On May 26, 1919, the Unalga was resting at anchor following a routine day of seamanship and signals training. Around 4 p.m., an urgent radio message arrived. The settlement of Unalaska on nearby Unalaska Island was suffering from a severe outbreak of influenza. The commanding officer, Senior Capt. Frederick G. Dodge, prepared to get the Unalga underway at dawn. That night, Unalga received another radiogram: the region around Bristol Bay, on the southwestern Alaskan mainland, also needed urgent assistance coping with an outbreak. Dodge faced a dilemma: the Unalga could not be in two places at once. He chose to head for nearer Unalaska to assess the situation. Remote even today, Unalaska and adjacent Dutch Harbor were tiny villages with a combined population of about 360 people at the time, mostly of Aleut or mixed Russian-native ancestry. There was only one doctor on the island. The Unalga’s crew disembarked to a horrific discovery. Nearly the entire settlement was infected, including the only doctor and all but one operator at Dutch Harbor’s small U.S. Navy radio station. The situation was critical; as historian Alfred Crosby wrote in America’s Forgotten Pandemic, “very large proportions of isolated populations tended to contract Spanish Influenza all at once. The sick outnumbered those doing the nursing. The sick, therefore, lacked fluids, food, and proper care, which caused very high death rates… effective leadership was vital to keeping death rates down. If complacency, incompetence, sickness, or bad luck crippled the ability of the leaders to react efficiently to the pandemic, then Spanish Influenza could be as deadly as the Black Death.” It would now fall upon the men of the Unalga to provide this lifesaving leadership and medical care. Out of the Unalga’s crew of approximately 80, the only men on board with advanced medical training were ship’s surgeon Lt. j.g. F.H. Johnson (of the U.S. Public Health Service), Lt. E.W. Scott (of the U.S. Navy Dental Corps), and Pharmacist’s Mate 1st Class E.S. Chase. The three men started coordinating the town’s medical care. Together, they rounded up a volunteer medical crew that kept growing until it included personnel from every department of the cutter. From May 26 to June 4, Unalga was the only resource keeping the inhabitants of Unalaska alive. Dodge decided on his own initiative to feed the entire town using the cutter’s food stores. Crewmembers started by delivering 350 Unalga-prepared meals the first day; by the height of the pandemic, they were delivering more than 1,000 meals daily. Villagers considered the ship’s emergency rations to be somewhere between awful and lousy, but they ate them. Every crewmember engaged in some aspect of the relief work. Nicknamed “gobs,” those not directly involved in caring for the sick provided logistical support, such as keeping people’s fires going or helping prepare or deliver food. Other crewmen took over operation of the Navy radio station in Dutch Harbor. They even built a temporary hospital outfitted with plumbing and electrified by the cutter’s power plant. Caring for the sick and burying the dead was an exhausting and emotionally challenging undertaking. Death by “The Spanish Lady” (the disease’s elegantly macabre nickname) was often horrific, with victims frequently suffering from double pneumonia drowning because their lungs filled with blood and fluid; when they died it would pour out of their noses and mouths. The crewmembers nursing the sick had no protective equipment besides cloth facemasks, leaving them highly exposed to infection. Several became ill, including the captain. Dodge determined that he was well enough to remain in command and later recovered, as did all his crewmen. They couldn’t save everybody. The Unalga’s crew ultimately buried about 45 victims beneath white wooden Russian Orthodox crosses in Unalaska’s cemetery. The crew of the Unalga also had to care for the children of the deceased or incapacitated. Unlike seasonal flu, this type of influenza acutely affected young adults, probably because it provoked an overreaction in the victims’ immune systems. This had the tragic effect of creating a number of orphans who, even if not infected, were in danger of starving, freezing, or getting eaten by now-feral dogs, which the Unalga’s crew described as similar to ravenous wolves. Crew members of Unalga burying the dead at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. (NOAA) Unalga’s crew wearing “flu” masks. All the cutter’s crew members involved in the humanitarian effort volunteered to help. (NOAA) 48 RESERVIST . . Issue 2 • 2021
