Review by Cmdr. Peter B. Mersky, USNR (Ret.)
As many historians, other writers and authorities will tell you, it is well to learn about where you come from, whatever society or profession. Most of us who spent their careers around naval aircraft or aircraft carriers have heard occasional mention of Eugene Ely (pronounced E-lie, as in “lie on the bed”) and/or his epic flights from or to a makeshift deck aboard a ship in 1910 and 1911. But usually that knowledge is as far as it goes. However, there was so much more to this well-travelled man from Iowa whose life spanned less than 30 years but whose “impact” had on a group of people, in this case military forces, or more specifically, seaborne forces, which we all know so well. Indeed, his story was much more than we made of it in all the years preceding the book’s publication.
Throughout all of the early text, an underlying theme had been Ely’s search for a sustained supporter to resupply him with dependable aircraft. By 1910, he was with Glenn Curtiss, who had always been in great competition with other early aviators, especially the Wright Brothers, who, of course, had made the first controlled flight of a manned aircraft on Dec. 17, 1903.
The early narrative works its way up to those memorable flights he made in November 1910 and January 1911, launching from and landing aboard two different Navy ships, thereby becoming what he is most remembered for—the beginning of Naval Aviation as we know it today, more than a century later. Ely was a brave and innovative young American, who took to the many facets of what this country, indeed, the rest of the world, was becoming, mainly an already industrialized group of nations that were looking into the future with automobiles, ships and now aircraft offering heretofore unproven modes of not only transportation, but also, sadly, new ways of making war.
This book by an author, who unfortunately died before the book was published, is, to my knowledge, the first book-length biography of Eugene Ely. It uses rare first-person accounts, family papers and other primary sources to describe this highly capable young man, who was an accomplished automobile driver and motorcycle racer before he ever saw an aircraft, and how he became what was at that time arguably the most experienced pilot of early aircraft, which were flimsy, canvas-and-wood affairs that were difficult to fly, and even remain alive while doing it.
There are familiar names, such as Curtiss and Wright, and other not-so-familiar names like Grahame-White (an exhibition aviator from England) and Sopwith (whose name will be forever associated with his Camel fighter of WWI), who nevertheless contributed so much to the development of aviation in the first two decades of the 20th century. The book also includes intimate descriptions of the unique, but often highly dangerous contraptions loosely referred to as aircraft, which we today 100 years later would scarcely recognize as being the ancestors of the Fokker D.7, P-51 Mustang, F-86 Sabre, the F-8 Crusader or the F-4 Phantom, F-16 Fighting Falcon, or any number of post-Vietnam first-line fighters, not to mention other groups of bombers, even airliners or other specialized aircraft, or those “aircraft” we have sent into earth orbit or to the moon. But these man-crafted, man-inspired vehicles came from the first designs that men like Eugene flew in dangerous, and often fatal circumstances and are definitely at the roots of the family trees of aircraft we now take for granted.
Beginning with a detailed, evocative view of late 19th century America as it prepared to enter the next century filled with so much promise and exciting future, especially the April 1906 destructive earthquake in San Francisco, the narrative describes Ely’s appearance and highly involved career with the beginning of the automobile.
As the book progresses, we learn just how much experience, how much actual flying time he had in the many meets and air shows held before his iconic flights from and to U.S. Navy ships he made that would soon change naval warfare so drastically. Indeed, Ely’s story was much more than we have made it in all the years preceding this book’s publication.
The book’s narrative is fascinating as it works its way up to the meeting between U.S. Navy Capt. Washington Irving Chambers, charged with developing the Navy’s growing interest in aviation, at an air show at Belmont, New York, in 1910, where the captain enlists the young aviator’s help in perhaps demonstrating how an aircraft of the time might be flown from a ship. The flights from and to different ships were successful, if somewhat tentative when compared with how such operation became more than possibilities during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and certainly in today’s Navy aviation. One little-known person in the story is Ely’s young, attractive wife Mabel and the part she played in telling her husband’s story.
The buildup to Ely’s epic launch (takeoff) from one ship in November 1910, and, later, his recovery aboard another ship in January 1911, is filled with competition with other companies. At the time, Ely was an employee of the Glenn Curtiss company, appearing in various air shows around the U.S., a little-understood activity of the period, just as active as the more famous barn-storming activities of air circuses and solo performances by the colorful barnstormer pilots of the 1920s and 1930s shown in such movies as “Waldo Pepper” starring Robert Redford and “The Spirit of St. Louis” starring Jimmy Stewart, himself a highly-experienced pilot who flew B-24 Liberator bombers during WWII. I was surprised at how much was there that I never knew. It’s worthy of a Hollywood biopic as well as recreating the period and the flimsy aircraft that were so much a part of it and the lives of the early aviators who challenged the new art of flight.
The story of what would become Eugene Ely’s acts of flying from and to a ship in 1910 and 1911, respectively, began in early 1910 as Chambers took notice of the young flier at air shows as the Navy began to consider military uses of the growing interest around the world of the new air vehicle. The accounts of these events are surprisingly brief, but the details of the troubles of first placing him and his Curtiss pusher on the small platform and his departure and hazardous flight—quoting author John Zobel, “It is impossible to overstate Ely’s courage in attempting the flight” and frankly, it holds true even today a century later for his professional descendants—and finally finding a reasonable landing spot on the shore of Willoughby Spit where stands a small but durable commemorative sign today on eastbound Virgina Route 60 must surely rank as one of the great historical achievements of the new 20th Century.
What is known in the popular history of Eugene Ely and his two pioneering flights that began what we know today as the beginning of Naval Aviation is almost hidden by the book’s detailed account of all that went before them. However, John Zobel’s detailed research definitely shows that Ely was much more than a two-event thrill-seeker out to play with the world’s new toys. He was a goal-oriented individual who saw the airplane as a major part of what was coming in the new century, and he was bound to be part of it, indeed, even one of the main drivers of this history that would definitely change the world in so many ways, in so many arenas, in war and peace. Unfortunately, as it would happen, and this new biography would go on to tell, he would not be alive to see these new, incredible events in the very near future.