Book Review: Jennies to Jets

The morning of May 15, 1918 birthed a milestone in the progress of aviation not only in the United States, but across the world. For the first time ever, mail was being flown on a regularly scheduled route which began in Washington, D.C. and ended in New York with one stop in Pennsylvania. Although there were three different machines at the three different airfields, the pilot carrying the day’s first load of mail, to include one letter autographed by president Woodrow Wilson that was to be auctioned later, was U.S. Army pilot Lt. George Boyle and his ship was a Hispano-Suiza powered Curtiss Jenny. At the helm of this entire groundbreaking operation was Captain Benjamin Lipsner, the first superintendent of the aerial mail service for the United States post office. Although Lt. Boyle took off in the wrong direction that fateful day and ended up flying south instead of north towards Pennsylvania, Captain Lipsner’s dreams of a regularly scheduled aerial mail service came to life before the eyes of the entire world. With a vigorous passion for aeronautics and an equally impressive passion for leadership, Ben Lipsner led the post office’s famous air mail service to success and popularity and secured a concrete spot in American legend with his group of hand-selected pilots flying modified Curtiss Jennys and the specialized Standard JR-1B mail planes. Not only this, but Captain Lipsner’s new aerial mail service would end up paving the way for scheduled airline flying and commercial aviation as a whole with these roots still prominent in today’s flying world. In this book, Benjamin Lipsner discusses how his dreams of a scheduled aerial service came to fruition, his relationship with the Army and post office, the interactions and reactions with his pilots, their flying adventures, his resignation from the post office, and the state of affairs in commercial aviation at the time. Jennys to Jets serves as a wonderful source for the individual looking to research the history of mail flying, the airlines, and early aviation as a whole.

Flying the mail for the post office was not an idea new to officials in America. As early as the 1800s the idea of carrying mail had escaped the enterprising minds of aeronauts and for the first time mail was taken airborne in a balloon piloted by Richard Clayton on the 4th of July, 1835. Carrying the mail in a lighter-than-air craft was performed once again on August 17, 1859 when John Wise and John LaMountain took off in their balloon “Jupiter” from Lafayette, Indiana. These two flights on American soil gave the U.S. government the impetus they needed to allocate resources to this grand adventure and almost half a century after Jupiter’s ascent, in June of 1910, Representative Morris Sheppard introduced the first airmail bill to congress which authorized the Postmaster General to investigate the possibilities of flying the mail over a given route. As can be read in this book, it was about this time in history that Ben Lipsner found himself a new mechanical engineer, graduating from the Armour Institute in 1905 with a specific fascination with the intricacies of flying machines. Although Captain Lipsner worked as a driving instructor for the National Motor Vehicle Company, which incidentally lead him to teach pilot Ed Gardner how to drive the speedy race cars before he was hired as a pilot for the post office, his interests in flying machines never waned and he found himself taking more adventures to the local airfield until finally he developed a unique relationship with the airport staff that allowed him to assist in maintenance on the local flyers’ machines. It was this initial contact with the earliest flying machines and his experience at a multitude of engineering firms that led Lipsner to believe that one day, possibly, flying machines might be able to carry goods from one point to another. 

As he explains in the book, it was in Washington D.C. that Lipsner discovered his vision of using aircraft for commercial purposes could become reality. One of the firms Lipsner found employment with in the prewar years through his commissioning in the Army was the Texas Oil Company, with his talents being utilized to find a replacement for castor oil which was used ubiquitously in aircraft engines of the day. The solution was discovered with his fellow engineer Captain O.J. Day after the pair were invited to Washington to further research probable solutions. Being around aviation once again, the people in charge of it, Lipsner realized he needed to capitalize on this time and voice his idea soon if it were to become reality. To make the obsession worse, Lipsner also discovered that in 1916 $100,000 was appropriated by congress for experimentation in the way of carrying the mail by air and if not used by July 1, 1918, it would no longer be available. This seemed like the final piece of the puzzle with Captain Lipsner stating “[George] Connor, who later became a minister of the Gospel and for the past fifteen years has had a parsonage in a community near Washington, D.C., listened to some of the details I had in mind. When I finished, he said, “You mean you can actually develop a system showing the actual costs of operation?” When I assured him that I could, he thought about it a moment, then left his desk. He returned shortly. “There’s a man who’d like to hear some of your ideas,” he said. “Come this way.” We went back to an office marked “Second Assistant Postmaster General,” and I was introduced to Otto Praeger.” (Lipsner, The Airmail: Jennys to Jets p. 63) This meeting with Otto Praeger led to more constructive and persuasive discussions and so it was that the United States’ air mail service was beginning to find footing.

One aspect that I found to be particularly striking while reading this book was how much the author included the reader in his decision making processes, almost as if he let you read his personal diary at the time of certain happenings. Although the mail was flown by Army aviators during the first month of the new service’s existence, civilian air mail pilots were hand-picked and hired by Lipsner himself at a time that coincided with his resignation from the Army and subsequent full-time employment with the post office. As the new air mail service was already under intense scrutiny from almost every external party, Lipsner had lofty requirements for his pilot candidates to ensure no ammunition was given to the naysayers and, foremost, that the job of flying the mail was done safely and successfully. Captain Lipsner’s ability to place external stressors aside and address the situation in a straightforward manner was known throughout the small community of aerial mail employees, namely the pilots, which appears to be another reason why they enjoyed his company so much as a leader. This characteristic was clearly demonstrated when Lipsner was in the process of opening the New York to Chicago route and declared that Max Miller, the first civilian air mail pilot, and his good friend Ed Gardner would be the first individuals to fly the experimental route on September 5, 1918. The question of who would get there first was a point of contention for the two friends and when Gardner learned that Max would launch first, he made his frustrations apparent to his boss and friend. Lipsner diffused the situation by flipping a coin to determine who would go first after settling the two men down and, as if the coin was in on the ordeal, favored Max’s guess and once again it was decided that he would fly first. The two apologized for their insults and once again, Lipsner’s diplomacy saved the mission and possibly a friendship.

This was just one more example of Lipsner’s fine leadership as the first superintendent of the U.S. Post Office’s aerial mail service. From the first day of service on May 15, 1918 to Lipsner’s resignation just 111 days later on December 6, 1918, his pilots demonstrated supreme faith in their leader and his ability to make decisions for the betterment of the service and their lives as pilots. There were many examples of this confidence being displayed in the book such as when Lipsner believed in and convinced Eddie Gardner to fly the mail back from Chicago to New York in one day, a grand feat which he actually accomplished. But no greater proof of this exists, in my opinion, than the day after Lipsner’s resignation when pilot Max Miller faithfully turned in his resignation as well, citing reasons parallel with Lipsner’s. Miller’s resignation letter speaks for all the air mail pilots when he states “…I am frank to state that I do not feel confident in the outcome of a plan different from one which is now being successfully operated; and knowing full well Captain Lipsner’s capabilities of directing the Aerial Mail Service to a successful conclusion to date, therefore it is obvious that I use my best judgement and take the stand of handing herewith my resignation.” Soon after this series of unfortunate events, air mail pilots went on the first pilot strike in history and refused to fly the mail under their new leadership following the Captain’s departure. Lipsner’s fine leadership abilities again showed themselves as he responded to the strikers: “…I immediately called the boys together and told them that such a move would do more harm than good, and that I still believed in the service, though I disagreed with the methods used in running it. These arguments didn’t settle their tempers very much, and it was only when I pointed out that if they continued the strike, I could be cited for preventing the delivery of mail, that they went back to work.” (Lipsner, The Airmail: Jennys to Jets p. 186) The pilot’s faith in the abilities of the first superintendent of the aerial mail service was more obvious than ever with that collective decision to strike without him as their leader and their willingness to place their jobs on the line to support his decision. This single moment speaks volumes about the man as a leader, officer, businessman, and person. More evidence for this can be found on almost every page of this fantastic read.

In the later chapters of The Airmail: Jennys to Jets, Lipsner address the future of commercial aviation and what his creation had adapted itself into at the time of the book’s publication. Being the man who can claim he kindled the everlasting flame of commercial aviation itself, Lipsner provides the reader with insight into what he thought future generations could expect out of mail and passenger carrying aircraft. One might forget how incredible it is that just 30 years after Lt. Boyle carried the mail in his Curtiss Jenny, a trip that took three hours and twenty minutes, a United States Air Force pilot flew the same route in a supersonic Republic F-84 fighter jet… in just twenty-seven minutes. Yes, one might forget that, but Benjamin Lipsner will quickly remind you of the innumerable impressive feats of mail-carrying pilots. With the onset of jet-propelled aircraft taking over the skies then mostly dominated by Lockheed Constellations, Boeing 337s, and Douglas DC-6s, the man who created commercial aviation still emphasized how critical it was that the American public made a push to conquer the skies over the 50 states and, for that matter, the world. It is impossible to express in words the progress made from 1918 to 1951 in regard to commercial flying, but Lipsner still pushed for his creation to strive for perfection, saying “Now is the proper time to exploit the uses of this air ocean, to gain from it all the things it has to offer. Airliners sailing in this vast ocean offer tremendous advantages over their surface competitors, yet we are slow to accept these advantages. We remain content with obsolete forms of transportation when with very little effort we can reap the harvest of good things which air transportation offers.” (Lipsner, The Airmail: Jennys to Jets p. 271) Commercial aviation was seemingly at its peak; a fine, classy experience where people flew in dress clothing and dined on properly cooked meals while cruising at an altitude almost five miles into the troposphere. Yet Lipsner was not satisfied, and in his charismatic way pushed individuals and companies alike to accomplish even greater things in a world still recovering from war and terror.

Captain Benjamin Lipsner, in the writing of this book, does a fantastic job of explaining his thought processes while trying to turn his dream of commercial flying into reality. His emotions during the entirety of his tenure were made very apparent in the style of his writing and I found it quite easy to connect on an emotional level while reading. Benjamin Lipsner offered a very inviting look into his reality of initiating the future of commercial aviation on a worldwide scale and provided background on numerous historical events in aviation with a great deal of detail. Interactions with air mail pilots, top Army and post office office officials, airline operators of the 20s and 30s, and a multitude of discussions on the future of commercial flying are all included in this propitious historical text. It is my opinion as an aviation enthusiast and historian that The Airmail: Jennies to Jets deserves a spot on the bookshelf of all individuals interested in aviation history and serves as a reliable, and enjoyable, source for telling the story of one of the most fascinating industries to exist today. My library has only benefitted from this book belonging to it and I believe yours will to.

Sources: Benjamin Lipsner. The Airmail: Jennies to Jets. Wilcox & Follett Company, 1951.