PILOT STORIES: Hill, James D.

James DeWitt Hill was born in Scottsdale, Pennsylvania on March 2,1882. He studied civil engineering at Cornell University for three years before leaving college due to ill health. He managed to get a job in engineering that took him to Portland, Oregon, where he learned to fly. He was taught by the same man who taught his friend and fellow future airmail pilot, Lloyd Bertaud. After the war, Hill ended up working at Curtiss aircraft company as a pilot and sales representative.

Hill was older than most of the pilots when he joined the service at age 43 in 1924, but he had also flown longer than most of his fellow pilots. James Dewitt Hill began flying in 1913. Perhaps it was his years of flying that led Hill to rely on one of the strangest forms of instrumentation any airmail pilot used. Unwilling to trust the often unreliable instruments in his cockpit, he devised an intriguing method of timing his flight path between Cleveland, Ohio and Hadley Field in New Jersey. Hill enjoyed smoking cigars as he flew, and that came in handy.

As one of Hill's fellow pilots recalled to a reporter in 1938, Hill

took off from Cleveland one day for Hadley Field, New Brunswick, with a load of mail and a pocket full of cigars. He was told that he would have clear weather until he reached the mountains and that he would have to fly over clouds while crossing the Alleghenies to the coast. Before he started down the runway at Cleveland he lighted a cigar. It lasted until he reached Mercer, Pennsylvania. . . . He glanced at his clock. It had stopped. . . . He had to know the time so that he would know when to come down through the clouds. . . . He recalled that his cigar lasted from Cleveland to Mercer.

'Cleveland to Mercer,' said Hill to himself, 'that's 75 miles. I have about 255 miles to go. Let's see--75 into 255--is 3 and 30 left over. That's--let me see--30-75s..two fifths. If I smoke 3 and two fifths cigars, I should be over Hadley Field, if I'm on my course.' Hill took four cigars from his pocket. Three he placed beside him and the fourth he lighted. When it was finished he lighted another and on he went, chain-smoking over the clouds. When two-fifths of the fourth cigar was gone, he came down through the clouds and there, welcome sight, not far away, was Hadley Field.

On July 1, 1925, Postmaster General Harry S. New was present at Hadley Field, New Jersey, for the start of regularly scheduled transcontinental night and day airmail flights. He presented Hill with a ceremonial sack of mail that was added to the cargo. As Hill prepared to take off, hundreds of cars along the field turned their headlines on, adding their lights to the field's as Hill took off.

Hill left the service on August 11, 1927, as it was being turned over to private contractors. He had been a fine airmail pilot and was not willing to give up flying. But instead of transferring to a contract airmail carrier, Hill had something else in mind.

While serving as airmail pilots Hill and Lloyd Bertaud remained good friends, and shared their aspirations for their flying careers after they left the service. Transatlantic fever was sweeping the country, sparked by the national love of aviation and a contest for the first solo transatlantic flight. While Bertaud and Hill had hoped to win that contest, the trophy went to another airmail pilot, Charles Lindbergh. Undeterred, Hill and Bertaud planned another transatlantic flight, this one would be from New York City to Rome, Italy, covering a distance further than Lindbergh covered, and making their own place in history.

The pair obtained sponsorship from publisher William Randolph Hearst. With Hearst's financial backing, the pair were able to obtain a Fokker F-VII-A aircraft for the flight. The plane, named "Old Glory," was readied for takeoff. Hearst's representative, Philip Payne, editor of the New York Daily Mirror would accompany the flight. Takeoff was moved to Orchard Beach, Maine, and "Old Glory" and its crew were in the air by 12:23 p.m. on September 6, 1927.

The monoplane Fokker carried the crew, fuel, a radio station, waterproof transmitter that would send out its call letters (WRHP - William Randolph Hearst) along the way so stations could track the craft as it moved. Messages received from the plane through the evening indicated that all was well, although the aircraft was heavy. Just before midnight, the plane was spotted by a steamship crew about 350 miles east of Cape Race, Newfoundland. A SOS was first heard from the ship at about 4am, then another. The aircraft was tracked through its signals by rescuers, but by the time they reached the spot where it should have gone done, nothing could be found in the now-stormy seas.

On September 12, the crew of the S.S. Kyle, sent by Hearst to find the wreckage or survivors, came across part of the aircraft. No survivors were ever found.