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Author Lesley Forden
Copyright 1961 |
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The book above is about the Dole
Race in 1927. This page is about one of the participants, George Covell. My father's first cousin. George was a Navy Pilot, stationed in North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego. He was the only son of my great Aunt Winifred Stevens Covell. George & his navigator took off and ran into a fog bank and hit the cliffs at Point Loma, near San Diego, California. |
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Dick Waggener & George
Covell in front of their Tremaine Monoplane |
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Coroner of San Diego, inspecting
crash site for bodies of George Covell & his Navigator Dick Waggener, August 1927. |
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Searches looking through
wreckage of Tremaine Monoplane that crashed into the side of Point Loma in San Diego, California, killing pilot & navigator. |
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Searchers bringing out bodies
of George Covell & Richard Waggener |
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This was a race for money by daring men and women. Out of
eight planes that took off from Oakland, California on August 16, 1927, only two of the planes actually made it to Hawaii. They were competing for $25,000 put up by Jim Dole of Pineapple fame and most lost their lives in this pursuit, including my father's cousin, George Covell & his navigator, Richard Waggener. George & Richard never even made it to the Oakland airfield, the take off place for the race. The saddest part of it all was that George's wife and Richard's fiance, Virginia, watched them take off from North Island and saw the fog bank clear and watched as a pillar of smoke climbed up above the fog. They knew instantaly that they had lost their loved ones. George had two young sons at home, that would never see their father again. |
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Following By Carol Staudenmaier
nee Stevens, author of this site. |
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Pictures provided by Laurent Brocard
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