In a couple of past columns I’ve regaled you with tales of Robert “Gentleman Bob” Hanley, one of Catalina’s most legendary and renowned seaplane pilots of yore.
Those two columns (not to mention the opening story in my book “Mysterious Island: Catalina”) revolved around a couple of supernatural incidents related by Mr. Hanley that occurred during his remarkable flying career—a pair of incidents that will chill you to your ailerons.
In a couple of past columns I’ve regaled you with tales of Robert “Gentleman Bob” Hanley, one of Catalina’s most legendary and renowned seaplane pilots of yore.
Those two columns (not to mention the opening story in my book “Mysterious Island: Catalina”) revolved around a couple of supernatural incidents related by Mr. Hanley that occurred during his remarkable flying career—a pair of incidents that will chill you to your ailerons.
But Hanley, who is perhaps known best locally for his operation of Catalina Channel Airlines for nearly two decades, had more on his resume than simple ghost stories. He also had quite a few hair-raising tales of aerial adventure borne of that Old World bravado of which we seem to see so little these days.
Which brings us around quite nicely to this week’s column concerning Hanley’s early years of flying and his business dealings with a rather infamous man in our history named Al Capone.
Hanley already had, by his calculation, about a hundred hours of flying before he was even out of high school. This was down in Florida in the 1920s. But high school boys, then as now, need cash to do the sorts of things that high school boys like to do and it just so happened there was a great deal of money to be made in Florida in those days in the bootleg liquor trade.
“My old man wants to talk to you,” said Hanley’s friend Frank after a short discussion about Bob’s flying abilities. Frank explained that his father was interested in hiring a pilot and that it just so happened there was a pool party at the family house that evening.
Later that night, Hanley and Frank’s father—Al Capone—struck a deal whereby Hanley would fly cases and cases of whiskey from the Bahamas all the way to the wharf at 125th Street in Biscayne Bay. Hanley would get a whopping $26 per case, or $676 per flight, a veritable fortune in those days. Of course, all of these flights would be made in a seaplane and all of the take-offs and landings would have to be made at night in total darkness. No sweat, thought Hanley, and “Gentleman Bob’s” seaplane career was launched.
Over the ensuing weeks and months, Hanley amassed a small fortune of several thousand dollars, which he kept under his mattress at home.
Then came the inevitable day when trouble came. It was shortly after landing in Biscayne Bay, while more of Capone’s minions were unloading the illicit cargo from Hanley’s plane, when the call “look out!” came out, followed by “Get the hell out of here!.” Such a cry could only mean one thing—the cops.
Hanley jumped back into the cockpit while his shore crew shoved his plane away from the dock. He then raced across the water on take-off directly toward the source of the concern—a U.S. Coast Guard ship that was blazing away in the darkness at him.
He barely got the plane off the water in time to skim above the ship.
What happened next was where Hanley’s 17-year-oldness nearly cost him his life: rather than just let go of the Coast Guard’s attempt to kill him, teenage revenge took over and Hanley decided to loop around and give the Coast Guardsmen a scare by “barnstorming” their ship.
Although it was in the dark of night, Hanley apparently didn’t realize that the lights of Miami behind him silhouetted his biplane quite nicely for the gunners on the Coast Guard ship.
They let loose another volley as Hanley buzzed overhead. One of those bullets—and fortunately ONLY one of them—zipped through the bottom of the fuselage and straight into Hanley’s leg.
Now severely wounded, his boot started filling with blood and Hanley began to slowly go into shock. While still in the air, Hanley said he lost consciousness.
Could this be the end of our hero? Incredibly, and no one knows how he did it, Hanley was somehow able to land the plane on the water. Capone’s ground crews found him and the plane (with the engine still idling) and went into action. They pulled his unconscious body from the cockpit and rushed him by speedboat back to Capone’s base in the Bahamas, an “abandoned” cement barge that featured a distillery, packing plant, armory and a hospital for just such emergencies.
After a short break, Hanley once again returned to Capone’s service. But with high school graduation just around the corner (yes, I think that’s funny, too) Hanley set his sights on greater things. With the money he had made by making more than 80 aerial smuggling trips, Hanley decided to go to college. He shook hands with a grateful Al Capone and bid farewell.
Twenty-five years later, after more harrowing adventures in the Second World War, Hanley began flying for Dick Probert’s Avalon Air Transport and made his entrance into Catalina Island lore and the rest, as they say, is history.
Jim Watson is the author of “Mysterious Island: Catalina,” available on Amazon, Kindle and in stores all over Avalon.
