Aero Vintage Books

This is a great website, particularly the Paul Mantz and Tallmantz Aviation pages which I read with great interest. My uncle Joe Gray knew Robert Aldrich from the 1940's when Aldrich was a second unit director and they developed a friendship while making Body and Soul . As a result Joe worked on many of Aldrich's pictures, among them Flight of the Phoenix. He was on the crew in Buttercup Valley the day Mantz was killed in 1965. I vaguely remember him talking about it back then but I was too young for it to really mean anything. And at the time, the name Paul Mantz didn't register with me. Since then I have learned what a legendary aviator he was. Unfortunately my uncle is long gone too or I would ask him many questions about the accident that day, for it was truly eyewitness to the end of a part of aviation history. Also, I read on your Mantz B-25H page about the second unit director who fell out of a camera plane during the filming of Catch 22. I did some research online and assume that it was John Jordan . At his imdb page it states that he was not wearing a harness and was sucked out of the doorway when another plane passed too close. He had lost a leg 3 years earlier while working on a James Bond film and was not as agile or surefooted with the artificial leg. He was 44. Did he actually fall from N1203?

My understanding is that it was Jordan and he did fall from N1203. As you said, he was working without a harness and was thrown out of the tail camera compartment.

Thanks for sharing the information.