Gene Flew

Gene was the most highly educated of the Sampson siblings of his generation:  He had almost completed his requirements for a degree in aeronautical engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle when he ran out of money.  He was 23 years old when the Great Depression hit. He had $.35 left in his pocket, so he hitchhiked home to Coos Bay, and never went back to school. After dinking around for a bit, he went to work for a beer distributor, George Melzer, and soon made himself indispensible. But he followed through on his interest in aviation by learning to fly at the old “Eastside” airport on Coos Bay. Eventually he would buy Melzer’s business; but when the U.S. entered WW II, even though he had a wife and son at home, he was determined to enlist.  By then, he was 35 years old, and the Navy turned him down—he was too old—until they found out that he was a pilot. Ah! In that case, he was now an officer in the United States Navy, and was sent to Fancher Field, at Wenatchee, Washington, to train new Navy flyers.

     In the 10 years before Pearl Harbor, the Navy had trained around 5,000 flyers, or 500 per year.  Pearl Harbor was December, 1941. In 1942, the Navy trained 10,869 fliers; 20,842 in 1943; 21,067 in 1944; and with the end of the war being foreseeable, 8,880 fliers in 1945. Each was given primary, intermediate, and advanced training, and was sent to join a squadron with 600 hours of flight time, 200 for a specific airplane type. See World War II Aircraft.Net,R. Leonard, Senior Member. (A private pilot can be licensed in 35 hours, but that’s a minimum. At that point, he knows nothing much more than how to take off and land. It takes a great deal more experience to become a good pilot. That 600 hours of Navy training is the minimal required for a commercial pilot’s license; that works out to fifteen weeks at a full 40 hours per week, but flying wouldn’t happen that fast. The planes could carry a load of fuel that could leave them aloft for about 1 hour at a time. By contrast, Air Force military jet pilots, consuming huge amounts of fuel, must be licensed within 35 hours or wash out of their programs; and are graduated with 50 hours of flight time. Interview of Jerry Horn, 2011)

     The airplane that Gene used to train pilots was likely the N3N, built by the Naval Aircraft Factory. Built around a Stearman airframe, it was the primary trainer used for training both land and seaplane pilots. It was an open cockpit biplane, usually painted bright yellow.  It was used before and during WW II, but was last produced in 1938. One wing went over the fuselage and one under. One cockpit was directly beneath the wing, and the other just behind the wing. It could reach a speed of 126 mph, and travel 470 miles between fill-ups. It could reach a 15,200’ ceiling. It weighed 2,090 pounds, and up to 2,792pounds gross. It was about 23’ long, about the length of a small RV; and it had a 34’ wingspan. Google N3N to see a photo.

     Given the nature of Fancher Field, the training that was conducted there would have been beginning training. (Comment of Jerry Horn, former commercial pilot and retired aeronautical engineer.)   The field lies on the east side of the Columbia River, just about exactly in the middle of Washington State, where the river runs north-south from Canada to the Oregon border. The field is located across the river from Wenatchee, WA, and now falls within the formal city limits of the City of East Wenatchee, WA. To the west lay the extremely rugged, forested terrain of the Cascade Mountain Range, studded with snow-covered peaks. To the north lay the equally rugged North Cascades National Forest. To fly south was to follow the river. And the runway itself was cut into the huge sandbar that constitutes the bank of the Columbia at Wenatchee, a remnant of flooding from the cataclysms that followed the melting of giant ice dams 40,000 years ago.  Above the sand bar to the east lie multiple tiers of basalt cliffs, rising to the top of the flat, wheat-covered plateau that comprises most of eastern Washington. Gene told his son Sam that climbing over those obstacles in short distances could be a thrill.

     Fancher Field at the time had a certain claim to fame. In 1931, just 11 years before Gene was sent there, former barnstormer Clyde Pangborn, and his friend Hugh Herndon, Jr. , became the first men to fly across the Pacific from Japan to the U.S. They had to overload their airplane with fuel to attempt the trip, so once they were airborne, they reduced the weight and drag of their craft by ditching their landing gear. Theoretically, they had planned to land at Seattle, but found it socked in, so continued their hop across the mountains to Fancher. Somehow, Pangborn’s family knew what to expect, and waited for him there. He landed the craft on its belly, but dug his propeller into the ground, twisting it beyond use ever again.  Pangborn and Herndon were unscathed, and became famous.(Permanent display, Wenatchee Valley Historical and Cultural Museum, Wenatchee, WA.)

     Fancher Field is no long an airstrip. There is still a hangar on the site, painted with a mural of Pangborn’s plane, the Miss Veedol. There is a small terminal building that is easy to imagine in use, surely containing a pot of coffee getting stale on the back of a wood stove. But the landing strip itself has been fenced with a sight-obscuring fence and is used as a storage area for school buses, plus boats and RVs in the off season. It is crowded in among close-packed houses of a new subdivision. The local airport has been moved several miles downstream to Pangborn Memorial Airport, offering regular service to Seattle via Horizon Airlines four times per day.

    When the business of training pilots ramped down, Gene was one of the earliest of military men to be able to return home, and being one of higher rank, was invited to, and did, give a speech at the huge public celebration at the end of the war.