THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF JIMMIE MATTERN
Jimmie was born at the dawn of powered flight and lived through most of the twentieth century, where he got to participate in and witness many of aviation’s astonishing firsts.
James Joseph Mattern was born March 8, 1905. Enthralled with the man’s newfound ability to fly from the earliest age, he learned to fly in 1926. He engaged in the Hollywood movie work and stunt flying of the era, as well as flying cargo in 1929.
On October 22, 1929, Mattern was hired by Carl Cromwell, and his chief pilot Gordon Darnell, in San Angelo, TX to be a pilot of the line for the newly incorporated Cromwell Airlines, Inc. Cromwell was killed in an auto accident in 1931 and his airline went out of business in 1932.
Come 1932, Mattern mounted an effort to better the time of Wiley Post's recent (1931) round-the-world record. His airplane was Vega NC869E. He had it rebuilt and fitted for the world flight and named it "Century of Progress” in honor of the impeding World’s Fair.
He took on a copilot named Bennett Griffin. Their first attempt started from New York to Newfoundland, then to Ireland and Berlin, beginning July 5, 1932. They did not complete their next leg to Russia, crashing NC869E soon after leaving Berlin near Minsk, Belarus. There they were captured and held as spies in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Once it was confirmed they were not spies they were released and Mattern and Griffin returned to Berlin with the wreckage of their airplane and soon after returned to the U.S.
They suffered injuries to head and hand during the landing. Bandages are evident, as are their oil-stained clothes.
The following year, Mattern took off solo on June 3, 1933, and arrived on June 4 in Norway. His next stop was Moscow. Departing Moscow, he did not complete the flight. Rather, his airplane crashed again in the USSR due to bad oil. But his survival story is captivating and courageous.
From 1933-1938 Jimmie traveled the world appearing as a celebrity pilot regaling a curious and admiring fan base about his exploits as a pioneer aviator. He had a regular appearance at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago where he met his future wife Dorothy Harvey, a dancer in the Sherman Floor Show. At the time a newspaper did a survey and he was voted the most popular aviator of his time.
1939 found Jimmie working for the Lockheed Corporation in Burbank, California, as the engineering test flying the famed P-38 which involved flying the plane before many knew it could fly and then working with the design engineers to perfect the aircraft. Once the fighter was ready for service, Lockheed lost many trainee pilots as it was a single-pilot plane and the pilots unfamiliar with the new technology could not adequately fly the planes, so Jimmie developed a piggyback training system. This modified the P-38 so an experienced pilot could sit above the trainee in place of the radio to instruct and to take over if anything went wrong. This procedure substantially cut down on the number of training accidents. Jimmie also developed a modified fuel system for the P-38. While at Lockheed, he test flew many different types of aircraft.
His work with the Lockheed Corporation ended in 1946. Jimmie was tasked with being the personal pilot for the President of Lockheed, but he felt that something was wrong. He began having unusual spasms and shakes. His doctor concerned he had a brain tumor sent him to the Mayo Clinic where Jimmie was diagnosed with a ruptured blood vessel in his brain. Apparently, the vessel had ruptured because of all the blackout stalls he had done while demonstrating the P-38. Jimmie was told that he could never fly again, for fear of aggravating the rupture. Perhaps a crowning tribute to Jimmie was that Neil Armstrong carried his pilot’s license was carried to the moon on Apollo XI. It is signed by Mattern, Orville Wright, Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin.
In 1937 he married Showgirl Dorothy Harvey Mattern and had two daughters, Pattie Mattern Scarbrough and Joy Mattern Garrison who then each had 3 children. Those six grandchildren, collectively known in book credits as “Garrison Scarbrough” published their grandfather’s autobiography hiring writer Thomas “Bill” Simpson to bring Jimmie back to life to new aviation and history buffs through the pages of Undaunted, The Extraordinary Story of the First Aviator to Attempt to Fly Solo Around the World.