Anthony J. Vallone - Air Vagabonds: Oceans, Airmen, and a Quest for Adventure

2003 by Anthony J. Vallone

All rights reserved

In the rare instances where all considerable efforts to locate persons mentioned in this book have proved fruitless, apologies are offered, and should the rightful party contact the publisher, all due credit will be made.

Editor: Robert A. Poarch

Designer: Brian Barth

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Vallone, Anthony J.

Air vagabonds : oceans, airmen, and a quest for adventure / Anthony J. Vallone.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-58834-137-2 (alk. paper)

eBook ISBN: 978-1-58834-465-6

1. Vallone, Anthony J. 2. Air pilotsUnited StatesBiography. 3. AirplanesFerrying. I. Title.

TL540.V28 V35 2003

629.13092dc21

[B] 2002042614

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available

For permission to reproduce illustrations appearing in this book, please correspond directly with the owners of the works, as listed in the individual captions. (The author owns the photographs that do not list a source.) Smithsonian Books does not retain reproduction rights for these illustrations individually or maintain a file of addresses for photo sources.

v3.1

To those ocean ferry pilots who are with the Trim God

Theres a race of men that dont fit in,

A race that cant stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

and they climb the mountains crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they dont know how to rest.

from The Men That Dont Fit In by Robert Service

You cant send a kid up in a crate like this.

from the screenplay East of Samoa

The writing of this book could not have been possible without the help of friends, family, and fellow pilots too numerous to include here. For that glaring omission, I ask not for their forgiveness, but at least their understanding. I would be remiss, however, if I neglected to mention those individuals without whose help this book would be nothing more than a project unrealized or a paperweight sitting on my bookshelf in manuscript form.

To start at the beginning, I wish to thank my good friend Gert Norton, who listened so often to my ideas about someday writing a book about ferrying airplanes that she finally told me to quit talking about it and just write it. For this, as well as her tireless critiquing of draft after endless draft, I am eternally grateful.

My gratitude also goes to Sandy Moyle, who led me to discover the dying art of writing letters and encouraged me during the early stages of the manuscripts development.

Thank you to my agent Kristen Wainwright and her staff, whose commitment to seeing the book in print went beyond any expectations of monetary reward. And also my editor Mark Gatlin, who recognized the importance that the little-known adventure of ferrying small airplanes over the ocean played in the history of aviation.

For help with research and in locating many of the pilots I had flown with, Im indebted to two people: Donna Waldman, who kept in touch with pilots whose later careers had scattered them to the four winds, and Donn Kerby, for so often digging through the archival rubble of his apartment to find an old flight chart or any notes he may have written about something that happened a quarter century ago. Of the sixty-three people mentioned in this book, it is inevitable there would be some whose present whereabouts are shrouded behind the veils of geography and time. Wherever fortune has landed them, my thanks go to George Rice, Bob Campbell, Lev Flournoy, Paul Crandall, Peter Goldstern, Andy Mattenheimer, Pat White, Ernst Krupp, Molly Willett, and Gus Grillo. Ive attempted to portray them and the events in which they participated accurately, and I hope, for the most part, that they will be pleased.

Lastly, my deepest thanks go to all the ferry pilots, the mechanics, the airport workers, and their wives who were part of this forgotten era and whos adventures make up the brunt of this book. Though decades may have past since we last spoke, they were always ready to swap storiesand undoubtedly a few liesin fond remembrance of a time unlikely to ever return.