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"The Last Farewell of Will Rogers and Wiley
Post "
by Mike Wimmer
Will Rogers and Wiley Post bid farewell to a small crowd gathered at Fairbanks, Alaska, on 15 August, 1935. They would perish in an airplane crash later that day.
Post and Rogers met in 1931 and the two fellow Oklahomans became close friends. Rogers often flew with Post as a passenger and he contributed an introduction to the book Post had done with Gatty about their flight. In 1935, looking for new material for his newspaper column, Rogers asked Post if they could fly to Alaska.
Rogers had joined Post in Seattle. The two men departed Seattle for Juneau on 7 August, 1935. In his journal, Rogers wrote, "If there is a prettier trip in the World than from Seattle to Alaska by what they call Inland Passage, I never saw it." Rogers described the trip:
"We had expected to stop in Ketchkan our first city in Alaska, but Wiley I guess figured that if he stopped there we would get closed in [weatherwise] and wouldent get any further up the Coast. So he flew low over the very pretty little city right along the water edge with the high mountains to the back of it."
They visited Juneau and lingered there a few days due to lousy flying weather. In Rogers' words, "Not a plane mushed out." Speaking to the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, Rogers commented on pilots: "Youšve got a great bunch here. They have to be good. They donšt need no Government tests up here in these tough channels. Just send a new pilot out. If he comes back, hešs okay."
From Juneau, Rogers and Post flew to Skagway, over the Chilkoot Pass, to
Dawson in the Yukon Territory of Canada, and then to Aklavik in the
Northwest Territories, and to Herschel Island in the Arctic Circle. They
flew to Fairbanks, to Anchorage, over Mount Whitney, and back to Fairbanks. Rogers concluded, "This Alaska is a great country. If they can just keep
from being taken over by the U.S. they got a great future."
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| Four photographs taken at Fairbanks showing Post and Rogers arrival and refueling. | |
On August 9th, they left for Aklavik, where sightseeing and weather
kept them until August 12th. They then returned to Fairbanks.
Last know photograph of Post and Rogers, with some locals
On August 15th, Post and Rogers departed Point Barrow. Eskimo seal hunters saw the red Lockheed fly low over their village and land in a nearby lagoon. Once on the ground, Post asked the direction to Point Barrow and one of the hunters pointed north across the featureless tundra. Post tinkered with the engine for a few minutes and Rogers chatted with the Eskimos. Then they started the engine, taxied across the river and took off in a steep, climbing turn. About fifty feet up, the engine seemed to stop cold, the plane faltered, dragged a wing in the water and crashed on its back. Both men died. The date was 15 August, 1935.
Two of Oklahomas favorite sons lost their lives in the shallow water beside the Arctic Ocean. Ironically, only days before, Will Rogers had said, "I prefer an honorable death in a plane, or falling off a horse." He got his wish.
The Plane
Lockheed Orion Model 9E Special
This is the Lockheed Orion Model 9E Special, NC122823, formerly owned by TWA, that was modified by Wiley Post for his trip to Alaska. Among other modifications, Post replaced the engine with a 550 horsepower type, installed a three-bladed variable pitch propeller, swapped out the wing with one that was six feet longer from a Lockheed-Explorer Model 7 Special, NR101W, that had fixed landing gear, and then replaced the landing gear with floats.
Post had asked Lockheed engineers to add pontoons to the Orion, but they refused, telling him that pontoons would upset the aerodynamic of the plane. Post, believing Rogers weight would compensate, had pontoons placed on the plane himself and, two days after performing a test flight, flew Rogers up to Alaska. The resulting crash confirmed the Lockheed engineers fears. The plane stalled while taking off from a lake near Point Barrow owing to the changes to the aircraft's weights and balance. Post and Rogers died in the crash sending the nation into mourning for two of its most popular cultural heroes.
