Nearby, 22-year-old Lieutenant Frederick J. Dittman of Oakland, California, gazed out at the gleaming silver DC-3. Dittman, a broad-shouldered, round-faced newlywed with a bride waiting in Long Beach—a girl he married on Christmas Eve—had just learned he was bumped because the movie star’s party of three was staying aboard the plane. “I’ve never been on a big airliner,” sighed the Army flier who had been in service only a year and two weeks. His eyes raked along the shiny fuselage with red script reading, Victory is in the Air—BUY BONDS, and on the tail were evocative words. SKY CLUB. It put him in mind of plush seats, a hot meal, a cocktail, and good-looking stewardesses handing out pillows and candy. He sighed, “One of these days I’d like to see how it goes.”
Lieutenant Burton K. Voorhees held a seat assignment on Flight 3. This old man of 28 and veteran of four-plus years in the service glanced over his shoulder at the big Sky Club, and then he held out his ticket and shrugged his shoulders. “Take my seat,” he told the burly Dittman. “I’ve ridden them.”
Dittman was stunned. “You sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure,” said Voorhees. “I’ll get the next ride. See you back in Long Beach.”
“Thanks!” said Fred Dittman, taking the ticket and picking up his small mountain of gear by shoulder straps and handles and lugging it toward the door.
During the just-ended melee, the old flight crew and the new met amidst the clot of Army fliers and the movie star’s party. In his prominent German accent, which reminded people of Sig Ruman, the Hollywood character actor, Capt. Ernest Pretsch briefed Capt. Williams and his co-pilot, First Officer Gillette, on the condition of the ship, the heavy cargo load, and the passengers. Williams and Gillette prepared to board Flight 3 but paused when they saw TWA agent Knudsen working numbers and sweating profusely.
The TWA man looked at Flight 3’s new pilot and explained that with the Army personnel, 15 of them and their gear—and there was a lot of gear—and the movie star and her bags and trunks—and there were a lot of bags and trunks—and 338 pounds of dinner service that would be dished up in the air, Trip 3 was well over the 25,200-pound maximum provisional gross weight limit permitted by the Civil Aeronautics Authority. They had been trained to average passengers at 170 pounds each, but that wasn’t going to work in this case. Knudsen maneuvered a slide rule in his shaky fingers as Williams shrugged and suggested they simply use the actual weights of the passengers, which must be less than the 170-pound average, and maybe the ship would be deemed airworthy.
Knudsen liked this idea. The Army boys tended to be smaller of frame; that’s one reason why they were fliers—because they could fit inside cockpits and gun turrets. He asked the military men who was in charge and was pointed to 1st Lt. Crouch. Knudsen asked Crouch to obtain the true weights of his men, which Crouch did, coming back with a tablet and pencil and reporting that his men averaged almost exactly 150 pounds each. Knudsen jotted this number down and that was easy enough, 150 times the 15 of them. Then he walked over to Carole Lombard and asked for her weight. Carole shot the passenger agent a murderous glance and barked, “115.” He asked passenger Peters and passenger Hamilton, and the three women together totaled 401 pounds. When he obtained passenger Winkler’s weight, the total combined passenger weight calculated to within 31 pounds of what TWA required. So Knudsen rounded down, and suddenly the airplane’s gross weight fell within regs. The passenger agent turned to the pilot, relieved, and Williams gave him a What did I tell you? gesture.
Carole Lombard watched this exercise, and smoked cigarettes, and fumed, knowing she still had five more hours ahead of her by air, calculating the time she might actually see Encino. If she was lucky, 10 P.M. More likely 11.
Capt. Williams had time on his mind as well. None of TWA’s pilots could match this flier’s experience, which included schooling in flight with the Army Air Corps and the U.S. Naval Air Service in the 1920s. Then he flew commercial airmail routes across the American Midwest, which had led him to a one-day portrayal of fictional Jimmy Donnally for an exuberant eight year old at the Springfield airport. It was a stint that suited Wayne because with almost 13,000 hours in the air, including 1.4 million air miles for TWA from 1931 on, he knew he could fly anything, anywhere, but this afternoon luck was against him. Trip 3 had reached Albuquerque more than two hours behind schedule owing to all those earlier delays. Now with this full load of passengers and overload of cargo, he would need refueling halfway to Burbank, ideally in Boulder City, Nevada. But Pretsch told Williams of strong headwinds, and a glance at his watch told him that, no, they couldn’t use Boulder City because that airfield had no lights and they’d be forced to land after dark. Williams told First Officer Gillette to write up a flight plan west to Kingman, Arizona, and then northwest to Las Vegas, the desert terminal surrounded by mountains. Vegas featured lighted runways and even though refueling there meant a later time into Burbank, Williams had no other option.
As the chaos caused by the Army personnel and their gear continued, First Officer Gillette hastily consulted his reference materials for compass readings and altitudes. Gillette hailed from Burlington, Vermont, and had caught the flying bug at age 17 to such an extent that his grandmother had bought him an airplane. Now 25, he was bright, had scored very high on all ratings, and would rise to fleet captain within a year. Gillette scribbled sets of numbers and handed his flight plan to Ed Knudsen. Then Williams and Gillette headed outside to the DC-3 sitting quietly on the runway. Meanwhile Knudsen still fretted over the center of gravity of Flight 3 with a full load of passengers and all that baggage. It wasn’t his job to check the numbers on the captain’s flight plan, so he signed the paper and set it aside—just one more document in a growing stack of documents.
The crisis had passed. Williams and Gillette squeezed into the cockpit of the gleaming Sky Club as Getz prepared to serve a full meal to the 19 passengers.
Fuel was added to the capacity allowed by the heavy load of passengers, baggage, and cargo, which meant a limit of 330 gallons. The cargo compartments, forward and rear, were crammed, and parachutes and duffel bags were piled high behind the cockpit and lashed in place under a tarp.
Inside the station, Ed Knudsen called passengers to the door, and the Air Corps fellows fell into line by seat assignment. Squarely in the middle of the group and conspicuous by a lack of green clothing and ramrod-straight posture stood Carole and Wink. Knudsen led the group out onto the tarmac, watched as each climbed the steps into the plane, and waited until Alice Getz had taken a head count and confirmed that all 19 passengers were in their seats and accounted for. Finally Knudsen ended the most hectic 26 minutes of his life. He watched as Getz closed the cabin door, and at 4:36 P.M. the engines powered up and Flight 3 headed out to the runway, where it took off at 4:40 into the setting sun, heading west.
Carole Lombard had thrown her weight around and gotten her way; Tots continued to white-knuckle it at 8,000 feet, and Otto sweated out the moments along with her and attempted to rationalize away last Saturday night’s premonition about impending disaster aboard an airplane. So many takeoffs and landings. So many chances for something to go wrong, and yet they kept taking off and landing, and he kept clawing his way closer to 1106 North Wilton Place, his cozy home just off Santa Monica Boulevard.
One row behind Carole and Petey sat baby-faced Sergeant Bob Nygren of Dunbar, Pennsylvania. Bob occupied seat 12, the window seat in the right-side single row of seats. Bob sat behind the quiet old lady who was receiving Miss Lombard’s attention during the long hours in the air. Directly behind Bob sat older brother Ed, perhaps cursing the fact that he was a couple rows removed from a real-life movie star.
The Nygrens hailed from the sticks of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in the rural southwestern part of the state, and had certainly never seen any sort of famous personality before. Ed had just turned 25 and was always mechanically inclined. He had been all over the country since enlisting in the Army Air Corps in 1936. They sent him to Langley Field in Virginia and then to
Chanute Field in Illinois, then back to Langley and on to Long Beach to begin ferrying planes when war seemed a certainty.
Bob had seen how well Ed was doing and how much he loved the service, so Bob enlisted too, straight out of Dunbar Township High School. Whereas Ed was a mechanic, Bob became a radio man, and their claim to fame back home was that they had never been separated from the time Bob finished basic training. Today, Ed took second seat, and there was Bob trying his best not to stare at Carole Lombard’s legs. All Ed had to look at was a nervous, perspiring guy with slicked-back hair who looked like some sort of gangster. This fellow would lean forward to talk to the movie star occasionally, and she would turn her head a bit and respond without turning all the way around.
And so it went for 550 air miles, with both Ed and Bob Nygren feeling pretty darn lucky to have a story out of this trip to Long Beach that they could tell Dad and everyone back in Dunbar for the rest of their lives.
Back in Albuquerque, Mary Johnson clung to the memory of watching Carole Lombard walk out to the plane and up the steps. To Mary there was nothing more awful than the heartache of knowing that now she would never see Clark Gable, king of the movies.
28. I Won't Be Coming Home
At about 6:30 P.M. California time on January 16, Jill Winkler pulled her car into the parking lot of the Burbank Air Terminal and there spied Gable’s convertible. She eased into a parking spot next to his and later said, “Clark was like a happy kid anticipating Carole’s homecoming. He jumped out of his car, came over, opened the door of my car and invited me to come join Carole’s brother, Stu, and himself.”
He ushered her into the back seat and sat beside her. Out of a portable bar Gable poured drinks for three. They sat and drank and talked for a while, searching the skies for any passenger planes in case the TWA flight had thoughts about sneaking in early.
Gable giggled about the gags he had spent the week preparing for Ma, like the life-size mannequin lying on her bed, waiting. The prop boys had built it to his specifications, complete with an erection big enough to draw a gasp and hopefully some giggles from Mrs. G. Ma and Pa had never spent five straight days apart, and he wanted her to know just how much he missed her, and he needed her to understand that he felt bad about the blow-up—as bad as Clark Gable could feel, as a matter of fact.
As far as they knew, Carole’s plane was due by 7, but 7 came and went and sometime later a car drove into the lot. It was Larry Barbier from the MGM publicity department. He hurried over to report that MGM had received a telegram from Wink in Texas that more delays had occurred along the route, and the plane wouldn’t be in before 8 P.M. and might be quite a bit later than that. Barbier said he’d go into the terminal and obtain updated information.
Jill Winkler said, “We sat in the car talking and getting more nervous as time went by.” Darkness had fallen but the air was warm, and they continued to sit in the convertible and watch the skies. Finally, Barbier appeared again, walking out of the terminal building, illuminated by the lights of the parking lot. They watched him walk slowly in their direction, stiffly, strangely, like a man who was drunk and trying to imitate sober. It was a different person from the one who had gone inside.
They heard a plane overhead and the three people in the car looked up toward it, excited at the Lombard party’s arrival. They watched the plane circle and come in to land. It wasn’t TWA.
When they had nothing further to look at on the runway, they returned their attention to the man beside the car, who stood there, trying to speak but stammering, his words making no sense. The plane—was down—an emergency landing—somewhere—Las Vegas—somewhere. Barbier said he was sure it was fine, just a routine maintenance issue.
“Looks like they’ll be at least an hour and a half late,” he said. “Why don’t you go out to the ranch, and the moment I get any definite news about its arrival, I’ll call you and you can hop right over.” What Jill didn’t know, what Barbier could not reveal, was that he sensed trouble by the behavior of the airport men, who “were evasive about where the plane was, [and] when it was due to come in.”
Jill looked at Clark. Gable shrugged that it was fine with him, and he drove Jill and Tootie away. Clark knew how pissed Ma would be at all the delays and now this latest for mechanical trouble. He would need to wring her neck anyway for taking the plane at all against everyone’s orders.
At the ranch Jean Garceau was waiting to welcome Carole home. About hearing that the plane had made a forced landing, Jean said, “We were not duly alarmed, because Carole’s plane had been down once before when she was returning from location. She’d laughed and made a big story out of it.”
Clark’s valet, Martin, served drinks in the living room for the group assembled: Clark, Tootie, Jean, and Jill. Conversation was quiet and grew ever more awkward as time dragged on.
“Soon the gate phone rang,” said Jill, “and Martin came in and told Clark that Mr. Mannix and Mr. Wheelwright from the studio were coming in.” Don McElwaine, also from the studio, waited outside. Hearts stopped and restarted at two very high executives from MGM stopping unannounced at the ranch on a Friday night. “Clark opened the door and greeted them,” said Jill. The two men walked in stone faced and the mood grew black at once. “They told Clark that the studio had chartered a plane,” said Jill, “and that they were going to look for the downed TWA airliner. Clark asked me to come along with them, but I declined as I told them I would wait to hear from the airport, as I felt sure they would be in, and someone should stay to talk to them.”
The downed TWA airliner. Gable looked at his guests and they looked at him and saw the color drain from his face, and those canny Gable eyes showed something just the far side of fear. He started to speak, found nothing coming from his mouth, and followed Eddie Mannix and Ralph Wheelwright out. Jill and Jean could see Stuart considering what he should do, and then he bolted out the door after Gable.
Jill stayed behind because she still expected Otto and Carole to burst into the room and “someone should stay to talk to them.” So she sat in a chair and the quiet of the room gave her time to think. Did she count the months she and Otto had been married? Did she cipher it in days? She sat there in silence and Jean didn’t bother her. Jill remembered that Otto had said, “If we fly, I won’t be coming home,” with tears in his eyes. He was talking about a plane trip, and not just any plane trip but a plane trip on this job.
The telephone next to Jill in the living room rang and she gave a start. She picked it up and a female voice wanted to speak to Mr. Gable. Jill said that Mr. Gable was not available and the voice said: “Will you please give him this message. We have positive word now that the plane crashed and went up in flames.”
Jill Winkler later said that she thought she had hung up the phone; she would never be certain.
At the Lockheed Air Terminal at Burbank Airport, Larry Barbier took a call from his boss Howard Strickling instructing that Barbier contact Art Kelly, who chartered planes, and to find a pilot. Kelly provided a Western Air Express chartered DC-3, and a call to stunt flier Paul Mantz led to another call to stunt pilot Don Hackett, who hot-footed it over from his home in nearby Encino to Burbank airfield to operate the ship that would take the king to Las Vegas.
The MGM limousine swerved up by the wing of the plane and Gable climbed into the DC-3 with his entourage. They sat there. Gable’s skin crawled over his bones, but nothing happened. No engines spooled. Mannix stepped off the plane and there stood an airport official, clipboard in hand. “Mr. Gable must sign for the plane or it won’t be taking off,” said the official to Mannix, who shouted that this was an emergency and MGM was good for the goddamn plane. “Gable must sign for it!” shouted the official back.
Mannix, a very rough character, grabbed the clipboard and pen. “This’ll be good for the price of the goddamn ship,” he growled and shoved the items into the man’s hands. The official looked down at scrawled words: E.J. Mannix, Executive VP MGM.
Engines now coughed and sp
uttered to life. Gable wanted to speed up time, to get airborne and get to Las Vegas and get into action. He felt the plane begin to inch forward, the growl of the engines now filling the cabin from each side. The plane started down the runway and suddenly Clark heard the voice of someone inside. “Who’s that? It’s Jill!”
Out the window, Jill Winkler could be seen running onto the tarmac, mouthing a scream and waving her arms. With her was Howard Strickling, who had finally made it from Olympia, where he had been visiting family. The engines quieted and Capt. Hackett turned his ship about and found the spot where Strickling and Winkler stood. The hostess opened the door as the engines sputtered to silence and the plane eased to a stop.
Strickling usually had a mouthful to say. Gable knew Strick to be a bright guy, brilliant really, the kind of guy who stuttered because his mouth couldn’t keep up with a rapid-fire brain. Strick always talked in a burst, in a rush, but now as the other men pulled him onto the plane without waiting for steps to be wheeled into place, Strickling gave Gable a wary glance and said nothing. Ripped away from a weekend with the family as he was, Howard seemed to understand that the best thing he could do now was keep quiet. The men lifted Jill into the plane awkwardly, and the hostess sealed the door.
Gable guided Jill by the shoulders to a seat and then plunked down beside her. He couldn’t make eye contact. He couldn’t talk. He could only sit and listen to the engines cycling up again and wish to God that he could will the goddamn plane to get to Las Vegas. Now.
Out the window he looked through blackness as the plane took off and headed north. Below he saw the lights of Burbank and Glendale fade away, and the plane lifted high to clear the San Gabriel Mountains. Then the ebony void of desert swallowed the plane whole for the longest hour of his life. He smoked cigarettes one after another. Not a syllable was uttered inside the plane.
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