Eddie Jackson sat at Mitchel Field on Long Island, impatiently waiting for the airplane to arrive. It was now more than four hours overdue. There was no one on the flight he particularly wanted to see, just the end of the flight itself. Jackson was a press photographer for the New York Daily News,assigned to shoot the arrival of the Junkers W33 Bremen as it finished its historic transatlantic nonstop flight from Baldonnel aerodrome, in Ireland, to New York.The date was Friday, April 13, 1928—nearly a year after Charles Lindbergh made his famous flight from New York to Paris.
Critics on both sides of the Atlantic said it couldn’t be done. An east-west flight,they maintained, was much more difficult than the one “Lucky Lindy” had embarked on, due to prevailing headwinds and unknown weather patterns. Flying west to east with the wind at your back, as Lindy had, was much easier.
It was unseasonably cold, with snow forecast for later that evening. Jackson got up and stamped his feet to regain some circulation. There was little heat in the barn-like airport building, but what bothered him most was that his nose for news, which had served him well for nearly 30 years as a photojournalist, was telling him to be careful.He decided to call Frank Hause, his managing editor, while the phones were still working in the blowing storm. As he walked to the public phones, he heard his name paged over the loudspeaker and changed direction toward the airport office, knowing the call had to be from Frank because nobody else knew where he was.
“Hey Frank…what’s the scoop?” Jackson asked.
The scoop was, Hause reported, that Bremen had crash-landed on Greenly Island off the coast of Labrador, Quebec, about an hour earlier. The crew was reportedly uninjured, but the airplane was not. “No further details are available, Eddie, but I want you to get your camera gear and yourself up there now! No time to go home and pack a bag, get whatever you need as you go.” Fifteen minutes later Jackson was catching the next train to Murray Bay in Quebec, Canada, the closest jumping-off point to Greenly Island.
Using his camera bag as a pillow, the newsman caught whatever sleep he could on the hard wooden train seat. When he arrived in Murray Bay, the storm had beaten him there by two hours. Snow was already on the ground, and the wind was picking up close to a gale. The conductor gave Jackson the bad news: The only way to get to Greenly Island (some 700 miles distant) this time of year was to fly there. And the only way to do that was to go to the landing field at St. Agnes (several miles away) and talk to Transcontinental Airways about renting a plane and pilot.
Jackson was not a fan of flying and less a fan of aviation in general—especially when he was personally involved. Just a few months earlier his close friend Phillip Payne, managing editor for the Hearst New York Daily Mirror newspaper, had been killed on an attempted record-breaking nonstop flight to Rome aboard the Fokker F.VII Old Glory. Back in 1917, when Jackson was on assignment for the U.S. Signal Corps, his orders were to photograph American combat pilot training at Rockwell Field in San Diego, Calif. He had had several close calls while photographing dogfights from the back seat of one rickety biplane trying to outmaneuver another. “Landing was always the worst,” he recalled years later. “The old, tired Curtiss Jennys that they flew seemed to have nothing but toothpicks holding the wheels on. The dirt runways were full of holes that would quickly take a wheel off,‘ground looping,’ as the expression goes—when a plane hits a hole and loses a wheel, spinning the plane in a cloud of dust. This maneuver was more common than loops made in the air. A few became aces at it.”
Arriving at the St. Agnes airfield, Jackson was dismayed to find other newsmen were already trying to get airplanes themselves. Most of the planes had been assigned to help rescue the Bremen fliers and were already loaded with supplies and aircraft parts.
Poking around the airport hangar, he spotted an old Fairchild high-wing monoplane and asked a mechanic about it. It’s a mail plane, he was told, and yes, maybe it could be chartered, but who would fly it? Jackson jogged back to the Transcontinental Airways offices and after heated negotiations hired the airways’ chief pilot himself, Romeo Vachon, and the old Fairchild FC-2W aircraft for an astounding $12,500—more than the airplane cost when it was new!
Knowing his editor would skin his hide for the cost of the plane,Jackson talked to a few reporters who were still looking for rides to the Bremen crash scene. Airplane crash stories with photos sold newspapers, and many newsmen were eager to get on the last plane out of St. Agnes to the crash site. James Stanton of the Canadian Press and AP signed on to ride with Jackson for $2,500, as did Leslie Roberts from the Montreal office of the New York American.Ray Fernstrom from Paramount News Service paid twice that amount because of the bulky camera cases and tripods he needed for his motion picture film.
As they were loading all the camera gear into every nook and cranny of the small plane, Vachon walked over and told the newsmen that the weather was too bad for flying. They would have to wait until the next day—unless everyone wanted to cover their own crash story firsthand.
“It was Sunday morning, 11 o’clock, when we flew out of St.Agnes,” Jackson wrote in his journal. “The temperature was a brisk zero degrees. As we were leaving, someone ran to the plane and handed me two quart bottles of good old Canadian rye whiskey to give to the Bremen fliers. I am not a drinking man, but during the flight to Greenly Island I thought about opening both of those bottles.”
Just 40 miles out of St. Agnes they ran into a blinding snowstorm, with more than 200 miles yet to fly before they reached their first stop at Seven Islands, and nothing but ice fields and more bad weather ahead. “We climbed to four thousand feet to escape it, and ended up in heavy clouds and ice that buffeted us pretty good,” Jackson noted. “I could tell that Vachon, our pilot, was getting a little uneasy. Not being able to see the ground for over an hour, the conversation in the cabin directed itself to where we actually were. The pilot’s guess was on an even standing with ours.”
When the storm lessened and the Fairchild descended again to2,000 feet, they were able to get their bearings between breaks in the clouds and finally flew over the tiny village of Seven Islands.Their landing on a nearby frozen lake was uneventful, but the snow was so deep the villagers had to use horses to tow the plane to a better area.
There were neither streets nor sidewalks in the village, just banks of snow more than 6 feet high. Accommodation for the night was a small, drafty, one-room fishing cabin with the only heat source a small wood-burning stove. “We all took turns, sitting close to it and occasionally turning to warm the other half,”Jackson recalled. “The storm we flew through to get here caught up with us around midnight with blizzard-like freezing winds.The temperature, last I looked, was 10 below and dropping. I could not get warm and my teeth chattered all night.”
Morning brought welcome rays of sunlight on the heels of the storm, but no warmth. The pitcher of water sitting next to the cabin’s washbasin had frozen solid and had to be put on the stove to thaw. A knock at the door meant the men had a sleigh ride back to their airplane more than a mile away. With 2 feet of new snow on the ground, walking to the plane would have been impossible.None of them were prepared for such weather. Fernstrom was shaking so badly that they were concerned for his health.
On their way to the airplane, the sleigh driver mentioned there was a Hudson Bay outpost near the edge of the village for regional hunters and trappers. In one voice everyone told him to alter course and take them there.
It was like Christmas in April! The shopkeeper brought out every piece of cold-weather gear he could find: leather coats lined with sheepskin, heavy woolen shirts, woolen socks, thick leather mittens and heavy long johns. The men stripped down in the aisles, discarding their city clothes for the new cold-weather attire. The last offering was the best—the shopkeeper returned with several pairs of lined sealskin boots. “We all, to a man, made a mad dash for them,” Jackson recalled. “Treated with linseed oil,the boots stank to high heaven but were both warm and comfortable. Fernstrom spent $150 for his new clothes, and the rest of us weren’t far behind. As we left the outpost the shopkeeper shook everyone’s hand and with a big smile stated that he hoped we would drop around more often.”
The newsmen still had more than 400 miles to travel in arctic conditions to reach the crash site when they found that the tired engine in the Fairchild FC-2W had frozen solid overnight. This was enough “adventure” for Stanton and Roberts. They wanted no part in the continuing odyssey, and decided to stay in the comparative comfort of Seven Islands and wait for transport back to Quebec.
Undaunted, Vachon fetched a pair of acetylene torches from the village in hopes of thawing the plane’s engine oil enough for it to start. After nearly an hour of heating and reheating key engine parts, Fernstrom and Jackson pulled mightily on the starter crank while the pilot coaxed and primed the engine. After several attempts the reluctant engine finally coughed and sputtered back to life. Barking at the two men to rock each wing to break loose the frozen landing skis, Vachon started taxiing while Fernstrom and Jackson ran alongside to clamber aboard. Although the Fairchild was much lighter without Stanton and Roberts, it still took nearly a quarter mile to get airborne because of the deep,powdery snow.
Sitting in the right seat, next to the pilot, Jackson noticed that the little plane seemed to be flying much slower than it should.While the airspeed indicator showed the aircraft was traveling at 120 mph, objects on the ground from their 400-foot altitude seemed to slowly crawl by. “Headwinds,” said Vachon, noting Jackson’s concern. “Happens out here a lot. Let’s try 5,000 and see if it lets up a bit.”
As the men flew on in comparatively stable air over miles of ice and snow, they talked about how courageous Bremen’s crew had been to even try such a flight. The Junkers had flown for 36 straight hours crossing the Atlantic, through storms the likes of which terrified Jackson and the other newsmen. In an emergency, at least the Fairchild could land on something solid. Flying in Bremen, there was no place to land but in the cold, deadly Atlantic.
Vachon descended to 1,000 feet, and Eddie noticed a troubled look on his normally expressionless face. The fliers had missed several landmarks they should have seen more than an hour earlier. Descending again to 400 feet, they all looked for a sign that Greenly Island was close, but it appeared they were lost. To make matters worse, the severe headwinds had used up much of their fuel reserve, with little to spare.
Fernstrom spotted it first, tapped Jackson on the shoulder and pointed. Below was a dogsled traveling across the tip of what looked like a frozen bay. Vachon swung the plane around in a tight turn and found a place to safely land. Using a mix of bad French and broken English, the men were able to learn from the three Canadian trappers that they didn’t know where Greenly Island was, but that the Fairchild had landed in Middle Bay. Thanking the trappers and pumping their hands, Fernstrom gave them two packs of American cigarettes for their help, which were gratefully received. Checking the aircraft chart aboard the Fairchild, Vachon reported that Greenly Island was a mere 20miles away. Once back in the air, they soon spotted a tiny speck of land with a lighthouse. They had finally reached their destination.
After Vachon found a suitable landing spot, the newsmen quickly set up their equipment and took photos and film of the damaged airplane and its three-man crew. Bremen’s crash landing near Greenly Island’s lighthouse had destroyed the landing gear and bent the single propeller on its 360-hp engine. The corrugated aluminum fuselage had taken a beating but was still serviceable, as were the wings. The Junkers was sitting on empty fuel barrels, evidence that the crew had been busy readying it for replacement parts.
Jackson had brought several newspapers from Murray Bay describing the crash, which the Bremen crew eagerly reviewed,chuckling at the stock photos printed with their likenesses. He then interviewed pilot Captain Hermann Köhl, copilot Major James Fitzmaurice and aircraft owner Baron Ehrenfried Günthervon Hünefeld.
There were no sleeping accommodations for the newsmen on the little island except for a small, drafty canvas tent. The lighthouse keeper, who had a two-way radio, reported that another monster storm was on its way and the newsmen should plan to stay several days when it hit. Jackson and Fernstrom spent a total of four hours interviewing the crew and taking pictures, then told Vachon they were ready to leave. Armed with the exposed film,their fingers and feet nearly frozen, they saw no future in fighting another storm for days. They had a story and photos to deliver.
The return flight to Murray Bay was plagued with storms and turbulence from the moment they took off. Thick, black clouds descended on them, forcing the little plane down to only a few hundred feet of altitude. Headwinds shook the Fairchild, and everyone could see ice forming on its exterior. The instruments weren’t working properly; even the airspeed indicator fell to zero.“Pure ‘seat-of-the-pants’ flying that had me, at least, saying silent prayers,” Jackson wrote.
“Vachon decided to follow the St. Lawrence River at what seemed to be tree-top level to our destination, as the plane’s altimeter had given up the ghost a while ago,” he continued. “The river is lined with steep mountains and jutting rocky crags and in a few places you could open the plane door—and step onto the side of a mountain! We all hung on and hoped we would live through this. The instrument panel was shaking so bad nobody could read the gauges. A minute later a screw came loose from it and struck me in the face. The pilot pointed to the right wing strut, which was vibrating like mad even though by looking at the ground we seemed to be standing still.
“‘Are we going to crash?’ I managed to squeak out. ‘Hell no!’replied Vachon, even though he looked plenty worried.” Meanwhile Fernstrom sat silently in the back seat with his eyes closed and his feet propped up against the inside of the plane, his face a ghostly shade of white. Jackson wasn’t feeling too good about things either.
The narrow St. Lawrence opened up to a degree where they might be able to bring the plane down, but Vachon noted black ice—too thin for a safe landing. They continued on, knowing they must land soon or face the consequences. The pilot pointed to a postage-stamp-sized flat area on a snow-covered ridge, and steered toward it. Jackson recounted that it “looked like the side of a mountain—with a fence line running through it. When we started to come in, I noticed that Vachon had lifted his legs into the air—I quickly did the same. Then we hit the ground with aloud thud. I could feel the bottom of the plane buckle under my seat. Then the plane lifted off and came down again with a tearing sound and began bouncing down the side of the steep hill. It felt like we were sledding down the mountain with no brakes!
“The plane jerked to a stop in some deep snow. Getting out to see the damage, we found that the plane had crashed through two wooden rail fences, the last one turning the plane sideways and stopping it short. Gee, I certainly was happy to get my feet on Mother Earth again!”
They had crash-landed in Saugenay County, Quebec—a scant20 miles from Murray Bay. A local farmer who had witnessed the accident came to their rescue. A repair crew was dispatched from Murray Bay, and a few days later the broken landing gear was repaired enough to make the final leg of the flight. They ended up paying the farmer for the two fences they had crashed into, as well as a third fence they had to dismantle to make enough room for the Fairchild to take off again. The slope they were on was so steep that several men had to hold onto the aircraft to prevent it from sliding down the hill.
“We all climbed aboard with a great deal of apprehension,”reported Jackson. “Vachon ran the throttle to its stop and signaled the men holding the plane to let go. We roared down the hill for only 75 feet and were flying again.”
Returning from Murray Bay to New York, Eddie Jackson knew he had the only photographs of the downed Bremen, and had scooped all the other newspapers with the story of the historic crossing. The Daily News ran a special edition featuring his story and photos, selling the rights to use the images to newspapers around the world.
Asked if it was worth the time, money and effort invested, Jackson replied, “The Daily News made a ton of money, I got a ton of exclusive photographs—what in the world could be better for a news photographer!”
When Bremen’s crew finally arrived in New York City, crowds of well-wishers greeted them as celebrities. On April 27 they were flown in a Ford Tri-Motor from New York to Washington, D.C.,to meet with President Calvin Coolidge, who congratulated them on their accomplishment.
As for Bremen itself, in 1997 the recovered Junkers was sent to the Lufthansa Flight Training Center in Germany for a full restoration, involving more than 5,500 hours of work by volunteers and Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin Foundation employees. Owned by the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., Bremen is now on loan to the Bremen Airport Museum in Germany.
Joseph J. Caro has been an avid pilot since 1967, and is a commercial photographer when not writing. He recommends his book On Assignment: The Great War—Edward N. Jackson Photojournalist and the website edwardnjackson.com for further reading about Eddie Jackson. To learn more about Bremen’s transatlantic flight, see “The Adventures of Flying Fitz” at historynet.com/aviation-history.
Originally published in the January 2015 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
