From Point A to Point B With a Photo of the Airplane “Yankee Doodle,” Mines Field (Los Angeles International Airport), Mid-September 1928

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

It was a pleasure today to take part in a guided tour with members of the Los Angeles Corral of The Westerners of Los Angeles International Airport. Led by two members of Los Angeles World Airport’s Community Relations department, the approximately one-hour trip bus traversed the airport, which includes some 3,600 acres of land, handles close to 700 daily passenger flights with more than 200,000 passengers with another 1,200 cargo flights and about 2.3 million tons of freight.

Among the areas passed were the cargo and passenger terminals, including intermediate ones not obvious to those who pass through the very congested terminal area off Century Boulevard, including an area where presidents enter and leave when in the region. Also of note were the two fire stations, the fueling area, the place where K-9 dogs are trained for service, the catering buildings and sections where celebrities come and go far removed from the terminals almost all other passengers utilize.

While those of us who have traveled to and from LAX certainly experience the hubbub and hectic conditions from that central terminal section, it is an entirely different experience to navigate through the airport the way this tour did today. It really provided a different perspective to the 5th busiest air facility in the nation and the 13th in the world, handling around 74 million passengers.

As has been noted here previously, the name Los Angeles International Airport was adopted in 1946, following close to two decades as Los Angeles Municipal Airport. Prior to that, however, it was known as Mines Field, named for real estate agent and developer William W. Mines. The oldest surviving structure at LAX is a 1928 edifice now used by the DHL delivery service and passing it reminded me of the featured photograph from the Museum for this post, a September 1928 image of the aircraft “Yankee Doodle” as it participated in the National Air Races held at Mines Field that month.

The craft, a Lockheed Vega monoplane, meaning one pair of wings, with this one placing them atop the fuselage and room for a half-dozen passengers, was owned by Harry Tucker, said to be a “sportsman” from New York who moved to Santa Monica about 1927 and paid for its construction. By April 1928, it was being piloted by Lee Schoenhair, who later was chief pilot for the Goodrich tire company, though as summer dawned, there was a new aviator at the helm, Art Goebel (1896-1973) hailed from Belen, New Mexico, south of Albuquerque, and was the only child of Arthur, a German-born farmer and Emma Brockman, born in Texas of German parents and a dressmaker.

The Tuckers moved to Rocky Ford, Colorado, southeast of Colorado Springs and, when Art registered for the draft in early June 1917, shortly after America entered World War One, he sought a farming exemption. He, however, ended up in an American Expeditionary Force infantry unit in France, shipping out not long before the war ended in November 1918. As the Teens ended, the family was in Fort Worth, Texas, where Art worked as a carpenter in an auto shop.

It is not clear how he ended up in the Los Angeles area and the earliest located mention of Goebel there is from the end of 1924 when he participated in an “aerial rodeo” at what was was then Daugherty Field, now Long Beach Airport. In short order, he became known as a daredevil pilot, including working with a parachutist as the “Suicide Squad,” entertaining crowds with drops off the shoreline, while Goebel became associated with Clover Field, now Santa Monica Airport. His stunt work, including flying upside down at events, led him to work in Hollywood as a pilot for aviation scenes in movies.

When famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished in 1926 and was initially presumed drowned in the Pacific at Santa Monica, Goebel flew over the area to try to help located her body, though she later emerged in quite a different environment with a great deal of controversy attached to her disappearance. The renowned boxing championship bought between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney included photographs delivered to Los Angeles by a plane piloted Goebel.

In August 1927, inspired by Charles Lindbergh’s epochal flight across the Atlantic the prior May, James Dole, a pineapple titan in Hawaii, offered a $25,000 first prize and $10,000 for the runner-up for an airplane race from Oakland to Honolulu. Goebel, flying a craft named the Woolaroc, was the first announced entrant of 15 who participated, but the contest was marred by delays and disaster, with the various planes finally prepared to leave the Bay Area on the 16th. All, but two of the craft either turned back or crashed, with three vanishing and the seven personnel, including the sole woman in the race, presumed dead.

The Woolaroc, which experienced no major difficulties en route, landed at Wheeler Field in central O’ahu after 26 hours, 17 minutes and were greeted by a crowd estimated at up to 30,000 persons, while the Aloha, with just five gallons of fuel left and some near crashes along the way landed some two hours later. While Goebel was celebrated and feted in Hawaii and on his return to California, the race was heavily criticized for lax standards and the inordinate loss of life involved.

In the year and change after the Dole derby, Goebel transitioned from a stunt and daredevil pilot to an aviation advocate, including a trip to Japan, which he reached by steamer before engaging in flights, as well as dialog and consultations with fellow flyers in that Asian nation. The Los Angeles Record of 3 March 1928 remarked, “what Lindbergh is to the country at large, Art Goebel, Los Angeles flier, is to the Pacific coast. He’s the ace of western fliers.”

The first found reference to Goebel partnering with Tucker was from the 2 July edition of the Los Angeles Express, which commented,

Increased recognition of Los Angeles’ aviation industry is seen in the recent flow of orders for Lockheed planes from Eastern air transportation companies. At the Lockheed plant in Burbank production activities are centered on supplying planes for Air Associates, Inc., and enlargement plans are centered on an output of two planes per week for this New York concern.

Art Goebel, winner of the Hawaiian Dole flight, delivered a Lockheed plane last week on the Eastern order for the local concern. He was accompanied on his delivery mission by Harry Tucker, millionaire New York sportsman, whose Lockheed plane, Yankee Doodle, is being prepared for a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to New York. Goebel is to act as pilot in the flight and, accompanied by Tucker, will attempt to break the present coast-to-coast record.

The piece added the a second expansion of the Lockheed facility in Burbank was in the works as the recent three months “exceeded the expectations of the company’s officials.” Several days later, a stockbroker advertising for Lockheed emphasized “3 Great Air Events” including the National Air Races, a National Air Tour from Detroit to Mines Field from the end of June to mid-July and “Harry Tucker’s YANKEE DOODLE non-stop flight” from San Diego to New Yok City, which was anticipated to take place before the end of July, with it added “the plane probably will be piloted by Art Goebel.”

That flight did not take place, but one was mounted from the Angel City to the Big Apple, with the Express of 20 August publishing a report from Curtiss Field on Long Island,

Racing through the sky at an average speed of approximately 140 miles an hour, Arthur Goebel and Harry Tucker today set a new world record for a nonstop airplane flight across the United States [so . . . would that be a world, or national, record?] They left Los Angeles, Calif., Sunday at 12:10 p.m. . . and arrived at this flying field at 11:08 a.m. today, an elapsed time of 18 hours and 58 minutes.

The only prior successful nonstop crossing of the country was by Army aviators in early May 1923, who took nearly 27 hours to complete the flight. The account added that “Goebel said the flight was made as a preparation for the forthcoming transcontinental derby scheduled to start from Roosevelt field on September 12” and which was to end in Los Angeles in time for the National Air Races at Mines Field.

After discussing the conditions, as well as the fact that he and Tucker were famished after not eating since they left Los Angeles, despite having provisions with them, Goebel told the press, “I found a route which I believe with help us (he and Tucker) on the derby. It can’t be talked about now, however, or everybody would use it.”

The success of the transcontinental jaunt led to advertisements from the companies that made Pennzoil motor oil and Richfield gasoline, which were used by the Yankee Doodle on the flight, while a twin ignition system involving dual spark plugs also employed as well on the Nash 400 automobile, which Goebel just happened to have purchased, was promoted, as well.

After the craft was flown to Hartford, Connecticut for maintenance and repairs, it was time to prepare for the derby from New York to Los Angeles as a lead-in to the air races in the Angel City. There were nine craft that left from the Eastern metropolis, but, on 13 September 1928, while Goebel and Tucker landed at Mines, after 23 hours and 50 minutes, as the only plane to make the trip across the nation, they were disqualified because, observed the Los Angeles Times of the next day, “Los Angeles’s favorite pilot had been forced down at Prescott, Ariz.” The paper added,

Head winds and electrical storms proved too great a handicap and all airplanes entered in the transcontinental nonstop race from New York to Los Angeles were forced to land without finishing the event, according to information received last night by race association officials, who immediately declared there was “no race.”

Packed into all available space at Mines Field, the largest crowd since the opening of the National Air Races [on the 8th] cheered Art Goebel as he crossed the finish line yesterday afternoon, believing him to be the winner of the race, but was disappointed a short while later [when the disqualification was announced.]

Before that news was received, the pilot was photographed and filmed and actor “Colleen Moore rushed forward to present a gold trophy” while Goebel was met by his parents and “a rousing ovation from the stands.” The pilot volunteered the information about the unanticipated stop at Prescott and the paper noted that, despite the fact that there was no winner, the Yankee Doodle was to be exhibited for the last few days of the Air Races.

The highlighted photo of the craft may be just after it landed and it shows a maintenance worker holding a hammer and readying to use it on the left wing, perhaps before it was placed into the exhibition building—the one next to the airplane and observers? Whatever was depicted or the timing of the image, it is a great item to document the plane, its flight and the event.

On the 15th, the day prior to the closing of the races, Lindbergh delighted the crowd at Mines by climbing into a 1910 craft, the kind that likely was used in the famous international air meet held at the Dominguez ranch in modern Compton that January. There was also a 50-mile “free-for-all race for a $3000 prize” in which Goebel and the Yankee Doodle were bested by Robert W. Cantwell, piloting a Warp-powered Lockheed craft. The Times of the 16th informed readers that, “while [Goebel] flew faster than the winner he took much wider sweeps in rounding the pylons and consequently covered a much greater distance.” In third place was Army Captain Charles B.D. Collyer. The following day’s edition of the paper informed readers that Goebel was allowed to take the transcontinental race trophy home.

After the conclusion of the Air Races, Goebel, Tucker and the Yankee Doodle entered a non-stop race from Los Angeles to Cincinnati, winning with a time of 15 hours, 17 minutes. Unlike the transcontinental contest, the pilot told the media, the weather was fine and there were troubles experienced on the flight to the southern Ohio metropolis. From there, the duo took the craft to New York City.

On 25 October, the Yankee Doodle landed at Mines after a 24 hour, 58 minute non-stop trek from New York City, another record, but this time Tucker flew with Collyer. Goebel returned to the Angel City from the Big Apple on a flight piloted by someone else, but with the aviation stalwart as the sole passenger after the vice-president of Western Air Express, a major local aviation company left the flight at the home of the craft’s manager, Sikorsky.

Collyer and Tucker, however, did not long enjoy the fruits of their triumph, as they undertook another transcontinental flight from Los Angeles to New York City in early November. Strikingly, as the duo approached Prescott, where Tucker and Goebel were forced to land to refuel less than two months prior, they encountered rain, but, worse, heavy cloud cover. Some 15 miles south, reported the Los Angeles Record of 5 November, locals heard “the sudden sound of a terrific impact, then an explosion that echoed up and down the adjacent valleys” of the Prescott National Forest.

It was subsequently reported that Collyer and Tucker donned parachutes as it appeared they knew the craft would crash and were desperately seeking to abandon the Yankee Doodle, but were unable to exit in time. The plane exploded on impact and was incinerated, while the remains of the aviators were found badly mangled. Tucker was cremated in Phoenix and his remains brought back to Santa Monica for a service at the home of an aunt—he left a widow and three children from 4 to 9 years of age, residing in the Orange County seaside town of San Clemente.

A year after the National Air Races, Goebel was the only American in a race from Mexico City to Kansas City, as he competed against aviators in the Mexican armed forces, though he managed to eke out a win with just two minutes separating him from the runner-up and he earned a $3,000 prize. He finished fifth in a 1931 contest from Burbank Airport to Cleveland, with the winner being James H. Doolittle of the United States Army Air Corps, later the Air Force, and who went on to heroic service during World War II in a 42-year career.

Goebel, who worked as a skywriter for a period, was in the Air Corps reserves, achieving the rank of colonel and serving in the Pacific theater during the world war. During the Forties, he was briefly married to an heiress of the Jergens soap and cosmetics company. Two decades after the end of the war, Paige Christianse was working on a history of the area where Goebel was born and was contacted by him about a photo of the store the aviator’s father ran in Socorro, New Mexico in the 1880s.

The two met several times as Goebel traveled through the area on his way from Los Angeles, where he lived, and his ranch in Texas, but it was only off-handedly that Goebel mentioned winning the Dole derby, as well as his early stunt flying work. Christianse felt, though, that the retired pilot’s experiences in aviation “were less than happy,” though he gave the historian some photographs of his career in flying relating to the Hawaiian race and Goebel’s work in Hollywood.

It was added that Goebel flew out of Rogers Airport, as well as Clover Field, and that he delivered mail by plane, while spending a little more than a year in the early 1920s teaching aviation in Lima, Peru, and he barnstormed in South America in 1924 and 1926. Christianse wrote a remarkable essay about Goebel and mentions the Yankee Doodle and those aforementioned races and flights, though nothing was said about the crash that destroyed the plane and killed its owner and Collyer.

Today’s tour of LAX was not just fascinating but also an inspiration to turn to the Homestead’s artifact collection and feature this great early aviation image and the remarkable story of the Yankee Doodle and the little-known aviator, Art Goebel.