Two Bernies Who Saved Aviation

Without apologizing for being an old muser, I wonder how many passengers wheeling luggage through New York’s JFK could identify the airport’s namesake. Those unable to decode the initials shouldn’t be allowed to board anything but a tram to LaGuardia (LGA). I can understand not knowing Fiorello LaGuardia, the Colossus whose name languishes athwart one of the worst airports I’ve ever shuffled through; admittedly not recently. To refresh memories, Mr. LaGuardia was a southpaw for the New York Giants, “Pope of the Polo Grounds,” from 1934 to 1945 … or mayor of New York City. Wikipedia is unclear, but either way, it stuck.

Further west, Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway share World War II themes. In 1942 naval aviator Edward “Butch” O’Hare, flying a Grumman F-4 Wildcat, became the Navy’s first ace by downing five Japanese bombers during one mission. He received the Medal of Honor, and in 1997 the Chicago Tribune dubbed him the “prototypical top gun.” Unlike the movie franchise that won’t die, even in space, O’Hare died in combat in 1943, so in 1949 Chicago’s Orchard Place/Douglas Field—home to a Douglas C-54 plant—was renamed O’Hare, while retaining the ORchard/Douglas ORD identifier.

Rebranding airfields as war memorials continued in 1949, as Chicago Municipal Airport became Midway (MDW), honoring the 1942 Battle of Midway. For years I thought it was called Midway because it was midway between New York’s LaGuardia and Denver’s Stapleton Airport, named for Jean Stapleton of "All In The Family." You’d be excused for not knowing that, since the sitcom went off the air in 1979, and Stapleton Airport closed in 1995, replaced by Denver International Airport (DEN), which won ICAO’s Most Boring Aerodrome Moniker award in 1997 and swallowed most available real estate in northeast Colorado.

My editor says I’m misinformed about Stapleton’s name. Initially, it was Denver Municipal Airport, then renamed for Denver’s on-again-off-again mayor, Benjamin Stapleton (1923-47), a visionary who foresaw the limitless possibilities of forcing airline passengers to pass through his city, while their luggage transferred to points unknown.

The 1929 site for Denver Muni—later renamed Stapleton after whomever—was in Rattlesnake Hollow, not to be confused with Prohibition’s bootlegging pilot, Jake Hollow. Either way, superb marketing possibilities squandered. Denver’s viper-inspired airport opened over the objections of nonpilots who saw no need to waste tax dollars on aviation ventures. Civic shortsightedness is the bedrock of our National Airspace System (NAS), but visionaries such as Stapleton—Ben or Jean—persist, and aviation survives, which segues to Nash Field (6Z6), Indianola, Iowa.

Where? Exactly.

You might think it’s named for the rustworthy Nash Rambler, like the one my father cursed on New Jersey winter mornings when I was a kid, but you’d be mistaken. Instead, 6Z6 is tagged for its founder, Bernie Nash, who in 1942, age 10, watched a P-51 Mustang buzz his hometown of Indianola, as he enthusiastically waved from a pagoda rooftop while shouting, “P-51 Mustang, Cadillac of the skies!”

OK, that last bit was from Spielberg’s 1984 classic, "Empire Of The Sun." In backpedaling defense, I pictured the scene of young Christian Bale cheering the attacking Mustangs when Bernie, now 89, recounted that he “saw an Army P-51 Mustang come growling … fast from the south and buzz low, right over (town).” Thanks in part to 1940s Wings Cigarette Cards (like baseball cards but with smokes instead of stale bubble gum), kids like Bernie could identify “all the fighter planes of the war on sight.” After serving in the Army during the Korean War, Bernie used his GI Bill to become a flight instructor in a town without an airport, and faithful to municipal myopia, didn’t want one. Iowa’s motto: “Si non habemus, non opus est.” Or: “If we don’t have it, we don’t need it.”

Bernie and other local pilots of his generation shuttled from one temporary farm strip to another, until the Good Witch of the Iowa Aeronautics Commission floated into the county on a bubble of federal and state largesse to build a reliever airport for nearby Des Moines’ technically international airport (DSM); yours if you’ll sign here ….

Civic response? Not only, “No,” but, “No, thank you and get off our lawn!” The money slowly retreated 20 miles north to another city, Ankeny, which later opened Ankeny Regional (IKV), Des Moines’ thriving GA reliever. Left at the altar, Bernie and pilot friends bought an old road grader and without public funds, scraped out an airfield on Bernie’s farm. Nash Field, built entirely with private money and labor—but taxed unashamedly by the county that didn’t want it—opened in 1972 and remains the only public-use airport in the county.

Naming facilities after dead presidents, forgotten war heroes, or even cartoonists—such as Charles M. Shultz, Sonoma County Airport (STS)—is swell, but let’s acknowledge those who defy collective inertia to build and maintain the smaller airports where fuel, hangars, and restrooms keep GA alive (insert: Copland’s “Fanfare For The Common FBO”). When stopping at an unfamiliar airfield, instead of gasping at the avgas price, ask how the field got its name. “Scorpion Sally Airport? Why ol’ Sally crashed her Standard LS-5 biplane while landing here in 1928 when a scorpion crawled into her flying britches and stung her on the roundout …”

History is how we reimagine it. Rattlesnake International would’ve been a classier name than Denver International; picture the hoodies, mugs, and refrigerator magnets in the gift shops.

The P-51, despite sporting a Packard engine (built under Rolls-Royce license), is indeed, the Cadillac of the skies. Spielberg and I will suffer no argument … of course I’ll promote anything he likes in hopes he’ll option my Jake Hollow series. Steven, call, we’ll do brunch.

And the genius who patented rolling luggage in 1972 to revolutionize almost getting to your last-minute gate reassignment, was yet another Bernie—Bernard D. Sadow. For that reason, Denver International should be renamed Rattlesnake Bernie International. “Welcome to Rattlesnake, where the local time is 1929 ….”