TBT Rockford: Bert "Fish" Hassell Pt. 3

No word was heard from the lost flyers so a land search was organized by Professor Hobbs while the United States Coast Guard cutter Marion and the Danish vessel Island Falk also took up the search along the route the airmen were expected to take over water. After an extensive search by the two ships they reported to headquarters that they had been unable to find any trace of the missing plane or the pilots after searching in the region in which the plane was last reported. They had cruised the area from which the last signal was received from Bert Hassell and Parker Cramer, and had gone fifty miles farther along the plane's projected course. They cutters had listened for signals from the plane during their search in addition to calling the Greater Rockford at two hour intervals to no avail. Many people had not given up hope that the fliers had landed somewhere, while others feared the worst that the flyers went down in the icy waters and that they would not survive long.

On September 3, 1928 word was received from Professor Hobbs at the University of Michigan observatory at Mount Evans that Bert Hassell and Parker “Shorty” Cramer, crew of the America to Sweden plane the Greater Rockford are at the observatory safe and in good condition. The two fliers had been forced down in Greenland because of dwindling fuel supplies about 100 miles from Mt. Evans. As the pilot later told the press "We landed safely on century old ice with about two inches of hoar frost on it, it remained surprisingly intact. We put on heavy boots, parka, took a rifle and some pemmican (concentrated reindeer meat) and started to walk to our base. Fourteen days later, when most of the World had given up hope of finding the two men alive, Eskimo scouts saw their smoke signals and led them to safety. Professor Hobbs, head of the Greenland exploration expedition and the Greenland base of the Greater Rockford's expedition, supplied the half-starved pair with soup and caribou steak and radioed the news of their rescue to The New York Times. Hobbs described the ice crevasse along the fjord where they landed as "a wild and unexplored area with practically no human, inhabitants."

When the news of the fliers being alive and unharmed reached Rockford over the radio, throngs of people flocked to the streets and made their way downtown by foot or in long caravans of autos with horns blaring, factory whistles were sounded and people celebrated the news with cheers while the newspapers were deluged with phone calls about the news. The flyers would depart by boat - the USS Frederik VIII to the United States on October 5, 1928 and reached the port of New York City on October 15 where they were greeted by Hassell's wife and sons, President Coolidge, incoming President Herbert Hoover, New York Mayor James Walker and Rockford Mayor Bert Allen among others and the fliers also held court for the world press. The now famous aviators would return to Rockford on October 19, 1928 to much fanfare. Cramer tried the Arctic route again with Oliver Paquette in 1931, their flight disappeared at sea. Hassell wanted to go back, retrieve his airplane and try again but support for such a costly recovery was lacking. Eventually all of the hoopla would die down and Hassell decided to stay at home in Rockford. Hassell was left with many debts from his flight to Sweden. During the Great Depression he worked for several aircraft companies. Eventually, he became director of aircraft sales and engineering for Rockford Screw Products, a firm that supplied fasteners to airplane manufacturers, but not for long. During World War II Hassell would return to Labrador and Greenland as U.S. Air Force commander of bases serving as stepping off points for bombers and transports taking the Great Circle Route to Europe which Hassell pioneered.

One day in 1944, an excited Army Reconnaissance pilot burst into Hassell's airbase office at Goose Bay, Labrador. "I've got to use your darkroom," he said. "We've just taken a picture of something unbelievable on the Greenland ice cap. It's an old airplane, lying upside down." Hassell looked at the pilot and replied, "So would you be, if you'd been out there for 16 years, that's my old airplane, the Greater Rockford" Newsman Bob Considine witnessed the incident. I’d like a copy of that picture, Fish, he told Hassell. No Hassell replied, do you think I want my friends to think I landed the plane on its back? Considine wrote a story on the discovery of the airplane, and Ernest Gann, who flew cargo ships through Goose Bay during World War II, mentioned it in one of his aviation novels, Island in the Sky.

Back in civilian life Hassell would go to Keflavik, Iceland in 1947 to upgrade the former Meeks Air Base to accommodate larger aircraft taking part in the Berlin Airlift. When Hassell was in his late 50s, he oversaw the construction of the huge air base at Thule, Greenland.He returned to Rockford in 1954. In 1955 he went to Canada to help build the eastern portion of the distant early warning system and once again returned to Rockford in 1957. In our next and final installment we will examine what became of the Greater Rockford airplane.

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Enjoy this week’s installment of TBT Rockford featuring Bert "Fish" Hassell!