Brian Garfield: Target Manhattan

Yes. Jack no-middle-initial Harris.

Your employment, Mr. Harris? For the record.

Reporter. Free-lance.

Oh? Weren’t you working for one of the stations during the Craycroft episode?

I was doing a feature story for WIMS-TV, yes. I wasn’t in their employ, not on salary. I do features for radio and TV news departments. If they like the idea, they buy it from me. I’m an independent.

That’s interesting. I didn’t know it could be done on that basis.

Well, I usually sell the story before I do it. In other words, I’ll call one of the stations, ask them if they’d like me to do a story on such-and-such. They give me the go-ahead and then I do the story.

You must have a fine nose for features then.

That’s my bread and butter, Mr. Skinner.

And perhaps a bit of ESP? Prescience? Is that how you happened to be there on the day Craycroft pulled his episode?

That was blind luck, nothing else. I was doing a story on the reconstruction of the West Side Highway. I wanted to go up and take some aerial footage-I do some of my own photography. I happened to have a contact at the Port Authority, one of the chopper jockeys, fellow named Woods. I went up with him that day. At that point I didn’t know Craycroft existed.

Is it normal for civilians to hitch rides on Port Authority helicopters?

They don’t mind. They’ve got a spare seat. You’ve got to sign a waiver, of course. And they don’t take ordinary people up. Joyriders, tourists, that kind of thing. But if you’ve got a legitimate reason to be there, they don’t mind. As long as you sign the waiver. They don’t want to get sued if you crack up. That’s life in these modern times, isn’t it-everybody’s got to cover his own ass.

I’m a bit surprised they agreed to. take you up on that particular flight. Wasn’t the pilot ordered to do a close-up surveillance on Craycroft’s aircraft?

Not originally, no. If that had been the case, you can bet they wouldn’t have allowed me to ride along. No, what happened was they’d assigned Woods to the standard harbor-survey flight. They do periodic spot checks to make sure the shipping traffic is keeping inside the buoy markers, look for hazardous debris floating on the water, even sometimes people stranded in small boats or life preservers. It’s a big harbor, New York. Anyway Woods was assigned to fly the normal spot check, and he’d arranged his flight path to give me a good run over the lower west side of Manhattan so I could get my footage of the highway construction. We were already in the air when he got instructions by radio to discontinue the normal survey and go chasing after Craycroft.

What time was this?

I don’t know exactly. You might ask the PA people-they must have kept a log. I know it was somewhere around twelve thirty, maybe twelve forty-five. We’d taken off at noon, but I can’t be sure how long we’d been up before Woods got the new orders.

Had you noticed the bomber before that?

Sure. We weren’t over Manhattan, of course-we were out the other side of Staten Island a good part of the time. But we’d come in over Port Newark and made one or two circuits around the Hudson estuary. We’d seen the plane a couple of times. I must have gawked at it for a while. I’m kind of an old-plane buff myself.

So I understand. You have a pilot’s license, don’t you?

Single engine. I flew Sabres when I was in the service. Never liked them much. Too fast to maneuver. One time I checked out in a Mustang-now, there was an airplane.

You fly for a hobby, don’t you?

Once in a while I go up to Rhinebeck and tootle around in the air show in some old biplane. I’m not a serious pilot. More of a fan. I wrote a novel about fliers once, but it got turned down-they said it was too closely imitative of Ernest K. Gann. I’d never read Gann at the time. After that I latched onto everything he ever wrote. Spectacular stuff. Have you ever read him?

I don’t read fiction much, I’m afraid.

Well, we’re not here to talk about that anyway, are we?

You said you’d noticed Craycroft’s plane.

Who wouldn’t? It looked brand-new. He’d done a marvelous restoration job. I mean that B-17 had to be at least thirty years old. They stopped making them around the end of the war.

What was the plane doing when you first noticed it?

Making a steep turn over the Battery and that corner of Brooklyn down where all the bridges are. I remember watching it cruise back up north-it was flying over the east side of Manhattan. I remember thinking what a beautiful goddamn airplane it was. They never built a plane that had so much grace, you know?

A rather brutal kind of grace, I’d say.

There’s violence in most grace.

Did you wonder what Craycroft was up to?

I assumed it was a publicity stunt for that new war movie that just opened at the Loew’s on Third Avenue. You know, the one about the Hiroshima raid.

Those weren’t B-l 7s at Hiroshima, were they?

No, they were B-29s that dropped the bomb. But you can’t expect Hollywood to pay attention to technicalities like that, can you?

When the radio message came through to Woods, what exactly did it say? What did it tell him to do? What did it tell him about Craycroft?

I don’t know, I didn’t have a headset. All I know is what he told me. He said he had to break off the flight pattern and go chasing after the B-17, the people on the ground wanted him to take a look at it. Later on he got more chatter on the radio and he told me the guy had bombs in the plane and was threatening to drop them on New York, but that was after we’d made our first pass at the plane.

How close did you fly to it?

Pretty close. We hovered out over the docks down around the Staten Island ferry slip at the foot of Manhattan. We hung there while Craycroft made his turn over the Battery and swung out over the bridges and went back up the east side.

What was your impression at the time?

Of our instructions or of the plane?

Both.

Well, as for the instructions, Woods hadn’t filled me in, but I assumed he was supposed to try and wave the plane off. There are restrictions against flying low-altitude over inhabited areas, you know. Craycroft was violating every FAA and CAA statute I’d ever heard of. He was flying treetop over the tops of the skyscrapers in Manhattan. Incidentally that’s a hard stunt to pull off, you know. The updrafts from those street canyons toss you up and down like a kite. I could see right away he was a hell of a pilot. As for the plane, I’ve already told you that. I thought it was splendid. Beautiful.

Did you get a glimpse of the pilot?

We could see the pilot all right. But we weren’ close enough to see his face. He was wearing a radio headset, I could tell that much. Earphones, not a helmet. The plane was running like a clock. All four engines in beautiful sync. When he made his turns he made them as smooth and easy as if he was ice-skating.

Were the bomb-bay doors open?

Not at first.

Your name, please?

Joel Azzard. New York District Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Do you have a prepared statement, Mr. Azzard?

I do. May I read it into the record now?

Please do.

“At twelve oh five P.M., twenty-second May, the New York office FBI was notified by office of NYPD Commissioner (Toombes) that a crime of bank robbery by extortion was in progress at Merchants Trust Bank Company, Incorporated, Sixty-two Beaver Street, New York City.

“Special Agents Roger V. Barstow and Alan A. Cobb were dispatched immediately and arrived at the scene at twelve sixteen P.M.

“At twelve twenty-two P.M. District Director Azzard (Joel, NMI) received a call direct from Special Agent Barstow. Apprised of the unique circumstances and dangers of the crime in progress, District Director Azzard went personally and with dispatch to the scene, arriving at the Merchants Trust offices at twelve thirty-five P.M.