Early June 1944
Riding the Hurricane Express
Skies over the North Atlantic were mostly clear when the unarmed twin-engine DH-98 Mosquito climbed out of Goose Bay, another
factory-fresh fighter-bomber on its way to help the British repel Hitler’s war machine.1 The pilot, an American civilian employed by the Royal Air Force Ferry Command, banked out over the Labrador Sea and powered
his agile aircraft toward a rendezvous with “the hurricane express”—a fierce but friendly tailwind blasting out of Canada
at nearly seventy-five miles per hour. RAF meteorologists called it “the Iceland Wave.” By whatever name, the rushing wind
stream promised a faster-than-normal ocean crossing, possibly even another world record, since the captain was taking a rather
daring direct route to Prestwick.2
Under normal circumstances, the Mosquito’s limited range made such a plan suicidal. A straight line to the coast of Scotland
was about twenty-two hundred miles—nearly a thousand miles beyond the plane’s maximum fuel range. Even with a temporarily
installed two-hundred-gallon gas tank lashed to the floor of its empty bomb bay, this fighter-bomber would need a hefty tailwind
to avoid ditching hundreds of miles short of land.
Young Captain Kirk Kerkorian was feeling lucky. A month earlier he rode that same air current and shattered the existing nine-hour
speed record for an Atlantic crossing by nearly two hours. It was exhilarating, the way winning big at poker was exhilarating.
He liked it—the thrill of victory, the rush of adrenaline, the payoff. For a quiet, seemingly mild-mannered guy, Kirk was
surprisingly comfortable with risk. At least that’s what his poker face suggested.
His first claim to a speed record was very brief, however. Another Mosquito pilot departing Goose Bay at the same time had
used slightly different altitudes and course variations that got him to Scotland twenty-three minutes ahead of Kirk. To RAF
Wing Commander John D. Wooldridge3 went the honors and the headlines for crossing in six hours and forty-six minutes.
Now, back for his second consecutive Mosquito ferry run, Kirk found the supercharged wind stream still roaring eastward. And
despite Ferry Command admonitions against pursuit of speed records,4 he knew conditions were right to try again. Besides, it was the eve of his twenty-seventh birthday. What a great present
to give himself.
His new calculations for the direct route to Prestwick were promising. If the tailwinds held up, he figured, he would have
plenty of fuel left over when he reached the Scottish coast. It was a gamble—but a sound bet, based on math and experience.
Kirk put his chips on the shortcut. The gambler went all in.
Ferry Command pilots were a competitive bunch, none more so than Kerkor (Kirk) Kerkorian, youngest son of an immigrant fruit
peddler from Los Angeles. His skills as a flier had already overcome substantial educational shortcomings. He was an eighth-grade
dropout. He used fake high school documents to get into an elite RAF training class in Montreal. Once admitted, he was a standout
among the international aviators in his class.
During his first few months ferrying planes across the Atlantic, Kirk assumed the commander’s seat in a variety of makes and
models—from the Lockheed Hudson that everyone trained on to the newer Martin Marauder B-26 and the Mitchell B-25 from North
American Aviation.
Kirk’s first takeoff on a transatlantic flight came with his first serious scare. It originated at Dorval Field in Montreal.
He was already rolling down the runway when he realized that his twin-engine Hudson didn’t feel right. Of course, it had a
spare gas tank in its belly that wasn’t there on routine training flights. But Kirk also hadn’t set his flaps for the extra
weight. At rotation speed when he expected to take flight, his tail still didn’t have lift enough to get off the ground. He
reached for his trim tab, adjusting quickly as the Hudson lumbered toward grass at the end of the runway. Liftoff came much
later than it should have—but not too late. The Hudson5 soared off safely toward the Canadian coast, and Kirk would never make that mistake with his flap settings ever again. The
most effective education of a rookie Ferry Command captain—unforgiving real-life experience—had begun.
For this latest ferry transit, Kirk’s Toronto-made de Havilland 98 Mosquito would require all the skill and experience he
could cram into its snug little cockpit. The “Mossie,” as the Brits called it, was the newest set of wings in the British
air fleet. It had earned mixed reviews. The plane was notoriously delicate in bad weather and suffered the highest per capita
crash rate among the various planes flown by the Ferry Command. Any measurable ice buildup on its high-speed, high-performance
wings risked catastrophic stalls. Pilots, in moments of dark humor, groused that it couldn’t handle ice enough to chill a
decent martini, shaken or stirred.
Some veteran Ferry Command pilots turned down or otherwise avoided assignments to fly the Mosquito. Not Kirk. He loved it—the
speed, maneuverability, its climb rate. He considered it the hottest plane in the fleet.
And it was by far the fastest plane in the European theater, capable of speeds approaching four hundred miles per hour. No
Luftwaffe aircraft could catch it. And it could intercept the fastest German buzz bombs—the V-1 rockets just starting to rain
down on London. It could fly at high altitudes, beyond the reach of antiaircraft guns, up to twenty thousand feet. And it
could be mass-produced without depleting already short supplies of metals. Like a canoe, the airplane was built primarily
of wood, its fuselage constructed with a double-birch plywood skin over a balsa and spruce frame.
To fliers like Kirk it was “the Wooden Wonder.” He never bothered to do the math that also made it the most dangerous plane
in the ferry fleet. During one spate of winter months, only one out of four Mosquitos made it. A crew had better odds playing
Russian roulette.
More than two hours into his second spring gamble with a direct run to Prestwick, Kirk’s confidence had been rewarded. Good
weather and a hearty tailwind had him and his navigator crewmate on track for a sub-seven-hour crossing. They figured to land
before dark, avoiding a more hazardous nighttime approach in a plane with few navigational aids.
The view outside was nothing but sky and an endless white-capped sea, not much to talk about. There were occasional course
adjustments and then the navigator’s midcourse notice of the “equal time point”—more commonly known outside aviation as the
point of no return. It wasn’t far beyond that critical marker when the navigator first detected the waning booster wind. The
Canadian kid, at least five years Kirk’s junior, repeated a series of locational fixes before confirming his ominous discovery:
the hurricane express had stopped.
Kirk reacted immediately, throttling back the engines and adjusting the Mosquito’s prop pitch for maximum fuel efficiency.
There would be no speed record this day. The new priority was reaching dry land before the gas tanks went dry. The plane slowed
to what seemed like a crawl. Hours ticked by. Kirk switched to reserve fuel supplies. Their forecast arrival time came and
went. They were still hundreds of miles out, over water so cold they wouldn’t last twenty minutes if they had to bail out
now. Daylight was fading fast and a low, thick overcast spread below them.
Finally, they were in radio range of Prestwick. But the news was dismal. The overcast was deep and the ceiling dangerously
low. It was unlikely to lift anytime soon. From the air above that thick gray blanket of clouds, land and sea were indistinguishable.
There was no way to glimpse the Firth of Clyde, spot the coastal towns, or locate a welcoming runway. In darkness and fog,
attempting to land was a fool’s wager. But the fuel gauge was pinned at empty. The Mosquito’s engines could stop at any moment.
Kirk kicked open the jettison hatch on the cockpit floor. Bailing out was a terrible choice . . . but his only choice.
