After his first flight at
Moline, aviation was in Harold’s blood. Harold learned to
fly soon after. There was a Jenny for sale at the airport
and Harold decided he wanted to buy it. He went to a local
bank and asked about getting a loan for $600, the cost of
the Jenny. The bank manager told him that they would be
glad to give Harold the money, if his father would sign off
on the loan. Harold’s father agreed and Harold was soon the
owner of a JN-4 Jenny biplane.
To help pay off the plane,
Harold barnstormed throughout the Midwest, carrying
passengers at $5 a piece, and then later $2 a hop. “One
time in Streeter, Illinois, I started carrying passengers
there ‘bout 9 o’clock in the mornin’ and I had a feller
sellin’ tickets. I flew till dark, and we made $140.
Divide that by two ($2 per hop) and I made seventy takeoffs
and landings. That’s when you can really fly an airplane!”
He eventually did make enough money to pay off the plane,
but Harold wasn’t satisfied with the Jenny.
“I finally got out one day on a
hot day, and that Jenny just would not fly on some days and
I damn near killed myself, but I managed to get it back to
the airport. I told Dad that this airplane is limited and
if I wanted to continue in aviation I have to get a better
airplane. Dad said, ‘Well sell the Jenny and then we’ll
talk about it.’ I did and Dad agreed to lend me $3000 at 4%
interest to order a Travel Air biplane, which I did. It had
a 90hp Curtis OX-5.”
It was at this time that Harold
would meet and marry his wife Inez. “I started entering air
racing. We had balloon busting, dead stick landings, and all
the little gimmicks to make it interesting and pick up $5,
$20, $50. Some of the OX-5 races were as high as up to
$250…Back in 1929 I had enough hours, which at that time had
to be 200 hours, and I finally got my transport license…and
that’s when I decided I was qualified to get married... I
started winning or placing well. In 1929 I had been
courting a nice girl down there at Moline and I had a good
day up near Chicago and made a little extra money. On the
next Monday I went down to St. Charles, Illinois and bought
her an engagement ring. I called her that evenin’ and
said, ‘I bought you an engagement ring and I hope that’s
okay with you.’ She said, ‘I suppose,’ and that’s how we
got engaged. We set a date for the wedding in September and
I used the Travel Air to land in the field next to her
parents’ farm. We had the wedding there outdoors and then
after that was all over we got in the Travel Air. We had on
our britches, boots, helmets, and goggles and we each had a
suitcase. We got in the Travel Air and headed east for
Niagara Falls. It took us three days because of fog and
weather, and then we flew over the Falls.”
Harold and Inez made a life out
of barnstorming. As Harold explained it, “That’s sorta how
it started. You can call it barnstorming. It’s doing
anything and everything that’s connected with flying to make
a few dollars, to build up hours and experience, in the
hopes that there was a future in aviation…Barnstorming is
just going from town to town or one activity to another with
air racing, balloon busting, dead stick landings – and so
this is what I call barnstorming, and I did that. My wife
was with me and we lived like gypsies…”
In those days, nearly everyone
had heard of airplanes – Lindbergh’s crossing of the
Atlantic was covered by nearly every newspaper, magazine,
and journal in the US – but not every one had actually seen
a photo of Charles or Anne Lindbergh. Harold recalled, “I
landed one time because of low ceiling and the neighbors
came by. They thought we were Lindberghs. They had read
‘bout the Lindberghs flyin’ and now here was a pilot and
plane with his wife in helmet n’ goggles. If I had a wanted
to, I coulda have got by with that!”
Harold sums up barnstorming in
terms of friendships. “In barnstorming you make a lot of
friends. One thing leads to another – I’m a big believer in
that. You stay with something long enough and you go in the
right direction, why something good will come of it. You
make a lot of friends and you need a lot of friends in
aviation. You would be surprised, when you have problems or
an accident or have trouble your friends come out of the
woods to help you get going again. You have the feeling
they believe in you. They may not be able to do the things
I’m doin’, but at least they can be a part of it. This is
the feeling there has been in the aviation world. I’ve
helped many of my friends when they’ve been in trouble and
they never forget. Sooner or later, they’ll show up when you
need help.”
Eventually, Harold got away
from barnstorming and into serious air racing. He met Benny
Howard at the Cleveland Air Races and later at Moline, where
Harold was working at the airport and Benny had stopped by
while flying for United. A relationship developed and
Harold went to work for Benny, flying the Howard “Ike” racer
in various airshows and air races. He also started flying
the Howard “Mike” racer in some of the more competitive
races.
1935 would be the single
greatest year in Harold’s racing career. The National Air
Races that year would be forever known as The Benny Howard
Air Races. Benny started the win streak by edging out
Roscoe Turner by just 23.5 seconds in the Bendix Race, a
cross-county race from Santa Monica to Cleveland. Benny won
the race in the “Mr. Mulligan,” a four-place high wing cabin
monoplane that Harold describes as, “A big Monocoupe.” The
prize was $4,500 for winning the Bendix.
That same day, August 31,
Harold flew the “Mike” in the Louis Greve Trophy Race. He
was set to fly the “Ike,” but its gear had collapsed in the
qualifying runs. In his words, “I flew the “Mike” in the
Greve Race in 1935 and I won it. Now that’s pylon racing
with a racehorse start. I was known as a low level pilot
and that helped me win…I used to practice around home flying
around trees as if they were pylons. I practiced around
windmills and got very comfortable flying low to the ground
around 100 feet…by flying low I avoided a lot of traffic
that the boys had at the higher levels. Steve Wittman was
great. He had a plane that could climb rapidly and he would
level off and make high turns to get away from the traffic,
and I would make low turns. In many races after the first
few turns it would be between Wittman and I because we were
out ahead of all the rest with that technique. That was one
of the reasons for my success in air racing.”
Harold explains another of his
winning techniques, “We ran full throttle. People nowadays
think, ‘Gee, I got to set the throttle right on 1900 or
2000.’ Phooey!!! Set it where the engine runs good and
within your temperatures and leave it alone.”
Two days after Benny won the
Bendix and Harold won the Greve, “Mr. Mulligan” was entered
in the National Air Races’ climaxing 150-mile Thompson
Trophy Race, which had a top prize of $6,750. It was a
hectic night and morning before the race, getting “Mr.
Mulligan” repaired as it had burned out a cylinder during
the qualifying runs. Finally, the racers were all lined up
at the starting line ready to go.
Harold describes the scene, “We
all got lined up there for the start of the Thompson Race.
Roscoe Turner was in it, Steve Wittman, Art Chester, Roger
Rae, and others. So we’re all lined up there to head for
the first pylon. So we’re all sitting there and it was a
hot day, musta been a 100 degrees, you can imagine what it
was like sittin’ in a cabin airplane with that heat. They
decided to wait another 20 to 30 minutes for the start and
you can imagine sittin’ there with them engines runnin’ and
you can imagine how hot it was. Finally we get the signal
to go and they drop the flag. I had it turning up pretty
good and released the brakes and gave it more power and it
wouldn’t take the throttle – it just started backfirin’ an’
runnin’ rough. I thought I was going to have to discontinue
the race, but I knew the airplane and felt we had a big
‘nuff field there and I was gonna just see if I could get in
the air and clear the engine. I gambled that it was just
fouled sparkplugs, so I did that. Everybody left me and I
was the last one to take off.”
“After two laps I got the
engine cleared up. We’re in the race and the engine’s
runnin’ pretty good and I’ve got my power set to finish the
race. I had lost hope of winnin’ because of the poor
start. So I’m startin’ to catch up with the slower planes
and passin’ them. I’m a workin’ my way up and passin’ more
of them and I’m very happy…I’m sittin’ there enjoyin’ the
race and I finally caught up to Steve Wittman flyin’ in
“Bonzo” and I come along side him and he pulled away from
me. I figured, ‘This is gonna be a race!’ because we used
to race against each other in the OX-5 days, but I figured
‘I’ll just leave my power like it is – everything is runnin’
good and I don’t want to blow a cylinder again.’ And then I
caught up with him again and passed him again. I figured he
must have engine trouble or sumthin’ so I just left
everything alone and I passed him and that was the last I
saw of him in the race.”
“Up ahead I could see Roscoe
Turner, who was leading, making pylon turns and I thought,
‘I’m not going to try and catch him because that will just
burn out the engine an it wouldn’t take it.’ I was in
second place and thought that’s where I’d end up. After
another lap there here’s Roscoe Turner landing, but I still
didn’t get the flag for the finish. I didn’t see him pull
up with the black smoke and forced landing. I continued on
and finally got the flag for finish. We always make an
extra lap in case we had cut a pylon we could still qualify,
so I made my extra lap and came in and landed and rolled out
to a stop. There was a lot of traffic out there so I turned
the engine off. My friend, Doc Kincaid with the oil
company, came out in an official car to pick me up. When I
got out of the airplane he grabbed me and gave me a hug and
said, ‘You won the race!’ That was the first I knew that I
had actually won the race.”
Benny Howard’s team had cleaned
up during the Nationals, winning over $17,000 in prize
money. Harold best sums up the day, “To bring you up to
date, Benny Howard won the cross-country race which was the
Bendix, I won the Greve Race with the Howard “Mike,” and I
won the Thompson with the Mulligan. So it was a clean sweep
on the big stuff.”
Not a bad day for a kid from
Illinois. Harold kept up with air racing for a few more
years, winning multiple races along the way, and was
eventually hired on with TWA, where he flew for 30 years,
retiring in 1966. He still had the flying “bug” after
retirement and purchased another Monocoupe (he had owned one
in the 1930s), which he painted white and named “Little
Mulligan.” Harold took “Little Mulligan” all over the
airshow circuit and was a regular aerobatic performer for
many years, and at one time was America’s oldest active
aerobatic pilot, flying aerobatic routines well into his
80s. Harold “went West” in July 1995 at the age of 89.
While the “Little Mulligan” will never fly again, we will
always remember that raspy-voiced aviator who brought the
grandstands to their feet at the air races and who won our
hearts in his little white Monocoupe
