This Deceased Navy Profile is not currently maintained by any Member.
If you would like to take responsibility for researching and maintaining this Deceased profile please click
HERE
Contact Info
Home Town San Diego, California
Last Address Denver, Colorado
Date of Passing Sep 01, 1954
Location of Interment Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park - North Hollywood, California
Wall/Plot Coordinates Plot: Portal of the Folded Wings
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Bertrand Acosta delighted in flying under bridges and doing touch and goes on the roof tops of Manhattan skyscrapers. When a passenger once asked him for the time, he replied, "I don't know, but I'll find out," and he buzzed the clock tower of the Metropolitan Life building.
In December of 1951, he collapsed in a New York City bar and was hospitalized with tuberculosis. He died at the Jewish Consumptive's Relief Society sanitarium in Colorado.
Other Comments:
Aviation Pioneer. Bertand was known as the "Bad Boy of the Air," he taught himself how to fly in 1910, and built experimental planes until 1912, when he went to work for aircraft designer Glenn Curtiss.
When World War I started, he joined the Royal Flying Corps, and trained Royal Navy pilots in Canada. In 1917, he was sent to the United States, where he trained United States Army Signal Corps pilots on Long Island.
Commissioned into the United States Navy, by 1925 he was a Lieutenant. In 1927, he and a fellow pilot set an endurance record of over 51 hours in the air. In May of 1927, with explorer Admiral Richard Byrd as co-pilot, he made a transatlantic flight from Long Island to France (a story has been told that during the flight Admiral Byrd had to strike him on the head with a fire extinguisher after Acosta became very intoxicated).
In 1936, he and other American pilots joined the Republic forces in Spain to fight fascist forces during the Spanish-American War; Acosta and the Americans were dubbed the "Yankee Squadron".
