First-Hand:Beyond Mach 1 - Chapter 5 of The Experimental Research Airplanes and the Sound Barrier

By David L. Boslaugh, CAPT USN, Ret

We Move

In late 1943, my Uncle Lewellyn went into the Army Chaplain Corps and Grandmother Boslaugh and Aunt Beatrice moved from their parsonage in Sauk Center, Minnesota, to nearby Little Falls. Sauk Center is about 30 miles southwest of Little falls and was the birthplace of Sinclair Lewis who used the town as the model for his imaginary town Gopher Prarie in his novel “Main Street.” Grandma B. invited Brother Richard and I to spend the summer of 1945 with her and Aunt Bea in Little Falls. The trip was not a difficult one because both Forsyth and and Little Falls are on the Northern Pacific main line. The voyage involved getting on the train at the Forsyth station early in the morning and getting off at Little Falls that evening before sunset. It was not much different than a long street car ride. Grandma and Aunt Bea were waiting at the station, and it was about a 20 minute walk to their place. In a letter, Mom asked us how we liked Little Falls and we replied it was a great place. Her next letter, a week later, asked if we would like to move there, and we responded with a resounding yes. Two weeks later Mom arrived on the Northern Pacific and our belongings showed up in a van a week later. By that time she had found a place to rent. [30, p.6]

Little Falls had everything we could ever want, including the prettiest most friendly girls we had ever met. We also made many new friends also interested in model building, rocket building, photography, electronics experimentation, and other aspects of building all sorts of things. Furthermore, there were: a radio repair shop that sold all forms of electronic components, model airplane kits at the local J. C. Penney store, a war surplus store stocked with bargains in real military surplus equipment offering an unlimited supply of building parts, a well stocked hardware store where the clerks usually asked, “What are you building now Dave?,” and a photography studio that sold developing chemicals, photo paper, and sheet film.

The Little Falls, Minnesota, Northern Pacific railroad station at the end of a pleasant one-day train ride from Forsyth, Montana, 1945. Photo by the author

Little Falls High School

There seems to be a lot of controversy about the quality of education offered to American students today, but looking back on Little falls High School, I think the quality of our teachers and their teaching was great. They were capable, dedicated, and made us work. They seemed to operate through a combination of inspiration, a little intimidation, fear of failure, and a fair amount of entertainment. I will never forget Miss Anderson’s atmospheric pressure demonstration when she heated the air in an empty one-gallon can over a bunsen burner. Then she closed the cap and plunged the can into a sink of ice cold water. The resulting violent implosion was very satisfying. Miss Anderson and half the class were drenched, and she got a standing ovation. We respected our teachers and getting out of line with them just wasn’t done. We never even thought of it. Our graduating class numbered 175, and we had a high school teaching staff of 45. Of that number, eleven teachers specialized in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and science. Most courses such as physics and chemistry were mandatory, and we had one required math course every semester for four years. There were a few elective courses including: latin, wood shop, mechanical drawing, and typing.

All of our teachers had collateral duties, and I sometimes wondered if they ever had any home life. Every one of our student activities and organizations had a teacher assigned as advisor, and they attended all the meetings. You would also see them taking tickets at football and basketball games as well as chaperoning school dances. Mr. Eveslage, our chemistry and physics teacher, was advisor to our Junior Academy of Sciences chapter, and he came up with many ways for us to raise money. This included sponsoring a school dance once a month where we prepared the gym, arranged for the band, and took tickets. The only expense I recall was the band; composed mainly of teaching staff (built-in chaperones). Another money maker was the sale of candy bars every noon. I don’t think school administrations would allow that one today. Our treasury grew to the point that we needed to take a vote on how to spend the money. Mr. Eveslage suggested that if we voted for some sort of school improvement, he could get the administration to provide matching funds. We voted to have a fully equipped photo lab built just off the chemistry lab, and to buy a Speed Graphic press camera - the king of the camera world at the time.

Home Made Equipment

Three of us in the Junior Academy were photographers for the school paper and the year book. We had to share the Speed Graphic camera, so I bought a used German-made press camera with removable back that could accommodate either sheet film, roll film, or a ground glass viewing screen. The lenses were very good and the bellows and lens holder were on a track that allowed very precise focusing with a knob. The one thing missing from the old camera was a way of triggering flash bulbs, and we needed to use flash bulbs for a lot of our photo assignments. My first project with the camera was to devise a flash synchronizer that I incorporated with the shutter release. It worked, and I never got any complaints when I blinded football and basketball players with large high speed light bulb-sized flash bulbs. They knew they were going to get their picture in the paper.

The German press camera was also a natural as the front end of a photographic enlarger. All I had to do was build a light housing out of a large coffee can and an old flash reflector. Next was the light diffuser made from sheets of glass I ground with automobile valve grinding compound. Attached below the diffuser housing was the sliding negative holder big enough to hold sheet film either from the German camera or the Speed Graphic, or smaller film sizes. On the bottom of the negative holder I made flanges that allowed sliding the body of the camera onto the enlarger body. Thanks to the very excellent German lenses, the homemade enlarger could produce sharper prints than the professional enlarger in the school photo lab. Other home made photo equipment included a print dryer built around the heating element of a defunct toaster, and a timer switch built from an old alarm clock with sweep second hand.

I had previously built a record player based on an old electric 78 RPM turntable and plans for an amplifier in the RCA Receiving Tube Manual. With the advent of 33 and 45 RPM records, I wanted to be able to play those also. The record player already had a spring loaded engaging mechanism that pushed an idler wheel up against the motor driving spindle and the rim of the turntable when you wanted the turntable to turn. To stop the turntable you flipped the idler wheel out of the way, and a brake came into play. I could see that the speed of the turntable was determined by the diameter of the driving spindle, and with different diameter spindles I could drive the turntable at different speeds. Devising a mechanism to flip a new idler wheel up or down to contact the different diameters on the spindle was not too difficult, but the challenge was making the three diameter steps on the spindle exactly right. The secret to success was making a new driver spindle with three different diameter steps. The steps were made with thin strips of electrician’s tape wound around the spindle. Trial and error and listening to the pitch of the music finally identified the right number of winds. It worked all through high school, college, and even went to sea when I went on active navy duty.

The next project was a homemade slide projector when I got a used 35 mm camera. Key components were a cooling fan motor made from the very smooth generator of a war surplus Gibson Girl emergency radio transmitter, lenses from the war surplus store, and a focusable lens holder made from the screw mechanism of a deodorant tube.

Little Falls’ Close Brushes With Fame

When you drove into Little falls, the first thing you saw was the water tower blazoned with, “LITTLE FALLS, MINNESOTA, CHARLES LINDBERG’S HOME TOWN,” and it is true. Lindberg had gone through grade school and high school here. I had a girl friend who’s father had played with him on the school basketball team; although he said Lindberg was generally a loner. Some of the townsfolk recalled he seemed to have a touch of aloofness, however that might have been colored by the feeling of the town delegation that welcomed him back to New York. They say he ignored the delegation. (This also might have been the result of the press of many other distractions.) In his defense, he was described as gracious and friendly when he returned to Little Falls in 1970 to dedicate the new Lindberg Aviation Museum. [34, p.19]

The second possibility for fame never really materialized. In the late 70s one of our fellow church choir members asked me wasn’t I was from Minnesota? He said there was this guy on public radio named Garrison Keillor who talks funny like I do (Minnesotan ) and he tells stories about a Minnesota town named Lake Wobegon. I began listening to the broadcasts and reading his books, and occasionally he would mention Little Falls. A case in point is the fellow who didn’t want to buy replacements for his burst radiator hoses at the Lake Wobegon auto parts store, but went in to Little Falls to get them so that the locals would not know he had been so careless as to let his radiator freeze. Keillor mentioned many landmarks in his stories and many of them jibed with locations in or near Little Falls. Other clues indicated that his mythical town had to be within a radius of 30 miles from Little Falls, and there were no towns within that radius big enough to have all the churches and other features described in his stories. Little Falls even had its own lake formed by the power dam on the Mississippi River that ran through our town. I became convinced that Little Falls had to be the prototype for his Lake Wobegon. [28, p.56]

My theory was dashed when Keillor wrote an article for the December 2000 National Geographic Magazine titled “In Search of Lake Wobegon.” In it he revealed that his Lake Wobegon was actually a a collection of villages in an area about 25 miles southwest of Little Falls. Interestingly, Sinclair Lewis’ home town Sauk Center, the prototype for his town of Gopher Prarie is right on the periphery of the collection of those villages. [29, pp.87-109] [31, p.1, 6]

The Westinghouse Science Talent Search

In the middle of our senior high school year, Mr. Eveslage arranged for all the members of the Junior Academy of Science (JAS) to report to the chemistry/physics classroom for about four hours. He handed out an exam that took about two hours. When that was done he handed out essay forms and told us to describe our Jr. Academy of Science project as well as any other projects we had worked on. We were also supposed to list all our other extra curricular activities, of which I listed eleven in addition to the JAS. My main JAS project had been a radio controlled model boat of my own design, with radio transmitter and receiver, again using schematics from the RCA Receiving Tube Manual. Compared with today’s multi channel digital model airplane and drone controllers, the system was not very sophisticated. I also described building model airplanes of my own design; some of which flew, some of which didn’t.

Next, I described other projects I had designed and built, such as the photo enlarger, the flash synchronizer, other photo equipment, the three speed phonograph, the slide projector and a few others. We handed the papers back to Mr. Eveslage and left the room, not quite sure what it had been all about. He had us taking a lot of tests and writing papers as of late. A few months later, Mr. Eveslage walked into the middle of one of our science classes with a letter in his hand and a rather sober expression on his face. Our first collective thought was, “Who’s in trouble now?. Why would Mr. Eveslage break right in to someone else's’ class?” He asked, “Do you remember the Westinghouse Science Talent Search exam that most of you took?” I sort of vaguely remembered. He went on to say that two students in the State of Minnesota had been named as Science Talent Search honors students. Then he handed the letter to me and said, “Here David, this is yours, congratulations.” In the weeks that followed, letters arrived from colleges and universities all over the country with scholarship offers; some of them being full scholarships with living allowances. But then, something else happened.

The Holloway Plan

With the advent of the “cold war” the U.S. Navy was presented with a dilemma of sorts. There was a projected need for regular career naval officers of about twice the volume that could be provided from the U.S. Naval Academy, and the Navy had a choice of doubling the size of the academy or with coming up with some other source. When asked to work on a solution, Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr. proposed that the other half should come from a civilian college program that provided a full scholarship in the form of paid tuition, books, fees, and a monthly living allowance. Upon graduation it would culminate in a regular navy commission, and the graduates would compete for promotions on the same basis as Naval Academy graduates. Further their period of obligated service would be the same as academy graduates. One difference between qualifying for a Naval Academy appointment and the Holloway plan was that Holloway applicants did not have to get a Congressional appointment as did academy applicants.

Admiral Holloway proposed that two tracks be set up in the existing NROTC program at 52 colleges and universities, the first, and traditional one, being the “contract program” which did not cover tuition, books and other fees, but did provide a monthly living allowance for the third and fourth years of college. Upon graduation the contract midshipman would be given a Naval Reserve commission, and might or might not serve time on active duty, depending on the needs of the service. The other track would be the new full scholarship program. It is small wonder the Holloway Plan was described as one of the most attractive educational opportunities ever offered. (Today, it is also open to women) With only two months before colleges were scheduled to begin their autumn classes, the Holloway Plan bill was placed on the House Calendar. It passed by unanimous vote and was signed into law by President Truman on August 13, 1946.

The first regular NROTC students thus started college in the fall of 1946. In 1948 two Little Falls High School seniors won full NROTC scholarships and the program thus got great visibility in our school. In 1949 approximately half the males in the senior class took the exam, but there were no winners. In 1950, again about half the senior class took the NROTC exam, and this time there were five invited to the next stage, the physical exam, and than an interview. Unfortunately, one of the brightest was weeded out by the physical for not being tall enough.

We were told ahead of time that to pass the physical, our heart and teeth had to be near perfect, and our eyes had to be 20-20 or better. I knew my eyes were not, and began wondering why I had even bothered to report for the exam. The physical exam started with check of blood pressure and pulse, and the administering chief petty officer noted my pule was really fast, and asked if I was nervous. I confessed to the chief that I was worried that my eyes were going to be my downfall. He replied, “Well let’s just get that out of the way right now.” As expected , I did not do well with the bottom line of the chart, just a lot of guessing, and I knew I was doomed. But the chief handed me a black disk on a handle. It had a pinhole in it, and the chief told me to read the bottom line through the pinhole. The letters were perfectly clear through the pinhole, and the chief merely wrote on the exam sheet, “correctible.” Then he said, “You will not have another physical for two years, and by that time the Navy will have poured a lot of money into your education that they won’t want to waste; don’t worry.” I will never know if the chief had been told to go easy because of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search results, but in any event, I have always had a soft spot in my heart for chief petty officers. There was one other qualification requirement for naval officer program candidates, namely, the applicant “could not be ugly.” I often wondered who made that determination, and whether it is still on the books today.

The rest of the exam went well, and I progressed to the next part of the process, which was an interview with a navy captain. To me a full captain was an incredibly senior, impressive, mature, and commanding person. He noted that I wanted to enter a five-year engineering curriculum, and that I would have to select which of the five I would pay for on my own. I told him I would select the fifth year. With the interview done, that was it. A couple of weeks later a letter came confirming appointment in the regular NROTC program, contingent upon being accepted by the University of Minnesota. That letter came a couple of months later.