Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N T A N A • B E S T O F M O N T A N A • F A L L 2 0 2 5 91 up jams are virtually unpreventable and can trigger dangerous flooding. Ice jams that are large enough to obstruct streams as wide as the Yellowstone can, as Chambers observes, cause water levels to rise at rates up to "a foot an hour." A report by Tony Thatcher and Karin Boyd (2008) corroborates the occurrence of more than 100 ice jams on the Yellowstone River be- tween 1894 and 2007. Areas surrounding Miles City are notoriously prone to their development, as evidenced by 23 ice jams on adjoin- ing portions of the Yellowstone from 1934 to 1997, and 17 more re- ported at the Tongue River Station between 1947 and 2003. The most significant of these events occurred in 1944. Although the weekend of March 17-18 began unremarkably, civilian au- thorities and first responders had, by late Sunday evening, be- gun to implement evacuation procedures, which impacted 300- 500 residents, in response to the ominous threat of rapidly rising waters. According to an article published in the Missoula Cur- rent, the Yellowstone crested at "19.3 feet, 3.3 feet [above flood level] and about 15 feet higher than normal." Water levels on the Tongue River, which were "about 12 feet higher than normal," forced ice floes over Twelve-Mile Dam and exacerbated flooding of the Yellowstone. On Monday, March 20, Leighton Keye, mayor of Miles City, en- listed the services of local pilots to bombard the Yellowstone ice jam with improvised explosives. Fred Cook, Ted Filbrandt, and Leighton "Brud" Foster dropped homemade bombs, construct- AERIAL BOMBARDMENT OF THE MILES CITY ICE JAM ON MARCH 21, 1944: THE ONLY SORTIE FLOWN BY AMERICAN MILITARY AIRCRAFT AGAINST A TARGET ON AMERICAN SOIL DURING WORLD WAR II MAYOR LEIGHTON KEYE CONTACTED SAM FORD, GOVERNOR OF MONTANA, WITH A SIMPLE REQUEST: 'SEND IN THE BOMBERS.'

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