HomeMy Public PortalAboutStohr, PennMagazine `sells Of Penn Stohr's Exploits
Cascada Yews
February 1, 1946
9olumn X7 C
Number 31
That Penn. Stohr is getting notice fare and wide as a great _ ilot for
his mercy flight ,and trips Jute Idaho's wilderness is shorn by the foll-
owing article taken. from "The American Weekly," a supplement of the
San Francisco Examiner of January 13.
Penn, for many years, flew for the Johnson Flying Service out of
Cascade, and just recently has moved. to Missoula, Montana.
"The wilderness isn't gorse. 'twenty tthousand equare miles of it
almost a quarter of the Staten of .Idaho- etill laughs at civilization,
at the whole wide world, at everybody except: Penn Stohr. Into this
land which defied the pioneers, the frontierneen and the best that
modern transportation has to offer. Penn Stohr most daily drives a
covered wagon, and he drives it on wing3. He's Idaho's 'Mercy
Flight.'
"One bitter daffy in February, 1943► Army authorities at Gowen
Field near .Boise called Johnson's Flying Service and asked for Steer
"One of our bombers ran into a blizzard in the primitive area,'
a worried .eelonel said, giving the ,section and its loca]. name.
"Thera were eight aboard.. The last we heard they'd spotted a
frozen lake and were going to try to land, Could you ctart looking
for them?"
Stohr was just leaving to fly his mail route aver the trackless
wastes into which the bomber had disappeared. He knew there was
Blight chance that the crew would know how to keep alive there. He
promised to look.
"For 14 days of terrific storm he flew law over his mail route,
changing his course each day, but there was no sign of the bomber.
It cleared on the 15th day, and the temperature dropped to 30 below.
The next morning Stohr dipped over Loon Lake and saw tracks in the
fresh snow, then six feet deep. He saw that trees at the lake's
edge had been knocked down, and then he saw the wreck of the plane.
"Four men dashed into the open. They pointed to the plane,
indicating that one man was there --injured, Stohr figured --and then
waved in the opposite direction, where there were three trails in the
snow. Obviously three of the men had set out for help, and Stohr
wondered if they could make it. He followed the tracks for 20 miles
until he sighted the trio plodding over the hard crust, and then
from the air, he herded them to a ranger cabin.
"After that he notified Gowen Field that the wreck was located,
but for 24 hours no one would give him permission to land and take
the stranded fliers out. The next morning dicusted with red tape,
he flew over Loon Lake with a couple of 'Smoke Jeepers' --highly
trained U. S. Fores crvice men who can handle any emergency. They
parachuted doun with a walkie-talkie, sized up the situation and
radioed back that it was OK to land..
"Stohr dropped his ski -equipped plane onto the lake in a
landing that made the bomber pilots gasp, and flew the famished
airmen out.
"This particular incident resultert. in the Army'e established
a Mountain Rescue Unit, but such trips of mercy are nothing out of the
ordinary for Penn Stohr, who has teen flying over this Godfor-
saken terrain for ten yeera and has never had an accident.
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"Each year he flies 15 or 20 people from Isolated mines and
homey to hospitals for varxoue reasons —ruptured ed appendics, industrial
accidents, maternity cases. He has found scorns of hunters and
children who have wandered foray from camps and gotton lost. Hs' a still
hunting for a 15 year old boy who strayed from is hunting party a
year ago last fall.
"Stohr started flying in 1934. He is married and has a wife and
three children who live in Cascade, Idaho. In 1936 he vent into
partnership with Bob Johnson, founding the Johnson rlyini Service.
They have a fleet of planes„ including come 12 passenger ,jobs, kept
mostly for fire -fighting work.
"Also they have several cub planes which they use to hunt coyotes
from the air. They come out into the open when the snow gets
deep, Stohr explains. "We dive, open the door and shoot, the set
down and pick them up." He soya he has spotted a few timber wolves
but most of the Idahoans won't believe him.
"Another one ct his Jobs is stocking streams with fish. H
used to do it by opening a vent in a barrel end letting; the fish out
slowly, but that didn't work so well. Now he dumps them out of milk
cars, let down by e. rope.
"But his mein assignment still in getting people out of trouble.
His Idaho neighbors think he has no need as a mercy flier."
Since the above article was written Mr. and Mrs. Stohr and
their children have moved. to Missoula, Montana to make their home.
Mr. Stohr is with the Johnson Flying Service there.