Lame Cherry: A Do Little for Dutch Royal Shell

As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.

I was reading the autobiography of General James Doolittle of the US Army Air Corp, and it is a fascinating history of air flight in America, from a military and civilian perspective. While I have not much interest in airplane races, there was something which Jimmy Doolittle mentioned in I Never Could Be So Lucky Again, which captured my attention, because if you really want to know who won World War II, it was James Doolittle.

It was not though General Doolittle who won World War II, but civilian Dr. James Doolittle, graduate with a doctorate from MIT which won the war, and Dr. Doolittle won the war five years before it started.

This should intrigue enough of you with brains to continue reading as this is fascinating dinner conversation among guests who have minds, because the story begins with the United States Army, not promoting First Lt. Doolittle for 10 years, his mother and mother in law being sick, James and his wife, Joe, forced to pay for caring for the women, and Lt. Doolittle a nationally known pilot of air races and speed records, being hired by Dutch Royal Shell of America.
Shell was making a move on the airline market which was developing as the Great Depression hit, and Franklin Roosevelt made worse for his communist programs. Shell had 3 divisions. California, St. Louis and the East Coast. Doolittle was chosen for the St. Louis operation, in promoting Shell Oil in America, and joining with Curtiss aircraft in selling American planes to foreign nations.

It was James Doolittle who figured out that the chief test pilot and race winner, Harold Harris of McCook airfield, was winning a great deal, with super pistons in his planes, but his choice of fuels was California gasoline and not Pennsylvania gasoline, which were the major providers.

What Harris figured out was that California crude, when refined had a larger percentage of aromatics, which were highly combustible. The Pennsylvania crude was higher in paraffin and performed less well in producing higher engine horsepower.

There was a move by Doolittle at Shell, Billy Parker at Philips and .Eddie Aldrin of Standard Oil. (Aldrin's name is familiar as he was a test pilot and his son would one day be the second man to walk on the moon.) to push for high octane gasoline.
In the 1930's, aircraft gasoline was 87 octane fuel, and there were 18 different leaded and non leaded aviation fuels. Doolittle was attempting to standardize aircraft fuels and move Shell to produce a 100 octane fuel. The problem was that Shell stated, "There are not any high performance engines for that kind of fuel", and the engine manufacturers stated, "We are not making high performance engines, because their is not high performance fuel."

This is where Dr. Doolittle with his MIT degree, approached two Dutch scientists in Dr.s Tynstra and Tyderman who listened to Dr. Doolittle and the need for Shell to make high performance fuels, for larger engines, and for the United States military whose planes on the drawing board at Wright were requiring the massive engines Doolittle foresaw.

Shell finally agreed to investing several million dollars for this advanced fuel, but people at Shell called it Doolittle's Folly. But in 1934, Shell delivered 1000 gallons of the super fuel to the Army Air Corp for testing.
The fuel was an interesting composite of 40 percent iso octane, 50 percent high quality gasoline, 10 percent is pentane and 3 cubic centimeters of tetraethyl lead.

Tetraethyl lead is what powered America in completely safe lead for years in affordable gasoline, until the world order in their environmentalists began creating propaganda about lead poisoning which was a farce. Tetraethyl lead was what the early pilots added in small amounts to their airplane fuel to increase octane, but caution had to be observed as too much of the product caused the spark plugs to fail.

The Army though still wanted just one octane fuel to run motorcycles, trucks and planes, to make things easy. But in 1935 the Wright Field tests were leaked to the public and it was found that not only did engines increase horsepower but a 15% fuel savings was rewarded in the high octane fuel.
An Army Commission appeared to study the situation and ordered high octane fuel for the military in 1936.
From 1938 on in the United States, all war planes would be manufactured for high octane fuel. The margin was razor thin, as world war was already beginning and if not for Dr. James Doolittle the United States would have never ruled the skies of Europe and Asia, as their planes would have not had the power to out perform Japan and Germany.

87 octane Shell gasoline was selling for 15 cents a gallon then. It cost 2.50 cents a gallon to manufacture the first 1000 gallons, but Shell sold it for 50 cents a gallon to develop the market. Shell would drop the price to 20 cents and by 1938 in production, Shell was making high octane fuels for 17.5 cents a gallon.

Shell oil taking this Doolittle gamble, would during World War II would contract to supply the United States military, 20 million gallons of gasoline daily to fight the war.

The Lame Cherry brings this up, as I have witnessed PBS propaganda which stated it was Standard Oil which made the difference in powering American aircraft in Europe in high octane fuels. The Truth is as James Doolittle recorded, it was Dutch Royal Shell which took the chance, made the investment, came up with the high octane formula, and if it was not for James Doolittle there never would have been a B 17, B 29, P 51, P 48 or Corsair.

Thank God America had a rather daredevil kid and a wife named Joe who reigned in that kid long enough to keep him alive, for the greatest flight America made. Jimmy Doolittle is know for the Tokyo Raid of 1942 AD in the year of our Lord, but it was his work 7 years before which made the raid possible and made winning the war a reality 10 years later.