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Late fall 1986 found Valentina Taylor’s United Nations Estonian Dance Team including a strapping Jack Oja boarding a flight from New York’s JFK Airport to Finland’s Helsinki Airport. It represented the first and by far the longest leg of an official U.N. mission to Estonia and a surreptitious collaboration to return Mihkel Oja home. Sharing the same flight would be John Taylor’s Lamont-Doherty geological research team, sponsored by Estonian state-owned energy company, Eesti Energia. Part of Taylor’s research team would be Technical Specialist “Mike” Oja. Once in Helsinki a ferry ride to Tallinn, capital of Estonia would complete one journey and commence a clandestine second.

In Search of the Lost 7^th Royale Part 3 (Episode 14 – The Beautiful Beast Poised at the Threshold of Discovery)

Helsinki Ferry

FINLAND 1986

Pudgy with a few days growth, a squinty eyed round faced man well into his cups stumbled towards Valentina as the ferryboat pitched. Jack quietly sensing a potentially unpleasant turn of events repositioned his sturdy frame between her and the approaching and severely listing celebrant. Upon contact with Jack, the squinty eyed man slurred his apologies to Jack, patted him on the chest and shambled off.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Old and tired the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn moaned and creaked. Both Valentina’s and John’s groups retreated to quiet corners in a best attempt to keep a low profile. It proved a greater challenge than one might expect. A large dank open space packed to the gills like a subway car afforded far too many opportunities to meet inebriated Baltic And Scandinavian  passengers up close and personal. Truly the last thing both groups needed would be some public spectacle drawing the attention of authorities. If all went as planned Valentina’s U.N. credentials and history with the Estonian authorities and John’s government approved pedigree would hopefully speed passage through customs. With Mikhail Gorbachev’s elevation to Soviet Premier a subtle yet discernible loosening of the great Russian bear’s grip had been felt in Estonia. Valentina’s dance team had been welcomed the prior year. John as head of the geological research team enjoyed the favor of Estonian officialdom. His success would be their success. Since the 1960s, Estonia had been the largest oil shale producer and consumer in the world. In […]

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Like a large and complex gear train slowly picking up speed, events, forces and lives in America had been set into motion by the death of Ann Oja. Four thousand miles to the east local family and friends gathered at the rural Oja farm east of Tallinn, Estonia to comfort, Jaak, her husband of 68 years whom they all loved dearly. For most in attendance change of a profound nature approached just beyond the visible horizon. No one could see it coming.

In Search of the Lost 7^th Royale Part 3 (Episode 13- Return to a Heart of Darkness)

Estonian Forest Brothers

ESTONIA 1986

Unknown to the world, the 7^th Royale radiated a glorious presence with lines that bore the signature of Jean Bugatti’s unique genius. His creative gifts seasoned through years of inspired expression had manifested itself in ever greater iconic automobile designs through the 1930s. The 7^th Royale capped a brilliant body of work sadly cut short by the young Bugatti’s untimely death. The sculpted lines penned by Bugatti imparted a breathtaking visual expression of motion, power and elegance. The Royale’s velvet smooth 12.7-liter 400 plus horsepower 8-cyl. engine stamped an equally resounding exclamation point with performance capabilities that did the incomparable aesthetics justice. For almost half a century this Olympian masterpiece had stood stoically in silence and darkness under an accumulating blanket of fine dust.

As he had for almost half a century, Jaak Oja, now stooped and bearing a veil of grief, slipped past the barn’s false rear wall to dutifully minister a dose of oil to the eight cylinders of his beautiful beast. With the loss of his beloved wife Ann, Jaak felt the imminence of approaching change. He saw no better plan than to wait for it to come.

NEW JERSEY 1986

News of his mother, Ann Oja’s, death savaged areas in Mihkel’s heart and soul possessing no capability for defense. Like a cruel mind game, death had ripped a scab off emotions Mihkel had long repressed. It had abruptly brought to the forefront of his mind his beloved mother. Then, just as suddenly, ripped her away with cruel finality. Further adding to his sorrow, Mihkel had to face the question of what about his elderly and, now, widowed father?

Though sealed off from Estonia by the Soviet Iron Curtain of the […]

War blazes in Europe. Scandinavia quakes under threats of Nazi invasion. Soviet armies march into Finland. Seeking to escape the deadly whirlwind stirred by Soviet troops to the east and Nazi forces to the west, Estonian freedom fighter Mihkel “Arctic Fox” Oja and American pilot Ed “Wonderfalk” Sikes must flee the frozen battlefield. Both had volunteered to fight for Finland against the Soviets in the Winter War. Now they must retreat from the onrushing and victorious Soviet forces. Powered by Mihkel’s team of strong willed sled dogs they will brave the frozen hell of the Arctic Circle in a last ditch effort to reach neutral Sweden and avoid certain capture and, most assuredly, death. Then, in making their escape a downed allied bomber would change their lives.

With survival dominating his thoughts, Mihkel harbors no recollection of his father’s, tale of a dead Romanian playboy’s Bugatti abandoned at the Oja farm in rural Estonia.

In Search of the Lost 7^th Royale Part 2 (Episode 12 – Two Heroes’ Dramatic and Divergent Paths to Freedom)

Balto Alaska rescue mission

KIRUNA, SWEDEN 1940

The fateful events surrounding the rescue of the allied Bristol Bomber air crew triggered startlingly unforeseen and profound opportunities for both Ed and Mihkel.

In their brief time together at the frozen airfield in Kiruna Sweden, Ed and Arctic flying legend Bernt Balchen had developed a bond that would last a lifetime. Ed had accepted Balchen’s invitation to join his team that supported the early British war effort by ferrying airplanes to England. Then, in the summer of 1941, Balchen joined the United States Army Air Force as a colonel and accepted the responsibility of overseeing construction of a major Air Force base in Greenland. At Col. Balchen’s urging and with the colonel’s personal recommendation Ed enlisted in the USAAF and in a few months become the youngest American pilot in the European theater. When America went to war Col. Balchen included Ed in the rescue air team responsible for a litany of dramatic, high risk rescue missions of allied fliers downed in the frozen arctic wilderness. Through the war years Ed flew fighters, bombers and PBY Catalina rescue sea planes. He served as one of the first pilots to test helicopters in battle conditions. Ed “Wonderfalk” served his country and its allies for decades. By way of his unflinching courage, brilliant […]