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The Museum of Flight Oral History Collection
The Museum of Flight
Seattle, Washington
Joseph Kimm
Interviewed by: Dan Hagedorn
Date: May 31, 2013
Location: Redmond, Washington
This interview was made possible with generous support from
Mary Kay and Michael Hallman
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Abstract:
Pilot Joseph E. Kimm is interviewed about his decade-spanning aviation career. He discusses his
early experiences as a flight steward on Ford Trimotor aircraft, and his time as a copilot and pilot
for Northwest Airways (later Northwest Airlines), spanning the 1930s to the 1970s. He also
touches on his military service during World War II with Air Transport Command, U.S. Army
Air Corps. Other topics discussed include his work building aircraft models, his experiences with
various aircraft, and a memorable flight from Minneapolis to Seattle with Amelia Earhart.
Biography:
Joseph Kimm had a 42-year long career with Northwest Airways and served with the Special
Missions Group during World War II.
Joseph Edward Kimm was born August 18, 1911 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Albert Peter and
Catherine Kimm. He attended Central High School in Minneapolis, graduating in 1929. Because
of the Depression, his family could not afford to send him to college, so he found a job helping
make candy at a soda fountain.
As a child he enjoyed building model airplanes. At a meeting for model airplane makers he met
Walter Bullock, an early aviator who shared Kimm’s hobby. When Kimm quit his job at the soda
fountain, Bullock hired him to help make and sell model airplane kits. Bullock also flew for
Northwest Airlines and invited Kimm on a flight. Having enjoyed the flight, Kimm then asked
Bullock to help him get a job as a flight steward. Kimm was hired by Northwest Airways July 1,
1929 to serve as steward on the then-new Ford Trimotors. His primary task was to keep the
airplane cabin clean. Kimm claims to have invented the air sickness bag while he was working as
a steward. Realizing that being a pilot would be more a lucrative job, he sought out flight
training. He began working for Northwest as co-pilot, and once he had earned his commercial
pilot’s license he was promoted to captain in 1933 at the age of 23. His first route was between
Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Over the course of his piloting career, he was involved in opening up two important air routes,
one from Minneapolis to Seattle, Washington across the northern Rockies. That flight had
Amelia Earhart as a passenger, who was publicizing both her recent book and their historymaking flight. He also opened a route across previously uncharted territory from Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada to Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska.
Fascination with the P-12E motivated him to join the Army Air Corps Reserves prior to the U.S.
entry into World War II. This later led to him being called into wartime active duty in 1941 as
one of the few dozen pilots forming the Special Missions Group (Brass Hat Squadron) during the
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war. In this role, he flew various dignitaries around the world, including Senator Albert Hawkes,
Mexican Air Force General Salinas, and then General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In October 1956, Kimm and Senior Captain “Deke” DeLong marked Northwest’s 30th
Anniversary by flying a restored Ford Trimotor coast to coast to mark the occasion. Treated like
celebrities at every stop, Kimm and DeLong appeared on the Arthur Godfrey Show in New
York.
Kimm flew his final Northwest Boeing 707 flight on August 17, 1971. In his retirement years he
enjoyed skiing, scuba diving, and delivering Meals on Wheels until he was well into his 90s.
Kimm lived to be 102 years old, passing away on September 19, 2013.
Biographical information derived from interview and additional information provided by
interviewee.
Interviewer:
Dan Hagedorn served as Senior Curator and Director of Collections at The Museum of Flight
from 2008 until his retirement in 2016. Prior to his tenure at TMOF, he was Adjunct Curator and
Research Team Leader at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Hagedorn is
a graduate of Villa Maria College, the State University of New York, and the Command and
General Staff College, and served in the U.S. Armed Forces for almost three decades. He has
written numerous books and articles about aviation history in general and Latin American
aviation in particular. For his work in documenting Latin American aviation history, he received
the Orden Merito Santos-Dumont from the Brazilian Government in 2006. Since his retirement
in 2016, Hagedorn has served as a Curator Emeritus at the Museum.
Restrictions:
Permission to publish material from The Museum of Flight Oral History Program must be
obtained from The Museum of Flight Archives.
Videography:
Videography by TMOF volunteers and staff.
Transcript:
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Transcribed and reviewed by TMOF volunteers and staff.
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Index:
Introduction and personal background............................................................................................ 6
Early aviation memories ................................................................................................................. 7
Experiences with model airplanes .................................................................................................. 9
Job as an ice cream and candy maker ........................................................................................... 11
Working with Walter Bullock and job as a flight steward............................................................ 12
Becoming a pilot ........................................................................................................................... 15
Flight from Minneapolis to Seattle in 1933 .................................................................................. 17
Involvement with the Air Line Pilots Association and Quiet Birdmen ........................................ 19
Service with the U.S. Army Air Corps ......................................................................................... 20
Postwar flying career and retirement ............................................................................................ 22
Final questions .............................................................................................................................. 24
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Joseph Kimm
[START OF INTERVIEW]
00:00:00
[Introduction and personal background]
DAN HAGEDORN: We’re in the home of Captain Joe Kimm in Redmond, Washington.
Today’s date is Friday, May the 31st, 2013. Captain Kimm, it is our honor and our
pleasure to be with you here today. Will you please say your full name for us?
JOSEPH KIMM:
My name is Joseph Edward Kimm. K-I-M-M.
DH:
Very good, sir. And when were you born?
JK:
I was born August 18th, 1911
DH:
And you were born where?
JK:
In Minneapolis, Minnesota.
DH:
Oh, very good. You’re a Midwesterner, very good. Where did you grow up? Did you
grow up in Minneapolis, in that area [unintelligible]?
JK:
Yeah, I grew up in Minneapolis. I was a rather shy kid, you know, four or five years old,
afraid of my own shadow. [laughs] And it was interesting because—and it was really
because of that shyness that I ended up doing what I did. I remember growing up, my
brother and I would be—why, say I was five years old and he would be six. This brother
was fifteen months older than me. And we were pals together as children. My mother
would put us out in the backyard with a rope around our ankles and then run off and leave
us.
Herb was very [intelligent?]. He was very capable of untying knots, whereas I could not
have untied a knot if my life depended on it. Herb would untie his knot and would start
running out of the yard, and I would holler at him, “You got to come and untie mine or
I’ll call Mother.” [laughs]
DH:
Was this your only brother?
JK:
Oh, no, I had an older brother. But we were just fifteen months apart.
DH:
And your brother’s names were what, again?
JK:
This brother I’m speaking of was Herb.
DH:
Herb.
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JK:
Herbert.
DH:
Herbert. Uh-huh [affirmative].
JK:
We called him Herb. My oldest brother was Gervaise.
DH:
And what were your parents’ names?
JK:
My mother’s name was Catherine.
DH:
Catherine.
JK:
My father’s name was Albert. Albert Peter.
DH:
Very good.
JK:
[coughs] Well, I remember one occasion where mother ran off and left us tied, and so I
hollered and Joe had to—Herb had to come back and let me loose. We untied the knots,
and we went off on a wonderful trip around town. They had just tarred the surfaces of the
road, and we got out there in our bare feet and walking up and down those tarred roads,
and we were in seventh heaven. It was just—my memory of it is just a glorious morning.
And, of course, we got all full of tar. And when Mother found us, she was so upset.
DH:
I’ll bet she was.
JK:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
DH:
That first taste of independence, huh?
JK:
[laughs] Yeah.
DH:
What did your dad do for a living?
JK:
Oh, my dad had his own business, direct mail advertising.
DH:
I see. Very good.
00:03:28
[Early aviation memories]
DH:
Now, this is a very special question to me because I think every one of us who’s ever
been an aviator has had some experience. What was your very first interest in airplanes?
Do you remember it?
JK:
Well, in the early years, I—my dad would take us down to the athletic club—take Herb
and I to the athletic club every Sunday morning. And this one particular Sunday morning,
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he said, “Well, just finish up early and get dressed, and I got a deal. We’re going to go
out on a little trip.” And it turned out that he was taking us out to Robbinsdale Airport,
which was probably 20 miles out of Minneapolis, where I saw my first airplane.
DH:
Do you remember what it was?
JK:
Well, it was one of the early—I think it was de Havilland, but I’m not positive. Anyway,
there was room up in the front seat for three people. And so we got into that airplane—
see, I’m five, six years old, Herb was seven—and we went on our first airplane trip. And
it was such a thrill because when they started up the engine and all that noise and all that
clutter and everything, it was just getting to us. And we taxied out and took off. And I
still remember the flight as one of the greatest thrills of my life. I mean, to be six years
old, seven years old, and here we were up in the sky.
DH:
I think every pilot remembers that memory.
JK:
Yeah. [laughs]
DH:
Yeah. Now, I’m going to ask you a very special question. I ask every pilot this, and this is
a really tough question for you. What’s your favorite airplane and why?
JK:
[pauses] I have to be very honest with you.
DH:
Please do.
JK:
I love them all.
[laughter]
DH:
Well, I like to tell people my favorite airplanes have propellers on them and round edges.
JK:
I had no favorite. I loved every airplane that I ever was in equally because, to me, it was
such a thrill to be out flying. Never in those early days would I have ever dreamed that I
would have flown as much as I did, flown so many different airplanes. I probably have
flown at least a dozen different types of airplanes.
DH:
Sure. Yeah.
JK:
But it started out with that first flight. And it was a wartime airplane. My memory is not
working—
DH:
That’s okay. That’s fine.
JK:
—so I can’t tell you exactly.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE:
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Was it a Waco [unintelligible]?
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JK:
It was a biplane with an engine and two seats, front and back. The pilot sat in the back
and flew it.
00:06:49
[Experiences with model airplanes]
DH:
Now, I remember you—I read about you building model airplanes. That’s an experience
that I have, too. When did you start building model airplanes?
JK:
Well, the model airplanes started when I was about ten years old and Herb was eleven.
We got a model of an NC-4 kit to build this model. We built this model airplane in our
early teens. It was a beautiful biplane. It was a model of the first airplane that flew across
the Atlantic Ocean—
DH:
Curtis NC-4. Yes, sir.
JK:
—in 1914. So this was probably four or five years after it had made this first flight. Well,
we built this model, and we covered it with Japanese silk. And we had put so much work
into it that we were afraid to fly it. And so we ended up taking it up to school, and the
teacher hung it up in one of the classrooms. We had a friend, Bob Johnson, about the
same age as we, that saw that airplane up there, and it just drove him nuts. And he finally
convinced us that we should ask for the airplane and we would take it out and fly it. He
wanted to fly it. Well, see, this was probably by the time—as time went along, maybe ten
years old by this time.
And so we go down to Lake Minnetonka—no, Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, and we got
a boat and took the airplane out. It was rubber-powered, two engines. So we got out into
the lake, the three of us, and this beautiful airplane—I mean, it was gorgeous. It was—all
this Japanese silk covering instead of paper and all that. Well, we got the engines all
wound up, but it was a kind of a windy day and the waves were maybe a foot or two feet
high. We should have had more sense, of course, but we didn’t. We were young. We got
the engines all wound up, we put the airplane in the water, and the props started turning
and waves come over and swamped the airplane. And we finally ended up pulling it out
in pieces.
DH:
Oh, dear.
JK:
That was the end of that model. Goes to show how stupid kids can be.
DH:
Well, you were a member of a model airplane club, too, back then, weren’t you?
JK:
Well, not that—not at that time. All through high school, I started building model
airplanes. We didn’t have any money available, so I couldn’t buy any balsa wood, so I
used cheese boxes. They came in wooden boxes in those days with nice, neat pine box—
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pine wood, maybe three-eighths-of-an-inch thick, and we would shave it off, sticks and
make spars and carve all of our stuff out of these—the wood.
It wasn’t until after we—I entered a couple of contests and won some of them that I
ended up getting balsa wood as a prize. And so I had plenty of balsa wood, and I—all
through my high school years, I was building model airplanes and flying them.
DH:
Well, you built one that got a prize once, didn’t you? Back in 1928?
JK:
Well, I flew—in 1928, the city of Minneapolis had a… [pauses] What am I trying to say?
They had a meeting of all the modelers and a contest. And we had indoor contests and
outdoor contests. And I chose the indoor contest because that was the nature of my
models. They were small models, needed to have quiet, still air.
I remember the day of the contest, my turn came and I wound my airplane up, put it on
the floor, and it took off and it circled up. And it was going up to the ceiling, and the
thing going just fine, and somebody came and opened the door. And the draft of air out
that door—this was in a big, open area—that airplane just took one turn and went—
[makes sound effect]—right down and crashed on the floor. But it was up there so long
that I ended up winning first prize, and that’s where I got the cup on top of the… [points
to cup on top of bookcase]
DH:
Oh, my—do you remember what airplane type you made? What the model was of?
JK:
No, it was just a stick model.
DH:
Oh, one of the stick models.
JK:
A stick model with a rubber band.
DH:
Did you have a favorite model that you really thought you did the very best job with?
JK:
No, I don’t really feel attached to any one particular because I loved them all.
DH:
I know models had a great deal to do with my interest in aviation. How would you
characterize the influence that building models had on your career in aviation?
JK:
Well, actually, it was the most important thing of all because that’s what I did all through
high school, was build model airplanes. I graduated from high school mid-term in
January—in December. This was—we had our airplane contest in December of ’28, and
right after that, I graduated from high school. Left me mid-term with nothing to do.
DH:
Where’d you go to high school at? Do you remember the name of the school?
JK:
Oh, I went to Central High School in Minneapolis. It was probably ten blocks away from
my home, and I walked up there and back every day.
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00:13:29
[Job as an ice cream and candy maker]
DH:
And when you graduated, did you—had you resolved already to become a pilot or did
you have something else in mind?
JK:
No. No, I had—this was all—all I do with airplanes, the model airplanes. I had no desire
to fly big ones. Never occurred to me.
So when I graduated, I’m stuck because I had thought after all the model building, the
logical place for me would be to go school and learn to be an aeronautical engineer and
build big airplanes. That was what I thought, but when I got—graduated from school, this
was 1929, just when the Depression started, and there was no money. My dad didn’t have
any money to send me to college. I didn’t have any money.
So I got a job working at a town pump, downtown Minneapolis, a place where they had
ice cream and sodas and candy and everything for guys to bring their girls in and treat
them. Yup. My job was to help the candy maker. Every day we made about fifty gallons
of ice cream. While the master chef was setting up the mix for the ice cream, I would be
down in this basement pulling all these tins of ice out of the freezer, getting the ice out
and putting it through a chopper to chop all the ice up. By the time I got about forty or
fifty of those chopped up, why, he’d bring down a hundred gallons of ice cream, and
we’d spend the morning churning ice cream.
DH:
I’ll bet you get sick and tired of ice cream after—
JK:
No, no. I never got tired of ice cream. [laughs] Well, after we’d do this—that was the
morning—in the afternoon, we’d make candy. And I remember we—making taffy. This
shows you how primitive things were. I mean, we had no machines to do any of this.
Now, when they get the candy mix made, for example, we’d mix up taffy, about forty
pounds of it. They had a post with a hook on it. And my job was to take this forty pounds
of candy and put it up over the hook, pull it down, swing it, loop it over, pull, loop it
over, pull. The purpose, of course, was to get all that air into the [unintelligible] to harden
up. Then we’d run up, take the whole bunch over to the table and start pulling it out, and
making what we called chicken bones. You might be familiar with those. They were just
taffy that was pulled out.
Well, I worked at that, and it was really hard work. I was—let’s see, I was twenty years
old. No, couldn’t have been twenty years old. I was seventeen, I think. Yeah, seventeen
years old. And I was—weighed 160 pounds, and I was—no, I only weighed 120 pounds.
And I was six feet tall.
DH:
Oh, my gosh.
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JK:
So I was a skinny kid. And actually, the work was too tough. I could not stand it. I could
not handle it physically. I’d go home at night so tired out I couldn’t even eat dinner. I
worked about three or four weeks at the most, then I finally decided I had to quit.
00:17:19
[Working with Walter Bullock and job as a flight steward]
DH:
Well, let me ask you this.
JK:
Hmm?
DH:
Just to kind of change tactics just a little bit. What’s the name Walter Bullock mean to
you?
JK:
Well, I was just getting to Walter.
DH:
Good.
JK
[laughs] Because I’m telling you, it was after this—when I quit my job at the candy shop,
I had no job at all. And I ended up—the people that had been in the contest in December
decided to have a model airplane club. And I went to the first meeting in January, which
was just about the time I was quitting my job. As a matter of fact, I had just quit my job
when I went to the first meeting and I met Walter there.
Walter Bullock was an early-time aviator. He started flying in 1915. He was, as such, ten
years older than me. And Walter was a pilot for Northwest Airways. Well, he also was
interested in model airplanes, and he wrote an article for Popular Mechanics on how to
build a model of a Ford Trimotor. And people wrote in and said, “Where can we get kits
for this,” which forced him into starting a business of building kits.
When I met him, he was up to his eyeballs and needed help so bad, he looked at me and
he said, “I found out you just quit your job.” He said, “How much were you making?” I
said, “I was making twelve dollars a week.” He says, “Okay, I’ll pay you twelve dollars a
week, you come work for me.” So I went to work for Walter. And I go to his basement,
and we make parts and put them together into kits and fill out orders and mail them out.
He had written an article in Popular Mechanics, how to build a model of a Ford
Trimotor, and everybody and their brother was trying to get—they wanted kits. They
were just—it put everybody afire.
DH:
Do you remember how many you put together, how many you sold?
JK:
[laughs] I have no idea. Hundreds, anyway. It was a beautiful model. You put the pieces
together, and when you got through, you covered them with a little bit of—with a
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metal—thin metal, which [unintelligible] roller, so it had little grooves in it. But they
were beautiful models.
DH:
So did Walter lead you to Northwest Airlines and your subsequent career?
JK:
Well, no, he didn’t lead me to—it didn’t work that way. Well, keep in mind now, I’m a
shy kid, but by this time I’ve learned that if I want anything, I have to go and get it
because people don’t bring it around and give it to you. And so I was accustomed to
taking care of my own problems.
When I found out—talked to Walter—Walter took me on a trip—he would do test flights,
that he took me on a test flight one time. And then I found out that they had flight
stewards on those things. So I got up my nerve, and I said to Walter, “If you give me a
job as a flight steward, I’ll work for you on my days off for nothing.” Nothing was said
but—well, before that, he had taken me on the flight, so I knew what the airplane was
like. And that was what enamored me and got me courage enough to—
DH:
Was this a Ford Trimotor?
JK:
Yeah, it was a Ford Trimotor. When I found out they had flight stewards, I didn’t see any
reason why I couldn’t do that. So about a month after that, two months after that, Walter
comes home one day and he said, “You get your parents’ permission and you can go with
me on my flight to Chicago tomorrow morning.” Well, I mean, I was walking on clouds
all the way home. [laughs] And I get home—I mean, it’s just like yesterday—I said,
“Mom, Walter says I can go to Chicago with him on his flight tomorrow morning if I get
your permission.” Mom clouded up. “Oh, son,” she says, “you better go ask your father.”
So I went to Dad. “Dad, Walter says I can go to Chicago with him on his flight tomorrow
morning if I get your permission.” “Oh, son, you better go ask your mother.” Now, this is
absolutely exactly how it happened.
I had decided the two no’s had to be yes. And the reason that they were—he was taking
me on this flight was because they had lost their first airplane two weeks before this, and
the pilot had been killed. And was taking off of Saint Paul up over the bluffs, and the
engine stalled out, and they—the airplane came down, and the pilot was killed because he
was in the front seat with the copilot. The flight steward and the passengers came through
it okay with just bumps and bruises.
And so Bobby Johnson that had talked us into taking our model airplane out and flying it,
was—happened to be the flight steward. He was the same build as me. So that evening I
went over to Saint Paul at the hospital, got his uniform, and took it home. It had some
burn holes in it from flaming—fire pieces and some blood spots on it, and I spent the
evening wiping off the blood spots and coloring out the white stiffening behind the burn
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holes with blue ink so that it didn’t show them. And that’s the uniform I wore the next
morning.
DH:
I’ll bet that’s the only time a flight steward ever used a uniform like that.
JK:
[laughs, coughs] I was thrilled to death with the job. I was just absolutely in seventh
heaven. But it was a tough job because they had no—well, first of all, we were flying at
100 miles an hour. And that was unheard-of speed, you know. Cars on the highway were
doing 25, 30 miles an hour, and here is this airplane, 100 miles an hour. And my job was
to keep a tidy cabin. So the air was rough most of the time because we were always
flying—we didn’t know how to fly instruments, so we were flying official reference to
the ground at all times. And sometimes we’d get forced down to maybe 200 or 300 feet,
and it’d get pretty dicey. And we would end up looking for a farmer’s field and stop and
wait until the weather got better. But that’s still beside the story that I’m telling you.
Anyway, I found that people were getting sick. And all the company had given me to take
care of the cabin was a broom and a dustpan. Well, I got pretty dismal when I had people
throwing up on the walls and on the floors and everything. So I decided that we had to
have a better way of taking care of this, and I went down to the grocery store and bought
some paper bags of a suitable size with my own money. And so I claimed to have
invented the barf bag.
DH:
[laughs]
JK:
Well, I would bring the bags on the trip with me. Now, here we have an airplane with a
toilet in it, but it has a funnel that opens to the outside. And I would take these bags
down, and I would see a person about to get sick—you’d have to see it immediately, you
know exactly when they’re going to—I would hand him a bag and he would be using it,
then I’d snap another bag, grab that one, hand him the fresh bag and I’d run like mad
down to the back down of the ship, kick the door open, and throw the bag out. Now, if I
worked fast enough, I would get there before the bottom fell out, which—that was my
incentive for speed. Anything we didn’t want on the airplane, we threw it out, after
everything had blown to bits. This was the concepts in those days.
DH:
So did this have anything to do with your decision to take flight training, so you could get
out of all the collecting of the barf bags?
JK:
Well, it was only logical that—I came to the conclusion that I was doing all of the work,
and I was getting only $78 a month. And the pilot didn’t do anything but sit up in front
and fly that thing. And he got $700 a month.
Well, as part of this story, of course, when I got my job and got the $78 a month, my dad
said, “Joe, don’t you think now you should be able to pay a little room and board?” I said,
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“How much do you think it’s worth, Dad?” He said, “Oh, I’d say $30 a month.” I said,
“Okay, I’ll pay it.”
So it got towards winter. I was—to get to the airport, I would walk four blocks to the bus
line, take the bus line cross town, get off the bus, get on a street car, take it to the end of
the line, walk a mile to the airport, and get there for my first flight to Chicago and back. It
took twelve hours to get to Chicago and back. When I came home, I reversed the
procedure. Didn’t take me very long to figure out I had to have a car. Well, my brother
Herb says, “I’ll buy one with you.” I said, “Fine.”
So on that basis, I bought a brand new Model A Ford Coupe, $725. And I paid the down
payment, which was around $200. I had saved it. And the first payment comes due, and
Herb doesn’t have any money.
DH:
Oh, dear.
JK:
“I don’t have any money.” So I’m the only one who’s putting any money into it. I said,
“Okay, so I’ll pay for it.” So $30 to my Dad, $35 to the car for two years, I had lived on
$13 a month extra. And that’s what I used to do everything. [laughs] Well—
DH:
So when did you start—
JK:
You see, this shy kid is a stubborn kid, also.
00:29:13
[Becoming a pilot]
DH:
So when did you actually start to think about becoming a pilot yourself? Is that—did that
lead to that?
JK:
What’s that?
DH:
When did you first decide to become a pilot yourself?
JK:
Well, see, I had figured out all of this right at the very beginning. I figured I had the
wrong job, naturally, and the only way I could do what he was doing was to learn to fly.
Well, here I was $13 a month. There was no money to buy any flying. I go into the
company. I can still see Rosy Stein’s face. Rosy Stein was the assistant to the president.
And this is a small company that only had a very few people in it. So I said to her, “I
would like to borrow one of those Waco 10s out there.” There were two Waco 10s left
over from their flight school days. They weren’t using them, but they kept them. “I’d like
to borrow one of those airplanes.” She was shocked. I mean, there was just no question
about it, looking at her face. Finally, she said, “You’d have to pay for the gas and oil.” I
said, “I can do that.” Gasoline was only 19 cents a gallon.
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So now we’ve got an airplane. I go to Chad Smith. Chad Smith is one of the pilots that
was flying—that I flew with. I said, “Chad, I have an airplane. Will you teach me to fly?”
Chad says, “Sure, I’ll do that.” So he soloed me.
DH:
How long did it take you to solo?
JK:
Six hours.
DH:
Six hours?
JK:
Well, you see, I had been getting some time up sitting in the cockpit in flight, so I didn’t
have to get accustomed to being in the air or anything.
DH:
Six hours. That’s not too bad, though.
JK:
So then I ended up flying and building up my time. I got 50 hours, and I got my
commercial license. And then I—nothing changed. I’m still a flight attendant, and that’s
it. But I got my license finally, and about the time that I got my license, within 30 days,
the government came out with a new ruling stating that they had to have two pilots on
aircraft weighing 12,500 pounds or more. Now, the only airplane that fit that description
was a Ford Trimotor. Exactly 12,500 pounds, which meant they had to have two pilots
now, instead of just one. It was only natural then, with my license, that I became a
copilot. And the copilot, I think I was making $140 a month.
DH:
How long did you spend in the right-hand seat?
JK:
I flew that—when I got to be 23 years old, I finally got a commercial license—I mean,
what’s required of a real captain. And as soon as I got that license, I remember being
given a promotion to captain.
DH:
You became a Captain at 23?
JK:
Yeah.
DH:
Oh, my gosh.
JK:
My first job was to go to Fargo, North Dakota. And I flew from Fargo to Grand Forks to
[unintelligible] and turn around and came back. And then there was another guy,
Clarence Bates, doing the same thing. But between us, we kept the station open, also. So
we were station masters on our off days and captains on the alternate, just switching back
and forth, so they were covered for the whole station.
DH:
Let me ask you this. Do you still have your first wings? Your first wings you wore on
your uniform?
JK:
I have no idea.
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00:33:45
[Flight from Minneapolis to Seattle in 1933]
DH:
Okay. Now, in 1933, after you’d been a captain for a while, you flew a very special flight
from the Twin Cities to Seattle. Can you tell us a little bit about that flight?
JK:
Well, yes. That flight was made in January of 1933 and was made to prove that you could
fly from Minneapolis to Seattle during the winter, which everybody thought would be
impossible. And that was a trip that we made—Huey Rueschenberg was the captain, I
was the copilot. Croil Hunter went along, and then he had invited our friend—
DK:
Amelia Earhart.
JK:
—Amelia Earhart to join us.
DH:
Did you know who she was at the time?
JK:
Oh, yeah. She had just flown across the ocean. Everybody knew Amelia Earhart. She was
flying—she was going out to Portland, Oregon, to a speaking engagement and accepted
Croil’s invitation to ride on this proving flight, as far as Spokane, anyway.
So she was with us when we flew the first day from Minneapolis to Bismarck. Had a big
dinner at the governor’s mansion that night, just the crew and the governor’s family. The
next day, we took off and flew to Billings, had a big luncheon the Chamber of Commerce
put on for us. After we did that, we then took off to Helena that afternoon, had a big
dinner at the governor’s mansion in Helena. And the following morning, we were finally
on our final episode to cross the mountains.
Well, there was a gentleman we met at the party, an old-time rancher who claimed to
have known the mountains like he knew the back of his hand. And he offered to go along
with us and show us how to get through the mountains, which we thought was a good
idea. It was just Huey and I, the president, and Amelia and this guy, take off the next
morning at Helena. So as soon as we got airborne, he says, “You go up this canyon here.”
So we flew up the canyon. We get into a horrendous storm, and it was raining so hard we
can’t see anything except straight down and out the side. And right in the middle of this
storm, he comes up and he says, “You got to turn around. This is a blind gorge. I’m sorry.
I made a mistake.”
Well, we couldn’t turn around till we got out of that weather, so naturally we’re sweating
for quite a bit there, then finally get out, turn around, and go back through it. So he says,
“Now, I’m sorry, but this is the one you should have gone up.” So we went up, and to
make a long story short, same thing. By this time, Huey had had about all he could
handle. Now, he was a very quiet individual, not very prone to speaking out or anything.
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He turned and he said, “Mr. [Sheriff?], thank you for your help, but we don’t—we will
get along okay. Why don’t you just go back and sit there and get comfortable and we’ll
fly it.” So we went on without [Sheriff’s?] help.
And we got to Mullen Pass, and there was absolutely no way in the world we would get
over Mullen Pass because it was clouds right on top of mountain. And so we started back,
and we went back as far as…my mind is…
DH:
Don’t worry about it.
JK:
there’s a town there that’s nestled up against the mountains, and behind it there was a Vshape like this. [demonstrates with his hands] And you could look through and see
something on the other side. We didn’t know what. We couldn’t understand. We’re in
territory we know nothing about.
Hugh has the courage to go up and go through that gap, and we get over to the other side,
and we see there’s a river that goes like this. [makes a snaking pattern] And so we follow
this river, and it rainsqualls occasionally and can’t see hardly anything, then they clear
up. And we end up to the—where we end up at the north end of Coeur d’ Alene Lake,
which is a long lake on the west side of the mountains. And all—for all practical
purposes, when we went through that gap at Missoula—Missoula was the name of the
town—we had actually crossed the mountains.
So we get into—when we get into the Spokane Airport, we ran into a snowsquall just as
we got to the airport. And when we got—when we landed, it was snowing great big
flakes of snow. And we taxied up the ramp, and there was a whole bunch of United
Airline pilots there sitting out the weather. They wondered how they got—wondered how
they squeezed from Minnesota, got that airplane into that field. We didn’t tell them it was
clear as a bell until we got within two or three miles from the airport. [laughter]
Well, we went downtown. My job—Croil said, “I want you to make arrangements for
rooms for all of us and get something real nice for Amelia Earhart. I mean, something.”
So I went to the hotel. Here I am—let’s see, at that time I’m 21 years old, still a shy kid,
but I got a job to do. So I go to the Davenport Hotel and make arrangements for a room
for Croil and a room for Huey and I and then, “So we have a very special guest with us.
We’d like to have a nice stateroom for her. Amelia Earhart.” So, “We have a suite of
rooms.” I said, “I’d like to see it.”
So they took me up, and here was the suite, two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a
dining room, just really first class. That was $75 a night. I said, “We’ll take it.” Our
rooms cost $15. [laughs, coughs] So when Croil came in and saw what we had for
Amelia Earhart, he was thrilled to death because nobody had come—called us up,
nobody knew we were coming. And he said, “We’re going to have a banquet in Amelia’s
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suite.” So we arranged for the hotel to furnish a full-class dinner to be served in Amelia’s
dining room that evening when just the five or six of us were in there at that meeting.
DH:
Did you get to talk to her very much? What were your impressions?
JK:
I got to talk to her a little bit but not—I mean, nothing really special. It was just nice to
know her. As a matter of fact, I have a picture on the kitchen wall that I took of her in the
suite with my Brownie camera. It’s hanging on the cupboard.
DH:
Okay. We’ll take a look at that after a while.
JK:
Yeah, you’ll have to take a look.
00:42:12
[Involvement with the Air Line Pilots Association and Quiet Birdmen]
DH:
Well, that’s wonderful. Let me just jump it forward a little bit. I understand that you had a
central role in the Air Line Pilots Association, ALPA, during you career.
JK:
A separate role?
DH:
A central role in the Air Line Pilots Association?
JK:
Well, I really joined the Air Line Pilots Association—I was one of the original founders,
but that’s the only thing I can relate to that. I mean, that—
DH:
Did you think it was necessary at the time to have something like ALPA for the pilots’
benefit?
JK:
Oh, definitely, we—that was the pilots’ idea, and they—see, we used to meet pilots from
other airlines when we flew into Chicago. And that was—the only conversations were
among pilots that were flying into Chicago. We’d meet there. W’d get tagged up with
weather sometimes and we’d sit around, be talking about the job and all that. And it was
that meeting of those guys that they decided to form an association. And so the ALPA
was founded basically in that manner. And they got together, and I didn’t have any real
part in the structure. I was just a kid.
DH:
Sure.
JK:
The pilots all took care of that. But I was a charter member.
DH:
Very good. I think you were also inducted into the Quiet Birdmen as well, weren’t you?
JK:
Yes, I joined the QBs. That was another interesting association. They’re very important
to all of us, the QBs.
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DH:
Do you remember when you were inducted?
JK:
No, it had to be early in the—probably in the ‘30s sometime. I don’t have any
recollection of any particular moment.
00:44:27
[Service with the U.S. Army Air Corps]
DH:
Sure. Now, you enlisted in—at the very beginning of World War II, didn’t you?
JK:
Well, no. I didn’t enlist, really. That came about in a rather subtle way. After I got my job
as a captain, I’m flying back and forth to Chicago, and every time I land east, I look out
my window as I’m flying. Here is an Air Force base that has a bunch of airplanes in a
row. And I look down, and they were Army pursuit ships. Gee, it’d be a lot of fun to fly
one of those. But I keep looking at them.
So finally, after some period of time, I decided that I had to fly one of those. And in order
to do it—I looked into it, and in order to do it, I had to join the Enlisted Reserves, after
which I could then apply for a rating and I could get to fly one. This took about—it took a
year because I had to take a correspondence course. I took this correspondence course
over a period of a year on learning how to be an officer and a gentleman. And I was
flying into Chicago from Minneapolis about every other day, spending maybe four hours
on the ground in between the time I landed and the time—and I thought that would be a
wonderful time to go and fly one of those P-12Es.
So I went through all that. It took a year. That just shows you the stubbornness part of
me. Finally, I got my application in for flight duty, and so I got my check flight. And they
taught me—I mean, they checked me out in the P-12E, and so now I’m a second
lieutenant in the military. This is in 1938. Well, there was a war coming along, and I
debated whether it was really smart to take the risk of being in the war, but I decided that
I had to do it. It just—that was just not going to deter me.
So I ended up on my next flight—after I got qualified and got my check write-off, I
waited until the next trip I went to Chicago. It was a beautiful day. I parked my airplane. I
have four hours. I came over to the squadron, drew a P-12E, and taxied out and decided
to go north of town. And I end up flying up just around Evanston and doing loops. And I
didn’t know much about stunting. Only thing I really knew how to do was to do spins
because when Chad Smith checked me out, he had me do spins until he told me to stop.
And after about a week or two, I said, “You still want me doing spins?” “Sure,” he says.
“You can quit now.” [laughter] But he had no idea. I spun and spun and spun for two
weeks every day.
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Well, so here I am ten years later, and here I am in this wonderful airplane, and I—after
trying loops and Immelmanns and things of that kind, so I decided to loop—I mean, to
spin it. And I pulled it up. The second I pulled the stick back, all of a sudden it kicks off,
and it goes around and around. And I went on to do my other stunt work.
Finally, I decided that has to spin tighter than that. So I decided to take it up and snap roll
it into a spin, which is a process where you line up the airplane, you kick the rudder, and
pull the stick back sharply, and the airplane goes up and over and down. I think I’d been
doing all this other work at 3,000 feet. I figured, well, I better go up higher for some
reason or other. So I went to 6,000 feet. Got it all squared away, slowed it down, kicked
the rudder, and pulled the stick back, and it went [makes sound effect] and started
spinning tighter and tighter. And I reversed controls and nothing happened. I went down
to 5,000 feet, 4,000 feet, to 3,000 feet, and I thought, I got to get out of this thing. It’s not
coming out.
So I unfastened my seatbelt and had a hold of the ripcord on my parachute and one hand
on the cockpit side, and I stepped over the side of the airplane—or got one foot on the
wing and was out in there in the air about like this [leans to the side], ready to pull the
cord as soon as I got clear, and the airplane started to slow down. I got back in, and I rode
it out. Two thousand feet, 1,500 feet, got down to 1,000 feet, and it finally came out. I
want to tell you, I was one scared cookie. That’s something I’ll never forget.
DH:
A little bit different than flying a Ford Trimotor, huh?
JK:
[laughs] Well, you know, I never flew another Army airplane. I didn’t—
DH:
So you had a reserve commission. Did you serve—
JK:
So I’m in the reserves, and I don’t pay any attention to anything. So 1941 comes around,
and we go to war, and they called me into active duty. And the only experience I’d had
was that one session with that one spin. Well, I was disappointed because I was making
$1,500 a month as a captain, and I ended up in the military at $244.50, which was quite a
jolt. As it turned out, it was a blessing in disguise, of course, because I look at my service
in the military as a very important part of my growing up.
DH:
Were you with Air Transport Command or—
JK:
I ended up with the—in the Special Missions Group, which is a group based in
Washington, D.C. that provided service to all the important VIPs, Very Important People,
that wanted to go someplace. And during the war, there was always somebody going
someplace. Admirals, generals, congressmen, you name it. Anybody that had enough
clout to get an airplane would come to the Special Missions Group and get one with a
crew.
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DH:
I’ll bet you may have flown a very specially-equipped Douglas B-18. It was fitted out as
a transport. Because they had one in that unit.
JK:
A what?
DH:
A Douglas B-18? It looked like a DC-3?
JK:
No, I flew mostly heavier aircraft. [coughs] We flew… [pauses] The B-29s were one
thing that were also made into cargo ships.
DH:
Yes.
JK:
And we flew—let’s see. It’s my mind. My mind is just not working.
DH:
That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.
JK:
I could find it in all that stuff. There were several aircraft that I flew during the war, but
they were all four-engine, taking people all through the Pacific Theater. At the height of
the war, I was flying into Manila and all the areas where all the fighting was taking on,
but fortunately never got shot down. All through Europe. It was a wonderful experience,
three and a half years of it.
00:54:00
[Postwar flying career and retirement]
DH:
That’s wonderful. What finally brought you out to Seattle on a permanent basis?
JK:
[coughs ] Well, I think the fact that I was growing tired of the flying from Seattle to
Chicago. I mean, there was other fields. By that time, the government—the company had
started flying to the Orient. And that intrigued me, but in order to fly to the Orient, I had
to move to Seattle. So I put in my bid for the Orient and checked out—flew out from
Minneapolis to Seattle. I moved—I think it was in November of ‘57. Yeah. And I came
out here, and I started flying to the Orient.
DH:
Were you flying DC-7s then?
JK:
No, we were flying—to start with, we were flying Electras, and then we went through…
[pauses] Well, basically, it’s all in there. [points to logbooks on table]
DH:
Okay.
JK:
I just—my mind doesn’t seem to function anymore. But I flew all the four-engine stuff.
DH:
You went all the way from the Ford Trimotor to the Boeing 747.
JK:
Yeah, it’s on the last page of that.
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DH:
Right. Can you tell us about the—your experience when the first 747 rolled out that you
saw?
JK:
[pauses]
DH:
Do you remember that? The first time you saw a 747?
JK:
I never got to fly a 747.
DH:
Okay. Were you there when the first one was rolled out for Northwest?
JK:
Northwest had the first 747s in about 1958 or so. But they would not check me out in the
747 because Nyrop [Donald Nyrop] says, “It cost too much money, $50,000, and I’m not
going to spend that kind of money to let you fly something for just one year.” And I said,
“Well, you have to. I have a contract.” He said, “Well, file a grievance,” knowing full
well the grievance process was going to take so long that I’d be over the age of eight—
over—
DH:
Now, I understand you took up a hobby of some kind as a result of that experience. Is that
true?
JK:
Well, I took up a lot of hobbies. I was crushed when they took my license away from me
at age 60 because I was healthy, really healthy, and there was no necessity for it.
DH:
I understand
JK:
There was just one man’s opinion, Donald Nyrop, who was [unintelligible] a nice guy,
but I never forgave him for what he did there.
Anyhow, I had about eighteen months—no, eight months or so to fly, and I decided I was
going to probably—going to use up my sick leave. And the best way to do that was to
take up skiing and end up falling and breaking a leg, and then I used up all my sick leave.
That way I’d get even with them. [laughs] Well, I fell down more mountainsides than you
can think of and never, ever ended up hurting myself. And I flew until I was 95 years old,
and I enjoyed all of it. But I finally quit because it was just too much effort.
DH:
Did you own your own airplane?
JK:
Huh?
DH:
Did you own your own airplane?
JK:
Oh, just for a brief moment I had an interest in a Mohawk Pinto. But another thing I got
into after I retired: here I was sitting around healthy and nothing to do. And I ended up
with retirement income, which was not great, but it should have been enough to take care
of me. So I took up scuba diving when I was 60, and I dove in the diving here in the
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islands. I joined a club called the Prop Dodgers, and every month we’d take a boat out of
Anacortes and go out into the Sound and find a place to dive. I dove as deep as 100 feet,
and I enjoyed it, thoroughly enjoyed it. But I did that until I was about 75 years old, and
then I put that aside. And the most difficult part was to keep active, trying to find things
to keep active with.
DH:
I understand.
JK:
That was a tough time.
DH:
You have had a spectacular flying career in the course of your life. If you had something
that you would like to pass along to the next generation of pilots, if you had something
that you wanted to tell them that would be important for them to know, what would it be?
JK:
I don’t know. You just have to go with the flow. And my life has been so wonderful in
spite of all of the bad parts, where you have close escapes and stuff of that kind. I
truthfully can say that my life was so wonderful, I would cheerfully do the whole thing
over again. How many people can say that?
DH:
Well, that’s all the questions we have for you, sir. Do you have anything you’d like to tell
us?
JK:
No, I have no advice.
01:00:26
[Final questions]
DH:
Gentlemen, do you have anything you’d like to add?
GEOFF NUNN:
What was your ski resort of choice? I’m also—
JK:
My what?
DH:
Your ski resort.
GN:
Your ski resort. Where did you go to ski regularly?
JK:
Well, I skied mostly up at the Summit.
GN:
Okay.
JK:
No, not the Summit, but—
GN:
Stevens?
JK:
Stevens Pass.
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GN
I’m a Stevens Pass skier myself.
JK:
My favorite. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I skied until I was 95, and then I decided that
was enough.
DH:
Penny, do you have any questions you can think of you’d like to add?
PENNY:
[unintelligible] What was your favorite place to fly to?
DH:
What was your favorite destination as a pilot?
JK:
Well, you know, when you’re flying, you don’t have any requirements or any—wherever
it was, it was interesting. I’m happy that I—in all of my flying, instead of having to fly,
say, between Minneapolis and Chicago, and never having done anything else, that would
have been sad. But the flying I did took me all over the world. I flew so many places. I
would—I mean, I loved it all.
DH:
Did you have any close calls?
JK:
Yeah, a couple.
DH:
Any you want to tell us about?
UV:
How about the one with the engine [unintelligible], Dad?
JK:
Well, I think the first one happened about 1932,’33, when we were flying a flight to
Chicago. It was a nice, sunny day, and we ended up flying at 5,000 feet. We had about 12
passengers, Ford Trimotor. I’m flying the airplane, and the captain is just sitting there.
And all of a sudden, there’s a tremendous jolt. And the captain immediately reached up
and started cutting switches and pulling throttles back, and I said, “What’s going on?” He
says, “Take a look out here.” I got out of my seat and got over and looked over, and
there’s—I said, “The engine’s gone.” He said, “Well, look down, look down.” So I
looked down further, and here the engine is lying in the landing gear. About 15 inches of
the propeller had broken off. One made one turn this way, the engine made a turn the
opposite direction and rolled out and broke the [unintelligible] and landed down.
Now, we had sat around Chicago for lots and lots of arguments about what would
happen, for example, when an engine fell off an airplane. And everybody agreed that you
wouldn’t be able to—about half of everybody said you wouldn’t be able to hold it and the
other half said it wouldn’t make any difference. Nobody knew. And here it was the first
time it had ever happened.
Well, we didn’t really know what was going to happen till we got rid of it, and the pilot
decided he couldn’t land with that there. So we went out in the middle of the river and we
lined up with the river and he dropped the nose and wiggled the tail with the rudder
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pedals and shook the engine loose and it tumbled off. So we went in and landed, and he
landed with the right gear. We went along fine until we dropped down, caught, and it
caught the wheel and the airplane swerved around and the tail comes up like this [leans
forward] and then fell back. [laughter] So we got through it.
So we ended up going into the airport—or the hangar, and after a few minutes the
telephone rang and a voice said, “Anybody lose an engine around there?” Here we
thought we were dropping this engine in the water so it wouldn’t hurt anybody, not
realizing that when you’re traveling at 100 miles an hour, you’re throwing it, too. And we
threw it far enough to land in a field about 200 feet from where a guy was building a
chicken coup. So he was the one that called us. Well, the company recovered the engine.
Mechanics were kind enough to cut the pistons in half and [unintelligible] made me an
ashtray. That’s up there on top. [points to top of bookcase]
DH:
That’s wonderful
JK:
You can probably see that.
DH:
I see one up there. I see it.
JK:
Yeah.
DH:
Well, thank you very much, sir. We have enjoyed this so much. I don’t want to wear you
out. I think we’ve got more than enough.
GN:
Yeah. Do you want to—just, you know, let you guys relax and get a couple of close-up
shots of some of the things that he mentioned.
DH:
Would you mind if we took some—
JK:
No, no. You’re welcome to take pictures of any of these.
DH:
Very good.
JK:
This is my life around here.
DH:
I can see that.
JK:
[points off camera] That one over there, I was elected to the Minnesota Aviation Hall of
Fame. So if you want any information, you can go into the Internet, type the name “Joe
Kimm,” and you’ll come up with quite a bit of information.
DH:
Oh, we’ve already done that.
JK:
You’ve done that.
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DH:
We’ve done that.
UV:
Now, Kim, my niece, has some more stories if you’re interested.
DH:
We sure would. And would love to see the rest of those tapes that she did sometime, too.
I know that this is just very superficial, but this is—we wanted to start with this. And
maybe at some point, we can come back [unintelligible] and see you again if we need to.
JK:
Yeah. I’m here. I can’t guarantee how long because, actually, I find that I’m sliding
pretty far now.
DH:
I understand, sir. I don’t want to wear you out. That’s the thing.
JK:
I’m okay so long as I’m sitting here.
DH:
Okay.
JK:
It was kind of you to come by and give me a chance to tell my story, because I’m really
kind of proud of it.
DH:
Thank you so much. We are so much in your debt, believe me. We owe you.
JK:
Well, you don’t owe me anything, but I’m happy to know that you’ll do something with
it.
DH:
We will. Yes, sir.
JK:
And I’m sure that you’ll be interested in the tapes that Kim has. And she’d be happy to—
DH:
And we would sure like to see your logbooks. If you ever decide you want to give your
logbooks a good home, we would sure love to have them at the Museum, unless you want
to keep them in the family. We regard logbooks as the most primary of all documents, in
terms of research and authenticity.
JK:
What do you do with logbooks besides putting them in a drawer someplace?
DH:
Researchers use them. All the time. Last year, we had over 1,500 researchers at the
Museum researching aviation history. And logbooks are a primary source.
JK:
Well, I haven’t decided what to do with my logbooks. I think the two areas that are
possibly interested in it would be—
DH:
I just want to let you know.
JK:
—Museum of Flight and also, Northwest retirement.
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DH:
Sure. Well, you let us know. If you ever decide you want to do that, we would love—I
just want to let you know that we would love to have them in the collection. We would
love to have them.
01:08:24
[END OF INTERVIEW]
2013 © The Museum of Flight
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Museum of Flight Oral History Collection
Description
An account of the resource
<p>The <strong>Museum of Flight Oral History Collection</strong> chronicles the personal stories of individuals in the fields of aviation and aerospace, from pilots and engineers to executives. This collection, which dates from 2013 to present, consists of digital video recordings and transcripts, which illustrate these individuals’ experiences, relationship with aviation, and advice for those interested in the field. By the end of 2019, approximately 76 interviews will have had been conducted. The interviews range in length from approximately 20 minutes to 4 hours and 45 minutes. Most interviews are completed in one session, but some participants were interviewed over multiple occasions.</p>
<p>The personal stories in this collection span much of the modern history of flight, from the Golden Age of Aviation in the 1930s, to the evolution of jet aircraft in the mid-twentieth century, to the ongoing developments of the Space Age. The selected interviewees represent a wide range of career paths and a diverse cross-section of professionals, each of whom made significant contributions to their field. Among the many interviewees are Calvin Kam, a United States Army veteran who served as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War; Robert “Bob” Alexander, a mechanical engineer who helped design the Hubble Telescope; and Betty Riley Stockard, a flight attendant during the 1940s who once acted as a secret parcel carrier during World War II.</p>
<p>The production of the videos was funded by Mary Kay and Michael Hallman. Processing and cataloging of the videos was made possible by a 4Culture "Heritage Projects" grant.</p>
<p>Please note that materials on TMOF: Digital Collections are presented as historical objects and are unaltered and uncensored. See our <a href="https://digitalcollections.museumofflight.org/disclaimers-policies">Disclaimers and Policies</a> page for more information.</p>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-current
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Museum of Flight (Seattle, Wash.)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories (literary works)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://archives.museumofflight.org/repositories/2/resources/6">Guide to the Museum of Flight Oral History Collection</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
The Museum of Flight Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Permission to publish material from the Museum of Flight Oral History Collection must be obtained from The Museum of Flight Archives.
Bibliographic Citation
A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible.
The Museum of Flight Oral History Collection/The Museum of Flight
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2019-00-00.100
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Kimm, Joseph Edward, 1911-2013
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Hagedorn, Dan
Biographical Text
<p>Joseph Kimm had a 42-year long career with Northwest Airways and served with the Special Missions Group during World War II.</p>
<p>Joseph Edward Kimm was born August 18, 1911 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Albert Peter and Catherine Kimm. He attended Central High School in Minneapolis, graduating in 1929. Because of the Depression, his family could not afford to send him to college, so he found a job helping make candy at a soda fountain.</p>
<p>As a child he enjoyed building model airplanes. At a meeting for model airplane makers he met Walter Bullock, an early aviator who shared Kimm’s hobby. When Kimm quit his job at the soda fountain, Bullock hired him to help make and sell model airplane kits. Bullock also flew for Northwest Airlines and invited Kimm on a flight. Having enjoyed the flight, Kimm then asked Bullock to help him get a job as a flight steward. Kimm was hired by Northwest Airways July 1, 1929 to serve as steward on the then-new Ford Trimotors. His primary task was to keep the airplane cabin clean. Kimm claims to have invented the air sickness bag while he was working as a steward. Realizing that being a pilot would be more a lucrative job, he sought out flight training. He began working for Northwest as co-pilot, and once he had earned his commercial pilot’s license he was promoted to captain in 1933 at the age of 23. His first route was between Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota.</p>
<p>Over the course of his piloting career, he was involved in opening up two important air routes, one from Minneapolis to Seattle, Washington across the northern Rockies. That flight had Amelia Earhart as a passenger, who was publicizing both her recent book and their history-making flight. He also opened a route across previously uncharted territory from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska.</p>
<p>Fascination with the P-12E motivated him to join the Army Air Corps Reserves prior to the U.S. entry into World War II. This later led to him being called into wartime active duty in 1941 as one of the few dozen pilots forming the Special Missions Group (Brass Hat Squadron) during the war. In this role, he flew various dignitaries around the world, including Senator Albert Hawkes, Mexican Air Force General Salinas, and then General Dwight D. Eisenhower.</p>
<p>In October 1956, Kimm and Senior Captain “Deke” DeLong marked Northwest’s 30th Anniversary by flying a restored Ford Trimotor coast to coast to mark the occasion. Treated like celebrities at every stop, Kimm and DeLong appeared on the Arthur Godfrey Show in New York.</p>
<p>Kimm flew his final Northwest Boeing 707 flight on August 17, 1971. In his retirement years he enjoyed skiing, scuba diving, and delivering Meals on Wheels until he was well into his 90s. Kimm lived to be 102 years old, passing away on September 19, 2013.</p>
<p>Biographical information derived from interview and additional information provided by interviewee.</p>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Joseph Kimm oral history interview
Description
An account of the resource
Born-digital video recording of an oral history with Joseph Kimm and interviewer Dan Hagedorn, recorded as part of The Museum of Flight Oral History Program, May 31, 2013.
Abstract
A summary of the resource.
<p>Pilot Joseph E. Kimm is interviewed about his decade-spanning aviation career. He discusses his early experiences as a flight steward on Ford Trimotor aircraft, and his time as a copilot and pilot for Northwest Airways (later Northwest Airlines), spanning the 1930s to the 1970s. He also touches on his military service during World War II with Air Transport Command, U.S. Army Air Corps. Other topics discussed include his work building aircraft models, his experiences with various aircraft, and a memorable flight from Minneapolis to Seattle with Amelia Earhart.</p>
Table Of Contents
A list of subunits of the resource.
Early aviation memories -- Experiences with model airplanes -- Job as an ice cream and candy maker -- Working with Walter Bullock and job as a flight steward -- Becoming a pilot -- Flight from Minneapolis to Seattle in 1933 -- Involvement with the Air Line Pilots Association and Quiet Birdmen -- Service with the U.S. Army Air Corps -- Postwar flying career and retirement -- Final questions
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-05-31
Subject
The topic of the resource
Air pilots
Air pilots, Military
Airplanes--Models;
Bullock, Walter, 1889-1986
Earhart, Amelia, 1897-1937
Flight attendants
Kimm, Joseph Edward, 1911-2013
Northwest Airways, Inc.
United States. Army. Air Corps
Waco (OH) 10 Family
World War, 1939-1945
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Chicago (Ill.)
Illinois
Minneapolis (Minn.)
Minnesota
Seattle (Wash.)
Spokane (Wash.)
United States
Washington (State)
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Museum of Flight (Seattle, Wash.)
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
1 recording (1 hr., 8 min., 24 sec.) : digital
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
oral histories (literary works)
born digital
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
The Museum of Flight Oral History Collection (2019-00-00-100), Digital Recordings
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Bibliographic Citation
A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible.
The Museum of Flight Oral History Collection/The Museum of Flight
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OH_Kimm_Joseph
OH_Kimm_Joseph_transcription