Flight 7 Is Missing

by Ken H. Fortenberry

  Minutes later the bodies of vacationing pilot Robert Alexander, his wife, Margaret, and their nine-year-old daughter, Judy, are loaded into hearses and driven to Pomona for a private, Saturday-afternoon service. Eleven-year-old David’s body was not among those recovered. He will be remembered along with the rest of his family later this month during a memorial service in Los Altos.

  The scene will be repeated again and again today as nineteen bodies are removed from Mottell’s and Peek and shipped to funeral homes not just in California but in Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Michigan, New York, and all parts in between. The grim task of identifying bodies is over; now it’s time to escort them to eternal rest.

  Thursday, November 21, 1957

  Washington, D.C.

  John Edgar Hoover is no man’s fool, and he’s made it perfectly clear that he isn’t about to be dragged into something he can neither control nor win. That is not his style, and he isn’t about to change now. Public relations is everything; the FBI gets its man.

  In the days following the crash, dozens of Pan American and Civil Aeronautics Board experts have tried desperately to unravel the mystery of the plane’s sudden disappearance. With precious little left of the giant Stratocruiser, the investigation has turned to the possibility of sabotage, the sudden and deliberate destruction of the airplane.

  An initial background check of passengers and crew has turned up two interesting names and some tantalizing coincidences. But without criminal-investigative training and the resources needed for a full-scale criminal investigation, Pan Am and the CAB are almost at a dead-end. They need professional crime investigators; they need the FBI.

  Everyone is screaming for answers—the press, relatives of the deceased, certain influential members of Congress, including US Senator Almer “Mike” Monroney, an Oklahoma Democrat —and they want the answers now. A luxury airliner doesn’t just disappear in midair without some warning, some clue of imminent danger, especially just a few minutes after the crew had signaled that everything was fine.

  But Hoover is too stubborn to bend his own bureaucratic rules to help solve the tragedy that has cost forty-four lives. He has sent a letter to US Attorney General William P. Rogers explaining his decision to stay out of the investigation, citing a lack of investigative manpower and the fear of setting a precedent in future cases; the FBI requires proof of a crime before getting involved, he explains. Hoover also knows that much of the evidence needed to solve this case is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

  * * *

  At 9:25 a.m. the phone rings in the Washington office of Civil Aeronautics Board executive James N. Payton. On the other end is W. O. Locke, legal officer for Pan American’s Pacific Division. Locke met yesterday with Leon Cuddeback of the CAB office in Oakland and two FBI agents, Tom Sullivan and John Hamicker, both of whom had strict orders from Hoover to ensure that the FBI isn’t snagged into the probe.

  The CAB is once again planning to formally ask the FBI for its assistance, and Locke wants the CAB in Washington to have the latest information; this new angle is something that must be explored.

  “Mr. Payton, at the time of the loss of the airplane we were without any clues whatever as to what happened and we realized that a normal investigation would involve much of the maintenance and routine overhaul matters and things of that kind on the aircraft, so we felt that something further had to be done,” Locke explains.

  “We started an investigation of every single piece of material, the cargo, the mail, or anything that went on that airplane or had anything to do with it and also every passenger and crewman as far as we could. We advised the local FBI office of our efforts. As an outgrowth of this investigation of ours, we of course looked into the possible planned or intentional destruction of the airplane, which under the circumstances, we felt was of reasonable suspicion. We uncovered several suspicious circumstances which were followed as far as we could but were soon after that dismissed. Then a group of very suspicious facts appeared regarding the purser on the flight. The purser is Oliver Eugene Crosthwaite. And it was this story that we related to Mr. Cuddeback and Mr. MacNamara and which he thought should be related immediately to the CAB in confidence.”

  “Now what is that suspicion, Mr. Locke?” Payton asks.

  “Mr. Crosthwaite is a forty-six-year-old man and has been employed by Pan American for seventeen years. He has been married twice and the first marriage ended in November 1945. That marriage had one daughter, named Billie.

  “The second marriage was to Julia C. Crosthwaite. She died August 12, 1957. She had one daughter, named Tania, who was adopted by Mr. Crosthwaite in February of 1949. She is about seventeen years of age. Mr. Crosthwaite was the purser on Flight 7 on November 8, 1957.

  “At the beginning of our discussion, Mr. Frank Hull, our service manager, referred to Mr. Crosthwaite on this airplane and mentioned that he had many difficulties with his job and with other people and he seemed to constantly have a chip on his shoulders. He was quite familiar with the man, since he was such a longtime employee,” Locke says.

  “Mr. Crosthwaite apparently had a feeling that the company was always trying to get his job. His morale was very low, and he had a definite persecution complex. There was some truth in the fact that what he called the company trying to get his job, in that he was considered a marginal employee, and efforts to discharge him were made on several occasions. The union constantly opposed his discharge. In October 1955, Mr. Crosthwaite contracted tuberculosis and went to a TB sanatorium. He was discharged from there in April of 1956. In August of 1956 this TB was arrested, and he returned to work on August 30, 1956. He still to date, or just prior to his death, was taking various drugs for his TB. Mr. Crosthwaite filed a workman’s compensation claim in connection with his TB. This was denied by the company, and once more there was another exchange of dislikes for the company. After that, it developed even further, when the company tried to prevent his return to flight because the company doctor felt that the TB could never be arrested to the point where it would be safe to confine him in an airplane. This was unsuccessful, again through union efforts. On August 12, 1957, as I said, Mr. Crosthwaite’s wife died. After this he became even more despondent. Even his most recent physical, on September 13, 1957, had a report from the doctor that the man had not recovered from the death of his wife. After this, trouble developed with his stepdaughter, Tania,” Locke reveals.

  “How do you spell that?”

  “T-A-N-I-A. It was rumored that he couldn’t control the daughter, she was out until 3 a.m. every night, and she would not accept any parental discipline. This difficulty, he thinks, was at least partly the cause of the death of his wife. And his job kept him away from home for long periods. A few days after the airplane was gone, we received a call from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. Mr. Crosthwaite had gone to the sheriff’s office to file a complaint concerning the trouble with his daughter. They didn’t understand exactly what he wanted and told him to go to the probation officer of that county. The probation officer talked with him and described him as being incoherent, used the words ‘psycho’ and ‘neurotic,’ and also stated that he could not understand exactly what he was talking about. They sent him several letters asking that he come back and discuss it further. He never returned. The probation office then contacted the daughter, Tania, to see what the trouble was. The daughter related a sordid tale to the probation officer that the father believed the world was against him and he was against the world. In summary, the probation people were inclined to believe the daughter and doubted the father and tried to get him back in for further discussion. At this time we thought this was reasonably important and we decided on a course to check out this man as best we could, and again notified the FBI,” Locke advises.

  “On Monday, November 18, while at the wreckage, we received a call at Long Beach, where the wreckage arrived, from attorney Hugh Mullin of 200 Fifth Avenue, San Mateo. He called and inquired into the assets and insurance and various comp
any matters that might exist between Pan American and Crosthwaite and said he held the will of Mr. Crosthwaite. In this discussion it was brought up that Mr. Crosthwaite had written his will within an hour or two hours of the time he boarded this particular aircraft, Flight 7, on November 8. We thought it was quite strange and mentioned that to Mr. Mullin, although he didn’t understand that there was any difficulty connected with it. The fact that he wrote a will on his way to the aircraft, in addition to the other suspicious circumstances which we had, made us again go to the FBI and the CAB at the same time. It might be circumstantial evidence. However, we thought it was not something we could ignore. During the course of our handling of this accident we contacted his mother, Marie Crosthwaite. The employment superintendent, Winchester, called Mrs. Crosthwaite and she became very talkative about her son and said that just a couple of days before this particular flight he called and asked her to fly with him on this aircraft and stated that this could very well be the last opportunity for her to fly with him to Honolulu. She said that he seemed to have a premonition that something was going to happen to him and that he wanted to give her his house and to sign documents bringing about this transfer. On October 10 or 20, we cannot read the date, Crosthwaite wrote the company a letter and said his new dependent is Marie Crosthwaite, his mother, and that she will take over his house. Now as to the circumstances of the crash itself, if we were to take these facts and interpret anything from them there is the point that if Mr. Crosthwaite wanted to destroy the airplane he was in a perfect position to do that in that he could bring anything he wanted aboard the airplane in his personal luggage. There is also the interesting fact that the airplane was destroyed in the middle of its journey—just after the point of no return. It also happened just after a radio report. Again, if it was a planned matter, he had almost one week in which to plan it. He was off flight on October 30 and advised on October 31 that his next flight would be Flight 7 on November 8,” Locke concludes.

  “I can understand why you would have suspicions along these lines,” Payton acknowledges.

  “That’s true. So many things have led to this man that I think we couldn’t do anything but give it a complete checkout, and since you were going to have a discussion with the FBI it was believed that it would be best that you have this information available,” Locke offers.

  “All right. I sure do thank you. I assure you that we will follow through.”

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Hoover receives a staff memo outlining the suspicious circumstances involving Crosthwaite. In a separate correspondence, Pan Am asks the FBI to “check for any police record in Hong Kong” on Crosthwaite, an apparent reference to suspicions that he may have been involved in some type of smuggling in the past, among other things.

  So far, Crosthwaite name has not been mentioned in the press as a possible suspect, and no one—outside of his immediate family—is aware that he is being investigated by Pan Am and the CAB.

  Crosthwaite name will not surface publicly as a suspect for more than forty years, when I first learn about his possible involvement.

  Even faced with the strange circumstances surrounding Crosthwaite, Hoover refuses to budge: the FBI will not lift a finger to help the probe until it has some “evidence” the plane has been sabotaged.

  Friday, November 22, 1957

  Washington, D.C.

  Members of the Overseas Missionary Society are among those gathered today inside the intimate Bethlehem Chapel of the historic Washington National Cathedral, a sacred place where US presidents and the most honored people of the nation have been memorialized. The limestone altar depicts the birth of Jesus, and the arched ceilings and tall columns bring a breath of life to the place, where memorial services are underway for plane-crash victims Philip Beach Sullivan and Bess Lipscomb Sullivan of nearby Arlington, Virginia.

  The Reverends George F. Tittman and Lloyd Craighill remember the Sullivans as dedicated Christians whose lifestyles and actions made the world a better place. Their dedication to helping to modernize China and the personal interest they took in students and ordinary citizens of that nation are remembered with fondness and appreciation.

  Mrs. Sullivan’s body has not been recovered from the ocean, but Mr. Sullivan’s remains will be placed in a cathedral crypt a few days from now, a place reserved for people of not only high honor, but also unquestioned patriotism and selfless Christian values.

  Saturday, November 23, 1957

  Felton, California

  It’s a short drive from the Gene Crosthwaite home on Hillside Drive in Felton to the Wessendorf Mortuary on Church Street, where the Crosthwaite family is gathering for the 8:20 a.m. funeral of Oliver Eugene Crosthwaite. Tania and her grandmother and stepgrandfather are accompanied to the mortuary by Tania’s godparents, Kenneth and Helen Miller of San Francisco. Mr. Miller, an ordnance engineer at Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard, has been a friend of the Crosthwaites since they were neighbors on Casanova Drive in San Mateo several years ago.

  What remains of the purser’s shark-ripped body is inside a closed casket.

  After the service at the mortuary, the family will travel to a requiem high mass at St. John’s Catholic Church in Felton, and then on to the cemetery at Santa Cruz Memorial Park, where Crosthwaite’s body will be placed in a mausoleum.

  Getting to St. John’s Catholic Church is easy enough, but for some strange reason the procession is being delayed. A disagreement of some sort is occurring between Crosthwaite’s mother and the funeral directors.

  Shortly after 9 a.m., Oliver Eugene Crosthwaite’s body is finally placed in a mausoleum at Santa Cruz Memorial Park, and before everyone goes their separate ways something strange occurs between Tania and Crosthwaite’s mother, a woman Tania doesn’t even know. It will be more than sixty years before Tania explains what happened.

  Midland, Michigan, is a company town, and this morning it seems like everyone in town is inside the sanctuary of Memorial Presbyterian Church to remember the Lee Clack Family. Earlier this morning a short burial service for Ann Carter Clack and Scott Clack had been held at Midland Cemetery. The bodies of the rest of the Clacks are still lost somewhere in the Pacific.

  “We have gathered here, dear friends, to worship God, to share with one another a common sorrow and to offer a last corporate tribute of affection and esteem to the Lee Clack family, so dearly beloved by relatives and friends,” the pastor tells the mournful gathering.

  “. . . you who numbered Lee and Ann among your friends will always have the cherished memory of a couple who were endowed with life’s finest traits—faith, love, honor, kindness, cheerfulness, and generosity. They were sensitive to the beautiful, drinking deeply at the fountains of music and art. They radiated the joy of life that came from living out, in daily life, the great Christian ideals.”

  A strong wind and cold morning rain beat against the colorful panes of the magnificent church’s stained-glass windows as the pastor tells the congregated grievers that the worldly Clacks were “free from crippling prejudices and unhampered by narrow provincialisms.”

  He says the Clacks were held in high esteem by not only the Dow Chemical family, but also the many people whose lives they had touched in Japan. He reminds everyone that Lee and Ann were devoted and loving parents of four, including the two little girls they had adopted.

  “Four little children to the world were given, to bud on earth, to bloom in heaven.”

  On Friday, November 29, Time magazine correspondent and veteran journalist Walter Harrison Lilly Jr. pulls up a chair in the office of Richard Dexter, FBI special agent in charge of the Chicago office and one of director Hoover’s most trusted and loyal agents. The forty-six-year-old Dexter is also known to be one of Hoover’s commie hunters and is a former member of the Special Intelligence Service, a covert FBI organization created in June 1940 by then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt to keep an eye on Axis activities in Central and South America.

  Lilly wants to know if the FBI
is working on the crash of the lost Pan American Clipper, a strange question coming from a Chicago reporter thousands of miles away from where the news is happening.

  “No, not to my knowledge. We’re not involved in the investigation. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m working on a story that the purser on the plane, a man by the name of Crosthwaite, was to have been fired by Pan Am, but the union got involved and pressured Pan Am to keep him on the payroll.”

  Dexter listens closely but, like everyone else in the FBI, is keenly aware of Hoover’s insistence that the agency not be dragged into the investigation.

  “What we’re hearing is that Crosthwaite had a fight with the captain and somehow that caused the crash,” the reporter volunteers.

  “Even if that were true, which I haven’t heard, we wouldn’t get involved, because without actual proof of a crime we have no jurisdiction,” Dexter replies.

  Offering no more information about Crosthwaite or the crash, and with no help from Dexter in getting his story, reporter Lilly moves on, “confidentially” informing the FBI agent that he is a member of a group at Time magazine investigating emerging civil rights activities in the South.

  This really gets Dexter’s attention because he knows Hoover is concerned about what he believes to be communist influence in civil rights activities. Reporter Lilly leaves the agent’s office, and Dexter immediately picks up the phone to pass on to Hoover’s right-hand man, Nease, what the reporter has just told him about Crosthwaite and the civil rights issue.

  “Lilly told me that a staff group of Time, Life, and Fortune magazines are going to Little Rock this weekend as an undercover group to see how things are progressing there, since the National Guard has taken over,” he tells Nease.