Seventy-five years ago, Stanley Hiller Jr. publicly took to the air in his invention, a new form of helicopter. He had “secretly” tested it on the playing field in Memorial Stadium on July 4, 1944. In August he brought it by trailer across the bay to San Francisco under police escort and test-flew it “witnessed by both government and military observers” at the “foot of Fillmore Street” on the Marina Green.
The 19-year-old Hiller, a precocious inventor, got two front-page mentions in the Gazette on Aug. 30 and 31, 1944. He lived with his family at 277 Tunnel Road, had often experimented with mechanical devices and had been admitted to Cal at age 15. Hiller later founded his own company and had a long career as a businessman. And, yes, Oakland’s Hiller Highlands and the Hiller Aviation Museum on the Peninsula, which he founded, reflect the family name.
Hiller was inducted into the armed services the day after the flight, so his inventions temporarily paused. His father said that “when Stanley goes into the Army, we’ll just lock the ‘copter up in the barn.” From the perspective of 75 years later, one wonders if the strangest part of that remark is a casual plan to store a helicopter at home or the presence of a functional barn in the Berkeley hills.
Home robbery: Berkeley had a $6,000 burglary reported Aug. 30, 1944, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Percival C. Mills at 800 Grizzly Peak Boulevard.
Sometime after Aug. 21, thieves broke into the house when they were away and took “three fur coats, a diamond solitaire ring, diamond and emerald ring, diamond and sapphire ring, two wedding rings, one diamond studded, and the other of platinum; an amethyst and pearl dinner ring, signal ring, two watches, diamond lapel pin, six stickpins, six pairs of cuff links, an overcoat and man’s suit, two pairs of shoes and other clothing. “In addition, “50 rare pennies” and $145 in cash were taken.
Adjusted for inflation, those items would be worth nearly $90,000 today (however, one imagines that the furs, clothing, and perhaps some of the jewelry would have fallen out of fashion and not gained in value).
War news: Allied troops had reportedly liberated Rouen by Aug. 30, 1944. In the south of France they were driving up the Rhone Valley and were 50 miles south of Lyon. In Eastern Europe, Soviet troops were on the verge of capturing Bucharest.
“The greatest explosion of the war” was reported Aug. 30 on the still-occupied coast of France, and “the British wondered today if the Nazis had made an abortive attempt to launch their new V-2 rocket bomb. The detonation was accompanied by a tremendous rushing noise. Houses on the English Coast were shaken, crockery was sent skidding across floors and a few windows were broken.”
Also on Aug. 30, 1944, 35 year old Sgt. Lee Powell, a Hollywood actor who was the first to play the Lone Ranger on film (in 1937 and 1938) was reported killed “while fighting with the Marines” in the South Pacific. He had been a college football star and had been part of the Tarawa and Saipan landings earlier in the year.
Just for context, let’s remember that then-actor Ronald Reagan was 33, also in the armed forces that same year and had been classified for limited service due to poor eyesight. He spent his World War II military career stateside as a public relations officer, including serving in the First Motion Picture Unit.
Steven Finacom is a Bay Area native and community historian in Berkeley.
