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Sculptor Proud Of Lend-Lease
Memorial’s Authenticity
By Mary Beth Smetzer
Published August 26, 2006, in the Local News section of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
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Juneau artist R.T. “Skip” Wallen made a final inspection Friday of the larger-than-life bronze and granite World War II Alaska-Siberia Lend-Lease Memorial he designed and built.
The memorial’s official dedication is Sunday.
As Wallen walked around the granite-backed monument encircled by beds of perennials and intersected by walkways, he chatted with Alec Turner, owner of Alaska Granite Works. Turner’s crew was carefully dusting and polishing every inch of the installation.
The monument commemorates the joint efforts of the United States, Canada and the Soviet Union to defeat Germany in World War II. It is located between the Chena River and the Rabinowitz Courthouse.
Turner, who cut and drilled the granite and placed the stonework, pointed out to Wallen the repairs he has made on frontal chips taken out by skateboarders and bicyclists. He and the artist discussed how to discourage future damage.
For Wallen, it is another problem to solve, one of numerous he has encountered since he became involved in the $600,000 Lend-Lease Memorial three years ago.
“I’ve always been interested in Alaska history,” said Wallen who hoped the memorial would provide an opportunity for the “two countries to jump back over the Cold War to a time when they were allied for a common purpose … to feel connected rather than embittered.”
And the sculptor has done his homework to imbue the sculpture with authentic details.
In conversation, Wallen drops interesting tidbits about the era. For instance, Fairbanks was selected as the transfer site rather than Nome since Nome is on the coast and would be more vulnerable to Japanese attacks.
And, the contemporary flags that will be flown on the three flagpoles behind the memorial are unlike the flags flown during World War II. The Soviet hammer and sickle has been replaced with Russia’s red, white and blue stripes; the Canadian flag back then was pre-maple leaf–a Union Jack; and the U.S. flag had only 48 stars.
The artist went to great lengths to duplicate the clothing worn by Lend-Lease aviators, contacting museums and searching the Internet.
“Every article of clothing has a story behind it,” Wallen said.
He found an authentic decorated Soviet combat pilot’s leather helmet on the Internet.
Thomas Salazar, an Estonian who deals in militaria, sent Wallen the airman’s leather helmet so he could copy it in detail for the sculpture.
It took a while to locate a 60-year-old DVG parka, named after Dale V. Gaffney, who was commander of the Alaska Wing of Air Transport Command at Ladd Field, now Fort Wainwright.
Gaffney designed the shearling sheepskin coat in the early days of the Lend-Lease program when pilots were not properly equipped with cold weather flying gear.
Wallen finally located a DVG at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. On a curator’s hunch that a recently donated sheepskin coat might be what Wallen was searching for, Wallen flew to the nation’s capital and identified it in a warehouse about 12 miles outside the city.
The furry looking boots on the Soviet aviator are not mukluks, Wallen said.
“They are rolled down boots that could rolled up high in a cold cockpit to keep warm,” he said.
Two of Wallen’s friends served as the primary aviator models. Henry Tiffany of Juneau posed as the Russian aviator and an artist friend in Florida, Lucas Century, put time in as the American flier.
Both Tiffany and Century helped in other ways as well.
“Tiffany parachuted into Fairbanks several times when there were meetings to represent my concerns,” Wallen said.
Century, who engraved all 55,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, also engraved the granite on the Lend-Lease Memorial.
The bronze prop mounted behind and above the 10-foot-tall aviators is based on and is twice the size of the propeller of a Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter plane, with its distinctive 37-millimeter cannon in the nose cone. The P-39 was one model of about 8,000 planes delivered to the Russians in Fairbanks through the Lend-Lease program.
Wallen’s Juneau studio was too small to build the 10-foot tall aviators, so the bulk of the three-year-long sculpting and bronze casting process was done at a studio in Florida.
The original sculptures were made primarily of clay with some wood and metal supports over a closed cell foam material, which was scored for reassembly. Negative and positive castings were then made over several stages using rubber, plastic, ceramic slurry and wax before being cast.
Wallen and his wife, Lynn, hauled the many molds in a van to a bronze foundry in Enterprise, Ore., for the final steps of the process. After the bronze was poured and cooled, the casts were welded together and carefully cleaned and chased before being treated with a chemical patina and waxed.
From beginning to end, the Lend-Lease Memorial took three years, and Wallen credits his wife for her invaluable support and work for its timely completion.
“I couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.
Mary Beth Smetzer can be reached at msmetzer@newsminer.com or 459-7546.
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2421 Hill Rd; Fairbanks, Alaska