Alaska’s wide spaces, upper-level win currents, and landing fields in questionable condition made flying in pioneer days before World War II required pilots with uncommon skill, guts and the personality of a swashbuckler.
Had Alaska aviation hero and daredevil Frank Dorbrandt died in the skies prior to his death by pneumonia on May 4, 1935 – he might have been more of a legend than he already was.
Unfortunately, a taste for liquor and a history of chance taking and criminal activities caught up to him at the end of his life. Here’s the story of a bold and fearless pilot, a man whose fatal flaws dominated news reports of his death.
Dorbrandt was born Floyd Andrew DeHay in Pasadena, California, on June 12, 1893. Like other pioneers who came to Alaska, he had reason to change his name.
A fiery redhead with fists to back up his boasts, as a teenager he worked as a bouncer at the Savoy Tivoli dance hall in San Francisco.
But in 1917, DeHay stole an automobile owned by R.H. Files from a garage in Riverside, California. He evaded numerous police cars in a high-speed chase that ended in Los Angeles. He and companion Ben Batten might have made a getaway save that he made the mistake of swiping a car nearly empty of gas.
They surrendered and were taken into custody.
Judge Densmore took pity on the boy’s youth and sentenced him until age 18 for a few months at the Preston School of Industry at Ione.
Then in 1913, the Los Angeles Evening Express ran an article stating that Mrs. Charlotte Dehay (cq), the former Charlotte Wilson, a daughter of a prominent Socialist newspaper publisher, filed suit for an annulment. She charged that her marriage of three days was due to Dehay’s threats to kill her and her father.
The annulment was granted.
DeHay thereupon changed his name to Frank Dorbrandt, which was the name of an uncle.
Frank Dorbrandt made headlines in his 20s in the Southwest and Utah as a daredevil air stuntman, thrilling spectators as he walked on wings or hung upside down from his knees. He had some close calls, including getting away with mere superficial burns in 1921 while trying to save his employer’s plane in a fire at the Utah State Fair.
Dorbrandt also tried competitive auto racing for a time, although he rarely, if ever, finished first.
But it was as a pilot in Alaska that he won hearts and headlines. He delivered medical supplies to remote Alaska outposts, checked on old timers in their cabins, and participated in a number of rescue missions.
He next married a former Fairbanks post office worker named Vida Deigh. He courted Deigh in 1929 by buzzing low over her home and place of work to gain her attention. She shared her husband’s love of flying and adventure.
At a time when long-distance plane flights made history and deadlines, Dorbrandt – with his wife and a mechanic as passengers – made the first ever flight from Seattle to Anchorage in under 19 hours on Aug. 3, 1930.
That second marriage also ended up being doomed. He next married the former Mrs. Gale Pierce Long of Anchorage just two months before his death.
At various times, Dorbrandt owned up to seven planes and made a good income purchasing furs with Alaska’s Indigenous peoples, sponsoring Arctic sightseeing trips, delivering mail, and freighting passengers and supplies to small cities and into the bush.
A good deal of his income came to selling appliances and fresh fruit and vegetables to people of small villages. He said that his customers were astounded the first time he brough them a shipment of bananas.
But his fur dealings in the 1930s ran afoul of customs agents, and he had one of his planes seized and sold for transferring contraband.
I’ll contribute part II of the DeHay-Dorbrandt column in next week’s issue.
Hank Nuwer is a Fairbanks writer and community and university theater actor.
