Hattie Meyers Weaver: Life During the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918

From an early age, Hattie Meyers was fascinated with flight. At first, being a “mere girl,” she contented herself with building models in her Glen Ridge, New Jersey, home with the help of her older brother Charlie, a member of the Aero Club of New York. She recalled her first model, made of cranberry red silk from Scotland, being named the “Red Devil” for the “wicked prohibitive sound and the hope that it would raise the ‘devil’ with the long distance model record held by Percy Pierce.” Hattie’s model shattered the record (and the cellar window)! Hattie’s model success gained her entry into the “boy’s” shop in back of their house, where she was nominally allowed to participate in their endeavor to build a man-carrying glider, often taking the blame for hijinks, all for the promise of a ride in the final product.

Hattie and Charles Meyers, ages five and seven. (Photo is dated 189[9], but is most likely 1903.) NASM 9A16573  

In 1916, Charlie brought home a friend from the Aero Club of Illinois—known only as “Buck.” Hattie immediately noted that he was “a real aviator and not just a model builder” and twenty-one to boot! She also was not a fan of the black and white checkered cap he constantly wore (not knowing that this was the proud symbol of an early aviator). As they courted, Hattie learned his full name was George Weaver. After he turned down an opportunity to fly with Katherine Stinson in Japan, George and Hattie announced their engagement on June 14, 1917, with the specter of the United States’ entrance into World War I looming.

Civilian Flying Instructors, Rich Field, Waco, Texas, January 1918. George E. “Buck” Weaver is the third from the left in the seated row. NASM 9A16576 

George and Charlie registered for the war and went to work at Aeromarine. Already a capable aviator tapped as a civilian flying instructor, George was first sent to the U.S. Naval Reserve School on Long Island then to Dayton and then to Rich Field in Waco, Texas. Hattie left everything she knew in New Jersey to meet his family in Chicago on her way to joining George in Texas. They married on February 12, 1918, with George rushing in from work, washing the castor oil off his face.

George “Buck” Weaver and Hattie Meyers Weaver together in Waco, Texas, March 19, 1918. NASM 9A16575

Hattie settled into life at Rich Field as a wife, impatiently waiting for the war’s end, even as Rich Field was struck by the influenza. George received a doctor’s note for influenza for over a week’s absence in April. Effective as of October 4, all officers and enlisted men were given antiseptic treatment daily as a precaution. Hattie recalled, “The big husky men at Camp MacArthur died faster than burial and when the wind blew from there the odor gave proof.” She noted the other target—pregnant women like herself.

Doctor’s letter, dated April 12, 1918, certifying that George “Buck” Weaver was absent from work due to influenza. NASM NASM.XXXX.0171-M0000127-00300

 On November 11, 1918, Hattie and George joined the Armistice parade in downtown Waco in their Buick convertible: “Flu and babies forgotten.” George obtained a leave of absence so that he could go to Chicago with Hattie to prepare for the baby. By the time they had reached St. Louis, Hattie knew she “had a cold, sneezes and snuffles.” She arrived in Chicago with a fever and full-blown influenza. Although she had “coughs that hurt and would not stop,” Hattie was apologetic that she was a sick nuisance to her mother-in-law.

George E. "Buck" Weaver and wife Hattie Meyers Weaver pose in their Buick Roadster, October 1918. Another version of this photograph was labeled “Mrs. W pregnant, flu epidemic.” NASM 9A16574

George Charles Weaver, nicknamed “Buddie,” was born on December 12, 1918. Hattie noted that the “fever had burned off the weight, the flesh was loose on the 5 lb. 3oz. baby.” She blamed herself and her illness for the premature birth and promised “to do better next time.” George exited the room and only later did Hattie learn he had fainted. He returned to Texas soon after to receive his discharge papers. He had been warned if he was not present, he would not receive the end-of-war separation benefits package.

Hattie convalesced in Chicago under the watchful eye of the Weaver family. Her doctor insisted that she needed to be strong and nurse the baby. Her youngest brother-in-law taught her how to walk again. George wrote often. It was difficult for Hattie to learn that many of the women with whom she had made baby clothes at Rich Field had succumbed to the flu, along with their children. In a January 5 letter, Hattie wrote: “George, that grips me by the heart at nights and when Son is sleeping quietly I have to feel him to be sure he is living. I have tried to write Mrs. Blair but each time I have become deathly sick. I cannot. Oh Georgie how grateful we are.” George returned to Chicago when Buddie was eight weeks old.

After the war, George Weaver took up barnstorming. In 1920, along with Clayton Bruckner and Elwood "Sam" Junkin, he founded the Weaver Aircraft Company. George “Buck” Weaver died on July 31, 1924, from a septic blister. He was eulogized by some of aviation’s greats, including Katherine Stinson: “You [Hattie] have been very dear to and made very happy this boy whom we all loved so dearly.”

Reproduction of July 29, 1924 telegram from Katherine Stinson to Hattie Meyers Weaver regarding the death of George “Buck” Weaver. NASM NASM.XXXX.0171-M0000014-00140

The company was later renamed Advanced Aircraft and, later, Waco (pronounced wah-co, as opposed to way-co). Hattie married Sam Junkin in 1926, but he died shortly afterwards (their daughter Janet was only a few months old). The company slipped out of Hattie’s hands soon after. The Waco Aircraft Company flourished during the interwar period as Waco aircraft were operated by public, private, military and corporate owners in thirty-five countries. During World War II, Waco devoted itself entirely to war production, particularly gliders, but could not adjust to the postwar market.

Hattie and her son Buddie lived long lives. In 1929, Hattie married Ralph Stanton Barnaby, a glider pilot, but the marriage was short-lived. Hattie wrote several versions of the Waco Company history. She was one of the first women to earn a glider class C license. She studied law at the University of Washington (DC), but fell ill before taking the bar.

Hattie Meyers Junkin with son George “Buddie” Weaver, age six, January 1927. Hattie noted on the back that she had trimmed her crepe tunic with beaver from an ageing coat. NASM 9A16577 

In 1976, an episode of the hit television show Upstairs Downstairs prompted Hattie to recall her bout of influenza in a letter to Buddie: “The report again in the final chapter of the ‘Spanish’ flu that caused more deaths than the millions slaughtered in [World] War One, naturally brings me agin [sic] to my carrying you, the Armistice, (pic in my album) of my Kewpie doll body as your father was chosen to lead the parade in our Buick convertible….” She revisited the circumstances of Buddie’s birth, adding, “Since then it is remarkable how we have escaped attempts, literally on our lives.” Hattie Meyers Weaver Junkin died in 1990 and George “Buddie” Weaver followed in 1991.

The National Air and Space Museum Archives holds the Hattie Meyers Junkin Papers, the Waco Aircraft Company Records, and the Ralph Stanley Barnaby Papers. The Waco collection includes almost 25,000 drawings on paper, business records (including purchase orders for individual aircraft), and engineering reports. Ralph Barnaby’s collection holds documents from his gliding career and correspondence received late in his life from other aviation pioneers.

Hattie’s papers are digitized, containing materials from every stage of her life. Her diaries and correspondence are especially rich in the World War I and early Waco periods. She saved everything for years, including photos and cards straight out of George “Buck” Weaver’s wallet and satchel, and donated the collection to the Museum in 1983. In fact, the Smithsonian TranscriptionCenter is looking for volunteers to transcribe materials from the Hattie Meyers Junkin Papers!

Elizabeth C. Borja
Archivist
National Air and Space Museum Archives

Soaring through the Archives of Air and Space with Transcription Center

Have you ever wondered what you should pack for a trip to the moon? Or what female aviator clubs were like in the 1930's? How about the history of grape soda and its relationship to America's first transcontinental flight?

                             Inflight Coverall Garment, Jacket, Apollo,                     Items taken aboard Apollo 11, NASM Archives.
                                 D19791187000, National Air and Space Museum.

Well you're in luck! The answers to these questions -- recorded in the pages of diaries, letters, and scrapbooks held in the Archives of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) -- are now more easily discoverable thanks to volunteer transcription.

Vin Fiz Art Poster, Armour & Co., 1911,  A1935044000, National Air and Space Museum.

Since 2015, staff in the NASM Archives have launched (pun intended) over 200 projects in the Smithsonian Transcription Center--including stowage lists from six different Apollo missions, records from Calbraith (Cal) Perry Rodgers' 1911 transcontinental flight (which was sponsored by the makers of the popular grape soda, the Vin Fiz), and the scrapbook of female pilot, Manila Davis Talley, containing multiple photographs and  news articles on twentieth century women's aviation clubs and flying competitions. 

Page from Scrapbook of Manila Davis Talley, NASM.XXXX.0041, National Air and Space Museum.

The Archives' collections span the history of flight, from ancient times to the present day, and include materials from military officers and personnel, NASA astronauts, Smithsonian staff, civilian pilots and engineers, astrophysicists, nineteenth-century balloonists, flight attendants, and more. Over the past four years 1,062 volunteers (or 'volunpeers' as we say here in TC) have transcribed close to 13,000 pages from the archival collections at NASM. These TC projects only constitute a small portion of NASM's archival collections, yet the work of digital volunteers transcribing and reviewing these materials increases accessibility and awareness of the rich information held within every page. (Want to learn more about how volunteer transcription makes Smithsonian collections accessible and text-searchable? Head to our About page and follow us on Twitter for ongoing updates, discoveries, and behind-the-scenes sneak peeks!)

Here's some highlights from NASM TC Projects:

Apollo 11 Flight, Crew, Training, NASM Archives.

• Sound recordings from the Apollo 11 launch. 
• Correspondence, flight logs, and notes from Orville and Wilbur Wright. 
• Materials from the Papers of General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.- Commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron, the first unit of the "Tuskegee Airmen" during WWII and the first African American General in the U.S. Air Force (1954). 
• The World War I diary of U.S. Army Air Service Officer Arthur Raymond Brooks
• William J. Eck's scrapbook, "To Europe By Air," documenting his trip on Pan American Airways' (PAA) first transatlantic passenger flight in 1939.
• Scrapbook of Velma Maul Tanzer, Stewardess and Chief Stewardess for American Airlines, 1933-1936.

Velma Maul Tanzer, NASM.2005.0036, NASM Archives.

• World War II diaries and scrapbooks from Harold Raskin (Army Airways Communications System, 7th AACS Wing Ground Control Approach (GCA) unit), William Jones (aerial photographer in the Army Air Corps), and a Japanese man named Yamada (much information on him is still unknown). 

                           General Benjamin O. Davis,                                   William Jones, NASM.2006.0067,  NASM Archives.
                          NASM.1992.0023, NASM Archives.                                              

Click here to explore all of the completed and ongoing Transcription Center projects from NASM. And keep an eye out for more projects coming soon, including a letter from astronaut John Glenn, Jr., diaries from WWI Pilot Zenos Miller, and collections documenting the groundbreaking work of female aviators Rubye Berau, Mary Charles, and Helen Richey.

-Caitlin Haynes, Transcription Center Coordinator

Plane Spotting: The Photography of Rudy Arnold and Hans Groenhoff

If you are an aficionado of aviation photography, then chances are you have seen the works of Rudy Arnold and Hans Groenhoff. In the 1930s and 1940s, you could open up almost any aviation magazine or mass circulation publication and find a photograph from one of these two men.  The photos of Arnold and Groenhoff have been part of the collections of the National Air and Space Museum Archives for many years, but now you can view their amazing work through the Smithsonian OnlineVirtual Archives (SOVA)!

Photographer Rudy Arnold posed looking through the viewfinder of his modified Graphlex Speed Graphic camera; probably somewhere in or near New York City, circa early 1930s.  NASM 89-20553

Photographer Hans Groenhoff, holding his Graflex Speed Graphic camera (a second camera, an Ikoflex twin lens reflex, is slung around his neck), poses leaning out of the right side of a Piper J-3 Cub camera plane with an unidentified US Army pilot at the controls, circa 1941. Here he demonstrates a hand signal to ask the pilot of a target plane to close the gap between the two aircraft in flight. Groenhoff's Speed Graphic is fitted with a shield around the bellows (seen here decorated with decals) to protect it from collapsing in the wind stream during flight.  NASM-HGC-1587

Rudy Arnold was born in 1902 and began his career by studying at the New York School of Photography. Around 1928, he started his own business, with a focus on aviation photography. He primarily worked out of Floyd Bennett Field, Roosevelt Field, and LaGuardia Airport in New York.

Sikorsky HO3S-1G on the ground outside a U. S. Coast Guard hangar at Floyd Bennett Field, New York, 1949. A Crosley convertible is parked in front of the helicopter; photographer Rudy Arnold (standing up in the automobile) has just arrived for a flight in the helicopter.  NASM XRA-6092

Arnold was known for his extensive use of air-to-air photography.

Distant right side aerial views of 9 U. S. Navy Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless, members of Scouting Squadron 5 from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown, flying in left echelon formation, ca. 1941.  NASM XRA-0490

Hans Groenhoff was born in Germany in 1906 and emigrated to the United States in 1927.  A glider pilot and amateur photographer, Groenhoff's photography career took off when he inherited two cameras following the death of his brother, Gunter, (a famous German glider pilot) in a glider accident in 1932.

Grumman G-21A Goose (r/n NC1294) in flight over suburban area, probably somewhere over Long Island, New York; 1938. NASM HGD-157-18

In his retirement, Groenhoff worked as an aviation tourism publicist for the Bahamas.  He founded the popular "Bahamas Flying Treasure Hunt" and the collection includes many photographs from this event.

Piper PA-24-260 Comanche C (r/n N9308P) in left bank passing Hope Town Lighthouse, Elbow Cay, Abacos, Bahamas. NASM HGC-1281

The two collections came to the Archives in many formats including print photographs, black and white and color film (sheets and rolls), color transparencies, etc.  The Arnold collection even contains glass plate negatives in varying conditions.

Amelia Earhart poses standing on the right wheel pant of her Lockheed Model 5C Vega Special (r/n NR-965Y) at Floyd Bennett Field, New York, June 30, 1933. [Cracked glass plate negative.] NASM XRA-8381

Although the arrangement varies slightly within the two collections, most of the images are arranged by format (black and white negatives, color transparencies, etc.) then by subject (aircraft, armament, biographical, etc.) then by name or manufacturer.  Negatives, transparencies, and slides are stored in labelled envelopes with captioning information, which can also be viewed in the collection.

What will you spot in the Rudy Arnold and Hans Groenhoff Collections?!

Aircraft spotter Elinore Leo at observer post holding telescope and looking up at sky, in New York area, 1942. NASM XRA-1453

Elizabeth Borja
Archivist
National Air and Space Museum Archives

Preserving a Spectacle: The 1909 Grande Semaine d’Aviation de la Champagne

Last week, archivists from the DC area celebrated American Archives Month with the 2017 Archives Fair. Taking advantage of the theme of “Performance and Preservation,” the National Air and Space Museum Archives tapped materials from our numerous collections on air shows, the ultimate aerial performance spectacle. And what better air show to highlight than the first true international air meet—the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne, August 22-29, 1909?!

The Grande Semaine took place on the plains of Betheny near Reims, France. Contestants included some of the top flyers in the world:

· Louis Bleriot (first to fly the English Channel)
· Glenn Curtiss (member of the Aerial Experiement Association, leader of group of demonstration pilots)
· Hubert Latham (first to attempt to fly the English Channel)
· Henri Farman (first cross-country flight in Europe).

(Interestingly, the Wright brothers had been asked by the Aero Club of America to represent the United States at this meet, but declined the invitation. Curtiss attended for the United States.)

Poster for the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne, August 22-29, 1909, Reims, France. NASM 93-654.

How does one preserve a spectacle such as the Grande Semaine? While some motion picture film exists of the event, most of the material we have are photographs. But we also have ephemera, such as programs, entry forms, rule booklets, and maps, in our collections. From these documents, we can try to recreate what it was like to be a spectator in 1909 Reims!

View of the grandstand with the buffet area in the foreground.  NASM 78-11939.

Five hundred thousand spectators witnessed the air meet in person over the eight days of competition. Famous attendees included Armand Fallières, the President of France, and David Lloyd George (British Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister).

The President of the Republic of France, Clément Armand Fallières (1841-1931), standing in the grandstand at the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne.  NASM 00139389.

Aviators needed to complete a “Formule d'Engagement” [Commitment Form] to enter the meet. Once there, entrants needed to comply with the “Règlements” in the rules booklet.

Blank "Formule d'Engagement" [Commitment Form] for entry into the "Semaine Aéronautique de la Champagne."  NASM 9A13989

Front cover of the rule booklet (32 pages) issued by the Comité d'Aviation de la Champagne for the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne.  NASM 9A13988.

Spectators throughout Reims could keep track of the action in many ways. Signs on the streets of Reims indicated wind speed and the probability of flying. A signal mast on the course showed the places of race contestants. Onlookers could use the program to read the symbols.

Passersby on a street in Reims, France examine a sign indicating wind speed and and the probability of flying during the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne.  NASM 00139388.

Signal mast showing the places of race contestants on the left, judges stand at right. NASM 00139387.

Page 9 of the event program provides a guide to reading the signal mast.  NASM 89-19709-12.

Event photos were mass-produced immediately into postcards. Spectators could purchase and mail postcards featuring the previous day’s action right from the post office onsite!

Front view of crowded stand (boutique) selling books and post cards during the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne.  A banner advertises postcards of the previous day's flights.  NASM 00139414.

Postcard featuring Sánchez Besa No.1, with an inset photo of pilot Henri Péquet.  NASM 00085717

Balloonist Edgar Mix served as a judge for the Grande Semaine He was also an amateur photographer. The NASM Archives have his stereograph collection and with the help of a stereoscope viewer, all of the action of Reims can be brought to life in 3-D!!

Stereograph image by Edgar Mix.  Roger Sommer’s Farman in flight, August 26, 1909.  NASM Mix-93-15. 

Aviation enthusiasts in the United States could follow the action through daily newspaper updates. America’s own Glenn Curtiss won the premier event—the first ever Gordon Bennett Trophy (for the fastest 2 laps of a 10 km circuit)—just edging out Frenchman Louis Bleriot. In October 1909, the excitement of France was brought directly to Americans when Philadelphia department store Wanamaker’s celebrated Glenn Curtiss’s victory with a display of a replica of his award-winning Reims Racer.

Brochure issued by John Wanamaker promoting the display of the Curtiss-Herring No.1 "Reims Racer" at his flagship department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 1909.  NASM 9A13990-01.

The 1909 Grande Semaine d'Aviation de la Champagne was just the first of many international air shows in the past century. Many of these are represented in the collections at the National Air and Space Museum Archives. Has your area ever held an air show? How has it been documented?!


Elizabeth Borja
Reference Services Archivist
National Air and Space Museum Archives

August 1939: National Aviation Day and the 30th Anniversary of Army Aviation

August 19 marks National Aviation Day in the United States.  Prior to 1939, aviation was frequently celebrated on December 17, the date of the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903, and, in 1937, “National Aviation Day” had been held on May 28.  In 1939, having received authorization from Congress in a May 11 joint resolution, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed that August 19, Orville Wright’s birthday, would officially be designated National Aviation Day in the United States.

Text of the Joint Resolution Designating August 19 of each year as National Aviation Day from Public Laws Enacted during the First Session of the Seventy-Sixth Congress of the United States of America.  U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Law Revision Council, United States Code.

Throughout the United States, communities planned aviation-related events.  In the Washington, DC, region, five airports—Capital Airport (Bladensburg, Maryland), Beacon Field (Fairfax County, Virginia), Hybla Valley Airport (Alexandria, Virginia), Congressional Airport (Rockville, Maryland), and College Park Airport (Maryland)—scheduled “50-cent” flights over the city.  The East Hartford divisions of United Aircraft Corporation’s Pratt & Whitney Aircraft and Hamilton Standard Propeller held an open house for employees and their immediate families.  Major Al Williams, acrobatic pilot, was scheduled to be the star of an aviation show at the World’s Fair.

A crowd watches formation flying at [Army Air Corps] 30th Anniversary Celebration at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, August 2, 1939.  NASM WF-64774.

The military participated in National Aviation Day as well.  The War and Navy Departments arranged open houses at their air fields.  Although several Army Air Corps fields hosted open houses, the biggest aviation event for the Army had already taken place a couple of weeks before.  On August 2, the Army celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Army’s purchase of the Wright Military Flyer on August 2, 1909—the birth of Army aviation.

Photo exhibit at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, in celebration of Army aviation’s 30th anniversary, August 1939.  NASM WF-64695.

All air stations hosted open houses and 2,000 aircraft participated in flyovers.  The largest of the anniversary celebrations took place at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wright brothers. The Army estimated that over 48,000 visitors attended the event and 20,000 watched from outside the gates.  Brigadier General George H. Brett served as the Master of Ceremonies.  Major General H.H. “Hap” Arnold spoke at the luncheon for special guests, highlighting the history of Army aviation, presenting visions for the future, and awarding Distinguished Flying Crosses to four officers.

Boeing XB-15 (s/n 35-277) on display at Army Air Corp 30th anniversary celebration at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, on August 2, 1939.  NASM 92-4006

Visitors to Wright Field had the opportunity to view approximately fifty of the Army’s “most modern aircraft.” Some of the larger airplanes had platforms from which guests could enter the airplane through one door and exit from another.  One of the aircraft on display at Wright Field was the Boeing XB-15, which on that very day had set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Speed Over a Closed Circuit of 5000 Kilometers With 2000 Kilogram Payload.  Throughout the day, aircraft flew in formation over the field.

Here's a list of National Air and Space Museum events for Saturday, August 19.  What do you plan to do for National Aviation Day 2017?!

Elizabeth C. Borja, Reference and Outreach Coordinator
National Air and Space Museum Archives

Be Your Own Navigator

"Present day navigators are apt to place so much reliance on mechanical and tabular aids that we sometimes forget that primitive peoples were able to voyage over a large part of the world without any such devices. A study of these primitive methods shows that there are many valuable aids we have neglected or forgotten, and that a continued reliance on mechanical aids places us in a very helpless position when deprived of them. In the lore of the sea and the sky one can still find those fundamental and simple means which gave early man confidence and enabled him to find his way on the trackless seas."

So wrote the 20^th-century’s master navigator of both sky and sea, Harold Gatty (1903-1957), in his beguiling The Raft Book. Last fall, the United States Naval Academy reintroduced the requirement of a formal course in celestial navigation after an absence of nearly two decades from the curriculum. At that time, this nifty publication, its title and author unknown to me, needed to be cataloged for the National Air & Space Museum Library’s special collections. 

The book’s covers are blue heavy paper stock, embossed in silver with a majestic, soaring albatross upon a field of stars. Within its original slipcase are also two large folding leaves containing tables for navigation computations, scales for measuring distance ("Greenwich date and hour scales”) and a unique world-wide chart. What librarian could resist a survival book that first acknowledges one of its own, C. R. Taylor of the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand? Isn’t my profession all about navigating through an ocean of information? 

While an interesting, well-illustrated, carefully thought-out, and concise specimen of book production, The Raft Book is both a training manual (on shore) and a survival guide (at sea). An errata slip in the first edition of 1943 states: “For service use in rafts and lifeboats the book will be waterproofed and will have spiral plastic binding. The book and charts will be contained in a waterproofed envelope.”  It directs the reader to always carry a pocket watch set to Greenwich Time in order to determine longitude. How to protect that valuable piece?: “get a rubber sack (obtainable from pharmacist) for it and keep it dry.”  
 

"Harold Gatty instructs an Air Corps officer in the use of the drift indicator he invented" National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution (link here)

Gatty wrote The Raft Book here in Washington, D. C., at the behest of the U. S. Army Air Forces for pilots flying over the Pacific, and perhaps always with an eye toward others such as fishermen and sailors. He is the sole author and, with his (second) wife, the copyright holder, not the U. S. Government. Gatty was ideally suited for the task. He had first learned navigation as a midshipman at the Royal Australian Naval College and then celestial wayfaring by his own observations stargazing on long voyages. Landing in California, Gatty taught marine navigation to yachtsmen at his own school in Los Angeles before taking on the challenges of charting routes in the skies with both celestial navigation and dead reckoning. Philip Van Horn Weems became his mentor at his navigational school in San Diego and the two had a long collaboration.

Gatty was navigator to pilot Wiley Post during their world record circumnavigation of the globe in 1931. Touching down in Roosevelt Field on Long Island, having bested the 21-day record set by the airship Graf Zeppelin, they were feted with an exuberant ticker-tape parade that only New York City can provide. The two wrote Around the world in eight days: the flight of the Winnie Mae, with an introduction by Will Rogers. They rivaled Charles Lindbergh in popularity. Post, the high-altitude aviator in the Golden Age of Aviation who discovered the jet stream, and Rogers, humorist, writer, social commentator, and actor, were killed together in 1935 when their plane crashed in the Territory of Alaska. 

Lockheed Vega "Winnie Mae" National Air and Space Museum

Not as well remembered today is the innovative, resourceful Gatty whom Lindbergh anointed the “Prince of Navigators.” Roscoe Turner, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Clyde Pangborne, Howard Hughes, Arthur Goebel, Harold Bromley, and Pan American Airways all turned to Gatty for his expertise and advice. In 1932 he was appointed Senior Aerial Navigation Engineer for the U. S. Army Air Corps. 

Of special value to the military at the start of World War II in the vast, still largely uncharted Pacific was Gatty’s long study of Polynesian seafaring skills over millennia. In The Raft Book, Gatty laid out simple and practical methods of determining location and charting a course to shore in a lifeboat or dinghy without a map and compass. The book describes how Polynesians viewed the stars as moving bands of light. “They knew the stars which passed over particular islands, and used these stars as heavenly beacons to lead them to their destination.” Along with the ability to measure distance from the Equator by either the North Star or the Southern Cross and other celestial bodies, the author explains how all the senses were to be employed for survival with the “lore of the sea and sky.”  

For example, Gatty describes how seafarers should pay attention to the light at dawn, the appearance of clouds, and the currents and wave patterns of the ocean. In addition, familiarity with the habits of sea and land birds, fishes and insects can be used as navigational aids, and will enable a hungry castaway to more easily catch these creatures for food when necessary. Less obvious senses can have an essential role in survival on the ocean, as well. Such as being alert to scent: “I have personally experienced the fragrance of new-mown hay 80 miles off the New Zealand coast in the springtime.” And sounds from land: “The roar of heavy surf may be heard long before the shore is seen. At night, the continued cries of sea-birds from one particular direction will signify their roosting place on land.” Looking at the directions of the wind, waves, and swells, can also be aids for a castaway. Understanding the color of the sea and even testing the temperature of the water with one's fingers are also part of the "lore" in the book.

Other editions of The Raft Book—in a smaller type, with fewer of the colored plates, less of a lyrical cover, and waterproofed—soon became part of the survival kits of all Allied airmen serving in the Pacific Ocean theater. The publication portrays the world’s oceans not as indifferent or hostile but teeming with life, with routes voyaged for centuries by many cultures, including the Phoenicians, the Arabians, and the Vikings. Gatty conveyed his deep knowledge of using the sea and sky and their movements to find one’s way to land, interspersed with quotes from Shakespeare, Dante, and William Cullen Bryant, not at all pretentiously but to underline a particular lesson. 

                                 
                                        Now do I lay the bows of my canoe
                                        To the rising of the Sun, nor deviate from there

                            Straight to the land, to the Fatherland

Ancient Maori Karakia

Post-war, Gatty continued to chart his own course in life. Despite various U. S. military appointments and honors, he kept his Tasmanian citizenship (Congress had to pass special bills to accommodate his request to remain an un-naturalized citizen despite his official positions). Gatty found his way to Fiji, where he owned the island of Katafanga, ran a plantation, served in the Legislature, created Fiji Airlines, and continued to study ancient wayfaring. Gatty’s last work, Nature is your guide, was published posthumously. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in August 1957. 

Gatty’s The Raft Book, as perhaps the U. S. Navy has discovered, is still relevant today as we have become ever-more reliant on high-tech instruments, on land in a car, out at sea in a boat, and in the skies in an aircraft. Increasingly dependent on sophisticated but vulnerable technology, know that one can still be one’s own navigator.  

Julia Blakely, Special Collections Cataloger

Smithsonian Libraries 

Johnston, Andrew K., Roger D. Connor, Carlene E. Stephens, and Paul E. Ceruzzi. Time and navigation: the untold story of getting from here to there. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2015.

Charting a new course: celestial navigaton returns to USNA

Winnie Mae Newsreels

US Army Air Corps Avigation Training