This year the Boeing Company celebrates its 100th anniversary. This is noteworthy to the naval services in that Boeing’s heritage includes a large number of famous Navy and Marine Corps aircraft, the company got its start because of early cooperation between William Boeing and a Navy friend, and the anniversary comes only five years after naval aviation celebrated its own centennial.1
It was in 1915 that Navy Lieutenant George Conrad Westervelt, on duty at the Bremerton Naval Shipyard, convinced his friend William E. Boeing to form an aircraft manufacturing facility on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle.2 With a mutual interest in flying machines, they started by building two airplanes based on a Glenn Martin design, naming the aircraft the B&W, for Boeing and Westervelt. When the Navy ordered Westervelt back East, Boeing changed the company’s name to Pacific Aeroproducts Company, later incorporated as the Boeing Company on 15 July 1916.
While the Navy did not buy the B&W, it did urge Boeing to develop and build a trainer that could be used in the event it needed to expand its naval air arm, what with war in Europe ongoing. Consequently, Boeing contracted with the Navy to build and deliver 50 two-seat, twin-pontoon, Model-C trainers. That first “all Boeing” design turned out to be an excellent trainer for the Navy during and just after World War I and was the company’s first financial success.
Other successes followed, including numerous aircraft for the Army and the Navy, as well as for civil transportation. From 1923 to 1937, Boeing produced a series of excellent fighters for both services, including the F4B-4, the Navy’s first-line carrier fighter, which populated the carrier decks of the 1930s and was flown by Marines in Nicaragua and elsewhere. Other firms soon overtook Boeing in the manufacture of Navy aircraft as the company turned its attention to commercial transports and bombers for the Army, the B-17 “Flying Fortress” being a notable example. Thus, despite its early roots, Boeing became known largely as a manufacturer of airliners and Army bombers.
That perception began to change coincident with the large numbers of mergers of aircraft manufacturers. In fact, the Boeing Company of 2016 is an amalgam of several formerly competing aircraft and electronic and space equipment manufacturers. As the figure on page 30 shows, ten formerly independent firms were absorbed by Boeing at various times over its existence. Thus, just as in a family tree wherein all ancestors are properly included, any history of the Boeing Company also must include those firms.
One of those ancestors, the Douglas Corporation won a contract in 1921 to build 40 DT1/2 torpedo bombers, two-seat aircraft capable of launching an 1,800-pound torpedo. Douglas continued as an independent company for 46 more years.
Stearman Aircraft was the first of several firms to merge with Boeing. It brought to the Navy the N2S trainer, many of which were built under license to the Naval Aircraft Factory. The N2S was redesignated as N3N, known as the “Yellow Peril,” and was the primary trainer for naval aviators throughout World War II and even was used for aviation orientation for Naval Academy midshipmen through the 1950s. Thus, even though a distant relative, those trainers used by so many Navy people are a part of the Boeing heritage. They and many others were important to the success of the Navy and naval aviation over the years. In addition to Stearman platforms, there are naval aircraft built by Piaseki, Vertol, Douglas, McDonnell, Hughes, North American, Rockwell, Pitcairn, Atlantic Fokker, and Berliner. Some of these names no longer may be familiar, but genes derived from all of them circulate within today’s Boeing Company.
The traditions and influence of the many businessmen, innovators, engineers, and technicians who were part of Boeing and the company’s predecessor organizations also were of critical importance. Men such as Dutch Kindleberger, Frank Piaseki, Donald Douglas, Willard Rockwell, James McDonnell, Ed Heinemann, and others. The bloodlines they created form the Boeing heritage, and whenever a student takes a lesson in a Goshawk, or a Harrier or an Osprey lifts off, or a Hornet or a Growler slams down the catapult, or a Poseidon soars aloft from a runway somewhere around the world, Boeing’s Navy and Marine customers subliminally offer thanks to those pioneers who preceded.
Were Captain Westervelt on hand today, he would be amazed that the little company he helped to start on the shores of Lake Washington had grown into such a behemoth, manufacturing military and civilian aircraft and missiles, electronic and space products for both defense and civil purposes worldwide. The naval services, too, are proud of their partnership with that company and its progenitors over these past 100 years. A hearty Navy “Well done” is most deserved. Then, based on those successes of the past, it is certain that naval aviation will not hesitate to go forward another 100 years relying on the men and women of Boeing and their dedication to excellence in defense of our nation.
1. This paper concentrates on the naval aircraft manufacturing history of Boeing. Space does not permit discussion of the many other Boeing enterprises oriented to the commercial aviation world, the Air Force and Army, or missiles, electronics, and space.
2. George Westervelt was a 1903 graduate of the Naval Academy who studied at MIT and studied aeronautics, among other things. After his Bremerton shipyard tour as an engineer, he helped establish the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia. He retired as a captain, one of the first Navy aeronautical engineers. He died in 1956.