Newsreel photog Reed N. Haythorne of Hearst Metrotone writes about picking up a shipment of newsfilm from the US-Mexican border back in 1928 and the harrowing flight he had to take to get it delivered to Ft. Worth. He wrote this article recalling that trip five years later in 1933. The edited film Haythorn was delivering can be seen here.

On the memorable day when Col. Charles A. Lindbergh was to land in Mexico City after his non-stop flight from Washington, Rudy Kileman, an airplane pilot, and myself, a newsreel cameraman, took off from Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. Our final destination was unknown to us, but our first stop was to be the little town of Laredo, Texas, situated on the Mexican border, and there we were to receive further orders from my company.

After taking off from the muddy runway we headed southwest. I had a queer feeling something might happen, so I borrowed two parachutes from Capt. Odas Moon, then of Kelly Field, and more recently known as one of the pilots of the refueling ship for the Question Mark endurance flight.

I was employed by one of the large newsreel companies and it was my duty on this flight personally to pick up the film of Col. Lindberg’s landing in Mexico City. The film was to be transported to the border by plane and I was to take it from there to Fort Worth. In turn it was to be relayed by still another ship to further points north and east.

Neither of us thought when we took off in the pouring rain that the journey would prove so hazardous. Newsreel cameramen are optimists and fatalists, or they would not follow this occupation of danger and daring. The trip to Laredo was just an ordinary trip and uneventful outside of the motor hood coming loose, when I had to crawl slowly out and fasten it down with a piece of wire. We landed in Laredo late in the afternoon.

With night came a wire from my company telling me the film was to be transported as far as Brownsville and that I was to go there and pick it up from the pilot of the Mexican ship and that he was to land in Matamoras just across the border from Brownsville.

Early the following morning we were in the air on our way to Brownsville. It was foggy and several times we found ourselves over the border on the Mexican side. We were not following a compass course, but just the course of the Rio Grande River, which was visible only at intervals through holes that appeared in the fog. We landed in Brownsville near noon.

There I found my strongest competitor also with his plane. He had already crossed the border and was awaiting the arrival of the Mexican plane that was to carry the films thus far for his company. I could see at once this was going to be a race as to which one would get his film first to the home office in New York, thereby “scoopin” the other in getting it on the screen first. It was a case of pitting wits, and my ship was inferior to his.

Upon arriving at the landing field in Matamoras I found my competitor with a reception committee awaiting the arrival of the Mexican ship. To disrupt matters a bit my competitor advised me that his company had purchased the exclusive rights to the ship to carry the film for his company only. He added that they had put over a fast one on me in doing so. Feeling very downhearted after hearing this information I just waited to see the outcome.

Twelve o’clock came and everyone was getting a little uneasy.

Twelve forty-five we all jumped as we heard the faint drone of a motor.

At 1 o’clock sharp the Mexican ship was seen to circle the field and land. It taxied up to us and my competitor asked if I would shoot a little film of him as he received the valuable packet which contained the picture of Col. Lindberg’s landing in Mexico City. This I did out of pure sportsmanship.

After performing this kindly deed I sat down on the running board of a nearby automobile in a very disappointed mood. After all persons had left the field and I was sitting there thinking of the severe call-down I was to get from my company the pilot of the Mexican ship approached me and casually asked my name. I answered and you can imagine my feelings when he advised that he had a package for me.

Upon sight of the package I seemed to get new life, as this was the one thing for which I was there and by the shape and size I was assured that this was IT.

I didn’t even stop to thank the pilot nor ask him how it happened that he came in possession of the film. The only thing I had in and on my mind was to get to my ship as soon as possible and get on my way toward Fort Worth.

Rudy already had started the motor and upon sight of me was in the cockpit and ready to go. A very little conversation passed between us, but I learned my competitor had taken off fifteen minutes previous. It took us only a fraction of a minute to get into the air and on our famous journey and race.

The wind was coming out of the north at a considerable clip, and this of course cut down our speed. Our first stop was at San Antonio, landing at Winburn Field, where we left orders that the ship be fully serviced, and then went to get some supper. While we were eating the wind gained in velocity until it became little less than a raging gale. It took me until 6:45 to make a decision that we should continue our flight. When Rudy was informed of this I thought it was going to take the entire police force to make him even consider it.

After he consented we lost no time in getting to the field and taking off on the last part of our journey to Fort Worth. It had suddenly become very cold and Rudy had added to his clothing for warmth. The sun had long since gone down and it was 7 o’clock exactly when we were in the air and over the city of San Antonio with all of its lights already on.

The people were just beginning to enjoy the shows and dances for the evening and here we were a long distance in the air, the cold and darkness, far from enjoying ourselves. As for myself I had borrowed a quilt to keep warm. I was dressed in a flannel shirt, a suede jacket, a sheepskin lined coat, my parachute over this and then wrapped in the heavy quilt, but with the propeller blast and my nerves on end I was far from being warm.

Climbing to an altitude which I judge was near the six-thousand-foot mark Rudy motioned that he would like to speak to me. After this short conversation I understood why it was that he was not very anxious to fly after dark. His instruments were not illuminated and he would have to fly entirely by sight with fuel enough for only five hours.

It was approximately three hundred miles distant to Fort Worth, and with a forty-mile-an-hour head wind the maximum 95-mile speed of the ship in favorable conditions made the flight a precarious one. All of this went through my mind and the trip became a miserable attempt at suicide. I thanked Captain Odas Moon for the loan of the parachutes; at least they were a little consolation.

Rudy informed me he was flying with plenty of altitude so the chutes would have ample time to work if we had to jump. This was indeed a pleasant thought. We were in the air for several hours and I was no less than one degree from freezing when that same side of the hood again came loose and started flapping as before.

This time I unwound myself from my quilt and started on my perilous way to the front of the motor. Upon reaching there I found there was no more wire with which to fasten it down. Of course this was a most enjoyable predicament, and after a consultation with Rudy I decided to make the best of it by sitting with my back resting against the V-shaped struts and placing one foot on either side of the hood in order to keep it from flapping to pieces, possibly severing itself from the ship, blowing back and injuring some vital part of the controls of the tail section.

It wasn’t long before this grew old and I was almost numb from the cold, so I made my way slowly back to the cockpit. When it was reached it was as welcome as an oasis in the desert. This time I was a little more uneasy, so did not sit as a person ordinarily would, but wrapped in my quilt I squatted in the seat with my feet under me just as a monkey would.

I sat there nearly crazed from the terrible, monotonous, deafening drone of the motor, watching the hood flap up and down, ducking my head for fear the hood would at any minute come flying back and possibly hit me, or with its force cut out some of the controls of the ship.

If this happened it would mean only one alternative-jump! All of these thoughts that were congested in my head made the trip most pleasant. My thoughts turned to those below and looking down I saw lights of many towns. Then I meditated on the enjoyment and contentment that reigned there; how lucky those people were.

I ducked my head again as the hood made a tremendous noise in its flapping. I was sure that this time it would succeed in coming loose; my hand went to the ring of the rip cord, I was rigid waiting for the crucial moment when I would get the chance to pull that little ring and end all the agony.

The film-I should do something with it in order not to lose it. I unbuttoned my sheepskin coat, placed it inside, strapping it to me by means of my belt. Having done this I felt a little better. The flapping ceased for a short interval.

Looking back at Rudy I could see he wished to say something. Upon leaning back to listen he merely asked me the time. I replied that we had been in the air four hours and fifteen minutes. No answer from Rudy. Glancing down toward the ground I found, much to my surprise, that I could count the lights of twenty-one towns.

This was puzzling and I asked the pilot if he could distinguish the towns by the lights, thereby telling where we were. Looking down, and without much enthusiasm, he advised they all looked alike to him and that he didn’t know which was which. That meant only one thing; we were lost in the air!

We did not have any equipment with which to make a forced night landing, such as flares, wing lights and other emergency landing lights. Fuel getting low, hood flapping, lost in the air; it was all just like a show to me.

Soon it would be over and we would pass out just like the others after the climax had taken place. But so far the climax was undecided, and the only thing to do was wait and see it through.

After flying in silence for a short distance Rudy again wanted to speak to me. This time he nearly capped the climax and brought the show to an end, as all he said was that he couldn’t jump until I did.

A great force almost compelled me to stand up in the cockpit, dive over the edge and pull the rip cord, leaving the rest to luck, as there was no way of telling where we would land if we jumped-in tree top, house top, telephone wires or some other object that might possibly cause instant death.

It was agreed that if we jumped we were to go to the Western Union office in the next town; if Rudy arrived first he was to wait twenty minutes and if I didn’t show up to get a car and comb the country for me. In the event that I arrived first I was to notify the townspeople of the disaster and have them go and find Rudy; I to continue on my way to F. Worth with the film by the quickest route.

After this consultation my nerves became a little shaky and it was with all the courage I could muster that I managed to stay with the ship. Rudy again asked me the time. I informed him that we had been in the air four hours and forty minutes. No answer came from him. A little silence from both of us, more noise from the flapping of the hood, more ducking, and every time I ducked I uttered a prayer.

Upon another questioning from Rudy I informed him the time was four hours and forty-five minutes. This time I could scarcely hear the exclamation of “Oh, God!” from him. The whole trip now was assuming the aspect of being worse than any nightmare I’d ever had.

Two people up above the earth with their lives hanging by a mere string, that string about to cut loose and end the story of two lives that were trying to serve the public by giving them the world’s news in pictures almost at the time it happens.

Five minutes later when informing my plucky pilot that the time was four hours and fifty minutes, a small light beacon far in the distance flashed by my eyes. Rudy had seen it almost at the same moment and this time he changed his exclamation by drawling out “J-E-S-U-S C-H-R-I-S-T!”

After straining my eyes the lights of Dallas and Fort Worth could just be seen shimmering in the distance too far to calculate. The beacon flashed by again, and it certainly was a sight for sore eyes, taut nerves that were about to pop and two men that were going through a living hell in order that they might serve their public.

The lights were fairly visible a few moments later. I looked at my watch and we had been in the air four hours and fifty-six minutes.

Dallas looked as though it might be a little nearer than Fort Worth and in going there we would not have to fly over the city to get to the field, as we would have to do if we tried to make it to Fort Worth, thereby possibly eliminating a catastrophe which would mean certain death to us and probably others if the fuel gave out directly over the business section.

I informed my pilot that the most plausible thing to do was to try and make it to Dallas rather than chance it to Fort Worth and, anyway, if we crashed it would bring the film nearer to a city. He asked how he could determine the landing field at Dallas and I answered that it could be sighted by a large red light which was placed on a tower.

It was now exactly 12 o’clock, which made five hours we had been in the air, and that was the limit of our fuel. Dallas was still a short distance ahead and a faint red light was scarcely discernible slightly to the left of the city.

Rudy realizing the value of saving fuel as much as possible, put the ship’s nose slightly earthward and directly at the red light which glared with intensity.

My nerves were losing their hold and I was getting frantic as now the the race with my film competitor had ceased and it had become a race with Death-that greatest competitor of all-Death, which wins every race in which he enters and sometimes wins before many laps have been completed.

The time was twelve ten; we were fast losing altitude and the red light was drawing nearer. At the altitude at which we were now flying a parachute was useless so throwing off the quilt and unbuckling my parachute and laying it on the floor of the plane I was ready for the inevitable climax of this story.

It seemed as though by this time it had gone just to the crucial point where I didn’t really care and was not worrying. It seemed I was to pass out of the show as others had done and also that this was the last race in which I would participate.

The red light was now very close; we were about to see the race ended with ourselves as victors. If we could only make it. I prayed as I never prayed before. Would the gas hold out?

The light seemed to have a peculiar glow. Within a few hundred feet of it and our journey’s end I suddenly grew frantic again as I noticed it was no more than a fusee on a railroad track.

My next thought was to jump. There was a possibility that if I jumped the film would at least be safe as the fall would only be some seventy feet. We were soon to see the finish of the show. Upon seeing that red light was only a fusee I immediately stood up in the cockpit and motioned Rudy to zoom upward that we might not hit any obstruction that might be in our course. He did this at the moment I motioned.

The ship was now following a dizzy path and I could realize by its movements that my able pilot was fast losing his senses; his nerves were almost at the breaking point. The plane was tossing now as a feather in a storm and with it was myself and the pilot that were nothing more than human bodies beyond all power of reasoning from the exhaustion of our race and journey “just for the public.”

It was about this time my eyes rested upon something that resembled a field. Pointing it out to Rudy I asked him to try to make a landing. We were slowly descending and within twenty-five feet of it and Rudy started to throttle the motor to prepare for landing when suddenly my eyes caught a glimpse of something that did not look too inviting. After straining my eyes a little more I suddenly became aware, much to my surprise, that it was only water.

Realizing this I stood up suddenly in the cockpit and motioned Rudy to zoom once more into the air, which he did without hesitation. The motor puffed and spit back once. Were we at last to see the end without gaining our destination?

The motor spit two or three consecutive times and I was sure we were going to crash.

I remembered what my pilot had said about not jumping until I did, so now I was determined to stay with the ship. With this thought I again looked down and saw several large buildings we were passing just to our left. These could not be mistaken. It took no time for me to inform Rudy these were hangars and that we were now over the field.

The plane now was past the field, the motor cut once more, twice, picked up again and then again it cut out and just as we were banking around for a landing it cut out and stopped dead still. With a dead stick my pilot banked still further around. Our speed was gone and the field was a short distance away, too far for gliding in to it. He started to pancake down. I could not look down. With my head inside the cockpit I sat there and waited for what might happen.

It hit-a terrific blow and didn’t seem to roll a foot. My head hit my knees, which were rigid under my chin and the blow stunned me for the moment. It was over, and I was glad of it.

I raised my head slowly and peered over the side of the cockpit to find that we really had landed. With the realization of this I jumped out and as I landed on the ground a number of huge lights flashed on and glared into my eyes. I had run some hundred feet when the thought of Rudy being back there in the ship came to me.

Returning to the ship I looked into the cockpit, but couldn’t see Rudy. There was no answer when I called the first time, but the second time there was a faint answer from somewhere near the tail section. Back there I found Rudy flat on his back. He asked me to please go away and let him enjoy a few moments with good old mother earth.

We delivered the film and with it the responsibility that it be carried further northward by someone else, “Just for the Public.”