The United States Army Air Service launched its around the world flying expedition from Seattle, Washington, although as previously noted, it could be argued the party had commenced several days prior by flying to Seattle.
Mexican Federals defeated rebels in Tamaulipas.
The Berliner gyrocopter No. 5 gave its first successful demonstration. U.S. Army Lt. Harold R. Harris flew it for one minutes and 20 seconds at the College Park Airport, near the University of Maryland, in front of the press and members of the U.S. Navy.
Harris has been mentioned here before due to his career as a test pilot. He lived until 1988, dying at age 92.
The Beverly Hills Speedway hosted its final race, which was attended by 85,000 automobile racing fans. Harlan Fengler broke the world's record for a 250 mile race, averaging 116.6 mph.
Fengler would go on to be the Chief Steward of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1958 until 1974. He passed away in 1981 at age 78.
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In the Apple TV series Masters of the Air, one of the characters is Maj. Gale "Buck" Cleven, who reports himself as being from Casper twice in the first episode.
Who was he, and was he really from Casper?
Clevens was born in Lemmon, South Dakota, on December 27, 1918, just after the end of World War One. His family moved to Casper when he was still a child, although I'm not certain when, as they moved first to Lusk, in 1920. He likely was a 1937 graduate from Natrona County High School, the only high school in Casper at the time (Natrona County had a second one in Midwest). Following graduating from high school, he attended the University of Wyoming while also working on drilling crews as a roughneck.
He did, in fact, move at some point to Casper, where he was employed as a roughneck on drilling crews. He used the money he earned to attend the University of Wyoming and was enrolled by the fall of 1937, presumably right after high school. His name appears in the social pages of The Branding Iron as having had a date attend the men's residence hall October dance. He was a guest of a different young lady at the 1939 Tri Delts Halloween sorority dance. The same year he was apparently in a fraternity, as he's noted as having attended the Phi Delta Theta dance with, yes, another young lady. In February 1939 he went to a fraternity dance with Nova Carter, whom I believe I'm related to by marriage. A year later, February 1940, he took a different gal to the same dance.
He left UW in 1941 to join the Army, intent on being a pilot. The October 21, 1943, edition of the UW Student Newspaper, The Branding Iron, notes him (inaccurately) as being stationed in North Africa and having received the Distinguished Service Cross, which he in fact did receive for piloting his badly stricken plane from Schweinfurt to North Africa, the flight path taken on that raid. This even is depicted in Masters of the Air. The Branding Iron noted that he had attended UW for three years. In June, 1944, the student newspaper reported him a POW. He's noted again for a second decoration in the March 2, 1944, edition, which also notes that he was a Prisoner of War.
As depicted in Masters of the Air, his B-17 was in fact shot down over Germany. He ended up becoming a POW, as reported in the UW paper, at Stalag Luft III for 18 months, after which he escaped and made it to Allied lines. He was put back in the cockpit after the war flying troops back to the United States.
Following the war, he was back at the University of Wyoming. He graduated from UW with a bachelor's in 1946. He apparently reentered the Air Force after that, or was recalled into service, and served in the Korean War, leaving the Air Force around that time.
He was on the Winter Quarter 1954 UW Honor Roll and obtained a Masters Degree, probably in geology, from UW in 1956. Somewhere in here, he obtained a MBA degree from Harvard and an interplanetary physics doctorate from George Washington University.
He married immediately after the war in 1945 to Marjorie Ruth Spencer, who was originally from Lander Wyoming. They had known each other since childhood. She tragically passed away in 1953 while visiting her parents, while due to join Gale at Morton Air Force Base in California. Polio was the cause of her death, and unusually her headstone, in Texas, bears her maiden name. Reportedly, her death threw Cleven into a deep depression. He married again in 1955, to Esther Lee Athey.
His post-war career is hard to follow. He flew again during the Korean War, as noted, which would explain the gap between his bachelors and master’s degrees, and probably his doctorate. He's noted as having served again during the Vietnam War, and also has having held a post at the Pentagon. He was in charge of EDP information at Hughes Aircraft. Given all of that, it's hard to know if an intended career in geology ever materialized, or if his World War Two service ended up essentially dominating the remainder of his career in the form of military service. The interplanetary physics degree would and employment by Hughes would suggest the latter. His highest held rank in the Air Force was Colonel.
Following retirement, he lived in Dickenson, North Dakota, and then later at the Sugarland Retirement Center in Sheridan. He died at age 86 in 2006, and is buried at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his marker noting service in three wars.
The Federal Archives list these photos of a Martin MS-1 that the Navy was experimenting with. The concept was to carry the biplane on a submarine, something that proved viable, and while the U.S. Navy gave up on it by World War Two the Japanese did not.
The most dangerous major airline in the world, Aeroflot, saw its birth when its predecessor, Dobrolet, began operations with a flight from Moscow to Nizhny.
Maugham was from Logan Utah and joined the Army as a pilot during World War One. His career would span through World War Two.
U.S. Army Air Service pilots Lt. John A. Macready and Lt. Oakley G. Kelly commenced the first nonstop North American transcontinental flight on this day in 1923. Their flight in a Fokker T-2 took them from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Rockwell Field, San Diego in 27 hours with much of the nighttime flight through storms in uncertain territory.
McCready, who had joined the Army in 1917, held a string of early aviation records but left the service in 1926 and became the head of the Aviation department of Shell Oil. He reentered the Air Force in 1942 and held several combat commands, leaving again in 1948. He died in 1969 at age 91, an accomplishment in and of itself given that he was an early record-breaking aviator.
He is the only three time recipient of the Mackay Trophy.
Oalkey G. Kelley had a long flying career as well. He also retired in 1948, passing away at age 74 in 1966. Both men retired to California, although McCready was from there.
Inventor Lawrence Sperry, inventor of the autopilot and artificial horizon, demonstrated that air-to-air refueling was a theoretical possibility by intentionally touching a Sperry Messenger to a deHavilland flown by Lt. Clyde Finter. He did it eight times.
Both plans maintained a speed of 65 mph during the demonstration.
Sperry would go down over the English Channel that December, losing his life at age 30. He was flying a Sperry Messenger at the time. His company lives on.
Lt. Harold R. Harris bailed out of a Leoning PW-2A over Dayton, Ohio, being the first U.S. military pilot to make an emergency parachute exist from an aircraft. The aircraft crashed at 403 Valley Street without injuring anyone.
Harris was a test pilot, and unlike many in that field, he lived a long life, serving in the military twice as well as having a role in commercial aviation. He died at age 92 in 1988.
Indeed Crimean pilot Pavel Argeyev, who had served in the French and Imperial Russian militaries, died this day in an aircraft accident in Czechoslovakia, which he was flying as a test pilot.
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Legendary fighter pilot Robert "Robin" Olds, Jr., son of an Army Air Corps officer of the same name, was born this day in Hawaii.
He became a triple ace, scoring kills in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam, and retired as a Brigadier General in 1973. His father had been a Major General.
Olds was a larger than life character in every way. He was married for many years to starlet Ella Raines, although their marriage eventually ended in divorce and he remarried (he still came in at half the total number of marriages than his father). His penchant for drinking likely kept him from rising higher in the Air Force than he did. He served on the Steamboat Springs Planning Commission in retirement.
He died in 2007 at age 84.
