One Century Ago: The Willoughby Spit Crash

Editors Preface: As the Navy-Marine Corps team mourned the loss of five Marines during a peacetime exercise off Japan last week, capping five years of rising aviation mishaps, we however must acknowledge that military aviation has been dangerous, whether in wartime or peacetime, virtually since it began.  One hundred years ago, an armistice signed over a month earlier was in effect and the Great War was over, yet the operational tempo at Naval Air Station Hampton Roads was nowhere near slowing down.  The following post by Hampton Roads Naval Museum senor docent Hunt Lewis takes a look at a tragic incident that took the lives of two airmen just across Willoughby Bay from the air station (later known as NAS Norfolk) while their seaplane was returning from a nonmilitary mission this week in 1918.  

Sailors mill around the wreck of a Curtiss H-12 seaplane (Bureau Number 770) which crashed into the Willoughby Club at Willoughby Spit, across Willoughby Bay from Naval Air Station Hampton Roads about a half-mile to the south.  The spit separates Willoughby Bay to the south from Chesapeake Bay to the north.  A postcard sold by the Albertype Company that year showed the same aircraft near the seaplane ramp at NAS Hampton Roads as it would have appeared between missions. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

By J. Huntington Lewis
HRNM Docent & Contributing Writer

I was trying to establish the exact location of Little Bay Beach (1907-1928), the first beach resort owned by and for African-Americans in the Hampton Roads area, which was located on land that became part of Naval Air Station Norfolk during its expansion during the 1930s, when I noticed a photograph of seaplane that crashed into the Willoughby Club near the 7th Street Station on December 13, 1918. Newspapers in the following days revealed that the Curtis H-12 seaplane was one of six returning from an aeronautical performance for the Southern Commercial Congress’ annual meeting in Baltimore when it lost its way.  Aircraft maneuvers there included the falling leaf, tail slide, and spinning nose dive; all highly dangerous feats for the twin-engined, wood and canvas bi-winged seaplanes.

This Curtiss H-12 (Bureau Number 767) operating out of NAS Hampton Roads on November 24, 1918, sports nose art featuring a Navy goat, which has been the U.S. Naval Academy's mascot since 1893. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file) 

Having never heard of the Southern Commercial Congress and wondering why the Navy would put on a show for their annual meeting, I found that the Congress was established to promote business opportunities in the “New South,” and had annual meetings between 1898 and 1922 in various cities attended by high level officials of the states, the Federal Government and from foreign nations. For the 1918 meeting in Baltimore, the Navy not only sent aircraft, but sent the battleships Iowa, Indiana, and Massachusetts, seven destroyers, and lesser craft. But I also discovered that the 1916 Congress was held here in Norfolk. 

Aviation personnel at Naval Air Station Hampton Roads pose for a group portrait in front of Curtiss H-12 and H-16 seaplanes sometime during 1918 or 1919.  It is possible, though by no means definitive, that Ens. Roland Palmedo and the rest of his crew are in the photograph. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

Returning to Naval Air Station Hampton Roads from Baltimore, Aircraft 770 piloted by Ensign Roland Palmedo, USNRF (Naval Aviator 188), encountered fog over Hampton Roads and landed in the waters between the roadstead and Chesapeake Bay to get his bearings to the station. Taking off once again, he did not gain enough altitude to clear Willoughby Spit and clipped the roof of the club. Palmedo fractured his leg, his copilot David Thomas was slightly injured, and two of the crewmen, radio operator Thomas V. Jones and machinist's mate Liewellyn W. Alexander, were killed.

In researching the pilot, I found that his son, Philip F. Palmedo, had written a biography of his father entitled Roland Palmedo, A Life of Adventure and Enterprise. The author graciously sent me a copy of the biography.

Ens. Roland Palmedo. (U.S. Militaria Forum)

Roland served briefly with the Dover Patrol in World War I and was injured in a crash which led his return to the United States after his recovery. He flew under the command of Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Bellinger, NAS Norfolk’s first commanding officer. In his book, Philip F. Palmedo wrote that “under the circumstances of the crash (On Willoughby Spit), a court martial was required, but the navy had no regulations related to aircraft. The best the prosecuting navy lawyer could do to was to criticize Roland for not stationing a sailor at the bow of his vessel, as required on ships in foul weather."

The biography on Roland Palmedo also mentioned that he carried airmail, which interested me. Postal histories state that Army pilots carried the first air mail beginning May 15, 1918, but Bruce Linder’s book Tidewater’s Navy contains the passage, “on 16 November 1918, regular air mail service between Hampton Roads and Naval Air Station Anacostia became an important new mission for the naval air station. Every day one plane flew each way.” The Navy for a time had its own air mail service which never became part of the U.S. Postal Service, and that is why it is not mentioned in postal histories.

The Army-Navy Register and Defense Times reported that Lemuel Phillips Padgett, chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, who had heard that sometimes only one letter was carried, asked Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels: “is there any regular mail service maintained by their Navy” Mr. Daniels replied “that the duty of carrying the mail was incidental to the operation of aircraft, and was in connection with naval aerial operations. He said it was very advantageous to have an important air station near at hand to the department, and the trips were made by aviators from Anacostia, to Hampton Roads and other naval air stations, but the matter of carrying mail on those trips was incidental to the more important duty of operating and developing naval aircraft.”

After leaving the Navy, Palmedo bought a Stearman biplane and used it to fly to various ski locations long before they became popular with vacationers. (Philip Palmedo)

After the war, Roland Palmedo went into investment banking, winding up at Lehman Brothers where he was instrumental in the financial foundations of several major airlines, serving on the boards of Pan-American and Trans World Airways (TWA). He continued to fly in his own plane, but it is in the world of skiing that he made his greatest impact.  He discovered Mt. Mansfield where the ski resort Stowe is now located, founded of the National Ski Patrol, and was instrumental in creating the Women’s Ski Team for the 1936 Olympics.  Always dedicated to amateur athletics, he designed the emblem for the Amateur Ski Club of New York. He created the Mad River Glen Ski Area when he found Stowe was becoming too commercial.

 

He rejoined the Navy in WWII, first serving as Flag Aid to Vice Admiral Bellinger, who was by then Commander Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet. Author Ashley Guy Hope wrote “The bon vivant aide to flying Admiral ‘Pat’ Bellinger, Roland Palmedo, deciding the half-dozen admiral's aides in the vicinity should band together, founded the ‘Husbands Afloat, Wives Ashore Aides' Benevolent and Protective Association,’ complete with a set of bylaws.” Roland then served as administrative officer for Carrier Air Group 88 on the aircraft carrier Yorktown (CV 10) during the closing months of the war.  

A portrait of Roland Palmedo in his element. (Mad River Glenn)

More than 58 years after his near-fatal crash on Willoughby Spit and after a long, successful career in finance, guiding the founding of commercial aviation companies that made taking to the skies a staple of American middle class mobility and founding ski resorts and organizations that made taking to the slopes a staple of American middle class recreation, Roland Palmedo died just before his 82nd birthday on March 15, 1977.