Colonel Chester Fordney
1892 - 1959
Frank Knox called Marine Colonel Chester Fordney, “the adequate Marine.” It was high praise coming from the crusty secretary of the navy, but a vast understatement to those who knew and admired Fordney.
He was born in Saginaw, June 16, 1892, the son of United States Congressman Joseph Fordney, one of the most powerful men in the House of Representatives. Young “Mike,” as he was called, attended Saginaw public and parochial schools before majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan.
When he graduated in 1917, the United States had entered World War I and he enlisted in the Marines as a private. Three months later, he was sent to officers training school and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Aviation Force. He served overseas in France and Belgium.
After the war, he was stationed in Haiti, Nicaragua and Santo Domingo. While he was in Santo Domingo, he was put in charge of the Fort Ozam Prison, an assignment he never forgot. Later, that tour of duty would stand him in good stead. It was also in Santo Domingo that he married Dorothy Fuller, whose father was his commanding officer.
In 1932, he was sent to Chicago where he became an aide to the commissioner of the World’s Fair. At one point during the fair, a hot air balloon piloted by U. S. Navy LCDR T. G. W. “Tex” Settle took off from Soldier Field. Unfortunately, the balloon was forced to come down in a nearby railroad yard and 25,000 souvenir hunters descended on the scene. Chicago police were unable to stop them and it looked as though the balloon would be torn to scraps. Fordney took charge, restoring “swift and fearful order” according to the Chicago Daily News, which added ”…the crowd was treated to action and a display of language which has made the Marines famous…”
Mike’s cool head and mathematical abilities caused Settle to pick Fordney to accompany him as a scientific observer on America’s first stratospheric balloon ascension in 1933. On November 20, the pair took off at 9:27 a.m. from Akron, Ohio. The balloon’s gondola was manufactured from ultra-light Dowmetal by Midland’s Dow Chemical Company and was inscribed with the slogan of the World’s Fair, “A Century of Progress.” Once aloft, the balloon reached a height of 61, 237 feet. It was a record that stood for years and was listed in the World Book Encyclopedia.
It was the first successful trip by man into the upper atmosphere and technical data gained in the flight contributed to the subsequent design of stratospheric vehicles.
The balloon came down at 5:50 p.m. in a marsh near Bridgeton, New Jersey. Major Fordney reported, “We had a delightful trip except that we came down so fast we had to throw things overboard as fast as we could to lighten the ship. Although it was a pretty rapid landing, neither of us was hurt. We took our bearings, saw we were in marshy ground surrounded by woods and that it would be best just to put up for the night. So we got out of the gondola, wrapped up in the balloon and slept for the night.“ At daybreak, Major Fordney trudged through the marshland until he found a farmhouse. “I’m hungry and I’d like to use the telephone,” he calmly announced to the startled farmer, who provided a hearty breakfast of fried ham, potatoes and black coffee.
When World War II approached, Fordney was ordered to recruiting duty in Chicago and from July 25, 1940 to March 1946, he was the officer in charge of the Central Marine Recruiting District and made a name for himself as an especially effective recruiter. “We just presented the Marine Corps as it is,” he said modestly.
On February 10, 1947, Governor Dwight Green of Illinois named Fordney deputy director of the Illinois Veterans Bonus Administration. Fordney served in San Diego, California, before retiring in 1949. At that time, he was appointed warden of Chicago’s Cook County Jail. His experience at the Fort Ozam prison in Santo Domingo helped his transition from the military to one of the most difficult prisons in the United States.
Col. Chester Fordney died May 26, 1959, at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
Was Chester Fordney “the adequate Marine?” A Chicago columnist said that he was “adequate” without a doubt but also “a passionate cook, a precise grammarian, a student of abstract mathematics and an engineer of no mean ability.”