In part 25 of this series, published on Oct. 31, I noted that Mabel Wagner opined in her book Lest I Forget that her husband Wladek Wagner faced a mammoth task in building the first Beef Island airstrip in the middle of nowhere with hardly any skilled labour, machinery or equipment. However, she commended the loyalty and dependability of the East End workers who assisted him. About 25 men worked six days a week at $2 an hour, and six others earned $2.50.
The hours each man worked were recorded by Obel Penn, who later became my uncle by marriage. He paid them at noon on Saturdays, the end of their workweek, from cash that then-Virgin Islands administrator Geoffrey Allsebrook brought in his car. Occasionally, Mr. Allsebrook sent it with Ralph O’Neal, then a young official on his staff.
Puerto Rico’s help
Alberto Bachman, a Puerto Rican yachtsman, had offered to help Mr. Wagner with the planned airstrip at the clubhouse’s opening party, so Mr. Wagner flew from St. Thomas to San Juan to ask him to find a bulldozer. Mr. Bachman suggested he send his request to the governor of Puerto Rico, a friend who already knew about the project.
Ms. Wagner recalled that Mr. Wagner felt the request should come formally from the VI’s administrator, and Mr. Allsebrook eagerly submitted it. The governor immediately replied that he would give them a bulldozer and have it delivered to Trellis Bay free of charge.
Ms. Wagner wondered if Virgin Islanders were ever told of Puerto Rico’s generosity in making it possible to build the airfield then. She was probably unaware that two years earlier, Luis Muñoz Marin (governor of Puerto Rico from 1948 to 1964) had opened the Puerto Rico International Airport, later named after him as the first elected governor of Puerto Rico.
Joseph R. O’Neal acknowledged during some interviews in June 2001 — which were appended to his 2004 book Life Notes — that Mr. Marin was a good friend to the VI. For example, he had increased the number of scholarships for vocational courses in Puerto Rico.
Bulldozer’s arrival
Ms. Wagner recalls they had not known exactly when the bulldozer would arrive, but late one afternoon they heard a loud, powerful engine from the opposite side of Beef Island. Then Mr. and Ms. Wagner, the children, Myrtle Penn (my future sister-in-law), and the men who were working late ran to watch a United States Navy landing craft enter Trellis Bay.
The craft’s door swung open to reveal a Caterpillar diesel tractor, which began to drive slowly up the beach to claps and cheers. However, a sudden, loud mooing behind them startled Ms. Penn and the men into chasing away some stray cattle. Then the landing craft quickly left through the twilight as quickly as it had come.
Tantalisingly, Ms. Wagner copied the Caterpillar’s precise model number from her husband’s records, but she says nothing about its driver, such as his nationality, who paid him, or even where he slept. He skilfully removed the tops of the hills and ridges across the site, but clearing their scrub cover revealed the hugeness of the rocks underneath.
‘The dynamite man’
Some granite boulders were so large that a Mr. Winter, locally known as “the dynamite man,” was hired. He arrived mid-morning and worked until late afternoon using a pneumatic drill to make holes for the charges. Then he blasted the boulders apart in the early evenings when the field was empty. Ms. Wagner wrote that she and the children were not allowed near the site.
The blasting reverberated throughout the island, but it was sometimes delayed by the Public Works Department’s lack of cooperation, according to Ms. Wagner’s book. Once, department workers told the administrator there was no dynamite left, but Mr. Allsebrook found two full boxes of it and took them to the site in his new Land Rover.
One boulder near the western boundary “as big as a house” was left alone, as it did not threaten the airfield. After being dislodged, the huge rocks were pushed into the gullies and buried deep in the soft ground. Gradually, the hills were torn apart and eventually disappeared completely.
Roadwork
The PWD’s machine kept breaking down, so Mr. Wagner left it to complete the road from the ferry landing to the airfield by removing several remaining gnarled old trees and bushes, then levelling the area and covering it with gravel from a nearby beach to make a firm surface for transport.
Mr. Wagner found it difficult to supervise work on both the airstrip construction site and the Trellis Bay boatyard on foot, so in March 1957 he bought a used Willy’s Jeepster in Road Town from Alwyn Jacobs, who was both the harbour master and the income tax and customs inspector of the Treasury and Customs Department, for about $500, including new tyres.
Ms. Wagner commented that the children enjoyed riding with their daddy after work, but she often had to give the jeep a “little push” to keep it running after he had started it, despite her diminutive size. However, she enjoyed their family excursions much more after her husband bought a new battery for it.
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