Into the wild blue yonder

When you think of Iowa County, you probably think of quaint, quiet little villages of bucolic houses made of stone framed by gardens reflecting a tranquil setting reminiscent of the days of horse and buggies.

It most likely doesn’t conjure images of loud airplanes, swashbuckling pilots, and daring feats of death defying loops, dogfights, or gunfire. Yet, if you look behind the rustic communal kitchen restaurants and the red barns of the rolling hillsides, you’ll find that the genteel setting serves as a front for some of the most harrowing actions of daring do in the state’s history.

It started with Eugene Ely, a Williamsburg graduate of engineering at Iowa Agriculture College (now Iowa State University) who returned home to become a renowned mechanic building motorcycles and set the world speed record of 136 miles per hour.

Almost flying on the ground, he decided to try it in the air and taught himself how to fly an airplane. With few qualified pilots in 1910, he then flew exhibitions for Glenn Curtiss, who, at the time, was producing more airplanes than the Wright Brothers.

The Curtiss plane was small, built of wood and fabric, with the pilot sitting next to a fifty horsepower motor that extended a crankshaft out the rear of the airframe to a propeller that pushed the plane forward.

It was controlled with a steering wheel like on a car and the two lung OX-5 engine could provide just enough rpm to lumber the plane through the air at Earth rattling speeds of seventy-five miles per hour (Ely, himself, had actually beaten a Pusher plane in a race while driving his motorcycle).

Speed, however, was not necessarily the goal, it was accuracy and maneuverability that Ely sought to demonstrate in his aircraft, and he did exactly that in December of 1910 when he was the first person to fly a plane onto an aircraft carrier, and, three months later, in March 1911, becoming the first pilot to take off from a ship.

In under eleven weeks, he had shown the world aircraft could be navigated onto and off ships at sea, laying the path for Naval aviation to play a pivotal role in World War II and leading the way for today’s modern nuclear powered aircraft carrier fleet.

Sadly, after his pioneering flights in proving the validity of aircraft in the Navy, Ely was killed in a plane crash at Macon, Georgia in October of that same year. He was 24 years old. Ely was pulled from the wreckage and his remains were brought back to Iowa, by train, for burial at East York Cemetery, about five miles east of the city of Williamsburg.

A gray granite stone marks his grave bearing the epitaph, “He gave his life to the science of aviation.” The last time the author of this column paid his respects, the top of the marker was covered with challenge coins from members of various squadrons of fighter pilots in the United States Navy.

Ely wasn’t the only prominent aviator from the region, though. As aircraft carriers came to maturity at the time of World War II, Francis “Frank” Dubisher, also of Williamsburg, had heard stories of dramatic air battles between British and German forces in the Battle of Britain (see the movie, “Dunkirk,” to get a better idea of it), and, in October 1940, he enlisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force where he flew as a pilot in the legendary Eagle Squadron, composed of other Americans who wished to take to the air and defeat the Nazi armies that occupied most of the countries of Europe.

In 1942, after the U.S. Congress finally declared war following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Dubisher transferred to the United States Army Air Corps as a rare experienced pilot. He was assigned to the 41st Fighter Squadron of the 35th Fighter Group and by the end of 1943, was named Commanding Officer of the 41st, then, at the beginning of 1944, promoted to Executive Officer of the entire Fighter Group.

By the end of the war in 1945, he was a Lieutenant Colonel and credited with shooting down five enemy planes with the fifty caliber machine guns of his P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane, making him an Ace.

He resumed his flying record during the Korean War as crew of an RB-26 Reconnaissance Bomber plane that had been designed and built by another Iowa native, Glen Martin. Dubisher remained in service after the Armistice in Korea, concluding his career as Chief of Planning for the 17th Air Force at the time of the war in Vietnam. He then, after three decades defending our country, retired on the last day of 1971 having received the Distinguished Service Cross.

Along the oceanfront in Florida, Dubisher died at the age of 83 in the year 2000. Just as with Ely, he was brought back to Iowa for a final good-bye and buried beneath a modest gray granite headstone at Pilot Grove Cemetery, along “L” Avenue at 260th Street, southwest of Williamsburg.

Others in Iowa County answered the call to serve their country in the air during time of conflict as well, including Burns Byram, who flew twenty-five combat missions as a navigator aboard B-24 Liberator bombers during World War II. After the war, he became a doctor in Marengo and purchased a P-51 Mustang fighter plane that had been used by the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The sleek black plane with the title “Tangerine” painted across its nose, was popular at airshows across the nation and could be seen frequently making low passes over the Marengo business district, and after Byram’s untimely death in a plane crash over Mexico in 1978, the water fountain in the city’s town square was named in his honor.

These are just a few of the brave pilots of Iowa County to be honored in a special ceremony at the Iowa County Historical Society Museum, in Marengo, in recognition of the 85th anniversary of National Aviation Day, the 80th anniversary of the intrepid flights of World War II, and the 115th anniversary of Eugene Ely learning to fly.

The commemorative exhibit and lecture is to be held 2 p.m. Sunday Aug. 18 at the Pioneer Heritage Museum Complex on South Street, in Marengo. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.