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Photo: Alameda Museum |
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As hard as it is to imagine now, the small Island was once home to land-based airfields that played an enormous role in establishing commercial air service along the West Coast. And an Alameda air facility initiated the first seaplane service across the Pacific. Residents who once hoped to get a glimpse of “Lucky Lindy” later realized that perhaps the greatest military aviation hero of all time, Jimmy Doolittle, was an Alameda native.
In the early 1920s, very near the current Oakland International Airport, there was a facility on Bay Farm Island known as Alameda Airport. The name was something of a misnomer, as aircraft of the day were very slow and needed very long runways for taking off. As such, Alameda’s runway actually began in the city of Oakland.
By 1927, as flight approached the quarter-century mark, a signal achievement brought aviation to the forefront of every American’s consciousness—Charles Lindbergh successfully flew the Atlantic Ocean solo. The possibilities this presented were obvious and immediate, and Alameda’s city fathers dared to dream big.
Just a few months after Lindbergh’s arrival in France, the Alameda City Council decreed that an airport would be constructed at the northern end of Alameda. But city fathers didn’t stop there, authorizing the construction of a 7,000-foot hangar they described as “enormous,” large enough to house eight aircraft.
It was about this time that the Curtiss-Wright company of Buffalo, N.Y., became interested. Curtiss-Wright, a pioneering aviation company, was hired to run the airport. The company was also responsible for constructing the hangar and two shop buildings. A small administration structure was already in place.
The airport and its improvements quickly caught the eye of commercial airlines, and in January 1929, Maddux Airlines transferred its operations from Mills Field in San Francisco to Alameda Airport. This coup, in turn, spurred Alameda Airport Inc., to think broadly about its status as an airport adjacent to the San Francisco Bay. The company decided to build a garage-like facility that would serve both aircraft and boats; in order to do so efficiently, Curtiss-Wright bought the airport in 1929.
The airfield was behind the line of sunken World War I destroyers that essentially paralleled the northern shore of the city. These ships provided calm waters for a yacht harbor, which was built to provide steady customers for the marine garage.
Meanwhile, on the west side of the island, the University of California granted in mid-1928 a lease to the San Francisco Bay Airdrome for the purpose of building an airfield along the western edge of Webster Street.
This land was a little closer to human inhabitants, so a group of civic-minded women who were concerned about safety began a stirring fight to prevent any
construction of an airport—unless all takeoffs and landings were over water. Mother Nature was not on their side in this case: Runways must be pointed into the prevailing wind for aircraft to take off and land safely.
Still, the ladies were somewhat successful, as their campaign made Alamedans aware of the issues. When submitted to a referendum, however, the airport was approved by a landslide of the city’s voters.
The 2,500-foot runway was completed in 1929 and a major tenant, Western Air Express, moved in. No fly-by-night operation, Western eventually became a major part of TWA.
The airdrome understood public relations and opened with a “flood of Hollywood starlets” providing “photo ops,” plus an even more enormous hangar of its own. While the size of the hangar was never publicized, the airdrome cleverly mentioned that it would hold six of the most modern aircraft built, the Fokker-32, so named because it held 32 passengers. Each of these aircraft was virtually the size of the smaller Alameda Airport’s entire hangar, so the airdrome’s hangar was at least six times larger than the airport’s.
By 1930, the airdrome was transiting more than 300 passengers per day. In these times, when 300 people can easily fill each ticket line at Southwest Airlines, that might seem like a small number, but in that year, the airdrome handled more flights than the airports of Berlin, London, and Paris combined.
The housewives who fought the airdrome over safety actually had well-founded concerns. In 1932, a taxiing aircraft ran into a tractor on the airdrome’s land. Since the participants could not agree on who was at fault, they went to court. The case set the legal precedent that ensures aircraft have the right-of-way at airports.
Meanwhile, just like today, people in the 1930s would go out to the airport to watch planes take off and land. However, the airport was not fenced off, and spectators would simply drive onto the airdrome and park where they liked, often at the end of the runway itself. Predictably, a fatal collision between a parked auto and a landing aircraft led to restrictions on access to the grounds.
By mid-1932, the traffic numbered more than 106,000 people per year at the airdrome. The very urban location of the airport caused Varney Speed Lines, a carrier operating between Salt Lake City and Seattle, to pioneer what has become one of the most traveled air routes in the world—the Bay Area to Los Angeles. Varney flew seaplanes from Alameda to San Francisco in just six minutes—a speed only dreamed of today—and served Sacramento and Southern California. Varney eventually became one of the many local carriers that formed United Air Lines.
While all this excitement ensued, Alameda Airport continued its slow and steady development under the ownership of Curtiss-Wright. In 1934, rumors began to circulate that Alameda was in the running to be home base for the new “flying boats” that would begin to survey the Pacific Ocean by air. The first of these aircraft was the Sikorsky S-42. Sikorsky later became better known for development of the helicopter.
In January 1935, Pan American Airways System leased the entire Alameda Airport for a year, with an option for another year. Pan American was already well established in Central and South America and was a strong competitor in the airmail business. It committed to the Pacific when it became obvious that European countries wouldn’t allow it to fly the Atlantic unless European carriers had reciprocal rights in America.
And so the Pan Am Clipper, or “China Clipper” as it came to be known, began service from Alameda Airport. This was a big deal, with 125,000 people overwhelming the airport to see the inaugural flight. Although there had been rampant rumors that Lindbergh himself would pilot the initial flight, the honor befell Capt. Edwin Musick, one of the most experienced over-water pilots in the world. The first flights were for mail only, and Postmaster General of the United States James Farley was on hand to see the first mail sack loaded.
Opening the Pacific was no easy feat. The route went from Alameda to Honolulu, Midway, Wake Island, Guam, and, finally, to Manila. Midway and Wake Islands had no facilities; towns had to be planned, transported by ship and constructed there. Since inclement weather could require the aircraft to lay over for several days at any point, facilities for passengers were required at each stop. Everything from hairpins to alcoholic beverages had to be brought in, along with radio equipment to communicate with the aircraft.
These weren’t today’s short jaunts, either. By the time passengers began plying the route, the Martin M-130 Flying Boat was the aircraft of choice. Powered by four Pratt & Whitney 950-horsepower props, the planes took 21.5 hours to fly to Honolulu, and the first flight to Manila, under Capt. Musick, took six days, seven hours and 40 minutes.
Departing from the deep lagoon along the Estuary, each aircraft was preceded by a speedboat, the sole function of which was to ensure that the way was clear of any objects that might puncture the airplane’s thin aluminum hull. The “runway” ran from the entrance to the Estuary directly toward the San Francisco anchorage of the Bay Bridge, still in the early stages of construction. The flight path also took planes over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was only towers and cables at the time.
Those bridges played a major part in the end of Alameda’s run in civil aviation. The 1939 World’s Fair, partly a celebration of the completion of the two engineering marvels spanning the Bay, also brought the
construction of Treasure Island and its huge hangar facilities. Pan American and the clippers were lured away, leaving only their radio facilities in Alameda.
Meanwhile, as it became more obvious that Europe was about to erupt into another epic war, Curtiss-Wright acceded to the request of Alameda’s city fathers and sold the Alameda Airport to the U.S. Navy. The city had failed to pay Curtiss-Wright the $250,000 it promised to defray development costs, so the airport wound up in litigation before some local business men bought the rights from Curtiss-Wright and re-sold them to the Navy for $1.
The Navy removed the sunken destroyers that had protected the lagoon and began work on the Naval Air Station in August 1941. The Naval Air Station shaped much of Alameda’s future for the next half-century, but Alameda itself provided Naval aviation a hero as great as Lindbergh.
Doolittle Drive borders the old airport, as is only fitting, since Gen. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, famous for the first aircraft-carrier based bombing raid, carried out in 1942 against Tokyo, was born in Alameda in 1896. He was launched onto his historic mission from the deck of the USS Hornet, which is permanently anchored in Alameda.
Alameda’s civilian aviation history might have ended in 1941, but not our reasons to recall and celebrate it.
Historical sources for this article include the “Alameda Centennial Almanac," © 1972 by California Traveler Inc. Press and the Alameda Museum. Photographs were
courtesy of Pacific Aerial Surveys (www.pacificaerial.com), Alameda Museum and www.alamedainfo.com
