Lucius Manning was born in Tacoma, WA to Lucius Ralph and Lucy Manning in 1894.  He was educated in public schools, Hotchkiss Prep School and Yale School of Science and Engineering.  His senior year his mother was diagnosed with cancer and died.  Lucius senior was so bereaved he lost his business and money leaving Lu without funds for tuition.  He returned to Washington where he went to work for Griffith Motor Co. in Seattle.  When war was declared, he joined the Army Air Corps and was sent to Riverside, CA where he became a flight instructor and attained the rank of Second Lieutenant.

He married Katherine Whitney, daughter of a Chicago insurance man.  They

moved to Chicago and while selling cars, he met a fellow salesman, E.L.Cord.  They decided to build a car of their own and proceeded to buy a defunct plant in Connersville, IN which they retooled.  Within a year, they marketed three automobile models, Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg, named for the Duesenberg brothers whom they hired to produce the high-powered, 12 cylinder engine.  Gordon Buehrig, a talented artist, produced very modern looking designs. In 1935 they started production of the Auburn Boattail Speedster, but although it took many awards in Europe and the U.S the economy did not sustain the sale of luxury cars. The last car rolled off the assembly line in 1937.

 

 

By 1932, Lu had his commercial pilot’s license and flew the family to Edmonton, Canada round trip from Wisconsin in a Stinson Tri-Motor.  Lu was made president of Century Airways, one of the eighty airlines that became American Airways.  After becoming chairman of the board of American Airways he started an intensive study to make air travel safer.  Without dependable weather prediction, navigational aids and scarce airports frequent accidents discouraged passengers from flying.  Lu and Cord acquired stock in

Stinson, with Cord holding a majority position. Lu went to Dayton, OH where Stinson was located, to contribute to the design of the Stinson – Tri-Motor.  When the Stinson Tri-Motor 6000B was built, American Airways, which was later renamed American Airlines, ordered a fleet of them on his insistence when he was president of the holding company of American Airways called Aviation Corp in 1933.

 

The airmail controversy was looming in 1934. Lu pleaded with Roosevelt to allow the airlines to fly the mail. Although Roosevelt’s advisor, Jim Farley, disagreed, Roosevelt granted the airmail contract to the Army Air Corps.  The struggling airlines needed the revenue and were far better equipped to fly the mail than inexperienced Army pilots.  It was not until nine pilots were killed that Roosevelt awarded the contracts to the airlines.

With the airmail problem resolved, Lu went to Germany and Great Britain in 1935 to visit aircraft plants. He was able to do this because he was a director of Stinson Aircraft and Lycoming Manufacturing Co. as well as a WWI pilot. It was apparent Germany was rearming despite the Geneva Convention. Again Lu went to  the Whitehouse, this time to inform Roosevelt.

Lu Manning joined the Army Air Force again at the age of 46, because he believed  with his engineering experience in aircraft production, he could be of service.  He was sent to Hunter Field, a staging base in Georgia, its purpose to make ready combat crews, B-25 and B-26 bombers for the long flight to England. Because Lu expedited this process by many weeks, Gen. Hap Arnold of the Third Air Force promoted him to bird colonel and Commanding Officer of Hunter Field.

In a severe weather-related crash, Lu and six others died in a B-26 near Hartselle, AL, April 9, 1944.  He was awarded the Medal of Merit and the rank of Brig. General posthumously.  Lucius Bass Manning lived a full life, devoted to his wife, Kadie, family, aviation, and country.

 

This website is maintained by Morgan Wallace

 

Written by
Katherine Manning Wallace, daughter