Sometimes when I'm doing research for a blog article, I get sidetracked on a rabbit trail that leads down an entirely different path. The Tammany Family blog post about Aviation in St. Tammany was one of those projects that led to something else.
That something else was actually one of the main characters in St. Tammany Airways, the company that started in 1928 and contributed to major advances in airmail delivery across the South. The operations manager for St. Tammany Airways, beginning in 1927, was William DeWald.When I began looking into the aviation career of DeWald, both before he joined St. Tammany Airways and after he left the company, I came upon an individual who was highly-esteemed in early aviation.
So here is an outline of events that chronicle his life and accomplishments. Although there seemed to be some confusion about what his middle initial was, a description of his life and career was easy to follow. In 1912 and 1913, he was racing cars. He began flying in 1916, but in 1918 DeWald was sent to Camp Lee, VA, after being drafted into World War I.
In 1920, after the war, we find him flying for the government airmail service,"the pilot of the first airmail plane to land at Ak-Sar-Ben field in Omaha."
Click on the images to make them larger.
The establishment of air mail service between Omaha and Chicago was a big accomplishment, and he was a part of it.
He apparently was willing to take risks in making sure the airmail got to its destination in time.
The lack of enough pilots for the fledging airmail service resulted in some pilots being overworked, in addition to the lack of enough planes to go around.
DeWald did take enough time off, however, to get married in 1920.
Moving the mail on schedule resulted in many mishaps, downed airplanes among them, but DeWald took it upon himself to drop badly-needed spare parts by parachute to those in need.
Articles appeared in several newspapers telling of the parts dropped by parachute.
Another high-risk innovation was flying after sunset. When the schedule fell behind, DeWald was ready to take off at dusk and land at night, a risky maneuver at that point in aviation.
Again, newspaper articles told of his daring flight.
He also took part in activities held by the Aero Club, a group of pilots in the newly-established government airmail service.
DeWald almost became legendary as an early airmail pilot.
In 1921, he was working for Huff-Daland Co.
He was also instrumental in providing a cross-country flight for fresh vegetables, from farms in New Jersey to restaurants on Long Island and in Masssachusetts. That was ground-breaking, air transport for farm goods.
He was even linked to the Admiral Byrd flight over the North Pole in 1926.
In August of 1927, newspapers nationwide reported that he had gone missing during a seaplane flight from Norfolk, VA, to New Orleans.
After 24 hours of concern, he was found safe east of Pensacola. His fuel had run out, he said.
The inaugural flight of privately-contracted airmail routes for St. Tammany Airways began in 1928, with DeWald serving as operations manager.
DeWald became well-known as he flew around the Southern states promoting aviation and the building of airports.
As St. Tammany Airways grew, he became their spokesman.
But he continued to pilot aircraft on key airmail routes.
He attended aviation conferences and gave speeches.
In 1929 he was working with the Fokker Aircraft Corporation.
In many articles and photographs, DeWald became the face of progress in aviation.
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https://postalmuseum.si.edu/dewald-william-n
According to an aviation memorabilia vendor on E-Bay (who was selling early Airmailed envelopes), "William N. DeWald was a test pilot for the first flight of the world's largest single engine aircraft. The envelope shown below is a "flown First Flight cover" signed by DeWald and bearing the C.A.M. 29 FIRST FLIGHT stamp, canceled in Houston, Texas Jan 13, 1929 and backstamped twice, Springfield, Ill, Jan 24, 1929.
"William DeWald was born in 1893, served as an engineer and was head of the experimental department at Stutz (an early racing car builder). He was a Reserve Military Aviator, trained at Miami, and served with the United States (1917-19).
"DeWald was appointed a U. S. Air Mail Service pilot on April 9, 1920, and assigned at College Park MD, followed by appointments to Cleveland OH and Omaha NE. He resigned in August of 1920, and flew official air mail on the Omaha-Chicago route before actual service began.
"He flew air mail for St. Tammany & Gulf Coast Airways, Inc. in 1928, followed by a job for Southern Air Transport in 1929. He was on the first flight of the Fairchild Model 95 XC-31 USAAC cargo aircraft, the first purpose-designed military cargo aircraft and then the world’s largest single engine aircraft, at Hagerstown Airport MD, in 11934.
Flying Early Airmail Routes Was Dangerous Work
"The U. S. Air Mail Service was formed as a branch of the Post Office Department under the Second Assistant Postmaster General in 1918 and flew air mail until it was disbanded in 1927. There weren't very many pilots involved and the lives of many of them were cut short!
"In the later twenties, the movement of air mail was placed in the hands of contractors. There were two distinct groups of airmail aviators and flew under distinctly different circumstances."
The seller, AviationBookseller.Com, then asks "What makes the pilots of the U.S. Air Mail Service so interesting, more than ninety years after the service was disbanded?"
"The answer lies in the kind of men they were, in their acceptance of significant risk in every undertaking, and their single-minded focus on a career in aviation. These men were to the children of the twenties what astronauts were to us in the sixties, railroad engineers were to the children of the nineteenth century and explorers were to still earlier generations. Their lives simply reeked of adventure!
"When pilots signed up for the Air Mail Service they were required to agree to fly fixed routes in literally any kind of weather. And to do it in antiquated open-cockpit planes with only the most basic of instrumentation, which most knew from their Great War flying to be dangerous under the best of circumstances. Yet applications far, far outnumbered the available jobs and the pilots, day after day, accepted their flight schedules and did everything in their power to deliver the mail to the next air mail field on a fixed schedule.
"By the time air mail flying was placed in the hands of contractors and Contract Air Mail pilots were licensed by the Post Office Department, things had changed dramatically for pilots. Aircraft were purpose-built for air mail, radio had been introduced, weather was much better understood, pilots were carefully selected and trained and the risks of flying were better understood by the executives managing the air mail routes."
