The Man Who Would Not Die
by Rufus J Flywheel (9 January 2009)
As I was attempting to settle down, in the closing days of Advent, to my customary winter hibernation, I was alerted to the fact that a package addressed to me had arrived at Flywheel Towers. In it were a book and an accompanying note from the editor of this magazine. "I am far too busy attending parties over Christmas and New Year," it read. "You, on the other hand, have no friends and are probably looking for something to do. Give me a review of the enclosed volume early in January or I will reveal your latest misdemeanours to the world. You know what I mean."
I started to write a note of my own, informing the young scamp that he could stick his book where the sun doesn't shine, and noting with pleasure that it was a hardback with nice sharp edges, when I happened to glance at the cover. The title - The Man Who Would Not Die - was intriguing enough, but I was particularly taken by the description of its subject as "barnstormer, war hero, test pilot, motor racer, scoundrel". This sounded like my kind of fellow.
And so I read on, and discovered that if anything the description was on the tame side. A scoundrel? Well, Herschel Jessup McKee undoubtedly had his moments. He acquired his third wife, had a daughter by her, divorced here, and subsequently took a fourth (whom he left simply by leaving the country without telling her in advance) without ever divorcing his second, a remarkable lady who was still by his side when he died, aged 67, as the result of two debilitating strokes.
You will understand from this last piece of information that McKee is now dead. He has been that way since 1965. The irony is that he should never have survived that long. There can be few people who have blown raspberries at the Grim Reaper with quite such frequency, yet without fatal results, as Herschel McKee.
His first brush with eternity came during World War I, after he left mid-West America in search of excitement. He quickly became a pilot, shooting down several Germans before the tables were turned in February 1918. McKee and what remained of his plane crashed so heavily that the US War Department informed his parents that he had been killed in action, but in fact he survived and spent the rest of hostilites in a prison from which he eventually had the courage to escape despite having seen several fellow inmates shot dead simply for thinking about it.
Further risk to life came when he became a barnstormer - a sort of freelance aerobatic expert performing mesmerisingly dangerous stunts in front of amazed crowds - and more still when he developed a similar acts involving cars and motorbikes. He became involved in motor racing, not so much as a driver (a dream which was only partly fulfilled, and then not satisfactorily) but with much more success as a riding mechanic.
Don't imagine that riding mechanics were there simply to add ballast. In the interwar years they had to maintain fuel pressure using a hand pump, make necessary repairs while the driver was still going flat-out, and act as a "spotter" - a job now delegated on US oval circuits to people in the grandstands with access to the team's radio. Motor racing was vastly more dangerous than it is now, so another point about being a riding mechanic was that you had a good chance of dying young in some monumental crash. McKee was involved in plenty of crashes, but somehow he was always still alive after they had happened.
He also survived World War II, even though he was one of the pilots in the extraordinary Operation Tidal Wave, in which planes took off from Libya for a low-level bombing campaign intended to destroy nine oil refineries in Romania. It was a tactically crucial but also outstandingly dangerous campaign. Officially, a 50% death rate was expected. Unofficially, a commanding officer was heard to say that "if nobody comes back, the results will be worth the cost". McKee did come back, having flown so low during parts of the battle that he later claimed to have picked corn stalks from the bomb bay doors once he returned to Libya.
McKee's biographer is Stephen Olvey, a physician who was Director of Medical Affairs for the American CART race series from 1978 to 2003. He also married McKee's granddaughter, which explains why his book is full of personal information that does not seem to have been published anywhere else.
Olvey describes a remarkable man, though possibly not a brave one. "Fearless" would be a better description - McKee wanted, and got, excitement, and although he was always aware of the risks he was taking they never scared him enough to make him think twice. His greatest worry seems to have been finding a way out of the domestic traumas he created for himself by marrying too easily and too often.
You may read this book and find yourself disapproving of McKee's behaviour, particularly his treatment of women. I couldn't argue against that, but I will tell you this: as a result of reading this book, Herschel McKee has become one of my heroes. He was the man I wish I had been.
The Man Who Would Not Die by Stephen Olvey, is published by Haynes at £19.99. ISBN 978 1 84425 510 8. More details at www.haynes.co.uk.
