Northwest Airways, now newly incorporated as Northwest Airlines, Inc., successfully reacquired most of its contracts with the exception of the Chicago-Fargo leg. That segment’s contract was purchased some six months later.
The ill-fated USAAC attempt and failure carrying the mail had a silver lining despite some 66 crashes and the deaths of pilots and passengers. Investigations following the suspension brought to light that previous Air Corps training contained little night and cross-country instruction. Formerly, the primary function of USAAC was artillery spotting during daylight hours that seemed to make pilot duty look like a 9 to 5 country club job. Without this wakeup call, USAAC would have been even more unprepared when it was thrown into World War II.
Airmail contract cancellation was a devastating blow to Northwest as those contracts (at that time) provided the great majority of the company’s operating revenue. The History Centre is fortunate to have a copy (on display) of a letter written by Croil Hunter, Vice President & General Manager, dated April 4, 1934, setting forth the problems and action being taken to counter the effects. That document is a true bit of NWA History. Stop by the museum and see it.
It’s ironic that today revenue for carrying of the mail makes up a very small, if any, part of U.S. commercial airline income while in the beginning it was practically the only source.
GOODY LUCK GETS PUBLISHED
Goodwin R. Luck, better known as “Goody”, joined NWA in 1945 as Chief Power Plant Engineer shortly after he won the war in the Pacific. He left his position as a Marine Lt. Colonel with pay of $900 and free housing for a $300 a month job with NWA. Offsetting the pay discrepancy was the “romance” of the airline operations…not to mention that no one was shooting at him. He retired in 1981, after 35 years with NWA. He was inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his service to the airline industry and, equally importantly, because of his heroic service in World War II. It is difficult to get this modest man to brag about his exploits. But now he has put some of his war service into print. He has written the first chapter of a book that has just been published. The book, “Marine Wings”, stories of war and peace as written by pilots, contains separate chapters by 24 members of the Minnesota Marine Air Reserve.
The first story in the book is Luck’s chapter entitled “South Pacific Duck Rescue”. This modest man’s heroism is evidenced by an incident during World War II. He describes the situation, beginning in February, 1943 when the U.S. armed forces established presence on Guadalcanal, Rendova and Munda Islands in the South Pacific. Goody was Operations Officer for COMAIRSOL. Because he had experience with the aircraft, he volunteered to fly a J2F “Duck” assigned to the unit. The Duck was a single engine, open cockpit float-plane. It had no electric starter. Hand cranking was required. The rear cockpit machine gun was missing. So it had no weapons. They had to hide it
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