Man and Machine: The Story of Jimmy Doolittle, the Granville Brothers and the Gee Bee R1 Racer

By Adam Beckman

How does a troubled boy from California would come to be one of the world's most renowned aviators? How does a group of brothers who were high school dropouts go from New Hampshire go on to build some of the most advanced aircraft of the time? How do these men become forever linked to one of the greatest air races in history?
This is the story of Jimmy Doolittle, the Granville Brothers, and the amazing Gee Bee R-1 Racer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Jul 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642371994

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Bibliography

Introduction

How does a troubled boy from California end up becoming one of the most accomplished aviators in history? How do a group of high school dropouts build from scratch one of the most iconic and revolutionary aircraft every created? How do these men on different paths somehow collide in the fall of 1932?

This is the story of Jimmy Doolittle and his rise to aviation prominence. This is also the story of the Granville brothers and their wonderful aircraft. But really it is a story of how a series of events changed the course of air racing history and, some may argue, aviation in general.

Aviation at the time was still in its infancy. The science of aerodynamics was something that was not well understood with regards to manned flight. Aircraft manufacturing was still largely based on wood frames and dope and fabric. Instruments to assist the pilot were still being figured out. Yet there was a group of men willing to push these wooden aircraft with high-powered engines to the limits of the time. Many times, this pushing resulted in crashes and death.

The interwar period in aviation was one of huge advancements. Much of this was due to the air races that took place in the ’20s and ’30s. These races, which many times paid huge sums of money to the winners, pushed aircraft designers, engines, manufacturers and pilots to their limits. These air races advanced the aviation technology at such a rapid pace it was hard for anyone to keep up.

As a result, both the commercial and military aviation segments grew greatly right into World War II. This growth would continue until present day with each company, each manufacturer, each pilot pushing the next. But it all started with the air races. It all started with men like Jimmy Doolittle and Granny Granville. It all started with people who saw aviation as something more than just barnstorming post-World War I. These men of the Golden Age of Aviation propelled aviation for centuries to come. This is their story.

Chapter 1

Doolittle

The Doolittle family has several hundreds of years of history in the northeastern United States. Interestingly enough, the Doolittles laid claims not too far from the Granvilles, with family in Connecticut, while the Granvilles hailed from New Hampshire. Jimmy Doolittle’s father, Frank Henry Doolittle, was born in 1869. As Frank reached adulthood, the prospect of the new western frontier loomed large. He wanted to travel west and seek adventure and fortune like so many others of the day.

California and much of the West was suffering from gold fever at the time. This fever had caused towns to pop-up all over the West, thus causing a great demand for skilled workers, specifically carpenters. Frank, a carpenter by trade, wanted to be where the action was and try to make it in California and the western frontier. After he made a leap of faith and headed west, he would travel from town to town looking for work and trying to make a living for himself. It was not an easy job in the rough–and-tumble West, but Frank made the best of it. He continued into his mid-thirties working on his craft and taking whatever jobs he could to make ends meet. Sometimes this required travel throughout the region and taking whatever carpenter jobs paid. But it wasn’t enough. He still was not satisfied with the excitement, or—to be honest—his pay. He needed more. More adventure. That adventure was San Francisco.

Frank settled down in the small island town of Alameda, California. Located just south of Oakland, the town was the perfect spot for Frank to start his new adventure. Shortly after arriving, Frank met a lovely young lady named Rosa Shephard, who was a native of the area. The two fell in love and married shortly thereafter.

The young couple settled in the region and began their lives together. On December 14, 1896, Rosa Doolittle gave birth to one James Harold Doolittle, who was to be an only child. Interestingly enough, the formal name for their new son came later and the original birth certificate only showed the newborn as Doolittle. The two initially could not decide on the name for their son, but eventually settled on James.

Just a few months after James, Jimmy Doolittle was born, Frank received word of a gold rush in the Klondike. In the summer of 1897, word had spread of riches in Canada and Alaska. Now some of this information was most likely untrue and merely legend, but Frank did not care. Miners came back with stories of beaches with gold nuggets you could pluck right out of the sand, not to mention rivers nearly flowing with gold. All Frank had to do was get up there and he would be able to pick his fortune right from the ground.

Not only that, but boom towns were popping up all over the region. Nearly overnight, towns would appear. Frank had a skill that paid well in the region, and the opportunity to get some gold on the way. This opportunity for Frank was one he could not pass up. The adventure and opportunity of Alaska was too much for the new father and he decided to leave his new son and bride and travel to Alaska.

The original plan was not to pan for gold, but to use his carpentry skills to build up the new boom towns that had begun to dot the mountainous landscape. The way Frank saw it, this was an opportunity to better himself and his family. He would be able to strike while the iron was hot and better set his family and himself up for success going forward. A skilled carpenter could make nearly four times the amount in the region than in the Lower 45. The prospect of good paying work and the ability to find some gold on the way was just too much to pass up.

That next spring, Frank boarded a steamship departing San Francisco and destined for Alaska. He arrived in Alaska after several weeks on the water. He now had to figure out what he was going to do and where he was going to settle down and try to make a new living in this unforgiving environment. He knew no one in the area. In addition, the region was filled with outlaws and scoundrels. Men now would not think twice about taking from another man, including their life. This unforgiving environment was about to bite into Frank’s livelihood.

Shortly after arriving in Alaska, Frank took a boat up the Yukon River to find work. With his tools in hand, he boarded the boat and headed upriver. Unfortunately in a stroke of bad luck, the boat wrecked on the unforgiving Yukon River. During the accident, all of Frank’s carpentry tools sunk to the bottom of the river, lost forever.

This was devastating for Frank. His entire livelihood was lying on the bottom of the Yukon River with no way to retrieve it. He had no money, no family, and no tools to provide for himself. His back was against the wall. Frank continued to wander around Alaska looking for a way to make a living. He now had to resort to a backup plan. He could not make money as a carpenter, so he had to start looking for gold. In 1899, he heard of the ease in finding gold in the boomtown of Nome, Alaska. Never one to turn away adventure, Frank set a course for Nome.

Nome, Alaska is a cold and unrelenting place where not many people put down roots. But that thought process changed in the summer of 1898, when three men came to the area in search for fame and fortune. They came to tame the wild and find a fortune in gold in the area. The men—Jafet Lindeberg, Erik Lindblom and John Bryteson—hit the jackpot. The three Swedes discovered gold in Anvil Creek just outside of Nome. Within a matter of weeks, Nome became a bustling boomtown. Thousands of people, mostly men, descended on the town. The town quickly gained a reputation for outlaws, mining and easy women. It was a frontier boomtown in the truest sense of the word.

In fact, the news spread so quickly and the era of gold fever was so strong that Nome grew to a population of just over 10,000 by the end of 1899. Part of the rush was due to the relative ease of mining the gold. Rumors abounded that most of the gold was literally lying on the beaches of the local rivers. You could walk up and down the rivers and pluck gold from the banks with little or no effort. These rumors resulted in a huge influx of adventure seekers who were in it for easy money.

The gold was so plentiful that miners were arriving at a pace of hundreds a day. Many of the new miners were coming via ship from ports such as Seattle and San Francisco. For as little as $100 dollars, a new miner could board a ship and take off for the new adventure and financial security. As such, the town struggled to keep up with the growth. Fights were common with near martial law reigning supreme. It was a rough and tumble town in 1899 when Frank Doolittle arrived.

Frank quickly established roots in the new town on the Bering Sea. Frank built a house a 301 Third Avenue in Nome. It was a fairly comfortable home that Frank was proud of. That fall, he sent a telegram back to Alameda and his wife Rosa. Frank felt that the time had come to have his family come to Alaska and join him, so he requested that Rosa and Jimmy relocate to Nome and continue their lives together. In June 1900, Rosa, her sister Sarah and Jimmy boarded the S.S. Zealandia for the two-week trek to Nome. The S.S. Zealandia was one of thirty steamers that brought nearly 10,000 people to the new population center of Alaska that month alone.

As one would expect, the boomtown of Nome was growing faster than anyone could imagine, expect or even predict. During the peak summer times, the population would swell to over 25,000, most of whom were living in makeshift tents along the beaches of the Bearing Sea. But by the winter of 1900, many of the miners left. The weather was not hospitable to people who were not used to it. As such, the population during the winter months would be reduced to less than 5000 permanent residents.

The Doolittle family began to establish their roots in this new boomtown in the Alaskan tundra. Frank really never made it in the mining world. He was much more successful utilizing his long-held skills as a carpenter. He was able to acquire replacement tools and began working once again in the region as a carpenter. He enjoyed a sizeable wage for his skills.

In Alaska, the need for building led to the ability of Frank to charge nearly $1 an hour, or four times as much as he could charge in the Lower 45. This wage was one of the main reasons that Nome was so attractive to Frank.

Along with the new Doolittle residence, the first school was built in Nome. Jimmy attended first grade and quickly found out that kids can be mean. He was picked on due to his relative short stature compared to his classmates. In addition, most of his classmates were natives to the region. It was somewhat unusual to see a white boy in school. This led to relentless bullying by other children. They picked on him to no end, especially his long curly hair.

As such, Jimmy had to make a decision on how he was going to handle himself going forward. Was he going to take the verbal abuse from the taller and older boys, or was he going to stand up for himself? He stood up. He stood up with a flurry of punches that would cause his older, taller opponent to run in fear. He was not the most skilled fighter, but he was quick and on you before you knew what even happened. Jimmy’s reputation as a tough, scrappy fighter was well deserved and earned him respect throughout the school.

Frank and Jimmy did not have the best relationship during Jimmy’s youth. To say Frank was not in Jimmy’s life would be an understatement. The two really never formed that bond that one would find between father and son. This type of absenteeism by Frank caused lifelong relationship issues between them.

But despite Jimmy and his father’s strained relationship, in the summer of 1904, Frank took Jimmy back to the Lower 45. The two traveled via boat to Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. These big cities opened Jimmy’s eyes to the world outside of Nome. The world of trolley cars, trains, and automobiles. The world that changed Jimmy’s perspective on Nome and what it had to offer. After the six-week trip, Jimmy came back to Nome and knew he wanted to go back south and go back permanently.

That opportunity came just a few years later in 1908. Jimmy was eleven years old and had settled back into small-town Alaska life. His mother had become disillusioned with the lack of opportunities in Alaska and modern conveniences that are found in larger cities. In addition, the relationship and marriage of Frank and Rosa was not on the best of terms. Frank lived a hard life and it was not what Rosa was really looking for in a marriage. So she and Jimmy boarded a boat destined for Los Angeles. Not surprising to Jimmy or his mother, Frank stayed behind in Nome.

Jimmy and his mom settled into life in the big city. Once again, Jimmy was forced to adjust to a changed environment. He was now living with his mom back in Los Angeles and was getting accustomed to life outside of Nome. Things were looking up for the two. He had enrolled in school and settled in with new friends and acquaintances.

In 1910, Jimmy first came across the new invention that was taking the nation by storm and would forever change the course of his life. The powered aircraft had been invented just a few years early by a pair of brothers from Dayton, Ohio, a city that would go on to play a big role later in Jimmy’s life.

This invention had sparked the interest of people all across the country. As such, various powered flight demonstrations and air shows were in nearly every large town across the nation. That summer, Jimmy attended one of the largest air shows west of the Mississippi, where he marveled at the sights of the flying machines. This event sparked the interest in aviation for the impressionable youth and led to a strong desire to take to the sky.

After the airshow, Jimmy quickly became enthralled with everything aviation. Any magazine or article that spoke of aviation he would read. He wanted to learn about how aircraft worked, what made the aircraft take flight and everything else he could find out about aviation. Rosa quickly took note of her son’s passion for aviation. She ordered glider plans from Popular Mechanics magazine so he could construct his own glider.

Jimmy couldn’t wait to construct his first glider. He pored over the plans, making sure he understood every aspect of the design. He wanted to ensure that this craft was going to be assembled correctly and take to the skies like the ones he had witnessed at the airshow. He would dream at night about the open sky and his ability to tame it. But these dreams he soon found out were much harder to attain than he first thought and hoped. His first attempt to build a functioning glider from plans was met with limited success. This was a challenging undertaking for a boy of his age, but Jimmy was determined to try to make it work. Even after experiencing several setbacks due to construction issues and fluke weather events, Doolittle did not give up on his passion for aviation.

It was also the move to Los Angeles that reignited another passion of Doolittle’s. While in Alaska, Doolittle had to fend for himself with the other kids. He was always the smallest one in class, so he