LITERARY DIGEST, July 15, 1933  [p. 30]

  COMEDY AND TRAGEDY IN THE BENDIX TROPHY

  PICTURE:   A JOYEOUS REUNION.  Mrs. Roscoe Turner was one of the first to
             greet her triumphant husband. (Acme)

          FORTY-EIGHT THOUSAND spectators at the National Air Races, in
  Los Angeles, roared a wild welcome to Col. Roscoe Turner, Bendix Trophy
  winner, as he dropped out of the sky from New York, but they knew nothing
  of the quiet little comedy which had complicated his start.
          Even the 2,000 New Yorkers at Floyd Bennett Field on the previous
  night were mostly unaware of the farcical byplay which had attended the
  departure of the holder of the west-bound transcontinental record-- one
  that he was now about to shorten by fifty-three minutes.
          The fact was that Colonel Turner, during the busy hours preceding
  his take-off for Los Angeles, had been harassed by the knowledge that an
  attempt was being made to serve him with some tiresome legal paper, which
  might presumably have required his testimony at some time interfering
  with his racing program.  The process-server was ferreting about in the
  airport lights and peering into people's faces.
          Becoming aware of this pursuit, the Colonel, we learn from the
  New York TIMES, "covered up his brilliant uniform with a mechanic's
  overalls and donned a sailor hat while he went about the business of
  getting ready.  Several times the man with the paper to hand him strolled
  near by looking for the famous flyer.  He failed to identify him,
  however, until it was too late."
          Hence the happy sequel of the Colonel's start at 4:59 A.M., "his
  red and bronze monoplane moving with terrific speed."
          His arrival at Los Angeles, eleven hours and thirty minutes
  later, broke up the inaugural parade of the National Air Races, for the
  crowd went Armistice as his soot-smudged, Wasp-powered, Wedell-Williams
  racer bounced down and taxied to the timing stands.  And the excitement
  over his arrival had hardly died away, says The TIME's correspondent,
  "when James Wedell of Paterson, Louisiana, started it all over again with
  a whirlwind finish from New York.  For a while it was thought that he had
  beaten Turner's time, but a recheck by Carl Shorey, the official timer,
  brought out that his elapsed time was 11 hours, 58 minutes, 18 seconds.
          "Wedell designed both of the Wasp-powered Wedell-Williams planes
  which took first and second prizes."
          Two days later, Turner made a try in the National Air Races for
  the land plane speed record held by Maj. James H. Doolittle, but only
  came within 19 miles-per-hour of making a new record.  To do so he would
  have to beat the record by five miles an hour. The Doolittle record is
  294 miles an hour. Turner scored 280.247 miles an hour.
          Later the 210-pound Colonel "flew to first place in the 100-mile
  free-for-all race, at a speed of 241.051 miles an hour and swept down a
  straightaway course at 280.965 miles an hour," we learn from the Associ-
  ated Press.  His cash prizes then reached $9,550.
          A shadow was thrown over the aftermath of the Bendix Trophy Race
  by the fate of Russell Boardman, Boston sportsman and flyer,  who crashed
  at Indianapolis as he was taking off and died two days later from a
  fractured skull and other injuries.
          Mr. Boardman "distinguished himself by a record non-stop
  5,000-mile flight from New York to Turkey in 1931, in company with John
  Polando," the Associated Press reminds us, adding that he had narrowly
  escaped death several times during his daring career.  Thus:

          "Shortly after becoming a pilot in 1921 his plane was wrecked
  during a take-off, and last summer he was in a plane that went spinning
  down from a height of 1,000 feet, landing in a clump of trees.  In the
  latter accident he suffered injuries from which he was several months
  recuperating.
          "He also had close calls while engaging in motor-cycle racing and
  piloting speedboats before taking up aviation.
          "Recently Boardman and Rosetta Valenti, Italian aviatrix,
  announced plans for a non-stop flight to Rome late this month in the same
  plane used in the Turkey hop."


  Source: LITERARY DIGEST, July 15, 1933 [p.30]



  Data transcription by:  David M. Sandy, June 13, 1993.