking off against Joe's advice, they crashed.

When Point Barrow was ravaged with disease, again it was cagey, clever, north-wise Joe Crosson who flew serum through an arctic blizzard to the suffering people, cut off except by air. And air in Alaska then was Joe Crosson.

Joe and his pal, Ben Eilson, another daring pilot of the northland, flew Sir Hubert Wilkins to the South Pole.A great deal of the pleasure, lots of the zing went out of arctic flying for Joe, when after days of searching, he found the bodies of his friends, Ben Eilson, and his mechanic, Earl Borland. They had become victims of the ever-reaching, icy fingers of the northland.

Joe was reported lost many times. He respected his antagonist and never feared him. Joe always came back. It took him eleven days by foot on one occasion to return from a two-hour flight. His sister, Marvel, did not live to see the climax of Joe Crosson's flying career. She was killed in 1929, in a cross-country air race shortly after she wrote a magazine article and said: "I have given my life to aviation." She had.

Years ago, Marvel lived in Warsaw near the Rutter residence on North Lake street. Her father had purchased a mine somewhere in the west. Joe and Marvel were reared in the west. Raised money themselves to buy their first airplane. Joe learned to fly it and taught Marvel. These two became famous, each in their own right.

Joe was firmly established as the far north's leading pilot, and Marvel had become one of the nation's leading aviatrix when disaster struck. Marvel was instantly killed when her racing plane went down out west. She was the first woman licensed in Alaska, being checked by Eilson, who was then the CAA inspector there.

In 1928, Marvel had spoken to the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs of Warsaw. Joe had visited relatives here. Two aunts, Mrs. Simon Osborn, of East Market street, and Mrs. Lillian Hughes, of Winona, gather occasionally with cousins, Edith Litchenwalter, Mrs. Charles Ross and Garrett Osborn, to scan a giant scrapbook. It is filled with press clippings of the famous Crosson flyers.

Now when the nation's security depends upon the little-known vastness of our frozen possessions in the north, Joe Crosson's experience would be invaluable to our government. He is now an executive (a hatred title to flying airmen), supposedly tied to a swivel chair in Seattle, bossing the traffic of an Alaskan airline. But Joe isn't in that swivel chair.

He's in the far north again. I don't know what he is doing. but put your money on Joe Crosson's critical eye, his canny judgment having something to do, no doubt, with the race against the tick of Geiger counters. The next attack will come over the silent, cold top of the world. Because of the Joe Crossons, we may be there in force to meet it.

Down Rochester Way
The feline department is getting along well at the Outcelt's airport. "Raindrop" caught her first mouse the other day and she brought it in for all to see. Anybody wishing to put in an order for future good mousers, just contact Wayne and Helen.

They soloed a couple new students, too, Russ Doering, of Akron, and Seymour Elinof, Rochester. I think we mentioned at least one of these new private pilots once before. (That will be an extra fee, boys). Ready to take you flying are Lowell Hoehne, Rochester, Harold Starr, Argos, Bob Hogue, Silver Lake, and Harold Leasure, of Kewanna.

Next column, I want to tell you about a 74-year old grandmother, who flew to Fort Wayne for breakfast.

Warsaw Daily Times Wed. Oct. 15, 1947