290520 - Tulip Time in Bellingham

Well, here’s a poser. This episode of Empire Builders was categorically, positively, and supported by documented evidence, titled “Tulip Time in Bellingham.” The story does in fact relate to Bellingham, Washington. Sort of. Tulips? Hardly even mentioned. Ironically, the Old Timer unabashedly announced the story would not address the tulips. I hope no one tuned in just to hear about tulips.

 

 

Here’s the Old Timer explaining it in his words:

Why, they grow better tulips there than they do in Holland! That’s a fact! I’ve seen ‘em! ‘Tain’t about the tulips I’m a-goin’ to talk tonight though. It’s about the fishes an’ flyin’, an’ it ain’t flyin’-fishes neither!

The tulip industry in Western Washington did in fact start with some entrepreneurs who found that flowering bulbs such as tulips and hyacinths grew prodigiously in the moderate climate. An Englishman named George Gibbs is generally credited with being the first to raise flowering bulbs in the area, out on Orcas Island in about 1892. He grew tulips, hyacinths, narcissi, crocuses, and lilies. Growers like Gibbs were convinced a local bulb industry could even rival Holland for quality.

To celebrate the successes of the tulip industry in Bellingham, the community organized the first Tulip Time Festival in the spring of 1920. The festival included a carnival, a parade, and a queen. The Tulip Time Queen was elected by popular vote, but this approach soon became a revenue opportunity. The festival organizers had souvenir pens made that they sold with the incentive being the only way to cast a vote for the Tulip Time Queen was to have one of these pens. [I confess, the source I found called them “pens” – I wouldn’t be shocked to learn they were actually pins, as in pinback celluloid buttons – but I haven’t confirmed this either way. If you have any insights on this, please share!]

Enthusiasm for Bellingham’s Tulip Time Festival waned in the late 1920’s; the final event was held in 1929 – the very year this episode of Empire Builders went on the air. Perhaps this had something to do with the title of this episode of Empire Builders being a bit awkward. Perhaps the decision to bring the festivals to an end was made just prior to the 1929 event, and the railway and NBC had already advertised the broadcast by the “Tulip Time” title, so they left the title alone but altered the content. Of that, I have no knowledge, just speculation.

After World War II, Bellingham resurrected the tulip festival as “Blossomtime,” but that too faded away in the 1960s. The town of Holland, Michigan, has an ongoing annual celebration called the “Tulip Time Festival,” which began somewhat ironically on May 18, 1929 – just two days before the Empire Builders Tulip Time broadcast. Perhaps the folks in Holland, Michigan, saw this as a good sign. If they noticed at all.

Back in Western Washington, where the tulip industry is still very much thriving, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival has been going strong now for over 30 years. The Skagit Valley tulip fields are found in the vicinity of the towns of La Conner and Mount Vernon, roughly 30-40 miles south of Bellingham. [By the way, if you didn’t already know, Skagit is one of many, many place names in the Pacific Northwest based on local Native American names and words – it rhymes with the surname “Padgett.” The “a” in Skagit is soft, like in the word “back”, and the “g” is also soft and has the sound of the letter “j”.]

So, back to the evening’s episode of Empire Builders. The Old Timer very briefly mentioned in his monologue that Bellingham originally sprouted from early lumber activities. He noted two men in particular, Henry Roeder and Russell Peabody, were instrumental in building one of the first sawmills at Bellingham back in about 1850.

Henry Roeder

They apparently intended to help supply the growing demand for lumber in San Francisco, due to the gold rush activity there. After invoking a reference to the Tulip Time Festival, the Old Timer claimed this broadcast would actually be “about the fishes an’ flyin’.”

The flying activity he alluded to was the U.S. Army Air Service’s Round-the-World flight of 1924 (you’ll have to hang on awhile to learn where the “fishes” fit in). Five specially-built Douglas aircraft were commissioned by the Army for this record-setting endeavor. Up to this point, no one had yet successfully navigated the entire globe by air. The aircraft used were called Douglas DWC’s (Douglas World Cruisers).

 

 

The commanding officer of the mission was Major General Mason M. Patrick, Chief of the Air Service. The Flight Commander was initially Major Frederick L. Martin (1882 – 1954).

 

Major Frederick L. Martin, Flight Commander

 

Maj. Gen. Patrick gives Major Martin his orders

 

 

The DWC’s were two-man aircraft, capable of being equipped with either wheels or pontoons for land or water landings. The men designated as pilots for each aircraft were teamed with other airmen who were both trained mechanics and pilots.

Video illustration of the route of the 1924 Round-the-World flight

One of the five DWC’s was built specifically for testing and training, leading up to the big endeavor. The other four were to fly in a squadron on the ‘round-the-world jaunt. The aircraft were named, supposedly, for the four corners of the then-United States: Boston, New Orleans, Chicago, and Seattle. Rather than Chicago and New Orleans, one wonders why Miami and San Diego were not so honored. You might also argue for Portland, Maine, rather than Boston. Oh well – they didn’t ask me.

The Army took delivery of the aircraft at Santa Monica, California, where the Douglas Aircraft Company was located. The squadron then flew up to Seattle, where they staged themselves on the shore of Lake Washington, using a landing strip that later became Sand Point Naval Air Station (and today has vanished and been repurposed for other federal facilities, primarily NOAA). Major Martin’s co-pilot was Staff Sergeant Alva L. Harvey. They flew in aircraft #1, the Seattle.

 

 

The squadron departed off Lake Washington on April 6, 1924. Here is a partial account of the commencement of the flight by Major Martin:

On April 5th an effort was made to depart for Prince Rupert, but in attempting to take-off, the flagship "Seattle", No. 1, damaged the tipping of the propeller in the spray, which necessitated retipping of the propeller. This work was done by the Boeing Aircraft Corporation working the remainder of that day and all the night of April 5th and 6th. The propeller was delivered at 5:30 this morning and installed. Airplanes No. 1, the "Seattle", No. 2, the "Chicago", and No. 4, the "New Orleans", departed at 8:45 a.m. No. 3, the "Boston", experienced difficulty in taking off as we were carrying the maximum load of gasoline and oil as the flight to Prince Rupert was next to the longest which we would experience. The "Boston" did not leave until 10:00 a.m.

First Lieutenant Leigh P. Wade, pilot of the Boston, reported having a harrowing journey up the British Columbia coast, in near zero visibility (and just dodging a lumber ship by mere inches in the low hanging, dense clouds and fog). He described in his report his arrival to rejoin the squadron:  “Finally reaching Prince Rupert, I just sat in the cockpit, pretending to write in my log book. I didn't want anyone to see me shaking.”

In 1924, flying an airplane – any airplane – was still a daring adventure. To plan a trip for a squadron of four airplanes, to circumnavigate the entire earth – was as yet unheard of. And true to its nature, it was not without peril. The very crew that operated the squadron’s flagship aircraft, No. 1, Seattle, had two setbacks along the way. They made a forced landing at Kanatak, Alaska, due to an engine failure, and once more in Kujulik Bay due to poor weather.  On April 19^th, the other three aircraft in the squadron, well in advance of the Seattle by now, departed Chignik and pressed on to Dutch Harbor. Martin and Harvey fell behind the others, finally departing Chignik on April 30^th, hoping to catch the remainder of the squadron at Dutch Harbor.

The Seattle encountered more bad weather, and ultimately smacked into a mountain ridge in dense fog. The two aviators survived with only minor injuries, but now faced the daunting task of hiking through very rough wilderness terrain to safety.

By May 7^th, a full week into their struggle, Martin and Harvey managed to descend out of the higher ground and made it finally to salt water. They followed the coastline and stumbled upon a recently-vacated cabin, where they took temporary shelter from the elements.

Meanwhile, the other squadron crews were not overly alarmed, not at first anyway, by the disappearance of the Seattle. Noting the earlier mishaps of the flagship plane, and acknowledging these kinds of setbacks were bound to happen, the other men patiently waited at Dutch Harbor in hopes word would soon arrive of Martin and Harvey’s rescue. Major General Patrick was being kept up to date on all of the developments, and after waiting for two full days with no news of the Seattle, Patrick declared the squadron must press on. On May 2^nd, he wired Lieutenant Lowell Smith of the No. 2 aircraft Chicago and instructed the flight to continue. Here is a transcript of Patrick’s telegram to Smith:

Lieut. Lowell H. Smith -- May 2, 1924

C.O. Round-the-World Flight
Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, Alaska.

DO NOT DELAY LONGER WAITING FOR MAJOR MARTIN TO JOIN YOU STOP SEE EVERYTHING DONE POSSIBLE TO FIND HIM STOP PLANES NUMBER 2, 3 AND 4 TO PROCEED TO JAPAN AT EARLIEST POSSIBLE MOMENT.

PATRICK

Martin and Harvey were surviving on a small amount of provisions that they scrounged from their wreckage, plus some wild game. The cabin they fortuitously came upon was a trapper’s cabin, and they found a rifle and ammunition which they used to bag some ducks and snow shoe hares. With this food to sustain them, the men tidied up the cabin to the same shape it was in when they arrived, and pressed on. They did have maps of the area, and felt pretty sure they had come upon Moller Bay. They had a map that marked the location of Port Moller, but did not indicate there was any kind of settlement to be found there. While still in the cabin, however, the men noticed a crate with a label on it marked “Port Moller Cannery.” Encouraged by this tidbit of information, the men set out on the morning of May 10^th and hiked approximately 25 miles to Port Moller – most of the distance along the rocky shoreline.

Map of crash site and route to safety (USAF Museum collection)

Nearing Port Moller in the late afternoon, the men hiked across a mile-wide spit of land where they were spotted by a group of two men and three women, local native inhabitants, in a launch. Martin and Harvey were provided a boat ride of about two miles over to the cannery. The group arrived at the cannery at about 6pm, and as stated in Harvey’s later report, “Here we were greeted by the Superintendent of the Cannery and other employees who were overjoyed to see us.” The cannery had a “wireless station” which was used to send word to Major General Patrick and the men’s families.

Martin and Harvey at the Port Moller cannery

Martin and Harvey rested and recuperated at Port Moller for a couple of days. On May 12th, a special dispatch was received in Port Moller from Archie W. Shiels, Vice-President of the Pacific American Fisheries (PAF) Company, of Bellingham, Washington [See – this is where we get back to Bellingham in our story. No tulips, but at least there’s finally some connection to Bellingham. Whew.].

A salmon label of the Pacific American Fisheries company, Bellingham

Shiels invited the two wayward aviators to take a safe and somewhat leisurely ride back south to Bellingham aboard PAF’s steamship, the Catherine D.

PAF's steamship Catherine D in Bellingham Bay

Much of the nation had been riveted by the drama that followed the Air Service aviators and their Round-the-World flight, so even though Martin and Harvey had bulled ahead into a thick fog and slammed their plane into a hillside (today we call that “controlled flight into terrain”, or “CFIT” – and it usually ends very badly), these men were nevertheless celebrated as heroes on their triumphant return to civilization.

As for the Empire Builders broadcast, it was basically broken into two parts. After the Old Timer’s brief narrative at the outset of the show (in which he made only brief, passing note of the men who first began planting flowers and cutting up trees there), the dramatization of the program featured Martin and Harvey heroically slamming into the hillside, then heroically setting out into the wilderness to find help. The Old Timer rolled in another narrative to get the men to Port Moller and the cannery, at which point the drama picked up again with a conversation between three cannery employees. In the radio drama, it’s in the midst of this idle chatting (and of course singing and humming an appropriate tune) that Martin and Harvey come rapping at the door of the cannery bunkhouse. The three fictitious men in the bunkhouse were Steve, Heine, and Jack. Here’s some of their dialogue from the Empire Builders continuity:

STEVE:    Say, did you see the telegram the old man got this morning?

JACK:       No. What was it?

STEVE:      Why it was to Amundson, the Super, from Archie Shiels, the vice president of the Pacific American, an’ it was all about that plane that was lost a week or so ago.

HEINE:     Vot did it say?

STEVE:     Oh, it said that there was a bare chance that Major Martin and Sergeant Hardy, you know, it was their plane, might turn up here, an’ if they did they was to be taken care of an’ sent home as guests of the company.

JACK:       That’s pretty decent.

HEINE:     Most bobbles is decent if you gif dem a chance. So iss most businesses.

STEVE:     Well, I don’t reckon there’s much chance of their turnin’ up. It’s ten days now since they was lost, an’ if they ain’t drowned they must have starved to death by now.

JACK:        I dunno. It’s amazen’ sometimes how men can hang on in a tight place long after they ought to be dead. We may see ‘em yet – if they come this way.

It was shortly after this exchange that the men heard loud knocking at their door. It played out like this:

JACK:         Who in thunder’s that? Come in!

HEINE:       Gum in!

MARTIN:     Come in Hardy! . . . Good day, gentlemen. We need help.

JACK:        Come in, man, come in! Need help! I should say you do! Set right down here, both of you. There! Now, what’s happened to you? Been lost?

MARTIN:   Just a little. I am Major Martin of the United States Army, and this is Sergeant Hardy of the air force.

STEVE:     Major Martin! Why – why then you two are the ones that all the fuss is about!

HARDY:    I don’t know about any fuss, but we’ve been lost in the wilderness for ten days, and we need food and rest right now . . . Lord, Major, I never thought we’d make it!

HEINE:      Steve, run now undt get der Super, undt tell der doctor to come kvick, and tell der cook to make sometings to eat right away!

In the radio drama, as in real life, the two rescued flyers were in fact sailed on the Catherine D back to Bellingham, departing Port Moller on May 14th. Here’s how the Old Timer told this part of the narrative:

PIONEER:   Well, that was that, but the story ain’t quite over yet. The folks there at the canneries did everything that was humanly possible to make Major Martin an’ the Sergeant comfortable, an’ when they got on board the Catherine D., Capen Knight was the same way. Still, neither of the fliers realized what a ruckus their bein’ lost hed raised, an’ they certainly was surprised at the crowd that was waitin’ for ‘em at Bellingham, when the Catherine D. pulled in a week or so later. There was Mayor John A. Kellogg, representin’ the city of Bellingham, an’ Mr. E. B. Deming, president of the Pacific American Fisheries, an’ the American Legion an’ the Boy Scouts, an’ the land alone knows who all! Everybody was there that could walk or crawl! Of course Mrs. Martin an’ young Bobbie, they was there too, ‘cause they’d gone out on a tug to meet the Catherine D. And then the band played long an’ loud an’ triumphant. People was cheerin’, whistles was blowin’, an’ there was high times. Mayor Kellogg was the first to get to Major Martin, an’ he said somethin’ that everybody else wanted to say.
               (Band music in here. Whistles – cheers)

Interesting coincidence... this is from a Seattle cannery, but it ties in to both the salmon industry and Bellingham's "Blossom Time" festival name

 

After a quick dramatization of the speechifying committed by notable personages of the fair city of Bellingham, the Old Timer wrapped up this story of events that had occurred only five years earlier:

PIONEER:   Well, folks, it was all over then includin’ the shoutin’. I tell you that experience showed some things up in their real light. It showed how brave two men could be in about the tightest place in the world. It showed how generous an’ fine a big, rich company could be, that was thinkin’ of other things besides dollars. An’ it showed how a city like Bellingham, with all its prosperity an’ wealth, with all its fisheries, an’ lumber an’ tulips, an’ all the rest of it, could forget ‘em all in the warmth of its greetin’ to two of its friends who had come back!

 Well, I’m an old man, an’ some folks say I talk too much, an’ mebbe I do! I’ll get right along now though, an’ think about what I’m goin’ to tell you next week. It’s a good story – all about Mount Rainier an’ the Indians. Good night, folks . . . Good night!

 

Tulips growing in Western Washington's Skagit Valley

Epilogue:

On a considerably more somber note than is usually associated with these Empire Builders topics, life was to deal at least one more blow to Frederick Martin in his aviation career.

Of all the places on the planet that he might find himself on an early Sunday morning in December of 1941… yeah, he was on Oahu when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In fact, he was responsible for the Hawaiian Air Force. One source says Hickam Field was under his command.

Assigned to Oahu in November, 1940, Martin and his counterpart in the U.S. Navy, Rear Admiral Patrick N.L. Bellinger, delivered a report to their superiors at the end of March, 1941, detailing their estimation of the vulnerabilities of the Hawaiian Islands to an attack by Japan. I have not read the report, but apparently it predicted much of what occurred in December with remarkable accuracy. Among other points, Martin was opposed to grouping aircraft together on the airfields of Hawaii, a tactic that was intended to protect against a reasonable but incorrect concern that sabotage would play out as a more destructive vulnerability than an air attack.

Martin was a subordinate of Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet), Lt. Gen. Short (Commander of the Hawaiian Department of the Army), and Major General Frederick Martin (Commander of the Hawaiian Air Force) were all in the hot seat after the devastation at Pearl Harbor.

 

Admiral Husband E. Kimmel

Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some in Congress demanded they all be court-martialed, and although that did not happen, eleven days after the attack all three were relieved of their commands. Although blame was not directed specifically at Martin, many have argued all three were treated as scapegoats, and deserve to have their records and honor restored. Maj. Gen. Martin retired from the Army on August 1, 1944. Martin passed away in Los Angeles on February 23, 1954, and was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetary.

The U.S. Senate passed a resolution in 2000 saying Admiral Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Short had performed their duties “competently and professionally” and that the losses suffered due to the Japanese attack were “not a result of dereliction of duty.”

 Additional information is available at these links:

 Prologue staff writer Rob Crotty talks about the 1924 flight and his article “Magellans of the Sky”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_2AVyt9B_A

Crotty’s article in Prologue (Summer, 2010):

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/summer/magellans.html

Seattle II – World Cruiser site (an airworthy reconstruction of the Seattle, planned to be flown around the world soon):

http://www.seattleworldcruiser.org/

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Round-the-World flight factsheets):

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=775

 The Round-the-World flight returns to Seattle, Washington