Ask Sue-belinda
I LOVE twaddle – the little bits of information that some may dismiss as fluff and nonsense are enthralling for me.
Better yet, I love the way that sometimes these little bits of information intersect to create fabulously interesting ‘stuff’.
Take these two characters in history – Alphonse Gabriel Capone, better known as simply Al or ‘Scarface’ and Edward Henry ‘Butch’ O’hare. One was a notorious gangster while the latter was an American World War II fighter pilot, hero and recipient of the Medal of Honour. Yet they are linked. Let’s look at how.
On this day 90 years ago, October 18, 1931, Al Capone, gangster, was convicted on 5000 counts (honest!) of prohibition and perjury. Capone had originally risen to notoriety in Chicago from where he dominated the east coast trade in bootleg alcohol during the prohibition era (as well as prostitution, protection and other rackets). Initially New Yorkers viewed him as some kind of latterday Robin Hood whose ‘crimes’ of making alcohol or smuggling it in over the Canadian US border could be ignored in pursuit of a wild night out. They supported his enterprises.
Later, the true extent of Capone’s crimes would become clear as reports emerged that he allegedly hired Leo Vincent Brothers to gun down Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle over a $100,000 gambling debt. This was on top of the so-called St Valentine’s Day massacre in which he’d allegedly ordered a hit on seven gangsters from a rival gang.
His brothers Raffaele James (Bottles) Capone and Salvatore (Frank) Capone joined him in his illicit enterprises. Ralph ran his bootleg bottling business and briefly fronted the Chicago Outfit after Al’s conviction, until he too was imprisoned for tax evasion.
His brother Vincenzo Capone was so horrified by Al’s life choices that he changed his name to Richard Hart and became a prohibition agent in Homer, Nebraska.
Al entered his life of crime in New York but was invited by racketeer and enforcer Johnny Torrio to come to Chicago.
In January 1925 Torrio was shot several times and while he survived, he no longer wanted the lifestyle and handed his position over to Capone, aged just 26.
Capone initially showed some business savvy as he engaged professionals to screen his illegal activities and make the appearance of legal trade. He employed an accountant who looked after his books and a lawyer to represent him in numerous actions and keep his name as clean as possible.
That lawyer was Edward Joseph O’hare known as ‘Easy Eddy’ as whenever Capone found himself in trouble, his lawyer’s response was to fix it, nice and easy.
O’hare worked close to the edge with the law. Having passed the bar exam for Missouri in 1923, O’hare immediately began to diversify his interests and by 1925 operated greyhound racing tracks in Chicago, Boston and Miami.
Due to this interest, he met and later represented Owen Smith, the high commissioner for the International Greyhound Racing Association. Smith invented the mechanical running rabbit the dogs chased and O’hare, as
Smith’s lawyer, made a fortune.
When Smith passed away, O’hare took over the administration of the estate and business interests on behalf of Smith’s daughter Hannah. O’hare later purchased the patent rights for the mechanical hare from Owen’s widow and would see the installation of the device worldwide for enormous personal gain.
O’hare’s growing power and fortune took him from St Louis to Chicago, divorcing his first wife – and leaving behind his son Edward Henry (known as ‘Butch’) and daughters Patricia and Marilyn – and becoming engaged to Ursula Sue Granata, sister of a mobaffiliated state representative and friend of Al Capone.
O’hare was retained by Capone and began amassing a second fortune. O’hare’s business dealings had always walked a fine line on legality and he was comfortable with doing so for Capone. However, as Capone branched out into murder, the Catholic upbringing in O’hare feared for his soul and was concerned for the futures of his children, so in 1930 O’hare asked John Rogers, a reporter for the St Louis Post Dispatch to arrange a private meeting with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
O’hare met with IRS agent Frank Wilson. Easy Eddie would become Wilson’s inside man and would turn state’s witness in the conviction of Capone for tax evasion. It was believed that by this action, Eddie was attempting to be a good example and clear the way for his son to be accepted into the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Following conviction and subsequent appeals, Capone was finally sent to jail in 1933. In 1939, with Capone suffering from syphilitic dementia, he was granted early release. In the weeks leading up to his release, his solitary confinement conditions were lifted and he met with an endless stream of visitors. Just one week before he was released, his once close friend, Edward O’hare, the man who had turned against him leading to his conviction, was gunned down when leaving his office at Sportman’s Park, Illinois. No arrest was ever made for his murder. To all, it seemed that Capone had ordered the hit and exacted his revenge. In Easy Eddy’s pockets the police found a gun, a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medallion and a poem cut out from a magazine. The poem read: “The clock of life is wound but once and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour; now is the only time you own, live, love, toil with a will; place no faith in time for the clock may soon be still.”
As for young Edward ‘Butch’ O’hare, his father had sent him to Western Military Academy and had fostered his love of flying, often paying to be taken up and then allowing his son to take the controls. He was successful at gaining entry to Annapolis and graduated as a naval pilot. His skills were the stuff of legends and word of his heroic flying quickly spread. He was a calm man and even after he was accidentally fired on by a gunner on his own carrier, he only strode over to the gunner to state, “Son, if you don’t stop shooting at me when I’ve got my wheels down, I’m going to have to report you to the gunnery officer.”
He would shoot down five bombers in one day and many more planes in subsequent actions, but remained “modest, inarticulate, humorous and terribly nice”. Lieutenant O’hare received the Medal of Honour in 1942 for his heroic actions in defending the Lexington and promoted to Lieutenant Commander – the citation read in part “one of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the history of combat aviation.” He flew his last mission on the night of November 26, 1943, when he went missing during the battle for the Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific and his widow had to wait a further year for him to be declared dead and receive his medals posthumously. Some say he was shot down by a Japanese bomber, though others report that it was by the action of friendly fire. Perhaps someone paid to take out Easy Eddie’s only son under the cover of combat? Later, Colonel Robert Mccormick, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, would advocate for the changing of the name of Orchard Depot Airport to O’hare Airport to honour Edward Butch O’hare – the flying ace who was born and raised in St Louis and never lived in Chicago. Mccormick was successful in this goal.
If you ever get to O’hare Airport, find his story in Terminal 2 along with a replica of his F4F-3 Gunman Wildcat plane. It will be worth your effort. And that is how a heroic air ace was associated with a criminal king pin!
1009
The Fatimid Caliph Al Hakim bi-amr Allah orders the complete destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It is later rebuilt.
1016
A Danish army led by Canute the Great defeats an English army under King Edmund Ironside at the Battle of Assandun, completing the reconquest of England.
1386
The doors of the University of Heidelberg are officially opened, the occasion is celebrated by a divine mass.
1541
Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, sister of Henry VIII, dies at Methven Castle in Scotland at the age of 51.
1851
Herman Melville’s book The Whales is published by a London publishing company. It is later retitled Moby Dick.
1867
The US takes formal possession of Alaska. It was bought from Russia for the sum of US$7.2M or less than two cents an acre.
1922
The British Broadcasting Company (later the British Broadcasting Corp or BBC) is founded. It was formed by a group of leading radio manufacturers.
1931
Inventor Thomas Alva Edison dies in New Jersey at the age of
84.
1944
Australian corvette HMAS Geelong collides with an American merchant ship off New Guinea and sinks. There were no casualties.
1954
Texas Instruments unveil their Regency TR-1, the first commercially produced transistor radio.
1967
HMAS Perth is struck by return fire near Cap Lai in Vietnam, injuring seven sailors. It is the only time an Australian warship suffered casualties from enemy fire during the Vietnam War.
2007
A motorcade carrying former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (above) is a attacked by a suicide bomber, killing at least 180 people. Bhutto is not hurt.