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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 1924)
Jack Harding Won Place on Flight Through Ability as Mechanic First Flight Won by Fixing Engine of Martin Bomber . Lt. E. E. Harmon Chose Smil ing Sergeant to Accompany Him on “Round the Rim"’ Flight in 1919. Toll! by LOWELL THOMAS. (Copyright. 1924.) “Smiling Jack" Harding did every thing he could to get into the air as a pilot, but once you are a buck private, it’s a difficult thing to blossom forth in the boots and spurs of an officer. However, his officers eventually found out that lie was just as good at repairing their staff cars as he was at digging stumps and ladling out soup to the rest of the rookies. He Anally got to the, aviation mechanics’ training school in St. Paul, Minn., where he made such a high record that he was transferred to Wilbur Wright field, Dayton, and first made a sergeant and later given the rating of master signal electrcian and aviation mecha nician. His first great flight was !n 1919 and came about in this way: .Lieut, Ernest E. Hannon had beer, sent down to Langley field, Virginia, to look after the repairing of a Mar tin bomber. A group of mechanics had hpen vainly attempting to get the en gine running and were just about ready to give up in despair when a powerfully built young sergeant stepped up and remarked: "you birds stand hack a minute.’’ It was “Smiling .Tack.’’ And just as we saw on that similar previous occasion when he met his future fel low circumnavigator, Lieut. Leslie Ar nold. Jack got the motor working in a few minutes, and, with a spin of the propeller, started it off with a crash and a roar that swept him to fame. Lieut. ,®i'lny” Harmon made a men tal note of him as a mechanic worth remembering, and a little later, when he needed a man to help him on tho fiirst flight ever attempted all the way around the Jrordera of the United States, know is "the round the rim flight,” he a ed permission to take Harding along as his mechanic. The feat was attempted by a single Mar tin bomber under the command of Col. It. H. Hartz, and piloted by Lieut. "Tiny” Harmon. The bomber flew from Washington, D. to Maine, then straight west across the continent to Puget sound, on down the Pnciflc coast from Can ada to Mexico, and back to Washing ion by way of the gulf states. It was the first time that the Vnlted Stairs had ever been circumnavi gated by air, and on this flight of 9,00(1 mil' s Jack passed over Maine and made the transcontinental trip in a way that later entitled him to ho mentioned as the first of the six world fliers to actually complete the cir cuit of the globe by air. When his first period of army ser vice ended in 1920, he re enlisted for another y-nr and served most of the time tit n.dlin r field. Washington, 1). C , and McCook Held, Dayton, O., where he first became intimately ac quainted wi * it Erik Xelson, the man who was l iter to s!i»w his great faith In him by releetoing hint for the round the world ti ght. When his second enlistment was up he retained his po sition with the air service as a civil ian expert mechanic, and when chos en for the world flight lie was act ing as assistant chief of airplane and \l>\ KKTISEMKNT. — i — [j= PHILLIPS ^OF MAC^ . I ANTACID CORRECTIVE LAXATIVE THECHAS H PHILLIPS CHEMICAL CO NEW YOB* I l’nler: you ask for ‘Phillips." you may not get the original .Milk of Mag nesia prescribed by phyalcans for 50 years. Protect your doctor and your self by avoiding imitations of the genuine "Phillips." 25 cent bottles, also 50-cent bottles, contain directions—any drug store. AIJYKKTI MOMENT. Cured Her Rheumatism Knowing from terrible experience the suffering caused by rheumatism. Mrs. .1. F*. Hurat, who liven at 204 Davis Avenue. fl-170, liioomington, 111., is ho thankful at having cured herself that out of puie gratitude she is anxious to toll nil other sufferers just how to get rid of their tor ture by a simple wav at home. Mrs. Hurst has nothing to sell. Merely cut out this notice, mail it to her with your own name and address, and she will gladly send you this valuable infor mation entirely free. Write her at once before you forget. AOVKKTHHFM KNT For All Complexion Ills It the akin be colorless, sallow, muddy, over-red. blotchy or freckled, nothing will so aurely overcome the condition a<« or dinary roercolited wax. It literally takes off u bad complexion absorbs, the dead and near-dead particles of surface skin, gently, gradually, causing no inconveni ence at all. A new complexion Is then in e. idenee, dear, nolle* <. delicately soft *.,J beautiful. One ounce of thi wax. pro curable a* any drug-store, v i 11 rejuvenate even the worst complexion. It is used like ««ild cream. I •j 1 engine maintenance at Dayton under Lieutenant Nelson. 500 Hours in Air. Although he had always been a mechanic and for some time had been a lieutenant In the air service re serve, he had never been given an of ficial opportunity of realizing his dream of becomlr. . full-fledged bird man. But he d(A enough flying on tlie sly to earn Mm his wings, and before he even started on the world flight he had a record of over 500 hours in the air, most of it cross country flying. However, just before the world cruisers hopped off from Seattle Jack was given an examination, as a result of which ho was given the rating of junior airplane pilot, despite the fact that he had never had any official In struction. Like Lieut. Leigh Wade, he has done considerable high altitude work, and on one occasion froze the side of his face when he got up to an alti tude of 24,600 feet. In several respects Jack differs from the other world fliers. In addi tion to his justly celebrated smile, which has gained him the nickname of "Smiling Jack," he has another physical peculiarity. One of his eyes is blue and the other is brown. But this does not detract one whit front his fascination. He is also unlike three of his fellow round the world fliers in that he never ran away from home. In fact, his mother Is Jack's best pal, and when he got the sur prise of his life by being Invited to go on the world flight he at once put it up to his mother and told her that he would not think of accepting unless she wanted him to go. But his mother was a good soldier and urged him to seize the opportunity, although her heart, sank when she said it. be cause she fully realized the extremely hazardous nature of the undertaking and knew that just one small acci dent might prevent her seeing him again. Because of his magnificent phy sique, his magnetic personality, and that infectious smile of his, Jack has been a favorite with the fairer sex in every land over which he and his fellow circumnavigators winged their way. But his mother is still his sweetheart, and she relates an anec dote in support of this Shortly before Jack started on the world flight he returned to Nashville for a visit and one evening found himself silting in a hammock beside a charming young southern debu tante. the belle of the town, who cooed softly about the moonlight and slipped her hand into his. "Sure—great," Jack murmured ab sently. "if 1 could Just figure out— cylinders — magneto — dynamo -—" Whereupon the girl snatched her hand away in pique. And that was as far as the mechanically minded "Smiling Jack" ever got with a court ship—that is. until he arrived back in America after having flown around the world. But that's another story, and we must wait until the end of our narra tive to hear how America's world fliers went from the conquest of the air to the conquest of the hearts. "Trouble Shooting Henry" is the name by which Lieutenant Ogden of the world cruiser Boston is best known to his fellows in the air serv Ire. But just for short, they call him "Hank.” Then again they call him "Houdini.” both because he is a sort of wizard with engines and because he had a mysterious habit of disap pearing In nearly every city where the world fliers stopped. No cine has entirely solved this mystery, but "Houdlni" Ogden has a secret vol ume. a little black book, in which are some hundreds of addresses that ought to give a clue. A "trouble shooter" Is a sort of a doctor of pngines. Whenever a Lib erty or Hirpano-Huiza. or any other motor develops a bad cough, blind staggers, altitude sickness, or any of the other thousand and «me ailments that engines are subject to, “trouble shooters" like Henry Ogden are called In to prescribe, or perform a final au topsy and order the Interment of the deceased. "Trouble Shooting Henry" declares emphatically that there Is nothing In teresting or romantic about himself or anything that he ever did up to the time when he was picked out to fly around the world with Lieutenant Wade. But as we shall see, he Is not competent to pass judgment on the subject, for this same Henry, who Is so shy and modest, has done every thing from punching cows In the delta country along the Mississippi to leaping from plane to- plane in mid air after the fashion of the late Lieu tenant Locklear, who met his death doing a similar daredevil feat. Accent Thlcker’n Molasses. "Trouble Shooting Henry" has a southern accent thicker than the in ter In a Mississippi mangrove swamp, thicker even titan Louisiana molasses. Born on a plantation about as fnr south as it is possible to get in these l'nited States, Henry Horn tin Ogden spent his youth playing with pickaninnies on his futher'a cotton plantation just a feSv miles west of the Mississippi river, between Baton Rouge and Natchez. So he got his soft southern accent from his darky mammy. Woodvllle, Miss., sounds prosaic enough, hut these little towns of a few thousand people like Wood., have a Imbit, of producing distin guished men. Woodvllle has had ils r.li-I - of celebrities, of whom Henry Ogden, one of the first six men to circumnavigate the world by air, 1* the moat recent and the most distin guished. H-i Woodvllle now has two genuine - laitns to fame: Hirst, lie cause it Is the homo of the oldest weekly newspaper on the North American continent the Woodvllle Wepubllcan tone of the most hard shelled democratic papers In tin iid south”), and second, because vc America one of ils world flyers. plantation owners around Woodvllle specialize In cotton, beans and cattle, and in til* midst of till* country, II. p Ogden controls four great cotton plantations, and » cotton gin where his son. Henry Horajln. or Henry "Houdlni" as his fellow Ma g-linns call him, got his first know I edge of engines ns he tinkered with the machines that extracted the seeds and pa-’ked his father's hales of cot ton Henry father also runs the largest - --unify store.- In that part of Ml IsHlppi. Ami until Dame Fortune picked him out to circumnavigate the world by air and take hi* place In history along with Magellan and Columbu*. "Trouble Shooting Hen ry's" *<>le ambition in life was to run a country store like his father's and protect his cows from the dreaded "Texas tick." Related to ">la" Ferguson. Like his associates. Wade and Hard ing, Henry Ogden attended country school. Like all of the rest of the world fliers, excepting Erik Nelson, his ancestors were of English origin and among the earliest colonists to settle in America. His mother comes from the same family as "Ma” Fergu son, the newly eletced yeoman gover nor of Texas. Henry's life before he entered the a.r service was spent among the Ne groes of the cotton plantations, and he tells many interesting stories of his associations with them. For In stance, there is one old "Uncle Tom" who has just passed the century mark. Henry's father has long since pensioned him off, and surely few men ever did more to earn a pension. In the old slavery days, before this black Samson went to work on one of the Ogden plantations, he was the prop erty of a slave owner who was inter ested In eugenics. "Uncle Tom" was, and still is, a giant. He stands over six feet and has the chest develop ment of a caveman. His master was keen to breed a race of giants for hts cotton plantation, so he presented this dusky stalwart with a harem, and to day he is the father of 60 children, which ties the record of Brigham Young, and is exceeded only by the record of the late king of Slam, who held the world's championship for many years. After Henry had finished his high school work at Woodville he went down to New Orleans to lake a course In a business college. He also spent several summers working as a fur buyer—collecting ’possum and ’coon skins from colored trappers. On sev eral occasions it turned out that the furs he had bought wore stolen prop erty, and once when he caught the thief he and his friends tied the latter over a log, gave hint a hundred licks with a strap, and then chased him out of the state. Youngest of Sextet. Lieutenant Ogden is by far the youngest of the world fliers. When America entered the World War he was only 17, having been horn on September 3, 1900. So he was not allowed to Join the army until 1919, when he entered (he air service repair depot at Montgomery, Ala. Up to that time this youth, who was destined to circumnavigate the world by air, not only had never been in an airplane, hut he had never seen one! After a six- weeks' course In the construction of airplane motors, dur ing which time he frequently studied all night long so that his instructors would not he able to ask him ques tions that he couldn't answer, he showed such aptitude that lie was made an Instructor himself. Five months after he had enlisted he passed an examination that raised him to the rank of staff sergeant, and he remained at Montgomery as i. ' - -- ■ ■ — Ian Instructor in motor* until the end of his first year. It was during this period that he had his first flight. Then for a time he was in charge of one of the crews building motors for tiie government in the airplane factory at Montgom ery. For another nine months he worked on different types of engines, such us Gnomes. L# I’hones, C'leg getts, and Hispano Ruigas. Then he was transferred to the rigging depart ment for Instruction in the building of the wings, fuselage, and other parts of an airplane. Next he got his first assignment as a “trouble shooter,’’ and in the sum mer of 1921 was transferred to Ell ington field, Houston, Tex., and placed in charge of the hangar used by visiting “ships.” From that job he was transferred to the aefo re pair department, where he was in charge of the inspection and repair of planes for 10 months, until trans ferred to Selfridge field, Detroit. During all of his years in the air service he has spent the most of his time when off duty either experi menting with aero engine* In his own private shop or flying around in commercial planes owned by his friends. It was during those off hours that he began doing sucli daredevil stunts as jumping from plane to plane. Thrills as Student. While still in Texas he attempted to fly from Ran Antonio to Houston on one occasion and ran into a fog that nearly cost him his life. He and a companion named Moshier took off from Kelly field, San An tonio, lale one afternoon, but not too late, they thought, to reach Houston before nightfall. However, as a result of fog. night closed down over them sooner than they had anticipated. They were obliged to fly above the clouds with nothing to guide them hut their cam pass. Thinking that they must he somewhere in the vicinity of Hous ton, they drove down through the fog. It was pitch dark, so dark that, they couldn't see the struts of the plane 10 feet away. To their consternation they found themselves over water, which they figured must be th« gulf of Galves ton, a branch of the gulf of Mexico. Nearly out of gat, they turned back in search of land. The night was inky black by now, hut at last they made out a faint light and, heading toward it, discovered that they were near the shore. Then the gas ran out, and they simply had to find some place to put the bus down. When the wheels touched ground the plane bounded back into the *lr for 30 or 40 feet and then pancaked down and stopped dead, right astrad dle of a 16-foot ditch. In digging the ditch the laborers had plied dirt high on either side. Ogden and Moehier had hit the pile on one side and this was w hat caused them to hound hack Into the air. If they had been un lucky and had hit 10 feet farther on. they would have dug the nose of the plane right into the middle of the ditch and neither of them would even have known what had happened. Plane Bisected. As it was, the plane broke squarely - ■’ -'til In two. The machine gun mount hit Ogden In the fhce. knocking out all of hi" front teeth. A piece of the fuselage went through his left arm. The control stick was driven through Lieutenant Moshier's left side just under the ribs, but fortunately far enough to the left to prevent the in Jury being fatal. To make matters still worse, both airmen were obliged to sit out in the swamp until morn ing because the night was too thick for them to move away from the plane without running the risk of falling into a morass. During his five years as an avia tion “trouble shooter’’ Ogden has wit nessed many thrilling sights. One day at Houston he was standing out in front of his own hangar when Lieutenant Tinsley, flying an SE-5, attempted to make a landing. Tins ley came down with the wind and directly toward one of the hangars. Seeing that he was In danger of hit ting the hangar, he "gave her the gun" and attempted to ascend. But he couldn’t quite clear the roof. His wheels rought and his landing gear was ripped off, causing the plane to dive straight Into another hangar across the company street. As Tins ley In his SIC-5 passed through the first wall of this hangar, the wings of the plane stopped on the outside, while fuselage, engine and pilot crashed right on through. Tinsley had presence of mind enough to le,(p oflt of his cockpit and a moment later his gasoline tanks exploded and l>oth ! building and airplane went up in flames. Tinsley escaped with nothing but a slight scratch. Lieutenant Ogden was standing only a few feet away and saw the whole affair. Went to Michigan. When he left Ellington field for tie troit, Ogden accompanied 19 airplanes that were being transferred by air from Texas to Michigan. He was one of three mechanics selected to keep the squadron In condition on the way and they succeeded in getting all 19 through without a forced landing, in Michigan he was again assigned to "trouble shooting” and took care of visiting plane* that took part In the Detroit airplane races of 1922, and iflerwards remained at Selfrldge field until called to Langley field, Virginia, fi i duty In connection with the world Slight. Head the next installment of the Ihtilling ‘round-the-world (light in The Omaha Bee tomorrow. BKK WANT ADS BKING KKSI l,TS SPAIN HAS MANY WOMEN MAYORS Madrid, Nov. 29.—The recen i ' lOTsned municipal law granting voting and other representation rights to women is already having remarkable t esuifs. Several districts have already eb t*-d women mayors and councilloi * “After All” a V1CTR0LA | ===== Is Hard to Beat =—= It Makes Xmas a Happy One for All the Family. This beautiful style 400 is the Baby Grand of the talking machine world. Come See and Hear It I 0 Can be had with the RADIO combination. And remember, we are offering special Christ mas terms. MI CKEDS Don t stay stuffed up' Take Tapes ( old Compound" every two hours until three doses am taken. The first (lose opens (logged tip nos trlls and air passages of head; stops nose running: relieve* liouduehv. dullness, feverishness, sneezing. The second and third doses usually break up the cold completely snd end nil arlppo misery. Tape's fold Compound’' la the quieke, t, surest relief knnyvn and costs nnl' 3.1 cents at drop stores. IsMee tin r. Contains no quinine In slat upon I’apss. Silk Stockings Special Sale Monday Fur years we have presented a Splen did Hosiery Bargain at this season. Quality of this offering i< exceptional. Product of Providence Knitting Co. who make only fine grades. Service and chiffon weights. Black and all selling shades. Some French does. 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