The year 1933 brought nothing but bad news for many people. The country still had a long recovery ahead from the bad effects of the 1929 stock market crash. Unemployment numbers soared. Farmers living in the drought-struck Dust Bowl abandoned their farms. Newly minted migrant workers headed for California, barely making a living age as farm workers sleeping in their automobiles.
Yet, one of the most covered media stories of the year concerned the plight of aviation hero James (Jimmie) Mattern after his planned round-the-world solo flight ended in a crash that destroyed his plane far from any city in Siberia.
A lot of news ink had preceded the crash, describing the battle for air dominance by Mattern in his Century of Progress and rival Wiley Post in his craft Winnie Mae.
All three had the same ambition: To break Post and navigator Harold Gatty’s 1931 round-the-world record.
On June 3, 1933, Mattern departed New York at 4:20 a.m., packing six oranges to eat over the Atlantic Ocean on his flight’s first leg to Berlin. He landed in 22.5 hours.
By June 6, Mattern’s third leg of his unprecedented flight proved successful as he touched down at the quaint city of Omsk, Siberia. However, due to unfavorable headwinds, newspaper accounts reported that Mattern trailed Post and Gatty’s 1931 feat by 10.5 hours.
On June 8, newspapers reported Mattern experience trouble breathing as gas fumes entered his cockpit. When he landed, still in Siberia, his plane experienced minor damage in the forced landing. Unperturbed, he oversaw repairs and again took to the skies.
And then Mattern failed to appear at his next stop, and the world held its breath, wondering what had happened to him. Many speculated that he had died in a crash or, if alive, had succumbed while hoping against hope for rescue.
A June 17, 1933 Toronto Daily Star headline, accompanied by a map of Mattern’s planned air route, read: “Fear Mattern Lost in Hop to Alaska.”
On July 6, 1933, a rescue plane piloted by William Alexander was grounded in its search for Mattern due to heavy rains.
The next day, good news greeted the world. “Jimmie Mattern, world flier given up for dead by all but a trusting few, is safe in Siberia,” read the terse lead. He actually was already safe on July 5.
The source was a telegram sent to Moscow from a tiny outpost. “Safe, Anadir, Chukotka, Siberia,” it read, referring actually to Anadyr, the capital, a port town located in an area with harsh, sub-Arctic weather.
Indeed, he was safe, his plane crushed, however, after a forced landing.
Reporters reached his mother in Freeport, Illinois, with the news. “I was confident all the while,” she said.
Mattern’s wife (they soon would divorce) also replied to reporters: “I knew he was safe all the time.”
On July 20, Mattern arrived safely by plane in Nome accompanied by two Russian pilots, two mechanics and a navigator that took off from Anadyr.
On July 21, Mattern himself told the story of his rescue in the Evening Star of Washington, D.C.
He said he had been rescued by a Siberian Eskimo family and stayed with the rescuers in their settlement. He was there to experience a caribou hunt and accompanying religious ceremony that lasted five hours accompanied by drumbeats.
Using sign language, he promised to procure flour and tea if a party would take him downstream 80 miles to Anadyr.
Nome officials caught him up on the latest news.
On July 15, 1933, Post set out from New York to Berlin, Germany, on the first leg of his quest to break his own record.
Like Mattern, Post’s 15,596-mile route in a Lockheed Vega took him to Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and a glorious return to New York’s Floyd Bennett Field on July 22, 1933, in a record-smashing seven days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes.
Two years later, Post was dead, tragically killed with his passenger, humorist Will Rogers, after his plane’s engine failed near Point Barrow, Alaska, on Aug. 15, 1935.
Hank Nuwer is a writer and UAF adjunct professor living in Fairbanks.
