Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

History

Trio's friendship took flight at Albert Whitted Airport

It began in 1939, before the reality of war set in, beginning them on separate journeys. Now, two have been reunited.

By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
Published May 4, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - While exploring the wonders of Albert Whitted Airport in 1939, three boys sang a song: "We three, we're all alone, my Echo, my Shadow and Me."

Richard Atkins (Echo), Julius "Whitey" Smith (Me) and Ronnie Sampson (Shadow) developed a bond that year that most people never realize in a lifetime. Together, they worshiped pilots and dreamt of the day they too would fly. Then World War II tore them apart. They spent the next 60 years searching for each other.

"I had all but given up when on 29 December, 2004" Smith appeared, Atkins said. Sarah Kahn, of Reunion.com, who reunited Atkins and Smith, was riveted by their tale. "Their story fascinated us. The long history, the unique origins of their friendship, their time overseas and the heartwarming way they reconnected."

At age 13 in 1939, Atkins returned to St. Petersburg to live with his grandparents.

"That was where my home was, but my heart was at Albert Whitted," Atkins said. "There I met Whitey, my hero because he had a job working on airplanes for $1 a week. Sampson, like I, was green with envy at Whitey's exalted position."

When Whitey showed Atkins and Sampson the Goodyear Blimp hangar, their imaginations ran wild.

"The hangar was filled with aircraft of a bygone era," said Atkins, whose uncle Luther Atkins assisted Tony Jannus' famous flight in 1914. "National Airlines had replaced its fabric-covered Stinson Trimotors with Lockheed Lodestars, and the old birds were rotting in the rear of the hangar."

Fronting the hangar, Coliseum operator Rex McDonald had an office. "On rainy days, we would sit at the feet of Rex and his instructors, listening to flying stories," said Atkins, who served the aerospace industry and is now an aviation historian living in Arlington, Texas.

When McDonald gave the boys their first-ever plane ride, Smith sat by the entertainer, and Atkins and Sampson filled the red leather rear seat.

"Nothing is sweet as the smell of the inside of a fabric-covered airplane, tinged with a slight odor of gasoline and oil," Atkins said. "I can still smell it. If our life's course had not already been set, it was certainly defined at that moment."

Initially, the trio met in discarded aircraft engine boxes to discuss flight. But when a Canadian twin-engine Beechcraft 18 plane seized Smith's attention, he knew he had found a clubhouse.

"(The craft) had gone into the bay," said Smith, a 14-year-old Tarpon Springs native then. "I recovered a suitcase full of cigarettes and clothing. The engines, wings and tail were removed. It was then placed on oil drums next to the blimp hangar."

Borrowing from a World War I aviation magazine, Flying Aces, the boys christened the plane the Beech Flying Aces Club Inc. It had two seats, dual control wheels, rudder pedals and throttles.

"We flew it around the world hours at a time," Atkins said. "What a thrill for three youngsters smitten with aviation."

Later as World War II raged, Smith chose the Marines and Sampson opted for the Navy. Atkins favored the Army Air Forces. The trio reunited here in 1944 and spent a week together. They corresponded while overseas for four years before losing touch.

Throughout the next six decades, Atkins called every Julius Smith in America at least once. Both men launched unsuccessful Internet searches. Then on Dec. 29, 2004, Atkins answered a Reunion.com ad and found Smith, a former Northwest Airlines employee now living in Tomisato City, Japan, some 15 flight hours away.

On Jan. 12, they met for the first time in 60 years at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. "I recognized you as soon as you came through the door," Atkins said.

As a camera flashed, Smith said, "It been a long time."

The men spent a week talking incessantly while filming it all on video. Atkins said it was hard, however, to cram 60 years into a week.

"Now, we'd love to help bring the trio together," Kahn said.

Scott Taylor Hartzell can be reached at hartzell@msn.com

[Last modified May 4, 2005, 00:57:19]