The next day was spent in a pleasantly muddled state, getting Hal ready
to go with them, and putting the finishing touches to their own
equipment. Stout boots, fishing lines, flies, everything on their lists
was gradually being checked off. Late in the afternoon they had a
breathing space, and Bob remembered that it was Pat's turn to tell his
story.
"Come on, Pat, you might as well get it over with," said Bob. "We
haven't anything else to do, anyway."
"You're mighty impudent for a young one, Bob, my lad," said Pat. "Just
because you've made a solo flight doesn't mean that you're wings are dry
yet. You might know that any story I'd tell would be good."
"Oh, Patrick, you'll have to prove that," said the Captain. "I've heard
some pretty awful ones from you. Haven't I?"
"It must have been two other fellows," said Pat. "But I'll begin. And I
won't take so long, either. I'm not one of these long winded story
tellers," he said significantly.
"Get on, get on." This from Captain Bill.
"My two boys are the speedy two, all right," began Pat. "Speed was their
middle name. Their real names were--well, you probably have guessed. It's
not a secret--Frank Hawks and Jimmie Doolittle. Beg pardon, maybe I had
better say Lieutenant Commander Frank Hawks of the United States Naval
Reserve, the holder of some 30 inter-city aviation records, etcetera,
etcetera; and maybe it would be more proper to talk about James
Doolittle, M.S.; D.A.E.. But what's the use of the titles? They're just
Frank and Jimmie, two of the squarest shooters in the game.
"Frank was born, of all places for a flyer to be born, in Marshalltown,
Iowa, on March 28, 1897. Iowa's flat, you know. Wouldn't think that
there'd be much inspiration for flying out there. But maybe all that
flat prairie was just so much inspiration to get away from it all, and
get up into the air. Anyway, young Frank put plenty of grey hairs in his
mother's head with his love for climbing. Just crazy about high places.
Always up a tree, so to speak.
"Little Frank was mighty pretty, I guess. Maybe he wouldn't like my
saying it, but he must have been a smart kid, too. At a very tender age,
my lads, our friend Frank Hawks was playing children's parts in
Minneapolis. But then the family moved to California--maybe to live down
the scandal of a performing son, and Frank got serious, being mightly
busy just going to high school.
"Maybe it was fate, but something happened that changed Frank Hawks'
ideas about what he wanted to be when he grew up. The Christofferson
brothers, who were pretty great shakes in those days, and pioneers in
flying, set up a shop on the beach outside Frank's home town. They took
up passengers. But they charged plenty for it, and Frank, while he hung
around a lot, never had the money to go up, although he was mighty
anxious to fly.
"Finally he got an idea. If he couldn't get up in the usual way, he'd
find a way he could go up. So young Frank got himself a pencil, a
notebook, and a mighty important look, and approached one of the
Christoffersons. 'I'm from the newspaper, Mr. Christofferson,' he says,
'and I'd like an interview with you.' And he interviewed him just as
serious as you please, with Christofferson pleased as could be, thinking
of the publicity and the new passengers he'd get. Then young Frank asked
if he couldn't go up, in order to write his impressions of an airplane
ride. Of course, of course.
"So Frank Hawks got his first ride in an airplane, and decided on his
future career. Aviation got a recruit and Christofferson waited a long
time for his interview to appear. In fact, he waited indefinitely.
"The problem for Frank then was to get another ride. He finally went to
the flyer, and told him what he had done. He was forgiven, and worked
out his passage for that ride and other rides by working around the
flying field. It was then he learned to fly. But business was not too
good, and the brothers moved on. Frank Hawks went on with his high
school work, and was graduated in 1916. Thought he ought to have more
book learning, so he went on to the University of California.
"But the war stopped that. When he was twenty, Hawks joined the army,
the Flying Corps. He was too good, though. Too good for his own good.
They never sent him to France, where he wanted to go. Instead, they made
him an instructor, so that he could teach green recruits how to fly. At
the end of the war he was discharged, with the title of Captain.
"The five years after that were hectic ones. Aviation was still
new--interest in it had been stirred up by war flying, and all sorts of
men, young, old, every kind, bought up old planes from the government
and went barnstorming around the country, taking people up on flights,
stunting, flying in air circuses, balloon jumping, and doing anything
they could to make money with their tubs. Some of these planes were no
more than old junk, and the flyers no more than the rankest amateurs.
But there were some of them who were good, and one of these was Hawks.
He went dizzily stunting around the country, until' he got himself the
reputation of being just plain crazy, but a great flyer.
"There were ups and downs, to be sure. And I don't mean to be funny,
either, my lads. The people in the United States were getting just a
little weary of going up in airplanes just for the fun of the thing--they
were getting too common. But--there were people down in Mexico who had
never seen a plane, much less flown in one, so down to Mexico went
Hawks. He gave. Mexico plenty of thrills, and Mexico gave him some, too.
The country was unsettled at the time, upset with revolutions. Hawks got
a job flying a diplomat from Mexico City to his ranch, because they'd be
safer in the air than going by automobile through the mountains. Hawks
even tried ranching for a while, but it didn't work.
"He decided to go back to the United States, and when he went back he
married Edith Bowie, who hailed from Texas. Down in Texas Hawks flew
over the cotton fields with arsenic to kill the boll weevils. He worked
in the oil fields, too, as a driller. It was good experience for him.
They found out that he could fly, and he got a job piloting officials of
the oil company from place to place in the oil country. They found that
they were saving time and money.
"At this time Lindy flew over the Atlantic. Hawks bought the Spirit of
San Diego, which was the sister ship to the Spirit of St. Louis, and
flew across the country to greet Lindbergh when he came back. He flew
4,000 miles on a National tour with the Spirit of San Diego, and then
7,000 miles criss-cross.
"Luck was with him. He was going to reap his just rewards. He became a
member of one of the country's richest oil companies, as their technical
flying expert. He advised them in buying planes, and chose their pilots
for them, and in addition, had to sell flying to the country.
"And maybe he didn't set out in earnest to make the country sit up and
take notice then! There was a Wasp-motored Lockheed Air Express
monoplane at the manufacturers' in Los Angeles, and it had to be flown
to New York. Hawks got the bright idea that he could fly it across the
country without a stop. And he did.
"It was his first cross-country flight, and his hardest. In the first
place, it was February, and the weather was pretty bad for flying--so
uncertain that they couldn't predict what he'd run into. But he decided
to take his chance. This was in 1929. Of course, its being 1929 didn't
make it any harder, but I just thought I ought to tell you what year it
was. The start from Los Angeles wasn't bad. He had a mechanic with him
to keep filling the gasoline engines, a fellow by the name of Oscar
Grubb. They hadn't flown for very long when they ran into a fog. Hawks
thought he'd try flying below the ceiling--but he ran into a snow storm.
Then he tried climbing above it. He couldn't get over it.
"And in the midst of all this terrible strain of flying through fog so
thick that he couldn't see the nose of his plane, the engine began to
miss. The tank was empty. He switched on the other tank. It was empty,
too. Why hadn't Oscar warned him that the fuel supply was out? What had
happened to it? Hawks looked back. There was Oscar, sprawled out, fast
asleep. But he woke up. Pretty lucky for Oscar Grubb that he did, and
typical Hawks luck. The tanks were filled, and on they flew through the
murk and fog. The fog cleared a little when they got to Kentucky, but
Hawks didn't know where he was, anyway. It wasn't until they got to
Washington that he recognized his position, by the Capitol dome. From
there he sped to New York, where everybody was glad to see him. No
wonder. This speedy gentleman had made the trip in 18 hours, 21 minutes,
breaking all speed records then existing for non-stop cross country
flight.
"It got to be a habit, this record-breaking. His next venture was New
York to Los Angeles and back. He left Roosevelt field at 8 o'clock in
the morning, and was in Los Angeles in the evening. Seven hours later he
turned back and in 17-1/2 hours more he was back again at Roosevelt field.
It was dark coming down, and he broke a wing, but he escaped unhurt.
He'd broken the east-west, west-east, and round trip records, all of
them, making the round trip in 36 hours and 48 some minutes.
"Hawks never let people forget him for long. He was out to sell speed to
the country, and he knew that the way to do it was by speeding. In July
everybody began to hear about the 'mystery ship' that was being built
for him. It was a monoplane. On August 6th, it was a mystery no longer.
Hawks was going to race with the sun. The sun had always beaten him so
far, and he wanted a return match, for revenge.
"So he lifted his monoplane into the air in New York, just as the sun
was rising, at about 6 in the morning. He flew right with that sun and
got into Los Angeles before it had set, or just about 10 minutes before
6 o'clock in the evening. He'd beaten dat ol' davil sun, all right. One
week later, and he was on his way back across the continent again, and
got to New York in less than 12-1/2 hours.
"Well, he'd proved how quickly you could get across the United States in
an ordinary plane. Then he showed how you could cross with a glider,
towed by an engined plane. Why, you ask. Well, in the first place, it
attracted attention to gliders. And gliders are important in aviation.
And then, if towed gliders are practical, they might solve the problem
of carrying pay loads in cross-country flights. The glider could be
loaded up, hitched to an airplane, and go from New York to any point
west. That was the idea. Well, Hawks did attract attention. It took him
six and a half days to get from San Diego to New York, stopping off at a
lot of cities, and just generally bumming around the country.
"In 1930 about the only spectacular flight that Frank Hawks made was the
tour with Will Rogers, when they flew around the country seeking help
for the drought victims. They covered 57 cities in 17 days, which meant
a lot of work, because they put on a show wherever they stopped. Hawks,
with his stage experience behind him, fitted in perfectly with the plan.
He not only could fly, but he developed a patter, modeled after Will
Rogers' and came out chewing gum and swinging a lariat.
"In 1931, having about exhausted record-breaking in the United States,
our friend Mr. Hawks left these shores, and went off to Europe to sell
speed and airplanes to that continent. No sooner had he landed than he
started to break their records, too. The first one to fall was the speed
record from London to Berlin, a distance, of 600 miles, which he made in
2 hours and 57 minutes. This was just about half the time that the
regular passenger planes take. He had a light tail wind behind him, to
help him, and a bad fog over the channel to hinder him. He flew the
whole distance by compass.
"About a week later the United States again heard from Frank Hawks. They
heard that he'd dined in three European capitals on the same day. Left
Bourget before breakfast, had breakfast in London, kippers, I suppose,
or kidneys, at the Croydon Field. That was about 9:30. He left Croydon
for Berlin, and got there 3 hours and 20 minutes later, in time for
lunch at the Tempelhof Airdrome. He flew back to Paris, for tea at Le
Bourget, and then motored into the city for a good dinner. The dinner he
didn't pay for. It was on some friends who had bet him that he couldn't
make it. He did. Don't bet against Frank Hawks. It isn't good business.
"The next month, on June 17, Frank felt hungry again, and maybe tired of
the food he'd been getting, anyway. So he got into his plane, at London,
just after breakfast; had luncheon in Rome, and got back in time for tea
in London. He'd made the round trip in 9 hours and 44 minutes, actual
flying time. Of course, a man has to take time out to eat. Getting to
Rome and back meant that he'd beaten the Alps twice. He enjoyed that
trip. He'd had a head wind with him all the way, and was pretty glad
about beating the Alps. They look less mighty and dangerous when you're
looking down at them from a safe plane, in the cleat sunshine. Almost
gentle.
"Speedy Hawks decided to come back to America. But he didn't come back
to rest. He went right on breaking records, and making up new ones to be
broken. In January of 1932 he flew from Agua Caliente to Vancouver,
British Columbia, in 13 hours and 44 minutes. That was called his famous
three-flag flight. It was a grand flight, too, and the first of its kind
to be flown in one day. It wasn't non-stop; he'd stopped at Oakland,
California and Portland, Oregon, both on the way up and the way back,
for fuel. The trip was about 2,600 miles long, and he'd averaged about
180 miles per hour.
"Hawks is certainly accomplishing what he set out to do. He's never had
to bail out, and he's never had a serious accident. He was pretty well
banged up when he didn't clear the ground and crashed into some wires
early in 1932, but he pulled out of that all right. Flying fast was no
more dangerous than flying slowly, if a man could handle his plane. What
the country needed was speed and more speed, and Hawks gave it to them.
It helped, too. The whole commercial system in the United States has
speeded up. Two hours have been cut off the transcontinental trip, and
more will undoubtedly be cut off. In June of '32 Hawks was made
Lieutenant Commander Hawks. And it's no more than he deserves. He's a
great lad.
"And so is Jimmie Doolittle. There's some say that Jimmie is the
greatest flyer of them all, but he says he isn't. I don't know whether
we should take his word for it or not. He may be prejudiced. Anyway,
he's one of the best liked flyers in the country. James Doolittle is a
little fellow. That is, he's short. Just 5 feet 2, but every inch a
scrapper, and every inch nerve.
"Anybody who talks about Doolittle likes to tell the story of the time
he went down to Chile for the Curtiss Company to demonstrate a new type
of flying plane to the government. The Chilean government was pretty
particular. It wanted only the best, so it decided to have five
countries compete in a mock fight, England, France, Germany, Italy and
the United States, and the plane that won the battle would be the one
bought for the Chilean army.
"Well, Curtiss asked the Army Air Service if they could borrow the
Army's crack test pilot, Jimmie, and the Army lent him. Doolittle went
down there all set to win. But there was a party for the aviators before
the battle, and the aviators, all being young, and good fellows, got
very jolly, and decided that each of them would have to put on a stunt
to entertain the others. Now Doolittle decided that his best bet was
acrobatics, so he balanced on the window ledge, to show his best
handstands and other tricks that he'd learned in college. A brace or
something on the window gave way, and down went James into the street,
landed on both feet, and broke both ankles. Just before the big show!
Well, they took him to the hospital and put both ankles in a plaster
cast.
"The show went on, and the hero wasn't there. But was he resting
peacefully at the hospital? He was not. With the help of a friend, he
cut off the plaster cast, had himself hoisted into an ambulance, and
taken to the field. When he got there, they strapped his feet to the
rudder bar, and he was all set to go into his act. Only the German plane
was in the air. Doolittle zoomed up, and there followed one of the
prettiest dog fights that anyone there had ever seen. Doolittle
maneuvered and bedeviled that German plane until it turned tail and
retired. James circled around once or twice to show that he was cock of
the walk, and then came down to get the Chilean contract for the Curtiss
people. That's the way James Doolittle does things.
"How did he get so scrappy? Well, he was a born fighter. And then, he
grew up in a gold camp in the Klondike, and if there was any place
harder than a gold camp in Alaska in those days, it would be hard to
find. Jimmie was born in Alameda. California, in 1896. His father was a
carpenter and miner, and left for the Klondike in '97, the year before
the big rush to Dawson in '98. Well, two years later he sent for his
wife and the boy James.
"Jimmie's first scrap was with an Eskimo child. He drew blood, and was
so frightened that he cried as loudly as the Eskimo warrior. But he
never stopped fighting after that first fight. Maybe it was because he
was so small that he had to fight. Anyway, he usually was fighting boys
bigger than himself, and he got so good that he'd whip them to a frazzle
every time. It gets to be a habit, you know, and any way, he was born
scrappy. Ask anyone.
"The Doolittles left the Klondike, and moved back to California with
their obstreperous son, and I imagine the Klondike parents breathed a
little easier. In California Jimmie went to school, and on the side
became Amateur Bantamweight Champion of the Pacific Coast.
"When he'd been graduated from High School Jimmie went on to the
University of California, same college that Hawks had attended. He went
on fighting, still in the bantamweight class. But one day down in the
gymnasium, the boxing coach put him in the ring with a middleweight for
some practice. Jimmie knocked him out. And he knocked out the second
middleweight, and the third middleweight. So the coach, seeing that he
had struck gold, entered Jimmie in the match with Stanford, but in the
middleweight class. The crowd roared when they saw the little bantam
getting into the ring with a pretty husky middle. The middleweight
thought that it was a joke on him, and was careful not to hit hard. But
he needn't have been so kind. Jimmy Doolittle retaliated by knocking him
stiff and cold in a few minutes.
"Jimmie didn't graduate. In 1917 he married Jo, and settled down to
serious things, such as going out to Nevada and becoming a gold miner,
and later a mining engineer. I might say a word about Jim and Jo.
They're known as the inseparables. They're always together. They've got
two kids, who are thirteen and eleven years old, and who can fly in
their daddy's footsteps. The family leads a gypsy life, flying from one
army field to another, but they have a great time.
"Well, I'm getting ahead of my story. Let's get back to the War. Because
the war broke out then, you know, and Jimmie joined the air service. His
first lesson, they turned him over to an instructor by the name of Todd.
They were still on the ground, when they heard a crash, then another
crash. Two planes had collided in the air. First one dropped, then the
other, close to Jimmie's plane. One of the pilots was killed; the other
pilot and his passenger were badly hurt. Doolittle helped them out, and
went back for his first lesson.
"Jimmie, like Hawks, was just too good. They didn't send him to France
at all, but made him an instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego, where
he became known as one of the star aviators in the air service. He was
pretty angry when he found that he couldn't go to France. He went out to
relieve his feelings. He picked out an innocent soldier walking down the
road, and made for him. He didn't have any grudge against that soldier,
just against the world. But that soldier had to bear the brunt. Jimmie
swooped down on him. The soldier wouldn't move out of the way or flatten
out. Jimmie swooped closer and closer. The soldier stood his ground.
Finally Jimmy came so close that his wheels nicked the soldier, and down
he went. And away flew Jimmie, but so low that he couldn't rise again in
time to clear a barbed wire fence at the side of the road. He got caught
in the fence and smashed up. They gave him a month in the barracks to
think over how smart-aleck he'd been, and then Jimmie was out again. The
soldier had a bump on the head to remind him that he'd been in the way
when Jimmie Doolittle was mad.
"Jimmie had other crashes. One was just before he made his famous flight
in 1922 across country from Pablo Beach to San Diego. On his first
attempt at a take-off one of his wheels struck some soft sand, and over
he turned, being thrown into the water, plane and all. His second
take-off was more successful--in fact, it was perfect. He got to San
Diego in 22-1/2 hours.
"Jimmie's greatest achievements have been in testing and experimenting.
After the war he went to the Army technical school at Dayton. He got an
honorary degree from the University of California, and then he went to
Boston with Jo, and entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
With Jo's help he did four years' work in three, and got the degrees of
Master of Science, and Doctor of Aviation Engineering--the first flyer to
get the D.A.E. degree there.
"He resigned from the army to join the Shell Petroleum Corporation,
Curtiss borrowed him again, though, and he went to Europe to demonstrate
speed planes for Curtiss to 21 European governments. He's a marvellous
tester. He got the D.F.C. for his transcontinental flight. In 1925 he
got the Schneider Cup in the International races, and in 1929 the medal
of the Federale Aeronautique Internationale for his outstanding
achievements in aviation.
"I haven't told you the most outstanding, feats, Doolittle was one of
the pioneers in blind flying. He experimented for the Guggenheim
Foundation, testing instruments to be used for blind flying. He also
tested the stress and strain that flying has on the human body. He would
go into right spirals, risking his life, in order to see under what
pressure a man becomes unconscious. It's a dangerous business, but great
for aviation.
"In September, 1931, Doolittle won the air derby, flying from Los
Angeles to New York to establish a new transcontinental West to East
record on 11 hours and 15 minutes. He won at the same time the Los
Angeles-Cleveland Bendix trophy when he crossed the finish line of the
National Air Races at the Cleveland airport. His time to Cleveland was 9
hours and 10 minutes, an average speed of 223 miles per hour. As if that
wasn't enough, he flew back to St. Louis to sleep, making a trip of
3,300 miles in 19 hours. He'd broken Hawks' record then standing. Both
the boys are still going strong. You never knew when you're going to
wake up and find that one of them has flown across the country so fast
that he ended up right where he started from, only two hours earlier.
But now I'm getting fantastic," said Pat. "I must be getting tired, and
no wonder. It's time we were getting to bed, if we want to leave at any
hour tomorrow."