Captain Noonan

CXCIV

Fred Noonan (1893 - ?) was born on the south side of Chicago in the riotous Irish slums of the era. His mother died when he was a toddler. By age seven, he had been farmed out to a succession of relatives and Catholic orphanages. He received what little education he got from the Diocese. 

In 1905, Noonan, aged twelve, managed to find his way to Seattle, Washington. How he did so and where and with whom he stayed remain mysteries. 

The next time Noonan appeared in public records was in 1910, as a crewman on the British sailing barque Crompton. Surviving records listed this as his second sea passage. 
 

No other information about his previous passage, except the name of the ship, Hecla, seems to exist.

 

What little is known is that Noonan shipped nine passages on windjammers, the last and largest wind-powered sailing vessels afloat. He was clearly an extraordinarily competent sailor before the mast. He was apparently also possessed of great native intelligence, since he rose quickly to Officers’ rank. By 1914 he was a Deck Officer and only twelve years later in 1926, he had earned a rating as Ship’s Master (Captain). It would be a rank he would hold for the rest of his life. By 1930, he was possessed of certificates to command virtually anything afloat.

During World War I, one of the vessels upon which Noonan served fell prey to a U-boat

Precisely when Noonan began navigating is uncertain. What is known is that he was renowned for his grasp of Celestial Navigation. His reputation as a Navigator was such that skippers actively sought him out. After World War I he continued in the mechanized Merchant Marine.

Noonan navigating aboard an S-42

It was shortly after he received his Master’s papers that he began to list his occupation as “Aviator” rather than “Seaman.” The world of Maritime Navigation was small, and perhaps he saw the potential for opportunities such as his colleague Harold Gatty was experiencing. 

Fred obtained an air pilot’s license in 1927, and married in 1927 (to a good Irish girl, Josie Sullivan). They settled in New Orleans. Although it was a major port city and Noonan could have easily found work aboard ship, he focused instead on finding employment with an airline. In 1928, he became a Pan American Airways Navigation Instructor at Dinner Key; subsequently, he was named the local manager at Port-au-Prince, Haiti; by 1932, he was Chief Inspector of all Pan Am ground facilities. 

But his true talent lay in navigation. Fred’s navigating was flawless; he seemed to have an inherent sense of the relation between vessel, earth or sea, and sky that allowed him to determine his precise spot on the globe regardless of computations. Thus, he was a natural-born dead reckoner.

Aboard ship, sights are taken on the heaving deck. Skilled navigators learn how to compensate for the motion. Aboard aircraft of the early-mid 20^th Century bubble domes were installed above the navigation station, allowing for sights to be taken. The domes sometimes refracted light, and skilled navigators likewise learned how to compensate

Fred Noonan committed to memory the sight-reduction tables used for navigation. He could do the complicated math required of Celestial Navigation in his head. In his day, most people considered him the equal (at least) of Gatty, the Prince of Navigators. Pan Am rewarded him by naming him Chief Navigator of the Line, and by assigning him to the Orient Express survey flights and to the China Clipper crew. Ed Musick was fond of betting against him (and lost cheerfully) whenever Noonan predicted an ETA or a waypoint estimate. They were good friends and naturally complimented each other. Both were silent men by nature, who simply enjoyed being in one another’s competent presence. Ed asked Fred no questions and Fred gave him no answers. 

Noonan did have an Achilles heel, and that was the demon rum. Although a severe alcoholic, Noonan’s professional competence at shiphandling and navigating seemed utterly unaffected by the multi-day benders he indulged in. He was less fortunate in his personal life. The drinking eventually ended his marriage to Josie.

Had Noonan kept his drinking “on the beach” he probably would have faced no consequences for it --- indeed, flight crews were expected to be hell-raisers by nature --- but Fred began drinking on the job. He would show up in Alameda hours before a flight mildly intoxicated but functionally unimpaired, plot a course for Honolulu, and get his crew and passengers there, spot on. 

Noonan’s real problem came to its head in Honolulu or in Manila, on either end of the run. Fred did not drink during his Midway, Wake and Guam layovers, primarily because the bartenders employed at the Pan Am hotels on those islands were threatened with the loss of their jobs if they served him. But Hawaii and The Philippines, each with wide-open bar scenes, were unmanageable for the airline. 

Ed Musick (L) and Vic Wright (R) frame Fred Noonan in this 1935 photograph

As soon as Noonan deplaned and was dismissed for the evening, he would make the rounds.  Fred had his favorite ten or twenty watering holes in each city, where the bartenders knew him and served him unrestrainedly. Luckily, he stayed as loyal to them as they were to him, and so he was always findable with a little effort. 

In the wee small hours his crewmates would go on a scavenger hunt for him, following a trail of spilled drinks, crushed butts, smeared lipstick, and laddered stockings. Eventually they’d collect him and hustle him back aboard the Clipper before anyone else was aware of him. Blind drunk, Fred could comfortably sleep off the booze on the Honolulu-to-Midway run which required no navigation (since it followed the Hawaiian Island chain), or the Manila-to-Guam leg which required nothing more than a compass heading.  

Fred Noonan had become a public figure when he’d navigated the China Clipper, and though his fellow fliers covered for him, word of his heavy drinking inevitably found its way back to New York. 

Juan Trippe became concerned that someday soon an expecting night-owl passenger and her husband would come to view the peaceful Clipper resting at her Pearl Harbor mooring, seeking romance with the tropical breeze gently riffling the water and making susurrant sounds through the trees, instead to be greeted by the sight of the very flight crew to whom she’d entrusted her life pouring the thoroughly soused Navigator back on board by moonlight.

He imagined the traumatized mother-to-be losing her baby.

Nine years Amelia’s junior, aviatrix Jackie Cochran had her own record-shattering career. Briefly (from 1935) a friend of Amelia’s, Cochran once told George Putnam that she would “put your wife in the shade.” George did not try to undermine her as he had Elinor Smith. Cochran was married to Floyd Odlum, the owner of RKO Pictures, and was far more wealthy and powerful than George. She could have easily undone the Putnams if so inclined. Cochran signed this First Day Cover, memorializing Amelia, in 1963

It was a dramatic, unlikely and hideous thought. But, on the other hand, it would only hurt Pan Am if word got out that the Chief Navigator of the Line was fired for being drunk on the job.

Many sources claim that Noonan was fired for being drunk, but it simply isn’t true. Juan Trippe was unwilling to fire the world-famous Fred Noonan outright and without some viable excuse. Above all, Trippe wanted to spare the airline any unwanted scrutiny. If the public imagined that Pan Am’s well-trained, well-attired, thoroughly professional crews were really back-alley lushes, it would be enough to undo a decade of work.  

So Trippe bided his time, which came in 1936. By this time, Fred had remarried to a woman named Bea, had gone on the wagon, and he and his new wife had decided to start a family. Needing a bump in his salary, the Chief Navigator of the Line visited Andre Priester, fully expecting to be accommodated.  

It was Priester who told Fred that he was unentitled to any increase --- that he was already earning the top dollar available to a Pan American Airways Navigator. 

Priester told Noonan he could get a raise if he became a pilot. Priester suggested he apply for a position. There was no promise that he’d be hired.

It was a barefaced con. Noonan knew that Pan Am simply didn’t have any immediate openings for pilots and he knew that the applicants’ waiting list was years long. In short, Fred Noonan was never going to pilot a Clipper. Nor did he really want to.  Fred already had a private pilot’s license, anyway. Qualifying as a pilot was not the issue.

Juan Trippe’s subterfugeous claw marks were all over Fred’s interview with Priester, and the little Dutchman had carried out his henchman’s role as he always did --- effectively and blandly. Mr. Trippe had treated him the way Mr. Trippe eventually treated everyone.   

Fred was furious. He knew this all had to do with his drinking. Had he been drinking it all would have made sense, but to punish him after the fact, while he was struggling to stay sober and responsible, was simply cruel.

Noonan quit Pan American on the spot, forced out, never fired. 

       

Perhaps Fred already knew about Amelia Earhart’s Worldflight through Harry Manning, another merchant sea captain and navigator; perhaps Harry had confided in Fred that he was considering leaving the project. Fred had likely heard about the very good (if temporary) salary, and considered that he might be able to do his own lecture tour afterward. He met with George Putnam and Amelia and joined the team.

He was open and blunt with George and Amelia when he admitted that his ultimate goal was to open a Navigators’ School. They promised their support; after all, a successful school could only burnish the Amelia Earhart brand.