"The Philippine Islands are not all so thoroughly civilized and so thickly populated as Americans generally believe. . . 25,000 square miles, . . . most of it mountain jungle land is listed on Government survey maps as 'unexplored' " (p. 310, September, 1930, National Geographic Magazine. So begins Lieut. George W. Goddard, U.S. Army, in "The Unexplored Philippines From the Air: Map-making Over Jungle Lands Never Before Seen By White Men.".
Lieut. Goddard was an U.S. Army pilot on a flying expedition to map land on the island of Luzon, largest of the Philippines. He was excited to begin flying over new territory but also feared that, in case of an emergency, there was no place to land.
There were three planes and nine persons working together on the aerial photography. "We succeeded in photographing altogether about 5,000 square miles; also we found and photographed a 500-feet waterfall - never before seen by whites so far as we know" (p. 310).
The group left from the town of Aparri. Crowds came to see them and the planes. They had to post guards for fear souvenir hunters would disturb their equipment. Shortly after leaving, they flew over a beach on which a wild tribe of Filipino natives was "terrified by the great bird that swooped down out of the sky" (p. 313). This is exactly what explorers encountered on the island of New Guinea (see this blog, August 14, 2013, "Back to Islands!").
To appreciate our passenger planes of 2013 climbing to over 30,000 feet quickly, this helps: "Our working level was 12,000 feet. It took about an hour to reach this height" (p. 314).
At one point, Lieut. Goddard's plane's engines stopped. He relates, "I figured we had enough altitude to get to the Pacific on the east side of the island, so we turned around and started a long glide. I switched over to my emergency gasoline tank in the upper wing of the airplane and pumped frantically. We made the coastline, but when we reached it, one look at the enormous swells dashing against the rocks made me wonder if we wouldn't have done better to make parachute jumps back where the motor started missing" (p. 315). They managed to head back to Aparri and land safely.
I held my breath while reading the rest of the article! The flyers found the Mayon volcano erupting and flew over it to get a closer look! The next day they came back for more photos, then took them immediately to town where they were sent to world-wide news services. The Red Cross especially wanted this so everyone would help the fleeing natives.
Shortly thereafter one of the pilots (these were open-cockpit planes) flew into an immense swarm of locusts above the landing field. "He made the biggest mistake of his flying career, right there. The locusts simply plastered the ship - flattened out all over it. The Deacon's (pilot) goggles were so splashed he couldn't see. The insects got into his mouth, nose and ears" (p. 328). Eventually he landed at their air base, the only landing field in north Luzon.
FYI: Some Filipino tribes consider locusts a great delicacy and came out with baskets to gather them. "They pull the wings off and fry them" (p. 328).
When mapping the Bataan Peninsula nearly the same thing happened, but with bats. These must have been bats like we've never seen - their wingspan was four feet!
The Filipino natives were friendly after our airmen got to know them, quite unlike the primitive tribes on Pacific islands about which we've read. Lieut. Goddard reports, "I am sure they attached some supernatural significance to the "big white bird." They never discarded the notion that the plane was a species of fowl" (p. 334). They thought the plane's wheels were some kind of claw.
FYI: The Philippine Archipelago is comprised of 7,000 islands.
Several adventures involved emergency landings in the shark-infested ocean. The Lieutenant concludes, "There is power in the rivers, timber on the surface, rich soil for cultivation, and resources under the soil in the area over which we flew. Besides this, our trip proved again that the airplane is invaluable in tropical exploration" (p. 343).
Now I can catch my breath again!
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