Thousands of People in Aviation Know That Souther Field Is an Airport in Americus in South

Major Henry Souther

By Rick Urash 10-11-09

Thousands of people in aviation know that Souther Field is an airport in Americus, Georgia. They also know that Souther Field was a training base in both world wars. We know that hundreds of cadets were trained in Curtiss Jenny’s in WW I and that hundreds more including some cadets from England were trained in Boeing Stearman’s in WW II. Most also know that Charles Lindbergh bought his first airplane and soloed it at Souther Field. What is not commonly known is that when WW I broke out the United States had only 30 airplanes and 40 pilots. By mid-year 1918, twenty-nine US Army airfields were in place and Souther Field was one of them. According to a New York Times article from July 1918,Mc Cook field,the first to be named,”was named prior to the idea of naming the airports after persons prominent in aviation”. After that, three were named for early aviation pioneers, Langley, Chanute and Wilbur Wright. The other twenty-five were all named for people who died in the line of duty or service to aviation. One was killed in action in Francein March 1918. Many were killed in training accidents while piloting both land and seaplanes and two were killed while setting new records. Some like Selfridge and others were passengers.One was considerably different. His name was Souther.

Some of the things I’ve heard about him cannot be confirmed. It is said that he picked the location of Souther Field because he was an engineer in charge of the construction of airports for the army. It is quite possible. More likely since he was director of the AeronauticalSystemsCenter he approved it and set up some general specifications for the early airfields but that is not know by this author yet. What I do know and can find on the internet from viable sources is presented below.

Henry Souther was born in 1865 and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1887. He studied metallurgy and even traveled overseas to observe steelmaking processes in Germany. He worked for steel and casting companies including Pennsylvania Steel, Pope Manufacturing and the Ferro Machine and Foundry Company and also started an independent consulting company for the automobile industry that was complete with its own metallurgical testing laboratory. He was one of the founders of the Society of Automotive Engineersand was their second President. He served on the standardization committee and was one of a handful of men who brought about standardization in the automotive industry. This led to interchangeability of parts and the rapid increases in production that occurred in this fledgling industry. If you use a nut and bolt today you are using something made to the standard specificationsthat Henry Souther helped bring about, we call those threads “SAE threads” and those bolts “SAE bolts”.He wrote specifications that helped the industry achieve quality products consistentlysuch as his highly technical document concerning specifications for grey cast iron which I assume must be used in engine crankcases and other parts.Two years prior to his death he was made a lifetime member in honor and recognition of his contributions to SAE.

So how did Henry Souther leave his privatelife and enter into service in the aviation branch of the signal corps of the US Army. He was chosen. The US governmenthand picked him and called him to Washington to ask him to serve his country as a consulting engineer! He left civilian life and within a few short months accepted a commission as a major. He was the first civilian to be assigned that high ranking upon entering the service. As best I can tell the government basically said to Souther, “Here is were we need to be” and Souther replied,“OK, here’s howwe’re going to get there”.

He was sent to Langley Field as the first director of the AeronauticalSystemsCenter whichsurvives today. His engineering group was responsible for setting the direction and standards for airplane and engine design as needed by the army in the war effort. At Langley field he also conducted experimental tests of propellers, engines and planes. The Army made an excellent choice in Souther because the principal early weakness in airplanes was engines and Major Souther’s background in metallurgy made him uniquely qualified to assist and direct the early development of safe and effective warplanes. His paper “The Development and Progress in Aviation Motors” which was delivered at a conference a few months before his death is not too technical to be good reading and gives an excellent picture of the state of aviation in 1918. It is quite possible that the commissioning of the 29 early airfields also fell upon him as he seems to have been in many places at one time. To quote an obituary in the Journal of the Franklin Institute about is private life he “was a member of numerous engineering and technical societies as well as social organizations”. Most likely his service record in different areas was varied as well and a lack of readily available records does not necessarily negate a suspected part in a given activity.

His full contribution to the war effort and society as a whole after the war would have been very interesting to see but his life was cut short in August 1918 at the age of 52 by an undisclosed illness which required surgery to be performed at Fort Munroe’s post hospital. He died a few days later.

Although he did not die the romantic and more publicly acclaimed death of a courageous pilot fighting over the front lines in Francehis loss must have been equally felt by those who knew him well and most grievously felt by his government who called him. Although the country as a whole probably had no common knowledge of Major Souther and his highly significant contributions to winning the warit behooves us all to remember and honor him for these less heroicbut no less patrioticreasonsand for the simple fact that he set aside his private life and works to serve his country and that in that servicehe gave his life.