2: Aviation Crusaders
Three years after William and Annie Pawley’s wedding, his father began construction of Haiti’s “first modern hotel” on Bizoton Road in Port-au-Prince. Described as “the pride of the capital’s picturesque suburban country,” the 35-bedroom-suite hotel on Edward Porcher Pawley’s property was designed to attract guests by providing on-premises dining and dancing, a rooftop garden with views of the mountains and the bay, and access to swimming, boating, golfing, horseback riding, tennis courts and trap shooting.”1 (A century later, E.P. Pawley’s tropical paradise was the “most dangerous city” on the planet with profound famine fed by the ravages of hurricanes, earthquakes, cholera, poverty, gang warfare and political assassinations for control of most streets. Once beautiful, Haiti also was scarred by extreme deforestation as trees became a cheaper fuel alternative to gas and electricity.2)
By 1926, the knowledge William had gained from his father was beginning to pay off. He was on his way to becoming a millionaire in the Florida land speculation boom.3 While many took a major financial hit three years later when the Florida real estate bubble burst, William Pawley stayed afloat, having already shifted his attention elsewhere.
In 1927, Pawley went to Puerto Rico as a Curtiss Aviation representative.4 
Glenn Curtiss was a pioneering manufacturer of airplanes, while C.M. Keys (as Clement was known) was a financial whiz and visionary who surrounded himself with Wall Street financiers and became known as “the father of commercial aviation in America” which understates his aviation achievements as his investments created air travel in both North and South America, the Caribbean and China where Pawley, too, would expand his aviation interests.7
As an indication of how significant the Curtiss-Keys vision was at the time, a crowd of 40,000 people attended the grand opening of the airport in Fairfield, New Jersey. The power of promotion would not be lost on Pawley.
C.M. Keys had formed North American Aviation, Inc. as a holding company to control a list of prominent aircraft businesses. In addition to Curtiss-Wright, Keys had financial interests in the forerunner to Eastern Airline; in T.A.T. which evolved into TWA; Intercontinent Aviation Inc.; and the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. In 1933, General Motors bought into North American Aviation, named GM’s Ernest R. Breech president, and created two large conglomerates: General Aviation Manufacturing Corporation (comprised of Berliner-Joyce, General Aviation, and Curtiss Caproni operations) and Sperry Corporation (parent of Sperry Gyroscope Co., Ford Instrument, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, and Intercontinent Aviation) which GM spun off a few months after its formation. At the end of 1938, Pawley purchased all of Sperry’s interest in Intercontinent.9
This was the heyday of airline and airport expansion across the United States and neighboring countries sparked by Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight two years earlier and fueled by plane manufacturer Curtiss, which merged into Curtiss-Wright, a company that envisioned the potential of air travel, air mail delivery and the training of pilots through the Curtiss Flying Service.
On September 20, 1929, Charles Lindberg who had pioneered nonstop international flight in 1927 by flying direct from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis, took off from Miami with his first paid passenger, Glenn Curtiss. Their destination was Havana, Cuba where they would “confer with Cuban capitalists who are associated with the pioneer airman in the formation of a landing field in Havana and engage in commercial flying over Cuba.”10
Curtiss was given further publicity in January 1930 at Mitchel Field on Long Island, New York, when the Guggenheim Foundation presented President C.M. Keys with a $100,000 safety prize award to the Curtiss Tanager plane as the “best of 15 entrants”—impressing judges and observers with its fast rise to 4,000 feet of altitude, ease of operation and short, un-bumpy landing.11
That same month, thirteen hundred miles to the south, William Pawley sold to Cuba--headed then by President Gerardo Machado y Morales, a former Cuban general--two Curtiss Hawk P- 6 warplanes at a cost of $20,000-plus per plane.12
A few weeks later, Pawley opened the new Curtiss airport near Havana with the blessing of Cuba’s President Machado and shortly thereafter the airport’s Curtiss flying school. In addition to the in-country flights, Cubana also planned a Miami-Havana route. According to Benjamin P. Davidson, a pioneering aviation editor at the Newark Star-Eagle, “The administration building is said to be the most palatial airport building ever erected.”13
The opening day celebration on February 24, 1930, was marred by the death of two stunt pilots, Lieutenant Rolando Cabarello and Sergeant Gonzalez of the Cuban Army Flying Corps, whose plane crashed into the ground while thrilling the crowd.14
In the fall, Pawley took members of the Cuban press aboard a Ford Trimotor plane to traverse the island’s first passenger/mail route from Havana to Santiago with four stops on the way. The plane became a mainstay of the route and eventually of the route from Havana to Pawley’s childhood stomping grounds at Guantánamo. It also served as a trainer at the Curtiss flight school.15
The original air mail service contract was for the 510-mile stretch between Havana and Santiago de Cuba on the eastern end of the island. Stops along the way brought mail into the areas of Santa Clara, Moron, Camaguey, Victoria de las Tuna, and Holguin. The daily service, except Sunday, started with 40,000 letters that arrived within just 6 hours, not the customary 30 hours mail had taken over land. Pawley’s passenger line also saved travelers time—20 hours— and the ticket cost less than the train. He stated that Compañía Cubana de Aviacion Curtiss would place the airline “service within reach of the largest number of persons, and that in the beginning he does not expect to profit on the transportation of passengers.” It was good news for business executives who traveled to the industrial centers in the provinces of Santa Clara, Camaguey and Oriente, where 112 of Cuba’s 157 operating sugar mills were situated.16
Six months after the airline inauguration, when a hurricane devastated the Dominican Republic killing and injuring thousands, Pawley—at the urging of Cuban President Machado— flew 21 doctors to the Dominican Republic as well as ether, chlorine, water filters, alcohol and other supplies from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Haiti.17 Pawley stayed 10 days cementing his friendship with Rafael Leonid Trujillo who had been the country’s leader for only a few weeks.
Trujillo proved to be an “extremely able person” as Pawley later described him. And one with an ego. Trujillo rebuilt Santo Domingo and renamed it Ciudad Trujillo, after himself. Trujillo then ruled as a dictator for the next three decades. In the late 1940s, the State Department discouraged contact between Pawley and Trujillo, but a decade later Pawley flew his plane down to the Dominican Republic and became an advisor to Trujillo on rewriting petroleum and mineral mining laws with the help of a lawyer recommended by Herbert Hoover, Jr. Naturally, Pawley would profit from his ventures in these fields.18
Returning to Cuba following his hurricane relief efforts, Pawley grew his aviation operation and eventually added to his wealth through the sale of Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviacion Curtiss to Juan Trippe’s Pan American Airways which was venturing into the Latin America market and had become a threat to Pawley’s air service.19 As early as July 2, 1931, fear of Pan American’s growing power was evident, but it was not publicly known until 1934, when The New York Times revealed some of the official memorandum used in decision making to award lucrative postal routes. A letter from Thomas B. Doe, President of Eastern Air Transport to Postmaster General Walter F. Brown mentions concerns of Trippe’s Pan American trying to grab routes from Pawley’s Cuban operations.20
Five days later, the Post Office responded that it had advised air mail operators that in the current state of the aviation industry it was not wise “to invade each other’s territory” or use “money paid for postal services ... to injure competitors.”
Early on Pawley took advantage of opportunities for publicity, which was characteristic of the Curtiss aviation companies. One of the best examples occurred on July 21, 1931, when James Goodwin Hall, a wealthy broker, made a record-breaking flight from New York to Havana in 8 hours and 35 minutes, lopping a full six hours off one earlier non-stop flight, despite landing by mistake at Columbia Field in Havana before hopping over to Curtiss Field.
Goodwin’s yellow, blue and white plane wore the shield of The Crusaders, an anti-Prohibition organization that Hall had devoted himself to after achieving fame as a World War I flying ace. Fred G. Clark who had helped innovate rotary motor oil for aviation to replace castor oil during World War I had founded the Crusaders and grew the organization into a million-and-a-half members who wanted the consumption of alcoholic beverages to be legal again.21 In 1932, the Crusaders put pressure on Congress by producing a map that showed the location of over a hundred raided speakeasies in Washington, DC, including some on government property, and scores within walking distance of the U.S. Capitol building.22
The publicity photo taken for the record-breaking Crusader flight to Cuba showed the tall, lanky President of the Curtiss Aviation Company of Cuba, William Pawley, standing on the angled wing of Hall’s plane in a white suit with black and white shoes and a straw hat. Befitting the summer heat of Cuba, Pawley toasted Hall’s record with glass in hand as Hall smiled from the cockpit and “happily swallowed a cold daiquiri cocktail.” Pictured on the ground is one of Pawley’s assistants extending a large envelope to him, emphasizing the company’s role of airmail. Hall ordered a second daiquiri and then returned to New York in “seven hours fifty-five minutes” –7 1⁄2 minutes faster than his rival pilot Frank Hawks’ flying time.23
Speed had great appeal to both business travelers and those taking vacations. Each record flight helped show that air travel was superior to railroad or boat journeys. But the income from air mail delivery was essential. When the Air Mail Act of 1934 made it illegal for aircraft manufacturing industries to have controlling interests in airlines, North American Aviation was forced to divest its interest in Eastern and TWA.24 The Great Depression also took its toll on air travel, and Curtiss-Wright began selling off its airport operations that had dotted America from the New York airstrip that later became LaGuardia to Glendale, California.25
FOOTNOTES:
1 “Haiti Bidding for Tourists: Work Has Commenced on Her First Modern Hotel.” The Nebraska State Journal, December 14, 1922.
2 “Haiti crisis: how did it get so bad, what is the role of gangs, and is there a way out?” The Guardian, January 12, 2023.
“City On Fire: World’s most dangerous city descending into all-out WAR as machete vigilantes butcher & burn gangsters in mob justice.” By Iona Cleave. The Sun (UK Edition), June 19, 2023.
"Haiti's long history of crises and its present unrest." By Martha Teichner. CBS News Sunday Morning, March 17, 2024
3 “William D. Pawley, Financier Dies at 80, Ex-Ambassador and Philanthropist Found Shot at Miami Beach Police Call Death a Suicide.” The New York Times, January 8, 1977. Page 22.
4 Declassified FBI background check run on William Pawley in 1945.
From 1927 to 1930 he was associated with Curtiss Aviation in Puerto Rico. From 1930 to 1932 he was affiliated with a Cuban aviation company and in 1933 with Inter-Continent Aircraft organization. It is reported that he has also been interested in Hindustan Aircraft, Ltd., Corp., of Bangalore, India, and with the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company of Loiwing, China. It is believed that Mr. Pawley has severed his connections with the above mentioned organizations and it is reported that the Inter-Continent Corporation, which has been a subsidiary of Consolidated Vultee Corporation has now been taken into the corporate structure of the later organization.
5 “Cuban Airline Formed.” The New York Times, September 20, 1929. Page 20. 6
Aero Digest, December 1929.
Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviacion Curtiss executives included: W. D. Pawley president; Dr. Pablo Carrera Justiz, executive vice president; C.I. Morton vice president; Thomas Doe, vice president; and John Sanderson, treasurer. By 1952, Dr. Pablo Carrera Justiz was Minister of Communications under Batista.
7 Harry Bruno, Wings Over America (Halcyon Press, 1944). Page 322.
8 “Montclair’s Role in Aviation.” By David Price Cannon. The Montclair Times, March 25, 2004 through April 29, 2004 (three part series).
>> Today, after numerous name changes, Montclair's Marvin Airport is now Essex County Airport. Truer to Marvin's vision, pilot through the New York region find it convenient. Unfortunately, this is best attested to by the ill-fated flight of John F. Kennedy, Jr. to Martha's Vineyard in July 1999.
>> See Marvinairport.blogspot.com created by David Price Cannon to coincide with publication of the newspaper series.
9 “The Politics of Airpower in U.S.-China Relations, 1928-1941.” Submitted by Eugenie Maechling Buchan to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History. August 2013. Page 185.
>> Her thesis provides deep detail on Pawley’s business dealings with the Chinese which helped make him one of the wealthiest Americans during the Great Depression and thereafter.
Undated/1938 Correspondence “Intercontinent Corporation, Plan of Reorganization.” Bruce G. Leighton Archive (United Kingdom), Folder China Misc.
>> Probably near the end of the year.
10 “Just Before Lindy Left Soil” Photo Caption “Col. Lindberg and Glenn Curtis Before Hopoff From Miami.” P & A Photos 210498 New York Bureau. September 22, 1929.
11 “January 1930: Curtiss-Tanager Wins Safety Award. American Plane Wins $100,000 Safety Prize.” Smithsonian Magazine.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/january-1930-curtiss-tanager-wins-safety-award/
Video: A Guggenheim Award goes to the Curtiss-Tanager plane as best of 15 entrants in an international airplane safety contest in 1930 in Long Island. “That’s a nice piece of change to get right after Christmas. Vice President Land, of the Guggenheim Foundation, is giving the check to President Keyes of the Curtiss Company. Up she goes like a toy balloon. Now were sailing along 4,000 feet over the field. Almost a mile.
Watch this fellow rock the boat. If you tried to do that with any other plane, you’d go into a spin so fast that you’d think you were falling out of bed. No wonder they call this the safest little plane in the world. They say a child could run it and I believe them. Another great stunt is the short landing. Notice the speed he’s traveling at, but there won’t be any bump. Just nice and easy like falling into a snow pile. Location: Mitchel Field, NY; Release Date: 01/08/30 (01:08)”
12 “2 Armored Planes Are Sold To Cuba.” Miami Daily News, January 30, 1930.
13 “Today in Aviation.” By B.P. Davidson, Aviation Editor, Star-Eagle, February 21, 1930.
>> David Pice Cannon took his first private plane flight in the 1960s with Benjamin Davidson’s grandson, Alex, at Essex County Airport in Fairfield, NJ (originally Marvin Airport).
14 “2 Cuban Fliers Killed at Airport Dedication: Throngs See Stunting Plane Hit the Ground at Big Curtiss Flying Field Near Havana.” The New York Times, February 25, 1930. Page 6.
“Montclair's Role in Aviation.” By David Price Cannon. The Montclair Times, March 25, 2004 through April 29, 2004.
15 “History of Ford Tri Motor NC8407—10/10/30.” Gene & Sue Seibel’s Electric Flying Machine website. http://pad39a.com/gene/trimotor.html
16 “Cuba Inaugurates Air Mail Service and Reduces Passenger Rates.” Curtiss Aero Digest.
17 “More Relief Going to Santo Domingo: New Photographs of Devastated Santo Domingo, Swept by Hurricane.” The New York Times, September 8, 1930. Page 14.
“Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina in Oral History, Interview with William Pawley by Raymond Henle.” April 4, 1967. Pages 30 and 31. Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.
18 William D. Pawley, Russia is Winning (draft manuscript). Box 2, William D. Pawley Papers, 1945-1970, .5 lf, 42. George C. Marshall Research Center, George C. Marshall Library.
“Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina in Oral History, Interview with William Pawley by Raymond Henle,” April 4, 1967, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. Pages 30 and 31.
19 “Aviation: China Swashbuckler.” Time, September 7, 1942.
20 “Conferences in 1930 on Vast Air Mail Network Revealed in Official Memorandum.” The New York Times, February 15, 1934.
Thomas B. Doe, President of Eastern Air Transport letter to Postmaster General Walter F. Brown mentions he has “taken steps to prevent lines being opened between Miami and Havana, in hopes that Mr. Trippe would eventually see the wisdom of concentrating on the through business and leaving the local business to our Cuban company.” Doe later states “I am taking the liberty of enclosing a letter from W.E. Smith, receiver for Seaboard Air Line [Railway], and also letters from W.D. Pawley, president of the Cuban company, which, of course, were meant to be confidential and which I would appreciate your returning to me.”
21 “Fred George Clark.” The National Cyclopedia. Page 336.
22 “A Dot Map of Washington on Record of Metropolitan Police Department Liquor Raids During 1931.” Drawn byMitchell Studio. Executed by The Crusaders 1932.
23 “‘Here’s How’—As Hall Breaks New York-Havana Record,” Associated Press Photo from New York, July 31, 1931.
>> Above The Crusaders’ logo on the plane were the words “Help End Prohibition.” Two addresses were listed: 100 East 42nd Street, New York and 415 Merritt Building, Los Angeles.
“For Drinking.” Time, July 27, 1931.
“Miss Boll, In Tears, Finds Herself Left; Can't Understand It, She Tells The Times, Because She Expected to Be First. Thought Stultz Her Pilot ‘I Depended on Him,’ She Says, ‘and Now He Has Taken Off With Another Woman.’” The New York Times, June 4, 1928. Page 2.
>> Mabel Boll, who was known to wear up to $400,000 in diamonds in public, was the first women passenger to make a non-stop flight to Cuba in the Columbia, with Wilmer Stultz. Ironically, Stultz died in 1929, in a crash reportedly after drinking alcohol. His death set off a move against airport speakeasies that ended with the repeal of Prohibition. It was later determined Stultz wasn’t drinking.
“Alcohol Is Found in Brain of Stultz; Dr. Gettler Reports Evidence That Pilot on Fatal Flight Had Been Drinking. Officials Push Inquiry Witnesses of Accident Tell Federal Inspectors of Seeing Struggle in Plane.” The New York Times, July 6, 1929. Page 15.
“Finds No Evidence of Stultz Drinking; Coroner Holds Pilot Was in Perfect Control of Plane Just Before Crash. Blames Jammed Control; Two Who Saw Aviator Just Before He Took Off Say He Was Sober – Edwards Scouts Finding.” The New York Times, July 17, 1929.
24Aeronautical engineer James H. “Dutch” Kindelberger took over management along with his friend, John Leland “Lee” Atwood who joined as vice president, according to North American NA-73, last revised August 29, 1999. http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p51_1.html [Citing multiple sources]
25 “Montclair's Role in Aviation.” By David Price Cannon. The Montclair Times, March 25, 2004 through April 29, 2004.
Labels: AVG, aviation, C.M.Keys, CAMCO, Claire Chennault, CNAC, Crusaders, Cuba, Curtiss, Essex County. Airport, Flying Tigers, Haiti, Kennedy, New Jersey, Pawley, planes
posted by David Price Cannon @ 10:00 PM
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