United States Crash Cover
September 20, 1930
This cover went into the mail in Gainesville, Texas, where
it received
two duplex cancels at 4:30 am.
Gainesville is about 60 miles north of Fort Worth.
The cover was marked spec del and franked with appropriate
airmail and special delivery stamps.
The cover was put on the train to Fort Worth.
It was backstamped with an Oklahoma and Fort Worth Railway Post Office
(OKLA. & FT. WORTH R.P.O.) RMS (Railway Mail Service) duplex.
The R.P.O. cancel is also dated September 20.
In Fort Worth, the cover was put aboard the airplane
flying the Contract Air Mail Route 3 (C.A.M. 3).
The route, running from Chicago to Dallas/Fort Worth,
had been pioneered on May 12, 1926 by National Air Transport, Inc.
On July 1, 1929, the day plane began flights directly from
Dallas to Kansas City via Tulsa.
This was the route taken by this cover.
It would have continued on through St. Joseph, Missouri; Moline,
Illinois; to Chicago, Illinois.
In Chicago the cover went aboard C.A.M. 17 operated
from Chicago to New York by National Air Service, Inc.
C.A.M. 17 had been inaugurated in 1927 to provide both day
and night flights with longer segments between the two cities.
C.A.M. 17 stopped only in Cleveland.
The plane, piloted by Amberse M. Banks, made it to
Cleveland but the engine failed soon after leaving.
The plane caught fire after striking a pole during an
emergency landing near Warren, Ohio, east of Cleveland.
900 pounds of mail were salvaged with must of it partly
burned.
The mail went on its way after one of four different handstamps had
been applied noting the problem.
This one reads: DAMAGED IN PLANE FIRE | AT WARREN,
OHIO, 9-21-30.
Presumably the cover proceeded to its destination in
Brooklyn, New York,
where the recipient saved the cover for a philatelist.
The stamps are the 5¢ 1928 bicolor Beacon airmail
(Scott C11)
and
the 10¢ 1927 rotary press gray violet special delivery (Scott E15).
The sender's use of a hotel envelope from Lubbock, Texas,
with a San Antonio, Tex.,
return address suggests a traveling salesman keeping in contact with
friends and family.
Petrelet's (Pete Kimball's) sharp eyes have corrected
the thought that the
sender was a traveling salesman:
| The reality is a bit more interesting than the "traveling salesman" hypothesis! I puzzled a long time over the return address, but it turns out to be "R. B. B. B. Circus" (Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus). There was an acrobat with Ringling Brothers named "John E. O'Connor". However, that John E. O'Connor was the father of Donald O'Connor, the dancer and actor best known for appearing in Singing in the Rain. The obituaries of Donald O'Connor say that he was born in 1925 and that his father died when he was six (or nine) months old! On the other hand, Donald O'Connor was the youngest of seven or so, and his siblings were all in the act, and one of them might have been named after his father. Furthermore I don't ENTIRELY trust all these obits which seem to be largely copied one from another. It seems likely that the crash cover O'Connor at least had some connection with the family of Donald O'Connor. More research would be needed to be sure. No luck so far with "Miss Willy Peers". |
Another whee!
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