The Auburn Barnstormers

Roland Maheu and Robert St. Jock

by Charles Francis

The late 1930s and early 1940s were the heydays of the barnstormer. During that period daredevil pilots and stunt parachutists toured North America putting on air shows to appreciative audiences who first turned out because they expected to see crashes and loss of life, and who later came to see that flying was an art as well as a craft. Around 1940 Auburn-Lewiston Airport in Auburn became the home field of two of the foremost barnstormers in the country, Roland Maheu and Robert St. Jock. Maheu and St. Jock were larger-than-life figures performing stunts that won them national acclaim as well as countless trophies at air shows around the country. Both, too, were much more than stunt pilots as they performed a vital service during World War II training pilots for the armed services.

Roland Maheu and Robert St. Jock were members of what could be called the second generation of barnstormers. They grew up watching the first barnstormers perform at fairs or farmer’s fields. The first generation of barnstormers was primarily made up of former World War I pilots. The 1920s was the low point for civilian and military aviation. Military pilots were forced to fly obsolete war surplus planes due to War Department budget cuts, and much of the aircraft airframe and en- gine industry dried up. Former World War I pilots were reduced to flying mail routes or barnstorming. The first barnstormer to put on air shows in northern New England was Maine-born Merle Fogg. In the summer of 1923, Fogg put on shows from Bangor to Burlington, Vermont. Both Maheu and St. Jock attended his shows and it was perhaps by watching Fogg and his partner, wing walker and parachutist George “Daredevil” Sparks, that they first thought of becoming pilots themselves.

Roland Maheu was an Auburn native who had been born there in 1914. Robert St. Jock, while he was to be known as “The Mad Monk of Maine” as well as “The Houdini of the Air” and was sometimes referred to as an Auburn native, did not move to Auburn until 1937. He was actually a Vermont native, having been born in Morristown, Vermont in 1910.

That Roland Maheu and Robert St. Jock would be rivals was a given. Both were precocious, being extremely quick learners, and both were astute businessmen. They were accomplished pilots before they got out of their teens. Both had become flight instructors at the age of twenty. Maheu had even opened up his own field at nearby Minot for instruction, in addition to operating out of Auburn-Lewiston Airport. St. Jock had started his flight instructing at Burlington Airport in Vermont, which would be his chief base of operations for seven years until he arrived in Auburn in 1937. In addition, both men were establishing a reputation as stunt pilots for their barnstorming exploits in northern New England.

Robert St. Jock came to Maine to work for Henry Dingley’s Maine Air Transport Company. The company operated land and seaplane terminals at Bangor, Auburn, Portage Lake, and Moosehead Lake. St. Jock was the company’s chief pilot.

It was in the summer of 1938 that the rivalry between Roland Maheu and Robert St. Jock took off. After nearly a year with the Maine Air Transport Company, St. Jock had established himself enough so that he was able to take some time off to engage in his favorite activity, barnstorming. In August St. Jock helped organize the Maine Air Rendezvous. Besides bringing in some of his former student pilots from Vermont, St. Jock made himself the star of the air show. His patented “square loop,” which he executed three times in immediate succession, was the hit of the air show. In fact, no other pilot even attempted it. From here, St. Jock went on to organize the Yankee Flying Circus, which put on shows in Vermont, New Hampshire, and even Nantucket Island. And, of course, there was a show in Auburn. By this time St. Jock was being referred to in the press as the foremost stunt pilot in the east. In 1939 St. Jock, as a warm-up to the New England Aerobatics Championship, put on a show with the Yankee Flying Circus in Bangor. The advertisements for the show promised “every thrill in the book,” and the show delivered. St. Jock stole the show with his final maneuver. His final maneuver, which probably helped earn him the nickname of “The Mad Monk from Maine,” started with him flying in over the field upside down. He then stalled the engine and flipping over, came down with a fishtail landing. Later that same year St. Jock went on to win the New England Aerobatics Championship.

(cont. on page 40)

(cont. from page 39)

While Robert St. Jock was preparing for the New England Aerobatics Championship, Roland Maheu was establishing himself as one of the premier flight instructors in the country. He was also preparing for the 1940 New England Aerobatics Championship as well as developing some of his own unique stunts, one which would put him in Ripley’s Believe in or Not

The way the story goes of how Roland Maheu developed his trademark stunt is as follows: One day Maheu had a student pilot up when the student asked what should be done when a plane stalls. Maheu calmly shut off the engine, got out on the landing gear and hand-cranked the propeller until the engine started. This stunt became his finale whenever he went barnstorming around New England and it was what got him into Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Maheu went on to win the 1940 New

England Aerobatics Championship, firmly establishing himself beside Robert St. Jock as one of the premier stunt pilots in the east. That same year, St. Jock won the Upside Down Aerobatics Championship in Cleveland as well as the National Aerobatics Championship. Both men seemed destined for a life in the national spotlight and they probably would have attained it but for World War II.

Auburn-Lewiston Airport, like the rest of Maine, had begun to feel the effects of the conflict in Europe well before 1940. As a matter of fact, Maine, like the rest of the country, had been preparing for conflict well before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and one of the sites of preparation was the Auburn-Lewiston Airport.

At the northeast corner of the United States, Maine is the closest state to Europe. Therefore, it was considered vital to the military defense as well as the offense of the country. Because of its long indented coastline and vast wilderness regions with few people, it was the perfect place for spies and saboteurs to enter the country. Small boats could easily come ashore undetected and planes could land in almost two-thirds of the state with no one being the wiser. In addition, Portland was the headquarters of the North Atlantic Fleet and every convoy heading to Europe passed through the Gulf of Maine. For these and other reasons, there was a crying need for air cover, and this meant having adequate airports.

Auburn-Lewiston Airport, like most of the airports in Maine, had been part of the work relief projects of the Depression. Starting in 1940 the War Department had begun prioritizing Maine airports as being essential to the national defense. While Auburn-Lewiston

Are you ready to start a new journey?

Airport was not at the head of the list with Brunswick, Portland, and Bangor, it was considered important. One of the reasons involved Roland Maheu and Robert St. Jock, both recognized as flight instructors par excellence. Another factor that made the Auburn-Lewiston Airport important was that it had an active CAA organization, which was headed by St. Jock. This latter group, a forerunner of the Civil Air Patrol, had already distinguished itself in several search and rescue missions in the Maine woods.

Roland Maheu became the first civilian flight instructor in the country to offer his services to the military. He first instructed pilots enrolled in the Navy’s Officer Candidate Program and later he became the first civilian pilot in the United States to train GIs to be pilots. Under Maheu’s guidance, several thousand men qualified to become pilots and went off to serve their country in Europe and the Pacific. After the war a good many of these men went on to become commercial pilots. Robert St. Jock also answered the call to duty, however. He felt the need to make an immediate contribution to the war effort and he went to Canada, which was, in 1940 already a belligerent.

St. Jock’s first assignment in Canada was at the Royal Canadian Air Observers School in Chatham, New Brunswick. Here he instructed Canadian pilots to fly bombers. He was then promoted to Captain of the Royal Canadian Air Observers and stationed in Quebec where he trained future Canadian flight instructors. When the United States entered the conflict, St. Jock returned home to serve as a pilot in the United States Ferry Command in the midwest. He would never return to his beloved northern New England, how- ever.

On one of his early barnstorming trips to the South, St. Jock had contracted malaria. So long as he stayed in the colder climates of the north it didn’t bother him. However, he had a flare-up while in the midwest. Given leave to recuperate, he took a part-time job crop dusting in Arkansas. It was here that the man who was perhaps the greatest stunt pilot the United States ever produced, died in one of those inexplicable accidents that come to even the greatest of pilots. Possibly, because he was still suffering from the effects of malaria, St. Jock misjudged his position in relation to a power line. He was killed when his plane struck it. He was just 32.

Roland Maheu died in 1999 having been an active pilot for sixty-four years. He continued to be a fixture at air shows throughout New England, deliberately stalling his plane and get(cont. on page 42)

(cont. from page 41) ting onto the landing gear and cranking the propeller to start it again. He developed other unique stunts, too. One was landing his Piper J-3 Cub on top of a moving car and staying there until the car reached the end of the runway. How might the rivalry between Roland Maheu and Robert St. Jock have evolved if St. Jock had not perished at such an untimely age? One can only conjecture. However, perhaps it is more fitting to remember them as patriots rather than as stuntmen.