Chasing Icarus (32 page)
Authors: Gavin Mortimer
After his death Grahame-White’s vast collection of scrapbooks were donated to the Royal Air Force Museum, and among all the clippings and photographs was a column from the
Chicago Daily Tribune
, published two days after Ralph Johnstone’s death in November 1910. It wasn’t written as an epitaph for Johnstone, but it could have been, just as it could have been an epitaph for Grahame-White, Hoxsey, Moisant, Latham, Le Blanc, de Lesseps, and all the other pioneers who, in the early years of the twentieth century, set sail from earth to explore a new world.
The love of excitement, of fame, of money; the desire to step softly around a sleeping danger, to place a hand on death and vault over it, to tiptoe over destruction and have a multitude watch the act; the ambition to go into the unknown, to test sensations which timid persons could never know—these were the incentives mixed with others governing quiet men of no spectacular accomplishments, seeking merely the perfection of a new science, the full outlines of a new discovery.
Such men were on the five vessels of Fernando Magellan when they cast off from their moorings in the Guadalquivir on Aug. 10, 1519. Such men were on the solitary
Victoria
when that surviving and circumnavigating ship dropped anchor in Seville on Sept. 9, 1522.
Such men were with Vasco da Gama when he sailed from Lisbon to find his way around the Cape of Good Hope and on the Malabar coast; such men were with John Cabot when he found the Newfoundland coast; were with Jacques Cartier when he sailed up the St. Lawrence; were with Drake when with the loot of Spanish ships in his hold he found the northern Pacific coast and took the western route home.
Such a crowd as that which saw Johnstone’s fall gathered along the banks of the Guadalquivir on Aug. 10, 1519, when Magellan’s ships got under way, a wonder-stricken crowd, prepared for new astonishments, gaping wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the men who were to feel their way through the unknown into new worlds. Such crowds in Cadiz, Seville, Lisbon, saw the straggling return of ships with strange treasures and wonderful narratives.
The parallel should not be forced, but one finds the characteristics of an earlier age of daring and discovery reproduced in the present one, the same desires and ambitions controlling with results not dissimilar. The martyrdom of the victims may not be conscious and thinking, but the failure which sends one aerial navigator to his death may point to an undiscovered defect in his mechanism, a flaw at which inventiveness has hesitated until stimulated.
The dead, whatever may have been the incentives which sent them into danger, are giving themselves to the cause which seeks ultimate control of a new highway.
*
A fortnight after the crash Wilbur Wright told reporters Johnstone’s death was caused by a “weak wing,” and in the opinion of some historians, this accident, so soon after Brookins’s crash at Belmont Park, confirmed that “high noon had come and gone in the careers of the Wright brothers,” partly because they channeled so much of their energy into lawsuits, they neglected the developmental side of their business. They dissolved their exhibition team in 1911, and the following year Wilbur died of typhoid, aged forty-five. Orville died in 1948, aged seventy-six.
†
In September 1911 Johnstone’s widow began flying lessons, telling newspapers that her husband had left little money and she needed to “clothe, feed and educate” her son, and she intended to do so by becoming one of the world’s first female aviators. However, this ambitious idea came to naught. In 1920 Ralph junior was found shot dead in Florida; local police said it was suicide, but after a four-year campaign by Mrs. Johnstone, a man was convicted of her son’s murder.
*
Arch Hoxsey’s death was later attributed to heart failure, and it was assumed he was dead by the time his airplane hit the ground. His mother, who had received $50 a month from her son, was given an annuity by the Wrights.
*
Chase married into a wealthy British family in 1914, swapping the stage for the home and raising three children. She died in England in 1962 aged seventy-six.
†
Not until January 1914 did the Wrights finally win their patent suit against all other aircraft manufacturers. However, companies such as Glenn Curtiss’s exploited several legal loopholes without prosecution, and in 1917 (by which time Orville Wright had sold his company), when the USA entered World War I, the American aviation industry finally forgot its differences and began to work together.
*
Sears never married but devoted her life to sporting attainments, winning nearly 250 trophies. As a tennis player she reached the third round of the Wimbledon tennis championships in 1923, and in 1928 she became the first women’s squash champion. She died in 1968 aged eighty-seven.
†
Grahame-White won his appeal on the grounds that the original rules had stated that every competitor must have flown for one continuous hour prior to entering, which neither Moisant nor de Lesseps had achieved. He collected the check for $10,000 (plus $334 interest) from President Taft at a dinner of the Aero Club of America in January 1912.
Researching a book from an era with no living eyewitnesses is lonely. With no friendly folk happy to talk over a cup of tea and a slice of cake, my only companions are my fellow researchers, silent and serious, in archives and libraries around the world. Nonetheless, the time I spent in the National Air and Space Museum Archives in Suitland, Maryland, was enlivened by the lunchtime conversations with all the staff, whom I found to be not only convivial, but courteous and knowledgeable. Likewise, the staff at the RAF Museum in Hendon, London, went out of their way to be of assistance. My heartfelt thanks to these two venerable institutions.
My research was also aided by the diligence of the staff at the New York Public Library, the Colindale Newspaper Library, the British Library, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Kristin Ecuba warrants special praise for translating several documents from German into English with such rapidity and skill, and my agent, Gail Fortune, deserves a hearty pat on the back for her conviction and sound advice.
Lastly I thank my publisher, George Gibson, and my editor, Michele Lee Amundsen, who with their faith and foresight allowed this book to take wing.
Gavin Mortimer
Montpellier, August 2008
Prologue: The Biggest Events Are Yet to Come
“mere zephyr of breeze that floated”:
Ogden (UT) Standard
, January 10, 1910.
“An understanding of what holds an airplane”:
Chicago Daily Tribune
, September 26, 1910.
THE BIGGEST EVENTS ARE YET TO COME:
Weekly Sentinel
, January 19, 1910.
“dissipated any doubt that the fragile”:
Ogden (UT) Standard
, January 10, 1910.
“We can’t do anything with that Frenchman”:
Indianapolis Star
, January 11, 1910.
“there was a sudden shout and out of the gulley”: Ibid.
“Paulhan was cheered madly”:
Boston Daily Globe
, January 11, 1910.
COMPANY READY DISCUSS EXHIBITION BUSINESS SERIOUSLY: “Ladies & Gentlemen, the Aeroplane,”
Air & Space
, May 1, 2008.
“That the bidding will be high”:
Oakland Tribune
, January 21, 1910.
“They are ennui”:
Weekly Sentinel
, January 19, 1910.
Chapter One: It’s Europe or Bust
“Perhaps we’ll make a trial flight first”:
Fort Wayne Daily News
, October 15, 1910.
“Not much you won’t!”: Ibid.
“The crowd, constantly augmented in numbers”: Ibid.
“That there is in it some risk to life is apparent”: Walter Wellman,
The Aerial Age: A
Thousand Miles by Airship over the Atlantic Ocean (Keller, 1911), 272.
“Lightning may strike the ship and fire the hydrogen”: Ibid., 273.
“Our lifeboat is hung with”: Ibid., 274.
“now let those landlubbers who are afraid”: Murray Simon’s log, quoted in Well-man,
Aerial Age.
“greatest all-round aviator in the world”:
New York Herald
, September 15, 1910.
“ascetic, gaunt American with watchful, hawklike eyes”: Graham Wallace,
Claude
Grahame-White
(Putnam, 1960), 32.
“It’s a flying machine, isn’t it?”: Ibid.,
41.
“I’ve no time to waste on duffers”: Obituary of Pauline Chase,
Daily Mail
(London), January 5, 1962.
“rather massive but handsome”:
Penny Illustrated Paper
, November 26, 1910.
“gave in and took-off in a foul mood”: Wallace,
Claude Grahame-White
, 81.
“I am confident of being able”: Ibid., 96.
“is possessed of a fine athletic figure”: Wallace,
Claude Grahame-White
, 98.
“If you want your lady-loves’ hearts”: Ibid., 102.
“the society girl who plays polo”:
Chicago Daily Tribune
, September 9, 1910.
“had to play tennis in the broiling sun”: Ibid.
“It was perfectly heavenly!”: Wallace,
Claude Grahame-White
, 107.
FROM BOSTON FRIENDS, IN ADMIRATION: Ibid., 107.
“If I should say what I really think”:
New York Sun
, October 17, 1910.
“I hate to make a prediction”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 16, 1910.
“The credit is due to the biplane”:
Globe-Democrat
, October 16, 1910.
“It may be that the Wrights have succeeded”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 16, 1910.
“He is quite the most ‘showy’ in his personality”: Ibid.
“Stardust Twins”:
New York Sun
, October 28, 1910.
“It is a beastly work of art”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 15, 1910.
“In the midst of the tumult”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 16, 1910.
“The airplane is doing great things”:
Globe-Democrat
, October 16, 1910.
Chapter Two: Let’s Stick by the Ship
“All did nobly”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 16, 1910.
“ran about shouting and yelling”: Wellman,
Aerial Age
, 297.
“out of the darkness and mist”: Ibid., 299.
“I don’t suppose they had heard about us”: Ibid., 346.
“It’s a pity to see that”: Ibid., 349.
“Let’s stick by the ship”: Ibid., 308.
“This crew seems to be made up”: Ibid., 350.
“loved the limelight”:
New York Times
, December 13, 1910.
“How nicely it works!”:
Century Magazine
, October 1910.
“the envelope appeared to take”:
New York Times
, October 12, 1908.
“as if some great giant was hurling”:
Century Magazine
, October 1910.
“It is inexplicable to me”:
Fort Wayne Sentinel
, October 23, 1908.
“the length of the appendix”:
Fort Wayne Sentinel
, October 12, 1908.
“The successful make-up of a team”:
Century Magazine
, October 1910.
“While we were passing above Noble County”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, September 20, 1910.
“Your Fifth Avenue and the constant stream of pretty women”:
New York Herald
, October 16, 1910.
“I will try the machine for you”:
New York Herald
, October 16, 1910.
“The cash prizes amount to $72,300”:
New York Sun
, October 16, 1910.
“So great is the interest in the secrets”:
New York Herald
, October 16, 1910.
“Germany has now in military service 14”:
New York Times
, February 14, 1910.
“German military experts are visionaries”:
Baltimore American
, June 12, 1910.
“A few oranges or confetti bombs”:
Boston Sunday American
, September 11, 1910.
“Eventually the airplane will be the feature in all wars”: Wallace,
Claude Grahame-
White
, 110.
“and made one of his sensational sweeping dives”:
New York Herald
, October 17, 1910.
Chapter Three: A Sort of Bleeding to Death
“The wind has eased considerably”: Wellman,
Aerial Age
, 352.
“about 400 miles east of the Hampton roads”: Ibid., 317.
“The
America
airship will die from sheer exhaustion”: Ibid., 355.
“millions of stars are twinkling”: Ibid., 358.
“For the same amount of premium”:
New York Herald
, October 18, 1910.
“covered and inclosed amphitheater, where an exhibition”:
New York Times
, September 18, 1910. September 18, 1910.
“Sysonby’s ghost stood at the far turn of Belmont Park”:
New York Herald
, October 18, 1910.
“I took up flying as a hobby eight or nine months ago”:
Daily Mirror
, August 17, 1910.
“I found my way by compass entirely”:
Daily Mail
, August 17, 1910.
“That’s what took me straight to Amiens last night”: Ibid.
“cheerfulness of temperament”:
London Daily Graphic
, September 14, 1910.
“I have been treated right royally here in England”:
London evening Standard
, September 7, 1910.
“You’ll have to find out about that from somewhere else”:
New York City Globe
, October 12, 1910.
“They have guessed many times that I was Mexican”: Ibid.
“I do not expect to win any prizes in the Belmont Park”:
New York Sun
, October 9, 1910.
“made entirely of aluminum and steel”: Ibid.
THE REVOLUTIONIST FROM SAN FRANCISCO:
San Francisco Chronicle
, October 8, 1910.
“That’s one of the greatest troubles with airplanes today”:
New York City Globe
, October 12, 1910. October 12, 1910.
“There is no great mystery or great difficulty about”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 13, 1910.
“since his arrival in this country have been of extraordinary interest”:
New York City
Post
, October 13, 1910.
“He’s lucky he didn’t break his neck”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 17, 1910.
“it is easier to learn to make the spiral”: Ibid.
“a quart of whisky, four quarts of assorted wines”: The descriptions of the provisions carried by each basket appeared in the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
, October 17, 1910.
“It’s at least forty percent luck”: Ibid.
“We are good to stay up seventy or eighty hours”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 25, 1910.
“must be something like the proverbial”: Augustus Post, “A Fall from the Sky,”
Century
Magazine
, October 1911.
“17 miles northwest of St Louis”: An abbreviated version of the logbook kept by Augustus Post appeared in the
New York Herald
, October 28, 1910.
“My God, it’s a pretty sight, brother!”: Augustus Post wrote an account of the voyage for the December 1910 issue of
Century Magazine.
Chapter Four: Will Launch Lifeboats and Trust to You
“As soon as the sun comes out today”: Wellman,
Aerial Age
, 360.
“Why not draw water and fill one”: Ibid.
“So help me God”:
New York World
, October 20, 1910.
If you’re being “nutty”:
New York Sun
, October 20, 1910.
“continued to come from beneath the black”: Ibid.
“We do love our airship, but, oh, you
Trent
!”: Wellman,
Aerial Age
, 361.
“Do you want our assistance?”: The
New York World
, October 20, 1910, reproduced the text of the entire communication between the
Trent
and the
America
, which was also published in Walter Wellman’s account of the voyage,
The Aerial Age
.
“every man in the crew at work now”:
New York Sun
, October 20, 1910.
“knocking a hole in the forward air chamber”: Wellman,
Aerial Age
, 364.
“Good old
America
, farewell”: This quote appears in
Aerial Age
, 334, and although not attributed to the lecture given by Wellman aboard the
Trent
, mentioned in the
New York Daily Sun
, October 20, 1910, I have imagined it to be an approximation of what he told his audience with characteristic melodrama.
“Nothing so excruciatingly funny as the action of this machine”: This description appeared in
Aero
journal and was reproduced in Wallace,
Claude Grahame-White
, 84.
“I will demonstrate the efficiency”:
New York Herald
, October 19, 1910.
“In the lines and the chassis they are essentially”: Ibid.
“we suddenly struck a zone of air”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 22, 1910.
“After a sheer drop of six thousand feet there came a brief halt”: Ibid.
“We were within a hundred feet of the surface”: Ibid.
“Our attempt to land was fraught”: Ibid.
“exhibited their usual panic with noisy sounds”:
Century Magazine
, December 1910.
America II passed over this place
:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 24, 1910.
Chapter Five: We Are in Bad Country and Grave Danger
“examined it and found that some patches”:
New Orleans Picayune
, October 22, 1910.
“I pulled the valve and we descended with terrific force”:
St. Louis Republic
, October 20, 1910.
“The lonesomeness and darkness of the place were appalling”: Ibid.
“for had it not been for this lucky sighting”: An account given by Leon Givaudan and quoted on the Web site
www.pionnairge.com
.
“growling and snapping and looking all too anxious for prey”:
St Louis. Post-
Dispatch
, October 22, 1910.
“Highest altitude, 5700 feet”:
New York Herald
, October 19, 1910.
“while to the south beautiful soft mists”:
Century Magazine
, December 1910.
“this is the chance of a lifetime”: Ibid.
“Both realize that we are in bad country”: Ibid.
“made a mental survey of the country”: Ibid.
“the sun broke through the thick mist”:
New York Herald
, October 20, 1910.
“fairly tore them to pieces in their eagerness”:
New York World
, October 20, 1910.
“think we know how a ship to achieve such a voyage”:
Popular Mechanics
, December 1910.
“Such a ship will come as surely”:
New York Sun
, October 20, 1910.
“The experiment speaks for itself”: Ibid.
“He sailed forth into unknown perils”:
Evening Sun
, October 19, 1910.
“tends to confirm the growing conviction”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 20, 1910.
“They were sure there was going to be”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 19, 1910.
“We will be married next spring in London”:
New York Herald
, October 19, 1910.
“Now listen to me”: Wallace,
Claude Grahame-White
, 108.
“the monoplane was seen to dip suddenly”:
New York Herald
, October 20, 1910.
“It was sheer carelessness and lack of forethought”: Ibid.
“Why, nobody ever gets hurt flying!”:
Mansfield (OH) News
, October 20, 1910.
Chapter Six: Progress Slow and Exhausting
“After talking things over and discussing”:
Century Magazine
, December 1910.
“the woods were putting on a dress of unearthly loveliness”: Louis Hémon,
Maria
Chapdelaine
(Kessinger Publishing, 2004).
“awakened by the falling of the limb of a tree”:
Century Magazine
, December 1910.
“This is the balloon ‘America II,’ pilot”: Ibid.
“covered with a mass of rotten stumps”:
New York Herald
, October 28, 1910.
“I thought the log was solid”:
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
, October 28, 1910.
“an experience which I do not care to repeat”:
St. Louis Republic
, October 20, 1910.
“on the edge of civilization”: Ibid.
“I intend to enter most of the general events”:
New York Herald
, October 21, 1910.
“very, very angry over the incident”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, October 26, 1910.
“Of one thing the public may be sure”:
New York Herald
, October 21, 1910.