Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (43 page)

These men didn't fit into the button-down conformity of the Truman/Eisenhower era and were well aware of it. They couldn't hang out with the squares any more than they could buy a tract house and drive a Ford Fairlane to the factory every day. Increasingly alienated from conventional culture, some combat-veteran bikers formed groups, at first loose and then later tight-knit, modeled after the units they served with in the military.

Many American units in World War II, particularly bomber squadrons, adopted the name Hells Angels. There was something about the concept of good men doing bad work (or bad men doing good work) that appealed to Americans in war. Perhaps the complex feelings aroused by dropping tons of high explosives and incendiaries on cities full of innocent civilians, all the while knowing it was the only way to combat fascism, created the quasi-religious paradox that brought about such an oxymoronic name.

Before America even entered the war, the Hells Angels existed. After Japan invaded China in 1937, what was left of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government was desperate. With no real air force of their own, the Chinese bought 100 American P-40 fighters from the British and went looking for pilots. Chiang's wife hired Claire Chennault, a retired U.S. general, to recruit pilots under the guise of a civilian air transport company called the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation. Chennault left the U.S. Army when he could not convince the brass that their bombers needed fighter protection and that using hit-and-run tactics would best suit the Americans' fast, rugged planes. A wise man who understood the complex emotions and motivations of young men, Chennault trolled the American military looking for pilots with drive, ambition and a deep dissatisfaction with the military hierarchy.

Going into action just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Chennault's men, now known as the Flying Tigers, were a stunning success. Fighting over enemy territory, always outnumbered (sometimes by as much as 20 to 1), the Tigers used bravery, creativity and cutting-edge tactics to better the up-till-then invincible Japanese. While the regular American and British forces were being clobbered, the Flying Tigers were dominating. Despite ridiculous odds, the Tigers destroyed 286 Japanese planes for a loss of just six of their own.

The Tigers were individualists. At a time when most other planes were squeaky clean, theirs were emblazoned with lurid sharks' mouths, skulls, cartoon characters and funny or threatening slogans. And instead of numbers, the pilots named their three squadrons—the Pandas, the Adam & Eves and the Hell's Angels.

The name probably came from the controversial 1930 Howard Hughes film,
Hell's Angels
. At a cost of $3.8 million—inflated by Hughes' pathological perfectionism which required 249 feet of film to be shot for every one that made it into the final cut—and three dead stunt pilots, the story of two charismatic American pilots who reluctantly fight for the British in World War I perfectly fit the image the Flying Tigers were trying to project.

After the Allies earned a toehold in Asia, the Flying Tigers were to be handed over from the Chinese to the U.S. Army Air Force. At first, it seemed like a good idea. The Flying Tigers had been operating in a devastated war zone with a minimum of food, ammunition and other supplies; getting a pipeline of goods from the States would help. But it didn't turn out that way. As volunteers under Chinese control, the pilots had no official tie to the American military and had to be enlisted. “The officious colonel who was recruiting started threatening the guys,” said Dick Rossi, Pandas flight leader and six-kill ace. “He was one of those people with no combat experience who feels he knows it all.” The tough-guy sales pitch failed. Only five of more than 100 pilots joined the China Air Task Force.

One who didn't join was Hell's Angels squadron leader Arvid “Oley” Olson. Noted among his peers for his fearlessness and ability to improvise, he once acquired some crated machine guns from an American boat that was thought to be totally destroyed by the Japanese in 1937. He and some of his squadron mates instead chose to join the Chindits, a British commando unit operating in Burma, who had the same self-determining freedom from a distant command structure that the Flying Tigers had.

When the war ended, Olson and his friends ended up in San Bernardino. They rode big, loud Harley-Davidsons. They rarely associated with anyone else. But they didn't become what we now know as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Other units had used the name Hell's Angels—most notably the 11th airborne division and the famously hard-drinking 303rd bomber squadron in North Africa and Europe—so it could have emerged from another source. It's far more likely, however, the name's origin came from area bikers who came into contact with Olson and his friends and wanted to emulate them. There's no doubting they were cool.

All over America groups of young men were springing up who liked to ride bikes, party and live on the edge of the law or just outside it. Motorcycles were cheap; many were sold as army surplus after the war, and the men who rode them tended to cluster together because they didn't always fit into conventional society very well or at all. Of course, not all motorcycle riders in the late '40s, or even the majority of them, were outlaws. But the few that were tended to stand out and make things bad for the others.

The image of the antisocial trouble-making biker in a black leather jacket invaded widespread consciousness in the summer of 1947. Two motorcycle enthusiast groups—far from outlaws—organized a get-together for July 4th in the farming town of Hollister, California. Sanctioned by the American Motorcycle Association, the ride expanded to include races and hill-climbs. More than 4,000 bikers descended upon the town of 4,500.

Two groups in particular, the Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington and the Booze Fighters, arrived with more on their minds than racing up hills. Drunk from the start, the Bastards and Fighters started racing and performing dangerous stunts in the streets, fighting, throwing beer bottles through windows and generally terrorizing the locals. Hollister's seven-man police force was helpless and called in 40 highway patrolmen who established a sort of informal martial law. Bars were closed, a threat of tear gas was made and the bikers skulked out of town. Those who remained were the 50 or so who were seriously injured—Frank McGovern of Chico had his foot nearly severed in a racing accident—and the more than 50 who wound up in jail.

Although the stories of a drunken orgy of violence that have circulated about Hollister are generally exaggerated and the famous photo that appeared in
Life
magazine of a shirtless biker passed out on a Harley was later admitted to be faked, the popular image of the rowdy biker was cast. Police chief Fred A. Earl called it “the worst 40 hours in Hollister's history.” Joyce Lane, superintendent of nearby Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, told the press that drunk and injured people were being admitted “too fast to keep accurate records.” The AMA quickly distanced itself from the maelstrom by issuing a press release that labeled the troublemakers “outlaws” and referred to them contemptuously as “1 percent” of an otherwise law-abiding fraternity of riders. To this day, both “outlaw” and “1-percenter” are terms with great resonance among motorcycle gangs, and both are considered valuable titles to be earned.

After Hollister, a prominent Pissed Off Bastard named Otto Friedli split with the club and formed his own group on March 17, 1948 in Fontana, just west of San Bernardino. He called it the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. They weren't much different from other clubs, except for the cool name. It got even cooler in 1954 when Otto's club merged with San Francisco troublemakers and Hollister veterans, the Market Street Commandos. The new members, now called the Hells Angels San Francisco Chapter, paid their mates back with what would later become a world-famous and fiercely protected trademark, the winged skull logo.

Later that year, Hollywood released a film that would do more for bikers than anything they could have done themselves. Inspired by the short story “The Cyclists' Raid,” which was loosely based on the Hollister incident,
The Wild One
is about a biker gang that invades a motorcycle race and then clashes with a rival gang. Many consider Marlon Brando's portrayal of Johnny, the troubled, brooding biker, to be his best work. Johnny is seduced by the romantic, lawless life of the bikers, but is decidedly at odds with the pointlessness of their violent existence.

The film was a massive critical and financial success and it rocketed Brando to the apex of stardom. His rebellious look and style set the standard for alienated youth everywhere. Millions of wannabes popped up overnight and, even 50 years later, the leather jacket and jeans look still works on today's streets.

But the real bikers found Johnny to be a bit of a sissy. He didn't get it. All thoughtful and sensitive, he was a square pretending to be a rebel. Hell, he even rode a Triumph (Brando's bike in real life). No, the bikers preferred the film's villain. Based on notorious Booze Fighter Willie “Wino Willie” Forkner, Lee Marvin's Harley-riding Chino was derided by many as a sadistic brute. But to many bikers, he was the epitome of cool. So impressive was he that San Francisco Hells Angel (and later chapter president) Frank Sadilek rode to Los Angeles the day after he saw the movie to buy a replica of the blue-and-yellow striped shirt Marvin wore as Chino. Sadilek wore the shirt every day until it fell apart years later.

Armed with the new logo and the best bikes (Harleys only, no Indians or “foreign crap”), the Hells Angels were everything the legion of young men who saw
The Wild One
wanted to be. These weren't the pilots, paratroopers and bombardiers who took to motorcycles to relieve the tediousness of life after combat. These were more ordinary young men, rebelling against a post-war America that promised so much, but left many behind. Although it was a time of unprecedented wealth and freedom, not everybody got a piece and not everybody wanted to throw on a fedora, drive to the factory and come home to a wife, kids and a mundane house in the suburbs. Joining the growing trend towards franchising (McDonald's was emerging in the same area at the same time), Hells Angels chapters started sprouting up all over the west coast.

One of those disaffected young men was Ralph Hubert Barger Jr. Born on October 8, 1938 to a working-class family in a run-down stop on the highway appropriately called Modesto, Barger didn't have a great start in life. His dad was working down the road laying pavement on Highway 99 and his mother would take Sonny (as Ralph Jr. was called) and his big sister, Shirley Marie, on the bus to visit him every weekend. Whether it was the stress of handling two young children without a father or something she saw on her visits to Ralph Sr.'s motel, Kathryn Carmella Barger left the kids with a babysitter and ran off with a Trailways driver to Twentyninepalms, California.

There would be no picket-fence upbringing for Sonny. With mom out of the picture, he and his sister moved in with their grand-mother in Oakland, one of the most violent and racially divided cities in America. Sonny was what they used to call a “problem child” and dropped out of 10th grade in 1955 to join the army. He finished 13 months of basic and then advanced infantry training before the army realized he was too young and gave him an honorable discharge. After that, he meandered pointlessly from one job to another—including a stint on a potato chip assembly line—before he bought a bike and started a club.

On April 1, 1957 (a date still tattooed on his arm), Barger's club became the Oakland Chapter of the Hells Angels. A year later Friedli went to prison and a new national president was needed. Through the force of sheer charisma, the wiry, fidgety little man from Oakland won the job. Barger immediately went to work. He moved the Hells Angels headquarters from Berdoo (as the Club rechristened San Bernardino because it was too long to fit on their jackets) to Oakland. Writing up a code of behavior that included things like a $5 fine for fighting between members and the ban on messing with another Angel's “old lady,” he made a blueprint for a franchise that would eventually spread across the U.S. and a dozen other countries.

Despite their rebellious aspirations, Barger gave the Hells Angels a pseudo-military hierarchy and they have become one of the most stringently self-policed organizations in the world. Each chapter has a president, either elected or unchallenged, who has ultimate control of all club decisions. Despite his power, the president of one chapter has no jurisdiction over other chapters. Even the national president has no immediate power over other chapters, although he is always listened to and treated with respect and even reverence. The chapter president rides on the front left of the Angels' two-column formation. Beside him is his right-hand man, the road captain. His duties are to take care of all the unpleasant necessities like planning trips, carrying cash and dealing with police. Behind them ride the vice-president, the president's choice to stand in for him when needed but not necessarily the next in line for his job, and the secretary-treasurer, who controls meetings, fines and dues and keeps a list of all members' names and addresses. After these come the full-patch members of the club. The last of these is the sergeant-at-arms, who acts as the president's bodyguard, club enforcer and general tough guy. Bigger clubs may have an assistant enforcer who rides alongside the sergeant-at-arms. Behind them ride the honorary members, who are retired members or close associates like lawyers, bail bondsmen or motorcycle parts suppliers who have helped the club in the past. At the very end are prospective members and other associates. As in a pack of wolves, everyone knows his place and any deviation from the established order is immediately and brutally put down.