FOKKER, GIANT OF WORLD PROGRESS IN AVIATION, DEAD
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Genius Who Perfected Deadly Warplane Loses Fight with Meningitis.
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New York—(U.P.)—Anthony H. G. Fokker, the "Flying Dutchman" whose genius made him one of the giants of aviation development, died Saturday at 49 of pneumococcus meningitis.
He had been ill for three weeks. Sulfapyridine and the new medicine, sulfathiozole, were used, and repeated blood transfusions were resorted to during the last four days when he was in a coma.
When the end came, Dr. Robert M. Cushing, his physician, said:
"As a genius of life, so in this dread infection Mr. Fokker made the most gallant fight I have ever attended. We will all grieve this great man's passing."
Would Have Hooted.
Fokker probably would have hooted — perhaps sworn at — the appellation "great man." He was first a tinkerer, an unorthodox designer, whose products came from hours of experimenting with greasy machinery.
He built his first plane, at 18 before he ever had seen one in actual flight; he had achieved flight only vicariously in a kitchen chair rigged with airplane controls.
But from his inventive mind came the deadly Fokker fighter, which made Germany supreme in the air in the early years of the world war; he was the first to produce a practical device for synchronized machine gun firing thru propeller blades, and as a result his speedy and flexible ships became a hell in the air for the allies.
Used Ford as Example.
Fokker, however, called himself "a man of peace," and after the war set out to put himself at the head of the aviation industry, holding as an example Henry Ford's achievements in the automotive world. He was a great admirer of Ford.
The first tri-motored plane ever built in this country was a Fokker — the Josephine Ford in which Admiral Richard E. Byrd flew to the north pole.
A Fokker carried Byrd across the Atlantic; Amelia Earhart along the same route; Capt. Kingsford-Smith from California to Australia.
News of Fokker's death was not made public for hours, until friends could telephone his mother in Holland. They had feared the shock of hearing it by radio would be too much for her.
Showed Bent Early.
It was in Holland that Fokker, at six, first showed precocity in mechanical bent. He was born April 6, 1890 at Kodiri, Java, where his father was a wealthy planter.
The family returned to Haarlem, Holland, when he was six. By the time he was 10, young Fokker had built and operated toy steamboats, trains, internal combustion engines and put Haarlem's tramways out of commission temporarily when he tapped their line to get power for his miniature train.
A year after he built his first plane, another he had built was flown from Berlin to The Hague. The Dutch, French, Belgian and English governments turned down his designs.
Germans Give Contract.
But the Germans gave him a three-year teaching contract. During the war he built 8,000 planes, supervised the manufacture of 6,000 others and 42,000 of his synchronizing gears.
After the armistice Fokker dashed across the German border, smuggling out cash, and securities; and in a special train, dies, blue prints and planes.
A highly successful business man, he established the Netherlands Aircraft company at Amsterdam in 1919, and in 1923 founded the Atlantic Aircraft company at Hasbrouck Heights, N. J.
In 1927 his American companies were merged with General Motors; he remained as consulting engineer and largest stockholder in the Fokker Aircraft company, a subsidiary.
Waterloo Sunday Courier (Waterloo, Iowa) - Sunday, December 24, 1939
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