Listen to the episode here.

Buckle up, kids. Today, for no explainable reason, Angie and Theresa swap stories. Angie jumpstarts the episode by telling everyone about the role in the Dutch resistance that Audrey Hepburn played.

Theresa takes to the skies when she shares the story about Thomas Fitzpatrick, the man who was drunk and on a bet stole and landed a plane on the streets of the Washington Heights neighborhood in NYC – twice. Apparently, the second time, the fellow bar patron didn’t believe him, so he had to show him.

This episode pairs well with:
Resistance Fighter: Toto Koopman
The Doomed Second Pacific Squadron

Transcript

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhand History Podcast. The podcast, we’re two incredibly weirdly sleep people, one under slept, one over slept. Join forces and tell each other the history stories we’ve only recently learned. I’m host one, I’m Teresa, and that’s host two. 

Angie: I’m Ante, and we’re going to let you figure out which one of us is under slept and over slept today. 

Theresa: I think if you just heard the caffeine in my voice and the stutter and pause in yours, we would have an easy understanding about life. Yep. Do we know who goes first today? Good question. That is for people who prepare. That’s very silly. Why would I do that? It appears that you go first because I went first last time. 

Angie: That’s also silly. Okay. Well, did you do take your headphones off? Oh, I like this. How long do you think I can keep her without her headphones? Hey, this is Angie and here are my sources. 

I made her take her headphones off so she doesn’t hear this part. We are doing biography.com, a UNICEF article, an EBSCOresearch.com, and a time article, as well as… I haven’t just forgotten what this one is. Oh, a BBC article called She Believed. You have to take sides how Audrey Hepburn became a secret spy during World War II. 

There’s a military.com article on it as well, and then a great Netflix documentary simply called Audrey, and a podcast featuring Nicola Coughlin from Bridgerton called History Junkist Heroes. That said, I’m waving my hand so she can see me. Headphones are on. Headphones are on. Cool. Sometimes I believe that you can hear everything through the headphones anyway. 

Theresa: Jokes on you. The audio processing disorder meant I only heard you talk about cheese. 

Angie: Fabulous, because I was actually talking about cheese. 

Theresa: Well, this is going to get real awkward. 

Angie: Just kidding. I don’t think I said cheese once, so you’re good. I’m just going to start off by saying that I’ve been thinking about privilege and how different privilege looks from person to person. So I thought that I would bring you a story of a young woman who was born into privilege, but saw what she could do with it. So she entered the Dutch resistance. Are you ready? 

Theresa: Heck yes. I am for this. You said resistance and you know me. 

Angie: I did. This is a World War II story. I am back on my crap. Her name is Aureancia Van Hempstra, and for the sake of not butchering her name so badly, I’m going to call her Van Hempstra for the rest of this episode. But look at your truth. Thank you. That said, our girl was born May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium. Her mother is a Baroness, and her father is this guy called Joseph Victor Anthony Rustin. He’s born in Auschwitz, which at the time of his birth in 1889 was part of the Kingdom of Bohemia. He’s an honorary British council in a place called Semring in the Dutch East Indies from 1923 to 1924. At the time that he marries the Baroness, he’s working for a trading company in the Dutch East Indies. 

Theresa: Is he working for the Dutch East Indies Trading Company? 

Angie: I think so, but it doesn’t specifically like the information on him wasn’t real specific in regards to his employment as it was his like life backstory. I thought this was wild. I didn’t realize the Dutch East Indies were still a thing into the 1920s. Like for me, that feels like a topic that matches with the golden age of piracy. But lo and behold, they’re still kicking it in the 1920s. 

So there you go. Yeah, our girl’s parents, they marry in Batia in 1926, which is present day Jakarta Indonesia. We fast forward a few years and the family is living in Brussels where von Henscher is born. Her early child is spent between Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague and London. 

But by 32, the family settle in a suburb of Brussels. But this traveling back and forth that she’s done in just the few short years she’s been alive gives her this really multinational background. But also, her early childhood is full of privilege and very, very sheltered. Now at this point, what you need to know is that her parents are like super pro fascism, like super into it. And so they are sort of dropping their daughter off with like family members and going off on all these trips to meet and make friends with other people in the super far right political circles. At one point, they meet a man called Oswald Mosley and he’s the leader of this very violent anti-Semitic group of British Union fascists. And then her mother would write very favorite articles for their magazine on the glory of Nazi Germany. So for her parents, the mustachioed man himself, Hitler, is like a celebrity with rock star status to them. Like they right the guy they want to meet right. 

So in 1935, they go to Munich just to meet him. At this point, our girls what five years old. But then the first and probably for her the worst big trauma happens and dad leaves. Mom is left completely inconsolable. Our girls six years old at the time. And according to one source, she like she was a daddy’s girl through and through and loved her father so deeply that she never ever recovered from the betrayal like ever. 

Wow. And it’s sort of in my opinion, set the stage for the rest of her life and how she would enter relationships and how she treated others around her because that like you just don’t leave your family right now. As inconsolable about this as mom is, she moves herself and her kids to her family’s estate in Arnhem. And then von Hemscher’s brothers because I forgot to mention this, but her mother had been previously married and had two older children. So her brothers are sent to live with family in the Hague. 

And then by 37, our girl is at boarding school in the UK. One source says it’s because that’s what dad wanted. And so mom honored it. The other source says that’s because mom thinks it might be a little safer there as the winds of the world are starting to change a bit. I personally think it was probably a little bit of both. 

Theresa: I mean, yeah, I have a feeling we say, oh, it’s because what your dad wants. And oh, by the way, it’s safer. So right, your bags are packed. You’re ready to go. 

Angie: The other interesting thing to note here though is that her mom still believed that Hitler was a gentleman and he would absolutely not invade their country. But I think she was smart enough to be like, but we’re close enough that maybe maybe my daughter’s safer in the UK, right? It’s September 1 of 1939. And Nazi Germany invades Poland within two days. Britain declares war on Germany. At this point, mom brings von Hennstra home hoping that the Netherlands will be spared much like they were during the First War. 

Like that’s that’s the idea, right? They were neutral. So we should be safe here, blah, blah, blah. 

This next little bit seems out of place, but it is super important that it is stated here. Up to this point, while von Hennstra has been at boarding school in the UK, she’s been taking ballet lessons and she loves it. So she can she goes back to the to be with mom and she’s basically like, hey, dancing is kind of the only thing that makes me feel so happy. And also, even though she has this multinational life and can speak multiple languages, Dutch is not one of them. So oh, for a long time, she comes over from school every day crying because I can’t make friends who can speak the same language, but I really, really love dancing and I just want to keep dancing. So mom makes that happen for her. She gets she gets in the studio, things are okay for her. But then the Germans invade the Netherlands in 1940 and everything changes for the family. 

I think for the Netherlands and specifically for people in the in the upper echelons of society, it’s a rather slow transition to this point. But on the night before, so May 9th, von Hennstra is able to watch this ballet that’s performed by some really legendary dancers of her time. And she is able to present them with flowers after so she goes to bed like that happy tween girl like she’s living her dream. She got to do the thing. But then mom wakes her up at four in the next morning to tell her the war is on. 

Theresa: Get your shoes on honey. We’ve got boss the Dutch. 

Angie: We’re a little busy. So the Germans cross the border and they roll right in Arnhem and to fully understand how close the action is to her house, the Dutch in an effort to stop the German forces from gaining any ground had blown up the Arnhem road bridge, which was like this key crossing point for their city. It is only a quarter of a mile from her house. 

Oh, so that’s what you’re waking up to after having the night of your life, right? She watches German tanks and planes and soldiers march through for hours. And despite how bravely the Dutch fight, the army is small and Holland would only take five days to fall to the Germany to fall to Germany. And like I said earlier, initially families like hers, life wasn’t that much different, but it was a very gradual change, you know, things like street signs changing to be in German. And then swastikas showed up and then even the classes like math are taught from a Nazi perspective. 

Theresa: So this is very like a fascist version of math. 

Angie: Yeah, I’m really curious to see the difference, but I didn’t look into it because that wasn’t what my story is about, but I’m so curious about it. So I’m going to be looking now up to this point, the policy in place for the way the Nazis treat the Dutch was called the velvet glove policy. 

Theresa: Oh, and iron fist and a velvet glove. Right. Okay. 

Angie: So then Germany invaded the Soviet Union and this gentle policy, it’s to put the German war machine, they need everything from food to clothes for their troops, and they would take all of it from the Dutch, at least on the Eastern front. And this is actually like the beginning of what would eventually be known as the Dutch famine or the hunger winter, which I didn’t realize. 

I don’t know how I missed the two would be tied together, but there you are. So it’s now 1942. She has an uncle who she absolutely adores you. I believe she saw as a second father figure and he has been taking steps against the Nazis and a resistance group, a resistance group attempts to blow up a German train near Rotterdam. While her uncle Otto, he’s, he plays a political role within their community and he’s like he’s a very well known man. He’s not involved in this incident, but regardless, he’s arrested because he is a prominent figure and he had chosen a side. So him and four other men are taken to the woods, shot and dumped in an unmarked grave. This becomes a national incident and a boiling point for the Dutch because for, like, this isn’t, this isn’t how we treat people, right? But for a girl, this is like losing her father all over again. So again, the second betrayal, she’s just having to go with it. The Nazis try to use this to send a message to like make an example of him, but it has the opposite of the desired effect for the Dutch and it seems to only strengthen their resolve to get rid of the Nazis. 

It makes them harder. Right, 100% and the Nazis did not think that through at all, which in turn, the Nazis make things worse for everyone else that they could connect to the resistance, obviously, right? So at this point, the family moves in with grandpa von Hempstra in this small village just outside of Arnhem called Velp. And you could say at this point, this is when the family’s ideals change, despite mom’s early love of the fascists, her eyes have now been opened. 

Theresa: So she’s like, Oh, I have a strong hunch where this is going. I’m keeping my mouth shut, unless you want my, my guess now. 

Angie: No, okay. But I’m almost there. To give some context for what they’re living through, they see people being hauled off in cattle trucks, and they think they’re just taking to special camps. They have no idea they’re going to meet their deaths. 

It would be like a little, it’d be take longer for them to realize that’s what’s happening. When our girl is 15, she is ordered to join what is called, and I’m hopefully because at this point, the Nazis have taken over every institution in the community. So like, if you’re, if you are an artist, you’re now a Nazi artist, and you work for us. So she’s told she’s there needs to join them or give up dancing publicly, which she has now been doing for years. So she gives it up. Or so the Nazis think. She goes on to teach children who are dancing in cold classrooms with empty stomachs. 

Oh, right. Like, it’s war, but we’re still going to do ballet because that’s what makes our heart smile. Now at this point, one of her students is the daughter of a man called Dr. Heinrich Weissertoft, and he needs an assistant. So she takes the job. What she doesn’t initially know is that like many of the doctors of the area, he’s most definitely a huge part of the resistance, which I thought was cool. I wouldn’t have thought like, like it’s wild to me that the doctors in town are like, Oh yeah, I know we’re part of the Dutch resistance, but they were like, that was kind of their jam. So one of the jobs that these guys are doing is they are finding shelter for downed or stranded allied airmen. They would forge identities and they loved a good little act of sabotage because I mean, who doesn’t? So they’re busy. 

Like they’re doing their day job and then they’re doing their night job. Right. At this point, there is like 600 hidden ones in Vulp. And these hidden ones are the Jews that are either in hiding or people like von Hemstra’s brother who had already served in the Dutch army and stayed in hiding to avoid being conscripted into the German army. Oh, right. And feeding these people is expensive. 

So in an effort to raise the needed funds, it’s now 1944. One evening our girl arrives at a suburban home and it is occupied by resistance guards. The house has been like blacked out, you know, the doors and windows are covered and there’s just candles as their light source. Her friend plays the piano and she dances in costumes that are made by her mother. The public that is present is praying to her 

Theresa: mother, the one who is the fascist or the one who’s playing the piano. 

Angie: Her friend is playing the piano, her mom’s making their costumes. Okay. And the public that’s invited, they’re paying to see this performance as though they’re going to the theater, but they are actually feeding these hidden ones. Now, they know that. They’re part of their, they want to see Hall and Freed. 

And she says later that the most beautiful audience she ever had was totally silent because she can’t have a routerous, like a big applause. Right. It’s a secret that they’re doing it. And she would do these what they call black ballets for months. And while she’s doing them, she is becoming more and more malnourished as their food and even their abundant soil is being sent to the German front. Wow. Then, because I don’t, I don’t, wow, like they’re digging up the good stuff and taking it elsewhere to, to grow stuff. 

It’s wild to me. I would have never thought that was a part of war, but here you are. Once again, because life doesn’t happen in a vacuum on April 17th of September 1944, while in church, they can hear the war of airplane engines over the sound of the music. An operation market, market garden, which was authorized by Field Marshall Montgomery was in full swing. Field Marshall Montgomery is mentioned in more than one episode specifically of the Go On. 

Theresa: I have no idea. 

Angie: Like did not, yeah, he was, he was the SAS Field Marshall. 

Theresa: Oh, okay. So for the review playing at home, let me scroll up. I should probably just do find. 

Angie: I think they’re out of the field like 129 or 136 through 138 maybe. 

Theresa: 136 through 138. 

Angie: Booyah. I can’t believe I remembered those off the top of my head. So operation market garden, it’s in full swing. And in short, this looks like the grand liberation they were hoping for. But what they don’t know is that the Nazis have two heavily armored divisions nearby. And now the war is quite literally happening on her doorstep. 

The Germans are everywhere. And so our captor captured bridge paratroopers. So our girl out there is out there bandaging wounded civilians and the city burns during the night. 

Eventually the battle is so bad, her family, they hide in the cellars and the fighting goes on for nine days. Geez. Right. When they finally came out, the town was in pieces and the Nazis still held another one. 

Theresa: But to say this feels like the wrong episode to say the town was in pizzas. Pieces. I know. I know. This is pizzas? Yeah. I was like, huh, the town just shifted. 

Angie: It’s a whole new thing. A few months later, the sky would again be full of Allied airmen flying to attack Germany. And like the route took them right over her home. And additionally, there’s an air base not far from VELP. And so the German fighters scramble from there to knock the Allies out of the sky. And so sometimes there’d be downed airmen in need of help. Now our girl can speak perfect English. So Weizel Dihoff sends her to the woods with messages for the airmen. 

She would like tuck them in her sock. Which I think is cute. Yeah. 

Right. And on one of these events, she’s coming out of the woods and she sees off in the distance that the Dutch Nazi police are coming. And instead of panicking, instead of running, she stops and just starts picking wild flowers. And when they ask her, what are you doing here? She smiles, charms them and says, well, I was picking flowers for you and hands them the flowers and just walks on by. 

Theresa: Like she knows how to turn on that charisma. Absolutely. Girl wrote in that 20 and then just giggled as she walked away. 

Angie: Pretty much. And so her sort of resistant leader, the doctor, he sees how Dutch children and young ladies are viewed by the German war machine. And he’s like, oh, we can put them to work. 

So she starts working as a courier, taking messages back and forth as often as needed. But things are getting worse, right? This lack of decent food alone is taking a huge toll. At one point, her mother sends her to town to try and scrape up anything she can find as far as food goes. And as she’s walking between shops, she’s taken and shoved into a German truck. She knows there are two possible outcomes. Either she’s taken to a labor camp or she’s taken to a pleasure camp. Either way, it’s not a great option for her. And so when the truck stops again to grab another young woman, she takes the opportunity to leap from the truck and run. And then hides under a building for what she says might have been 48 hours. She’s unclear. Oh, geez. By the time she makes it home, her mother is obviously believed she is either dead or gone. 

Like not a clue where her daughter could be. It only gets worse through winter. It’s believed there are at least 500 Dutch dying a week from starvation alone. Also, it’s as I said, winter, there’s no heat source because the German war machine is taking it. So people have resorted to like taking apart their picket fences just to burn something, which seems like not the worst option to have. But also up to this point, life has been okay. 

Theresa: Okay. But I’m assuming they’re bringing lead based painted fences into their homes. Probably. 

Angie: Or what’s left of their homes, right? They would take to going out into the fields to pick two Bob’s bulbs so that they could grind the powder and try to bake and eat it. And I that is beyond my understanding of how life works. I want you to just eat the two of them. Like, well, okay, but like, I remember bread with it. 

Theresa: So I mean, I’m assuming there’s a bunch of things you could do, right? But right when I lived in Japan after college, I lived at the top of this hill that translated to Azalea Hill. At the top of this hill was this 200 year old Japanese home with established Japanese garden. And I lived in the mother in law suite, like it was an ideal place. Now, as you got to the top of the hill, the homes around it got newer and newer. And it was explained to me that the owners of the house I lived in had a ton of ancestral property, ton of money. And when everybody around them during World War Two were starving, starving to the point where they were boiling the dirt to get the nutrients out of it. Good God, that this family was still eating steak. 

Wow. But they did it by selling off property. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And so that was the sacrifice they made to not sacrifice their lifestyle. 

So when I hear about like processing the tulip bulbs in a way that you could eat. Yeah. Humanity is weird, man. Dude, we’ll do whatever we can to make it through. Yeah, for sure. 

Angie: So while the war is still waging, it’s our girl is suffering from anemia, jaundice, endema, and also the whole, you know, starving thing. 

Theresa: Now, I mean, that means her body is swelling. She’s retaining water. She’s gonna have a terrible time trying to dance. 

Angie: Yeah, life’s, life’s sucking at this point for her, right? By April 16th of 45, the fighting had grown so bad that her family was hiding in the cellar with all the lights off and had been for at least three weeks, like they’re just sitting in complete darkness. And then all of a sudden, they smell tobacco, like someone smoking a cigarette nearby. And they know that’s got to be the liberators because there hasn’t been smokable tobacco for months. 

Theresa: Oh, that’s a fun hack, right? 

Angie: So our girl opens the door to the cellar to find several Canadian soldiers and their guns pointed right at her. So she, again, unbothered, speaks to them in perfect English and the soldiers yell in delight because not only have they liberated a town, but according to them, they had also liberated an English girl. 

Theresa: for her. These emotional Canadians are just incredible. 

Angie: Right. They’re so excited to be there. For her, the war was over, but the shame of her mother’s early fascist love would, it would stay with her forever. And so would the trauma of war, and it would frame everything she did from that day to her last. Would you like to see a picture of her? Yes. 

Theresa: And I have a feeling you’re sitting on something crucial. I am. 

Angie: So that was a story of Audre, Audreana von Hymstra, which we know is better Audrey Hepburn. 

Theresa: Okay. Yeah. That is exactly where I thought the story was going. I didn’t have the full ins and outs. I didn’t have the details, but yes. 

Angie: The only thing I knew when I started looking at this was that she was a dancer. I did not realize how her early life was situated. And I did not really like, do you know that she joined UNICEF as an elderly woman? 

Yes. She fully was very happy to retire to her country of state, like in Switzerland. But she had heard there were children starving, and it enraged her. So she joined UNICEF because we were told that there would be no hunger again after the last World War. And that didn’t sit right with her. So there you are. 

Theresa: I love this. I feel like we have changed stories today. And I didn’t need, I didn’t know you were going to do this to me, but I need you to take your headphones off. 

Angie: Okay, just a second. Off. 

Theresa: Okay. So my sources, first off, I want to thank Daniel Fitz on TikTok, who suggested I tell this story. My sources are an article from Utterly Interesting, the Wild Flights of Thomas Fitzpatrick from Barbette to Urban Legend, The New York Times, an article by Corey Kilganon. Long ago, a pilot landed on an uptown street. That’s where the bar was. In an all this interesting article, Thomas Fitzpatrick, an amateur pilot who drunkenly landed a plane on a New York City street twice by Natasha Ishak. 

Angie: Okay, the way you’re removing your hands the whole time was confusing. 

Theresa: I was doing it to pace myself. I was the conductor managing my own tongue. You did great. Okay. Born in Emerson, New Jersey, there’s a young man named Thomas Fitzpatrick. He’s born during the time of where he’s going to come of age during World War Two. 

And when he’s 15, he joins the Marines. Okay. He apparently forges paperwork. That’s from what I understand. This feels right. Yep. And he goes to China during World War Two. And it’s here that he learns to fly reconnaissance aircraft. 

Theresa: Okay. And afterwards, they win the war. He’s honorably discharged from the Marines. He decides he doesn’t want to leave military life behind. The Marines, you know, wants Marine, always a Marine. So he signs up for the US Army. 

Angie: Okay, so he’s taken a grand tour of the branches of service. Yep. 

Theresa: And he serves in the Korean War. Okay. And he ends up becoming the first New Yorker who’s wounded in the Korean War. He’s wounded because he’s driving an ammunition truck to rescue trapped American soldiers 

Angie: who were in the chosen Valley and living off the T-Rolls. 

Theresa: I don’t have that much detail, but let’s just assume yes. And if you’re wondering about what the hell Angie just said, that is episode 79. 

Angie: 55, 85, 85, episode 85. It is the second story. And it’s right after I tell the Great Malacys Flood of 1919. Okay. So because of his work, because you know, what he was doing, he earns or he receives the Purple Heart for his bravery. Eventually, he settles back into civilian life. And he starts working at a steam fitter with local 68, nope, with local 638 in New York City and Long Island. He will have this job for just over half a century. Oh, so you know, there’s I’m kind of showing that there’s going to be some staying power with this role. At some point, he really decides to become a pilot and he enrolls in flying school at the Teterborough School of Aeronautics in New Jersey. 

And by the time he’s 26, he’s working as an airplane mechanic. Okay. Now, it’s the evening or early morning of September 30th, 1956. Think this is this story will this part of the story will end at 3am. 

Okay, so no good decisions are made around this time. Yeah. Again, he’s 26. 

He has spent a good chunk of the evening at a bar in New York City. Okay. And the on drive. Yeah, the conversation that he’s in is getting a little bit crazier. And the stories are amping up the bets that they’re doing back and forth are only just increasing in velocity. And he finds himself in the center of a challenge. 

Could he travel from New Jersey to NYC in 15 minutes? Okay. And for most people, this is going to be like a harmless both. They’re going to get this is impossible. Just flat that impossible button and call it a day. This Patrick, he’s like, this is my call to action. 

This is my day to shine. And without a second thought, maybe he’s had a couple too many shots. He makes his way to the Teterborough Airport in New Jersey. This is where he had taken that flight school. And here he’s unbothered by any such restraints like laws. 

Angie: Because I love a person unbothered by law. 

Theresa: He helps himself to a single engine plane. Yep. And now under normal conditions, apparently, most experienced pilots are going to exercise caution, especially when this is the dead of night. This is dark 30. And he’s got no lights and no radio. 

Okay. But he with probably a you know, his co pilot, Jack Daniels on board, and some sheer nerve, he soars above New Jersey and New York. He then lands the plane on St. Nicholas Avenue directly in front of the bar where his wager originated with an audience of likely gobsmacked humans who are also super inebriated. They did think he was coming back. They thought he grabbed his keys and ran out of the bar for giggles. 

Because he had completed a 15 minute journey from New Jersey to New York and one of the most memorable ways possible and landed on a narrow avenue in pitch darkness. Dude, buddy’s got a skill set. Now, in fact, even the police are impressed. 

Angie: Dude, I couldn’t be a police officer for just that reason. 

Theresa: Apparently, they have suspicions because the pilot claims that he landed the plane on the street due to quote engine trouble. 

Angie: Oh, not because he just wanted to win a bet. 

Theresa: I mean, he admits to the bar bet later in an interview. Okay. And maybe he hiccups a couple. Maybe he was, you know, sweat in that Coors light out of a system. 

Angie: Sergeant Coors light. Did you have to drink to get there at three in the morning? 

Theresa: I mean, look, you’re driving drunk, which is not. Oh my God, I completely forgot about that. And then you’re getting in a plane and going in another dimension as well. Good God. Okay. Sergeant Harold Burenz of the police aviation bureau, which I didn’t know is a thing, said the odds of sticking a landing like that were 100,000 to one. 

Okay. The New York Times would later call it a feat of aeronautics and praise his fine landing. This wasn’t hyperbole. The story goes, he made a bet with someone at a bar and he could be back from the heights, which is because he’s in Washington Heights, Manhattan. 

Yeah, I’m saying this to you because I have never been to New York, the entire state, little in the city. So he was at the heights from New Jersey in 15 minutes says Jim Clark, who’s 68 at the time of being interviewed and had lived near the first landing spot. He recalls seeing the plane in the street. Love that. 

Angie: Now, did you say first landing spot? Stay tuned. Okay. 

Theresa: I didn’t. I forgot I put that Easter egg in there. Supposedly, according to Clark, he planned on landing at the field of George Washington High School, but it wasn’t lit up at night. So he landed on St. Nicholas Street instead. Oh, okay. Now Fitzpatrick, he gets arraigned on Grand Larson charges, which are dropped after the plane’s owner declined to sign the complaint. 

Angie: I would have laughed my butt off. Just bring my plane back would have been my only statement. Right. Same. Same. Yeah. 

Theresa: He’s also charged with violating the city’s administrative code, which apparently surprisingly prohibits landing a plane on the street. Weird. Yeah. Cause that had to be set forth before now. And that was apparently already on the books. Now, maybe it’s despite the audacity or because of it, he avoids serious repercussions. The point, you know, he’s doesn’t have the charges of Grand Larson and he ends up with nothing more than a hundred dollar fine, which about 1100 bucks in today’s money. Worth it. Now it’s a slap on the wrist when you’re honest for some lifelong bragging privileges. Honestly. Now, this part I absolutely love. 

I found this source and I got so excited. He’s still hanging around with his friends who are regulars of the bars. And there’s a man named Fred Hartling who’s 76 at the time of being interviewed. He remembered Fitzpatrick from the neighborhood. He Fitzpatrick, our boy Tommy is a good friend of the guy being interviewed’s older brother. 

So the guy being interviewed. What was his first name? Do I have his first name? Just Mr. Harding Fred. 

Okay. So Fred had his older brother named Pat. Pat and Tommy are friends. Tommy’s a troublemaker. Love this. 

Okay. Um, now Tommy’s very charismatic. He’s the adventurous type who would butter up Pat and Fred’s mom to let him go out or to let him sleep over at the Harding’s apartment or to convince Pat to go out to the bars. 

Angie: This all sounds accurate. Are you telling a story about my dad? 

Theresa: Um, considering from the previous narrative you told me about your dad, did he live in Washington Heights? No. Okay. So apparently there’s market. Very close. Um, Fred Hartling goes on to say Tommy had a crazy side. 

The whole group of them, my brother’s friends were a wild bunch. Now put a pen in that. Okay. Because most people would have pulled this stunt and called the day a day. It’s just one of those stories. 

He adds the lore. Two years later, it’s around 1 a.m. He finds himself at another bar, roughly the same neighborhood. And he’s retelling the story. Of course our man’s got some swagger involved because he landed a plane on a busy New York street at 3 a.m. No lights. No running. 

Radio loaded out of his mind. Love it. Now, uh, there’s a small problem. There’s always going to be a problem here. And the problem is one of the patrons doesn’t believe Tommy. There’s always going to be that one guy. Now, um, this man, maybe it’s stubborn pride. Maybe, um, he goes, he blames Tommy believes the lousy drink, uh, kicked in. And, uh, he took this as a challenge to prove his claim. 

Angie: So once again, you couldn’t just find an old newspaper headline. 

Theresa: Look, this was before phones. Now it’s just going to be like, pull up, just Google my name. Click on the article by the New York times. That’s me. Yeah. Is the New York times the credible of Nessource? Honestly, yeah. 

I’m saying a Reddit post kids. Now, so he heads back to Teterboro airport because he fully understands his way around there and he commandeers a red and cream single engine, Cessna 120. And our man takes to the sky. 

Angie: Please tell me this plane is owned by the last guy as well. 

Theresa: Cause that would be hilarious. Unclear, but doubted. Okay. 

Angie: Now, could you imagine getting that phone call twice? It’s going to be a huge hit. 

Theresa: Like, I’m sorry, you’ve got to start putting my stuff in a hanger. Could you just lock that maybe? Yeah. Maybe change the lock actually change the code to something other than one, two, three, four. Honestly. Um, this time he lands near Amsterdam Avenue and 187th street. 

This apparently isn’t far from Yeshiva University. Okay. So again, he is hyper crowded streets. Okay. Um, now apparently they see the stair double. 

There’s many witnesses to see the stair double landing up incredibly close. There’s a man named John Johnson, which do not do this to your kids names. There should be no Ed Edwards, John Johnson, William Williamson’s dude. Will Willis. Yeah. Like why don’t get creative. Please. 

Agreed. Because John Johnson from witness protection program is a local carpenter and he’s writing his, his motorcycle in the street and he has to pump the brakes to avoid colliding with a goddamn plane. 

Angie: That would be a whole mother story to tell on the bar. 

Theresa: During his arraignment, he’s, his, his stunt is described as having come down like a marauder from the skies. And this is the magistrate Ruben Levy saying it. 

Angie: If he had Melvin belly, it would have been far more dramatic. It would have been. 

Theresa: Now, newspapers report that he jumped out of the plane wearing a gray suit, which is incredible detail and flees the scene. Love this. He later turns himself in. Um, he goes up to the police station. 

Or he told the police that had pulled off, that he pulled off the second flight after a bar patron refused to believe the first one. Now he basically goes up and he’s like, Hey, I hear you guys are looking for me. Um, I just happened to be in the neighborhood. I think you guys wanted to speak to me. 

My mom said you called. Yeah, basically. Now there’s another eye witness, a bus driver named Harvey Roth, and he’s sitting in his parked bus when Fitzpatrick flies right over. Instinctively, Harvey dives to the floor boards and he’s afraid that the plane is going to tear open the top of the bus. So we’re that close to the ground because you’re going to land. So you got to get even closer to the ground. You got to be, say, touching. 

You gotta be on the ground. Yeah. Yeah. 

Um, now. Roth goes on to say, what the hell could you say if they ever pulled you in on a safety hearing for having an incident with an airplane? That’s what he tells a reporter afterwards. True. Right. 

Theresa: Like this is going to go on my permanent record and I’m never going to get another job because they’re going to think that I found some white powder, put it up my nose, and that that’s how I ended up interacting with planes. Okay. Magic school bus. Basically. So. 

Theresa: The first flight, the first flight he, the first flight Fitzpatrick admits was the result of a bar room bet. The second flight, he tells the police that he’d held a pilot’s license, but it had been suspended after the first flight. He’d never renewed it because quote, I just didn’t want to fly again. 

Angie: And except for in the case of someone not police using my first flight, 

Theresa: in which case I’ve got to, you understand, he double dog, dares me officer. You get this, right? You have brothers. Yeah. My, my pride was on the line. Now the police, they’re impressed with the skill. And Fitzpatrick himself acknowledges that quote, he’s one hell of a pilot, unquote, but they’re less enthusiastic about this repeated fence. 

Angie: But he doesn’t get the man a job as what a stunt pilot. 

Theresa: No, like I am sure they need people that can fly through New York when they’re trying to chase bad guys or something. Maybe. 

Theresa: And he can do with the lights on a new radio. Exactly. The bad guys help. Done. 

Angie: A park right in front of him. Problem solved. 

Theresa: Yeah. Um, no. They have some trouble with this second time because he doesn’t deny that he’s, like he, okay, it doesn’t help that he tries to deny that he’s the pilot landed the plane on the street and he only confesses after seven or several witnesses identify him as the pilot. Damn it. So he’s busted. Now, um, he ends up with the charge of grand larceny, kind of like before, dangerous and reckless operation of a plane, making an unauthorized landing in city limits and a violation of civil aeronautics administration regulations for flying without a valid, valid license. 

Angie: Could you imagine having to take, like being, being the officer on the beat trying to find this guy and having to take this picture up to witnesses because you’ve already done this once before you’re like, have you seen this man? 

Theresa: Look, this sounds really familiar to, to my last, I have a crime like this. I like this guy for this crime. Have you, is it, please say, is it this, it’s this guy to say it’s this guy. Yeah. 

Angie: I just shake your head. That’s all I need. 

Theresa: Now, judge John A. Mullen, he sentenced him to six months in jail for bringing the stolen plane into the city. Now, Mullen is not content with justifying and that’s why he gives him six months. He also goes on a comment and say, had you been properly jolted then, it’s possible that this would not have occurred a second time. 

Angie: So he’s a little six months still doesn’t feel like that bad for the bragging rights of doing it twice. 

Theresa: Agreed. And I’m also sure that Mullen is a bit upset that he’s got limits he can put on this. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You know, like he’s only allowed to move that, that dial so far. And I think the dial stopped at six months and he’s like, dang it, six months. It is Fitzpatrick. He’s slightly humbled. He’s like, yeah, it was a lousy drink. I’m sorry, your honor. 

Theresa: They go home now. 

Theresa: The, the, the, the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle told me to do it. Now, Sam Garcia, who was 68 when he was interviewed, he was a child when he saw the plane resting on 191 street. And he says, if it happened today, they’d called him a terrorist, locked him up and thrown away the key. 

Angie: I’m glad it happened then. 

Theresa: Do that happen. He was a half year time for these stories like this. Now Garcia lives in Puerto Rico now and said, I thought maybe they tucked it in as a practical joke because there was no way a man landed in that narrow street. 

Theresa: Well, I mean. He seems to have done it twice. 

Theresa: So his late night bar flights became the stuff. Nope. His two late night flights, not bar flight flights became the stuff. I like bar flights. Yeah, I’ll leave it in there. I won’t edit it out. And this is where the tales of his impossible landings would circulate for decades. Apparently now people are going to believe it. There’s also a drink called late night flight in his honor. That’s awesome. And I didn’t look up what the recipe was. 

And I feel like that’s in the step on my end. So he then settles back into everyday life and tries to stay out of those newspapers. He also is active in community groups, including the VFW post 6192 and the China Marines organization and lives out his later years with the same fearless spirit. That fueled those infamous flights. And while we’re going to look at it and realize that it sounds pretty stinking audacious, probably too much so to believe, but we truly see that this happened because I’ve got newspaper clippings to show you in a second. I love that. And so I kind of feel like I need to look up what the late night flight cocktail is and have a drink to Thomas Fitzpatrick’s honor. He would go. Yeah, he would go on to die in 2009 at the age of 79. What a legend. Now there was an obituary published in New Jersey paper about him and it goes on to say that he was Marine during the Korean War and received a purple heart. And he worked as a steam fitter for 51 years. 

He had three sons and lived in Washington Township, New Jersey, and he remained married for 51 years to his wife, Helen, who when contract or contacted by a reporter hung up as soon as they asked about the flights. 

Angie: She’s probably so sick of this crap. 

Theresa: Exactly. 

Angie: I’m just, I mean, oh my God. So you would get that phone call from the jail twice. Yeah. Yeah. I need to go talk to my husband. He is not doing enough. 

Theresa: You know, here’s what we can show him, right? We can show him. 

Angie: Oh my goodness. That is hilarious. 

Theresa: I’ll let you describe to the folks at home what they’re saying. 

Angie: Excuse me. Okay. So there’s tons of people standing around. So black and white photo and the streets are really very narrow. And from what I can tell the plane is in the middle left, right? Like that. Yeah. 

Okay. So the plane is in the middle of the street kind of off towards the left, but he literally landed center street. Like it looks like. Between cars. Yeah. Between parked cars. 

There’s a lorry truck behind it. Like, can you imagine having to call your boss and tell him why you’re late to work? Okay. The second picture is clearly them trying to solve the problem the next day. There’s what looks like officers and pilots gathered around the plane talking. And again, the lorry truck is parked there. There are tons of people. 

Theresa: So this is still that first incident where they are. Polaris right in front of a liquor store. Or maybe that’s the bar unclear to his liquor. That’s the bar. 

Angie: Oh my gosh. So an aerial photo. 

Theresa: I think this is the that’s got to be still the first flight because that looks like the same truck. Same truck. Yeah. 

Angie: And then him getting arrested. Yep. He’s sitting in the back of the police car with this very incredible look on his face. 

Theresa: And the head officers like they’re done with their shit. Oh no, this this is actually the news article. 

Angie: That is awesome. New York police removed wings from plane at 191 Street in St. Nicholas Avenue and ever had an after and landed on a busy through affair during early morning hours yesterday. He looks like he is so bothered that they had the audacity to take him in for booking. Yeah. Yeah. 

Theresa: But that is hilarious. That is the story of Thomas Fitzpatrick. We did swap stories this week. 

Angie: That is I’ve heard of that. I didn’t know it happened twice. I thought it happened the one time. The fact that I had. Oh my gosh, the fact that it happened twice. If I had a nickel for every time that would happen, I’d only have two nickels, but still. Yeah. 

Theresa: Yeah. And to be like just like OK, for the first time I’ve heard of it. Fine. You don’t believe me. Bill, I’ll be right back. That is hilarious. I want to see his wife. The long suffering Helen Fitzpatrick. 

Angie: I bet you he made her laugh every single day until he took those late night flights. In which case she’s like I’m going to kill her. Yeah. 

Theresa: And she had three sons who she was just like, don’t you dare be like your be a better man than your father. For the love of everything, holy. 

Angie: For all that is good in this world. I am begging you. Join the priesthood. 

Theresa: So yeah. So those are our stories. If you’ve got things that you want us to talk about, you could message us on. Tick tock where we’re pretty stinking active. You could. Email us at unhingedothistorypod at gmail.com or send a couple of smoke signals. Let’s see if we pick up on this and send us to your favorite would be person. You shouldn’t bet something in a bar. And on that note, you know, 

Theresa: bye.