Cut Throat Island

Greetings to one and all! My name is Don Stensrud and I had was assigned to the Inspector General’s Office, HQ Western Air Defense Command, Hamilton Air Force Base, California during the summer of 1960.

My profession in the USAF was that of a Ground Electronics Officer. You can imagine my surprise when I was assigned by USAF orders as Commander, Cut Throat Island Detachment. On the off chance that anyone may be wondering, the answer is "No – I did not volunteer for this tour of duty".

My travel from California to Cut Throat Island included private automobile to Alabama (to settle my family), commercial air to New Jersey, military air from McGuire AFB NJ to Goose Bay Labrador, and finally by contract helicopter from Goose Bay to Cut Throat Island. For those that have an interest, I arrived in Cut Throat in September 1960.

Cut Throat Island was a Detachment of the 922^nd AC&W Squadron which was located at Cartwright, Labrador. The Cut Throat Detachment was the only group of any kind on the Island. The only other inhabitants on the Island included an Eskimo, his wife and two children. There were approximately 36 USAF personnel. One officer (myself) and the rest enlisted men. We also had 8-10 civilians, mostly Canadians, one from Scotland. During the summer months, we normally had 5-7 additional civilians doing contract work.

The climatology of Cut Throat was not conducive to outdoor recreational activities and we had very limited space indoors for anything other than leather crafts, card games or motion pictures. We were fairly comfortable outside during part of June-July when we had some horse shoe games and could do some fishing, but overall – not a fun place to be. The island was quite small (about 2 miles by 4 miles), quite rocky and dangerous along the three higher sides. Not safe for climbing, running or even walking very much.

As Commander, I worked every day during normal hours (0700 to 1700) and other hours as needed. As Commander, I really did not have any off duty hours. Speaking for the others, most of their time was spent playing card games, doing leather work, watching movies, reading books or sitting around and chatting with each other, and of course, writing letters to those at home. Another item that helped during the off duty hours was the piano. I was fortunate enough to arrange for a piano to be sent to Cut Throat via helicopter. I had met the Group Commander, Colonel Vic Milner when I checked through enroute to Cut Throat and he asked if there was anything he could do for me at Cut Throat. I told him I was a piano player and would like a piano at the site. I had the opportunity to play the piano at Colonel Milner’s house (at a party). Consequently, a piano (from a mess hall) was sent to Cut Throat. Made my life and that of most of the men a lot more pleasant.

I was fortunate enough to get a one week vacation to the US to be with my family in Alabama. Normally, this would not be allowed, but because of some of the improvements and achievements made at Cut Throat during my tour, the Group at Goose Bay made an exception and gave me permission for the time off. They sent an officer from Goose Bay as temporary Commander during my absence. There was another instance when I was off site (not R&R) at Goose Bay for a Site Commander’s meeting. During this period (about one week), a memorable, albeit tragic happening occurred. When the meeting ended, I along with the others, had to make arrangements for the return trip (helicopter) to Cut Throat. I told the transportation officer about my requirement. He told me that they could make room for me but that the Pay Officer, extra mail and food (weather had curtailed a lot of flights) were to be on the flight but they would off load some of the cargo, if necessary. I told him that I would wait until the next trip in a day or so.

The helicopter first went to Cartwright, dropped off (and picked up the mail), paid the men, unloaded the food and picked up passengers for Goose Bay. The next stop was to be Cut Throat Island. Tragically, the helicopter was lost between Cartwright and Cut Throat. As it turned out, all on board were killed. They recovered the remains a few months later. What it all said to me was that, had I insisted on returning on the first flight to Cut Throat Island, I too would have died in that crash.

As the Cut Throat Island Commander, I was in charge of all major functions, most importantly Operations. I had highly competent radar operators and technicians. Our radar was a TPS-14 gap filler radar. We sent the operational inputs to Cartwright and Goose Bay via voice communications. I do not remember how many tracks we detected and forwarded each sift or day, but it was enough to keep our operators busy day and night. I recall one incident that was quite intriguing during which, with our radar, together with our HF radio, we detected a Soviet ship (supposedly a fishing vessel) less than 10 miles from our site. One of my men spoke fluent Russian and overheard them talking about debarking and going ashore on our island. We immediately contacted Goose Bay higher authorities who immediately became involved (with Intelligence and others). The details of what happened were held as classified information. I can say that no one from the Soviet ship came ashore, and in short order, the vessel departed. We also received specific instructions to cover these type of activities (and others) in the future.

Except for a few days in July, the temperature was never higher than 50 degrees (F). Winters were quite severe, mostly in the low teens and below zero. Probably the worse weather encountered was when we recorded minus 55 (F) with a wind so strong that the anemometer froze at 90 MPH. Also, during the winter months, the above ground electrical heating cable for the water broke. This was a hazardous situation because we were totally limited to the in-building water tanks. I instigated immediate water rationing until replacement cable was sent to the site, the cable was installed and repairs to the water line were accomplished. Took almost a month. A scary time. In summary about the weather, the weather was bad. I can'’ imagine how or why the Eskimo family close to live on Cut Throat Island.

Considering the fact that almost all of our food was brought to us by helicopter, the food was good. We had milk from powder, and fresh food was in small supply. Our cook and Eskimo assistant were hard workers. They were not gourmet cooks but the food was well prepared, innovative, and quite tasty, whatever it was.

When I first arrived at Cut Throat and assumed Command (after my predecessor departed), I immediately closed the bar and would not permit any drinking until the site and the personnel were cleaned up and restored to what I considered met the standards of a USAF organization. The place was simply terrible. At first, there was a lot of dissension towards me, but I was able to gain support from a number of the competent and sober USAF personnel and civilians. It probably took about 2-3 months before things were cleaned up (site and people). I had to replace some of the people who were alcoholics or could not accept the way things were going to be. When everything was returned to an acceptable level, I did allow drinking again, but very carefully monitored and controlled.

When I first arrived, the main form of entertainment was drinking, as mentioned in the previous paragraph. Movies (16mm) were shown three, sometimes four nights a week. But, after a few weeks it became obvious that the films were very old, mostly in black and white, and the same films would come back to Cut Throat time and again. After a month or so, I called the people at Goose Bay who distributed the films. All they did was to give me a bunch of worthless excuses and resented my call. I then took matters into my own hands. I wrote a "heart-rendering" letter to the Armed Forces Radio and Motion Picture Association (pretty close to that name – got their name from one of the film containers). I won’t repeat what I wrote except that I mentioned about our "defending our country at this isolated site" and that the movies were very old, kept returning again and again. In fact the movie "The Return of the Fly" returned to Cut Throat Island six times. The end result, to the dismay of the film distribution office at Goose Bay, was that we were sent two of the latest movies of that time along with extra lenses for our movie projectors. From then on, the movie situation was great. Colonel Miller in Goose Bay and the Cartwright Commander heard about what I had done and I became an instant hero. (I still had a lot of things to fix at Cut Throat).

Mail delivery in and out of Cut Throat Island was totally dependent upon the helicopter schedule, which was primarily dependent on the weather. We probably averaged mail in/out about every 10 days (if we were lucky).

After completing my one year assignment at Cut Throat Island, I was assigned to attend the Communications & Electronics Staff Officer’s course at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. I departed Cut Throat Island for the US in September 1961.