Before Amelia (14 page)

Melli and her husband, Charles Boutard, at the unveiling of their first plane, a Beese-Taube, in 1913. Despite turning out innovative, first-rate flying machines, their enterprise was soon squeezed out of business.
DEUTSCHES MUSEUM, MUNICH

Sadly, they were wrong. Money for exceptional German design performance, and similar advances, was dropped; funds went to train pilots for the military, with the large manufacturers—Rumpler, Albatros, Aviatik, and later Fokker—winning the pot for construction. Their machines were avidly sought after, to the detriment of innovative German designers. And always there was the unspoken reality about a Beese machine: the builder was a woman. When Melli and Boutard married in January 1913, their situation became even more difficult. According to German law, Melli became a French citizen when she married Boutard. One stipulation for receiving government funds required that aeroplanes be German made; as a foreigner, Boutard had been eliminated from benefiting. Now, Melli was excluded.

Despite financial concerns, Melli wrote that the period between January 1912 and August 1914 was the happiest of her life. Work was nonstop—no time for sleep, only work, with every ounce of energy. Such dedication “needs great love for the cause and even more energy.” Yet she was happy.

The couple busied themselves with plans for a flying–boat, the dream Melli had held since her days in Sweden. If a fast monoplane was not in the German picture, surely a flying–boat would capture public attention. Hope carried them a long way, and there were still a few civilian students to be taught.

Hermann Dorner, one of the three great early German aeroplane builders, returned to Johannisthal at this juncture to be greeted joyfully by Melli and Boutard. Dorner, like Melli, was an idealist whose enthusiasm lay in construction, but now reality forced him to compete to earn money, since his own business had closed. He had worked for a while with another company where he could do some scientific work, but this didn't satisfy him.

Could Melli lend him an aeroplane? She was only too happy to do so, because, as she explained to him, her marriage had made her a foreigner and barred her from competition. Now part of her would be in the contest. With the borrowed Melli Beese–Taube, Dorner won a Flying Donation prize of a thousand marks, which would keep him afloat for a while.

According to one source, Melli promptly asked him to join her in the flying–boat project, for among his many talents, Dorner was a whiz at computing construction figures. Other sources leave open the question of how much he had to do with the flying boat. Melli claimed she had worked on it for four years (this seems an exaggeration), but it is possible Dorner helped compute costs of the construction, after first analyzing every aspect of the boat to judge its feasibility. His genius in construction combined with Melli's technical ability was security that the flying boat would establish her as Germany's first woman aeroplane builder.

The flying–boat design was advanced for its time. Again, Melli obtained a patent for an original part (No. 290072), which after the war was used internationally. The fuselage of the machine, narrow and pointed like a boat at each end, with a fairly broad keel that curved inward as it rose to counter rough water, was composed of two parts, an outer shell and an inner section. They were joined in such a way that the outer part would absorb the movement of the water and cushion the interior section, which would house the motor, gas tanks, steering equipment, and people. A lining of cedar bark, pliable and water resistant, would shield the inner section, reduce vibration, and keep the compartment dr y. The unique construction was intended to create stability in the water without sacrificing speed and safety. The fuselage would be built by the Oertz Yacht Works in Hamburg.

Above the main body, two wings separated by metal struts would provide lift and maneuverability; the upper wing, greater in length than the lower, had curved fins at each end for maneuvering. In the rear, the rudder rose elegantly from the fanned–out surface atop the boat. Wing surface measured 36.5 square meters; there was a six–cylinder, one hundred–horsepower Mercedes motor for lift and speed; and the boat had a distance radius of two thousand kilometers. The machine would not be inexpensive, but Melli was determined to go ahead. If necessary, she would give up everything she had to raise the money. The flying boat and the Beese–Boutard monoplane, still in construction, carried the couple's hopes for the future. Their single–mindedness blinded them to outside events and the shadow of approaching war.

Johannisthal was no longer a compatible workplace. The Beese Boutard endeavors were not viewed favorably by the military establishment now firmly entrenched, as nationalistic fervor swept the country. Symptomatic of the changed atmosphere, Georg von Tschudi was criticized frequently in the press for encouraging Russian, Rumanian, and Swedish fliers to work at the field. His position as manager would be taken over by the military when war broke out. In this changed climate, Melli and Boutard no longer felt welcome at the field, and, once construction began, they found the old hangar too small and moved their enterprise to Neukölln, outside of Berlin.

The second Beese–Boutard machine was finished in the fall of 1913 and named for Alfred Pietschker. Its debut met all expectations. It was elegant, light, speedy—a combination of the best aspects of three monoplane designs: Morane, Hanuschke, and Boutard. Boutard's work was of the highest quality, down to the finest point; he had great technical skill. A knowing eye could detect the differences from the Rumpler look; its performance was unquestionably different. The motor, a French air cooled model, was three times more powerful, allowing for quick ascent or descent. It was perfect for stunt flying and would make a good observation machine. German military observers came to inspect it, suspicious of the French test pilot, and found it inconceivable that a woman had helped build it. German pilots never had a chance to see the machine, much less fly it. The fast one–seater monoplane, which incorporated the best of aeroplane design at the time and influenced the design of Fokker's popular machine in World War I, ended on the trash heap, Melli wrote later, because of “patriotic fanaticism.”

Earlier, in the fall of 1912, when the purpose of the Flying Donation became evident, Melli had written an article for the newspapers pointing out the government's mistake in cutting out experimentation in aviation construction and settling for mass production of established models. She insisted that technical improvement in German aviation would come only through healthy competition in experimentation in design and construction that included smaller, individual companies. Her comments—an emergency call from small builders—were ignored in the rush to expand wings for Germany.

The first German air parade, held in September 1912 at Tempelhof Field, had shown all too clearly that aviation had become big business.
Excited spectators craned their necks to watch as trumpets heralded the overhead flight of Rumplers, Albatroses, and other machines with military approval, flown by ever–increasing numbers of German pilots. It was a spectacle designed to fan patriotic fervor, to warn neighbors to the west that Germany was prepared, and to show the Flying Donation was being put to good use. By the time war was declared, Germany had some eight hundred trained pilots and an impressive number of aeroplanes.

As the work at Neukölln neared completion in the spring of 1914, Melli and Charles prepared to move to Warnemünde, near the water, for the first tests of the flying boat. The Northern Flying Competition was scheduled for August, and there was still work to be done. Two competitors were already on hand: an AFG and a Rumpler, which boasted pontoons amid a tangle of wires. There would be twenty–six boats at the start. Studying the boats, Melli was convinced they didn't offer real competition. Her beautiful boat with its sleek line and delicate appearance hid unbelievable strength in the inner structure of the wings, every inch of which had been carefully crafted.

The first of August was filled with summer delight, the kind of day that sent Germans to the seashore. The sea, capped with white foam, extended a challenge to all comers, but the competition would never be. The marine administration sealed the port on orders from Berlin, the competition between some of the country's foremost aeroplane builders was canceled, and later that day Melli and Charles were arrested as enemy aliens as rumors of imminent conflict rippled across the country. Melli was released, but Boutard was imprisoned in Holzminden, where inhumane treatment soon put him in the hospital. The authorities seized and destroyed everything the couple owned—workshop, tools, materials, aeroplanes, the automobile, even their home. Dreams and hope collapsed; a long, dark period of suffering began.

Melli returned to Johannisthal briefly, but it was closed to her. Old companions like Thelen couldn't or wouldn't help. Embarrassed by orders to clear the field, he explained, “It's the war,” which was the excuse for everything that happened. The Albatros Works had tried to hire her to make parts for them, but an official government inspector forbade it. Melli's only help was the little her mother could provide. Even then, patriotic neighbors regarded Melli as one of the enemy. While Charles was hospitalized, he urged her to divorce him and improve her situation, but she refused to hear of it.

On his release, the couple was confined at Prignitz, far enough away to be no threat, where they had to find their own housing and food. It was pure hell, according to Melli's memoir written in 1921. They found a room with the widow of a minister whose daughter had tuberculosis. The inevitable happened; Boutard contracted tuberculosis in both lungs. Despite a doctor's certificate, nothing was done to remove them; there was no place for them to go. It was a time when, as Melli later wrote, “we were pressed to be self–sufficient,” living on greens from the garden, buying secretly from farmers at extravagant prices until their money ran out, enduring their changed lives in a cold, damp room. Illness was a daily companion. Relief came in the form of political upheaval.

The November revolution of 1918 brought freedom, and, with the end of war, the Beese–Boutard couple returned to Berlin and Johannisthal. Physically and mentally, they were human wrecks, but hope was the tonic that could restore them. The familiar flying field was a disheartening scene. Used military aeroplanes were everywhere. The old hangar was a skeleton, as most of it had been burned in the harsh winter of 1917–18, but Melli cleared a place on the old starting field, struggled to restore the hangar, and tried to start anew. The rent was forgiven until she could pay in the future. There were few familiar faces.

Melli sought out a lawyer, laid before him the facts on the seizure of her school and flying machines, and started the legal process to gain compensation for her loss. She planned to buy a used aeroplane and fly exhibitions to make money with her share, or open a flying school; Boutard, more of a realist, planned to buy an automobile and drive a taxi in Berlin.

The news that two Englishmen, Alcock and Brown, had flown the North Atlantic in an old bomber fired Melli with another idea: a roundthe–world flight. Businessmen, newspapers, and film companies were approached; the idea excited interest, particularly the fact that a woman would attempt the flight. According to one source, she made a deal with Rumpler for two aeroplanes, with the understanding that if she failed to meet payments in a year, she would lose the machines and the down payment. People in the know questioned whether she was physically and mentally capable of flying—reportedly, morphine was now a part of her life.

Luck was against her. The world flight failed to gain the necessary financial support, and Melli's attempts to adjust to newer machines, more advanced than the prewar models she knew, failed. Rumpler reclaimed the aeroplanes; the world flight was dead. One relic from this period is a short film clip of Melli and Charles in an aeroplane that was used by Walter Jerven in a 1940 documentary,
Himmelstürmer,
based on archival material.

Little is known of Melli's last years. She worked demonstrating motorcycles for twenty marks a day. It paid for food while she waited for compensation from the government. Her old friends at Johannisthal were scattered, or dead. The once busy airfield was but a memory, as aviation activity moved to Tempelhof. The change was disheartening for Melli, who could not bear that the pioneers who had done so much for the advancement of flying be forgotten. She approached publishers with the idea of a memoir of Johannisthal but ran into a familiar attitude about women. A man should write such a work!

Undeterred, in 1921 she wrote a remarkable memoir of the Johannisthal flying field that was published in the German magazine
Motor.
It is a valuable source on the pioneer days of German aviation. Covering the years 1910–13, the memoir is unalloyed Melli—idealistic, passionate, at times poetic, but unswerving in her opinions. She was determined that the early heroes of German aviation be acknowledged. Men who had sacrificed all, even their life's blood, who had challenged God in their zeal to conquer the air, deserved the thanks of their country every time an aeroplane passed in the German sky.

The emotion in Melli's memoir was partly triggered by medication and the increasing strain in the couple's marriage. They separated. Boutard is said to have gone to France alone in hopes of better job prospects there, but he found himself arrested as soon as he crossed the border. He was brought before a war court and questioned about his activities during the war. Many weeks later the court found him not guilty, and he was free once again. The experience dampened his plans, and he returned to Germany, a disillusioned man.

Finally, the long–awaited government compensation was received. The lawyer took his share for his work and the credit he had extended to them, and inflation absorbed much of the remainder, which was divided between Melli and Charles. Melli may have invested in an automobile venture that failed, leaving her with a small pittance for living. Charles bought an automobile and earned enough as a taxi driver to get by.