1. Antoine Gazda (1895-1957)
WWI Aviator, Inventor, Engineer
“…an expert on aviation and armaments, and an inventor of many important devices for death and progress.”
-Providence Journal, March 21, 1943
2
Gazda with his supercharged racing car at a German glider facility in 1928. This photo, and the one
on the next page, were reproduced from his personal photo album/
In the summer of 1940, an energetic
45-year oldAustrian aviator and arms dealer
came to Rhode Island carrying one of the
world’s most guarded secrets — the
blueprints for the much-in-demand anti-
aircraft cannon manufactured by the
Oerlikon Machine Tool Company in
Switzerland. Over the next 17 years he
became a larger-than-life figure, and to this
day no one knows for sure how much of his
story is fact and how much is fiction.
What is known for certain is that he
did his most important work during World
War II in Providence, operating at first from
suite 1009 of the Biltmore Hotel. The work
Gazda performed here in Rhode Island was
considered so crucial to theAllied war effort
that for many months production of his anti-
aircraft cannon took production priority over
all other war goods.
Amazingly, Gazda’s cannon
production was only the tip of the iceberg.
He was an inventor, an Austrian count, a
daredevil motorcycle and race car driver, and
a World War I combat aviator (on the losing
side). He also graduated from the Technical
Institute in Vienna, and became a prolific
inventor; in his lifetime he claimed 186
patents, of which 31 are registered in
Washington.
Much of what we know of his
background came out of a detailed 1943
interview with Providence Journal reporter
G. Y. Loveridge, who then wrote a lengthy
four-part feature story. Because of the
secrecy surrounding his work, and the lack
of accessible records in Austria and
Switzerland, corroborating many of his
claims is virtually impossible. Without facts,
rumor and speculation have contributed to
the embellishment of “the Gazda story” over
the years. (One example: it was widely
reported during WWII that Gazda had a
factory in Switzerland that moved into a
mountainside with the press of a button.)
In 1946 the Providence Journal made
a concerted effort to separate fable from fact.
The paper sent its Washington
correspondent, the well-known reporter and
investigator Harold N. Graves, Jr. to Zurich,
Berne and other cities to speak with people
who had known Gazda. Other reporters
fanned out to New York, Washington and
other US locations in search of the facts.
At the end of the research, the
conclusion was best summed up by Emil
Georg Buehrle, who headed up the Oerlikon
Works in Switzerland and was reportedly the
richest man in the country. “Some of the
stories are 5 percent true, some of them are
50% true, some of them are 95% true, but
none of them are 100% true,” said Buhrle.
(To be fair, by 1946 Buehrle and Gazda were
adversaries; Buhrle felt that Gazda had
cheated Oerlikon out of some $30 million
in royalties for the guns produced in the US.
But since Buehrle had also sold a large
number of guns to the Axis, his claim was
met with little support after the war.)
Gazda arrived in Rhode Island in
mystery, left in mystery and died in mystery.
Even if the Gazda legend is only 50% true,
there remains a fascinating tale of adventure,
intrigue and international wheeling and
dealing on a level hitherto unheard of in the
Ocean State. When Gazda died on
September 19, 1957, the Providence Journal
reported, “He counted among his friends and
associates the socially, economically and
politically prominent people of three
continents.”
Antoine Gazda de Suchan was born
in Vienna on June 5, 1895. Early on, he
developed a fascination for aviation. “In
1912 I saw Bleriot assemble and
demonstrate his plane in a field near
Vienna,” he said. “After that I could think
of nothing but flying.”
He built a bamboo glider and flew it
in 1913. He built one glider on a bicycle,
and a second on a sled which he launched
by sliding down a ski slope. He received his
first patent inAustria in 1913, for an airplane
turnbuckle. He won 100 marks at an aviation
competition that year in Berlin, and
immediately sold the patent to a German
manufacturer.
His experimentats with an engine-
powered plane drew the attention of the
Austrian War Department, which provided
him with a 30hp Anzani engine. Gazda says
he taught himself to fly, then used the
proceeds from some early inventions to take
lessons at the first Austrian flying school.
He flew anAustrian-designed Etrich Taube,
which was later built under license in
Germany and was in widespread military use
at the outbreak of WWI.
When war broke out in August of
1914, Gazda was not yet 20 years old. “I
Note ever-present airplane tie pin
2. 3
Gazda and his wife Loly, both pilots, flew the deHavilland 60G Gipsy Moth shown here. Gazda
earned his Royal Aero Club pilot’s license in 1937 at London Air Park Flying School. They were
sponsored in London aviation circles by Lord Sempill, a leading figure in the Royal Aeronautical
Society and a pioneer in British aviation. An admirer of the Japanese, it was learned many years
later that Sempill had disclosed sensitive information but was never prosecuted to protect MI5
operations. It is also likely that he helped Gazda with his sales of the Oerlikon cannon to Japan. Lord
Sempill was one of the founders of the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and remained a
pillar of the establishment until his death in 1965.
was too young to be drafted, but too
enthusiastic about aviation to stay home,”
Gazda said. He volunteered with the small
Austrian Air Force, and was immediately
assigned to flying duty, performing
reconnaissance and artillery observation
duty on the Russian front.
Because of his technical knowledge,
he was called back from the front to become
the production engineer for the firstAustrian
aircraft manufacturing plant. In 1916 his
proposal for the mass production of airplanes
came to the attention of the famed
armaments kingpin, Baron Karl von Skoda.
Skoda hired Gazda to help launch
Oesterreichische Flugzeugfabrik AG,
another aircraft factory which eventually
designed and produced the famousAlbatros
D-III (which Immelmann and von Richtofen
flew so successfully).
Gazda said that he began to think of
the concept of dive bombing as early as
1918. He demonstrated his idea at an
Austrian military airport near Krakow,
diving from 3000 feet to drop ten-pound
bags of flour (rare and valuable commodities
in those days of blockade-starved Austria).
“The Albatros fighter I used was not
designed for such tricks,” he later said, “I
was lucky the wings didn’t come off.”
The war ended soon afterward, but
Gazda was convinced that dive bombing
would become a deadly tactic when the right
airplane was designed for it.
After the war, Gazda continued to
work for Skoda for a while, but his sense of
adventure sometimes overcame his good
business judgment. He occasionally flew air
mail flights out of Vienna; on one such flight
to Kiev, he descended into the middle of a
civil war. Gazda was taken prisoner, and was
only released when he agreed to help his
captors form a Ukrainian air force to battle
the Poles. When they allowed him to fly a
demo flight, he fled to Warsaw instead.
Early on it became apparent that
Gazda was the unusual engineer and
technician who was also a superb salesman
with a charismatic personality. For example,
the Skoda Works had a factory full of
Albatros D-IIIs destined for delivery to an
Austrian Air Force that no longer existed,
so Gazda convinced the Poles they needed
an air force. He traded the aircraft for
trainloads of food, which earned him
recognition from his starving countrymen.
He eventually set up his own facility
in the former Vienna Arsenal. He worked
on inventions to improve the automobile and
airplane, and dabbled in auto and motorcycle
racing as well as gliding. He produced a
supercharged engine for cars and planes,
which he tested in road races and exhibited
at shows in Berlin, Paris and London. Gazda
claimed he developed and exhibited the first
front-wheel drive for automobiles in 1923.
He built a glide boat, a forerunner of
the airboat, that carried 48 people and was
powered by three airplane propellors. After
a few runs its use was banned by the
Hungarian government, but years later he
was amazed to learn that the boat was still
in service in the Congo.
He invented elastic handle bars for
motorcycles, and an elastic steering wheel
which was used in 95 percent of all the autos
in America by 1941. He licensed his
inventions to manufacturers all over Europe.
He raced autos through the 1920s, giving
up the sport after winning two big rallies in
1930: the International Alpine Cup, and the
Italian Coupa della Venezia.
That same year he set up a residence
and laboratory in Paris, and began
representing French interests abroad. He
went to Japan for six months in 1934,
negotiating with the Japanese War
Department and private interests, principally
on behalf of the French Société
Aeronautique Lorraine relative to granting
a license for torpedo speedboats.At the same
time he pointed out to the Japanese the
devastating possibilities of the Oerlikon
automatic cannon in aircraft. He advised
them of the experimental work and
development being done at the Swiss plant.
Even his detractors described him as
a “remarkable salesman”. He then went back
to Oerlikon and persuaded them to make him
Chief of Sales. Prior to his arrival, the
Oerlikon Company was in desperate
financial straits. Within his first year he sold
a major order for the 20mm aircraft cannon
to Japan; he spent two months in the Imperial
Hotel in Tokyo closing the deal. (It is indeed
ironic that Oerlikon was saved from
bankruptcy by orders from the Imperial
Japanese Navy.)
The Japanese Army then ordered the
anti-tank version of the gun. Gazda’s contact
was Prince Chichibu, the Oxford-educated
brother of Emperor Hirohito. (Interestingly
enough, in many interviews during World
War II, Gazda vociferously denied those
Japanese deals ever happened.)
In 1935, Gazda came to the US in an
attempt to sell a new version of the cannon
designed to be mounted in aircraft wings,
but neither the Navy nor the War Department
had any interest. However, over the next
three years many other successes followed.
During the Spanish Civil War the Oerlikon
gained a reputation as an excellent piece of
ordnance. He sold the gun to Germany,
Japan, Italy, Finland, several South
American countries, and China. “Each
country dealing with Gazda doubtless
thought that it alone was making aviation
armament's most progressive step,” wrote
one business analyst. “The world has known
few salesmen who were his equal.”
He also spent considerable time during
the 1930s in London, where he cultivated a
number of powerful friendships--among
them Lord Louis Mountbatten, cousin of
King George VI. Despite his many social
contacts, however, it took more than 200
meetings with the British Admiralty before
he broke through. He finally landed an order
for 500 guns from the Royal Navy in July
of 1939—just two months before the war
began. By October the order had doubled to
1000, and at his chalet in Switzerland, Gazda
signed an agreement to manufacture the
cannon in England.
Gazda was in England when France
fell, and the GermanyArmy cut off delivery
3. 80,000 tooling hours.
The American Oerlikon
Gazda Corporation was set up
a few days later.. The company
was capitalized with $100,000,
a quarter of which was Gazda’s
own money. Since no company
controlled by aliens could
engage in armament
manufacture, the majority of
the shares Had to be owned by
Americans. With the help of
Dillon Reed on Wall Street, the
balance of the issue was
subscribed very quickly—
despite the fact that Gazda had
only a promise of a contract
from the British to buy the
guns, and no contract with the US.
Nevertheless,American Oerlikon Gazda was in business, with
Gazda as a director and vice president. By the time the company
was closed down in 1946, it had done $125 million worth of business.
Gazda took over a six-story building at 100 Fountain Street
across from the Providence Journal, (later the site of the Greyhound
Bus Terminal) and leased the Manville-Jenckes textile mill complex
in Pawtucket for his assembly plant.
Some 14 months before Pearl Harbor, he began the design
changes necessary to convert measurements from the metric system
so the parts could be machined in fractions of inches.
Perhaps prompted by their British allies, the US Navy then
agreed to test the gun. Gazda was given notice on a Friday that the
Navy had scheduled a firing test the following Monday at Dahlgren
Proving Grounds in Virginia. Gazda had only the one gun in
America, and no way to get it to Virginia that quickly. Putting the
cannon on a train was not allowed, and local truckers were not
licensed to go beyond New York. The Army or the Navy might
have been willing to help out, but there was no way the bureaucracy
could process the necessary approvals that quickly.
Finally, the State Highway Department offered an old work
truck with flat tires. Mechanics replaced the tires and tuned it up,
of the Oerlikon gun parts to Britain. Desperate for the gun but
unable to produce it themselves, the British agreed with Gazda’s
plan to go to the United States—along with the precious production
drawings--to set up shop. He flew to America on May 26, 1940.
His first idea was to get the British to finance construction of
a privately owned production facility in this country. Already
struggling to survive the Battle of Britain, the English declined.
Plan B was to find an existing plant that was large enough and had
the necessary equipment and manpower to mass produce the
cannons. To put this in context, Gazda was no stranger to America.
He had been here eight times previously, and had been a member of
the Society of American Engineers since 1928. However, he was
still astonished to find that “inAmerica there was not one armament
factory organized and equipped in a manner to compare with our
Swiss Oerlikon Works.”
In a speech before the RI Society of Professional Engineers
in 1947, Gazda described his surprise atAmerica’s lack of capability
at the outbreak of the war. He commented that we “had the smallest
defense industry, in proportion to size and resources, [of any country]
that I had ever come across.”
This left Gazda with only one alternative if he was going to
keep his promise to deliver the guns to the British Fleet despite the
fall of France. He would have to find a large group of sub-contractors
to manufacture the various components, and establish anAmerican
company to assemble the parts. He needed a work force that could
quickly make and assemble precision gun parts. And he needed
factories that could quickly be converted to arms production.
Governor William Vanderbilt of RI had heard of Gazda’s
search, and sent William Allen of the RI Industrial Commission to
New York to meet him. Allen invited Gazda to visit Providence. A
large proportion of the plants and shops in Rhode Island were at
that time idle, especially textile machinery plants, and Gazda saw
they would make an excellent base for the cannon production. The
Industrial Commission gave Gazda a desk in their office in the
Industrial Trust Building, and he went to work.
Just prior to the fall of France, Oerlikon had shipped a sample
of the gun and ammunition to the US for demonstration use. The
Germans captured the shipment in Bordeaux, however, when they
overran France. Gazda’s contacts with the BritishAdmiralty solved
that problem; a British destroyer in a Canadian port was armed
with the 20mm Oerlikon, and it was ordered to the New York area
where the cannon was removed. To avoid any customs problems it
was shipped to Rhode Island addressed to the Adjutant General.
In early October, 1940, the cannon was put on display at the
Cranston Street Armory, RI manufacturers large and small came to
study the cannon’s parts and decide which ones they could make in
their own machine shops. Public bids were invited on the estimated
Rhode Island Governor J. Howard McGrath test-fires the new Gazda 20mm
cannon on January 15, 1943. McGrath, later to become US Attorney
General, was a great friend and supporter of Gazda.
Silvered octagon pin owned by a
worker for the American Oerlikon
Gazda Corporation. .
Gazda and his cannon at the test site near Salt Pond, Point Judith. The
photos on this page (and other Gazda-related images) are from RIAHOF’s
archive of Gazda material.
4
4. Although Antoine Gazda is best known for his production of
cannon to shoot airplanes down, his first love had always been flying
them. Even at the height of his efforts to produce the cannons during
WWII, he still made time to experiment with new aviation ideas. Dr.
Nicholas Alexander, professor of aeronautical engineering at RI State
College, directed many scientific tests for Gazda in the college labs.
One series of tests in 1942 was for fuel tank gliders Gazda designed to
be towed behind bombers to extend their range. The student lab
instructor was named Hal Lemont, and Gazda hired him part time to
pursue the concept, which was later deemed to be impractical.
Ayear or so later, Gazda ran into Lemont again at the Providence
train station. Lemont was working for Sikorsky on the VS 300 helicopter
project in Connecticut. As it turned out, the helicopter held a particular
fascination for Gazda, who several ideas in mind to improve the
performance of that type of aircraft. Gazda asked Lemont to design a
new helicopter for him, incorporating those new ideas. Lemont had two
weeks vacation coming up, and he agreed to spend that time working
on a small 2-place helicopter. If they were both happy with the result,
Gazda would offer Lemont a job.
Enough progress was made to launch the development effort,
and Lemont came to work full time in November on what became known
as the “Gazda Helicospeeder”.
This single motor and torque aircraft, the Model 100, was
assembled at the Providence Airport in Seekonk at a cost of $150,000-
-a huge sum in those days. Few people are aware that this Rhode
Island-built craft incorporated several radical and unique features now
commonplace in helicopter design.The major innovation was a powerful
tail rotor that could be swung 90 degrees to push the aircraft to a higher
speed with its main rotor axis vertical. In that configuration, the craft
would fly as a "gyrodyne," something like an autogyro with a powered
main rotor. A steering wheel would allow the pilot to control the rear
rotor, and pulling or pushing on the wheel would alter the pitch of the
main rotor blades, making the craft rise or fall.
In a preview of NOTAR (NOTAil Rotor) technology, the two-place
Gazda was originally designed to use a primitive "reaction jet," rather
than a tail rotor to provide the sideways thrust needed to counteract the
torque of the main rotor while the aircraft was hovering. Promotional
materials promised a maximum speed of an incredible 300 mph--light
years ahead of the 70mph then achievable by helicopters. Gazda was
issued a patent for the idea, but this feature was shelved because no
suitable powerplant existed in 1945. Gazda had the right idea--but he
was about 40 years ahead of his time!
Popular Mechanics wrote about the helicopter in March andApril
1945, and several other publications featured it as well.
Gazda test flew the Model 100 a few times with varying degrees
of success, but Lemont became very concerned that overconfidence in
his helicopter flying ability was affecting Gazda’s judgment. In Lemont’s
view, Gazda’s impatience caused damage to the prototype in two
separate incidents. Lemont quit in August 1945, and the aircraft was
never developed further. “I did not want to be responsible for killing Mr.
Gazda with one of my designs,” he said.
To his credit, Gazda realized that learning to properly fly a
helicopter would take more time, energy and effort than he was willing
to commit, so he shut the project down. After Gazda’s death in 1957,
Vincent Collicci of Copters Unlimited in RI bought the the Model 100 in
an estate auction 1958. Two years later Collicci traded it to Carroll Voss
of AgRotors in Gettysburg, PA for some crop dusting equipment.
After a number of years Stanley Hiller saw the Helicospeeder
deteriorating in storage and brought it to his museum in San Carlos, CA
for a full restoration. The Helicospeeder is now owned by the Owls
Head Transportation Museum, just south of the tourist destination of
Camden, Maine.
5
The Gazda Helicospeeder--Years Ahead of Its Time
Left: Hal Lemont and Tony
Gazda, about 1944. Below: the
Model 100 under construction.
Center: Governor McGrath sits
in the helicopter while Gazda (r)
explains the controls; RI
Adjutant General looks on.
Bottom: Gazda exits the
Helicospeeder.
-Senator Theodore Francis Green on the Senate Floor
“One of the great contributors [to our victory
in WWII] was Gazda… he also revolutionized
aviation when he brought out the first jet-propelled
helicopter [in 1944].”
5. Gazda had tested a
prototype of this anti-sub
weapon on Lake Lucerne
in Switzerland in 1939.
He built another one and
launched it on Salt Pond
in Point Judith. The “Sea
Skimmer”carried an
Oerlikon 20mm cannon
forward, a machine gun
aft, and four depth
charges. Its inability to
handle heavy seas made
it impractical for hunting
submarines.
and the gun was in Dahlgren on Monday. Navy officials were
“favorably impressed”, and in mid-November, 1940, offered to buy
1000 cannon and 5000 rounds of ammunition, with the idea of
arming merchant ships crossing the Atlantic.
The elections of 1940 also brought a new Governor to power
in Rhode Island. J. Howard McGrath, later to become Attorney
General of the US, thought Gazda was an important economic asset
for the state. He told Gazda to call on him directly if he could be of
any assistance. Gazda said later, “From that time onwards he was
my keenest supporter in all I did for the Allied war effort.”
Over the next few months licensing negotiations went back
and forth, and in February of 1941 the military flew Gazda to
Bermuda, where he executed (on behalf of Oerlikon) an agreement
with the British Purchasing Commission.
Gazda then flew to Lisbon to meet with the Oerlikon owner,
Emil Georg Buehrle, to resolve one last hurdle. The consent of the
Swiss government was required for any licensing agreement, and
getting that consent fell to Buehrle.
The Swiss, concerned about the German military juggernaut
on its borders, never did grant consent, so Gazda decided to produce
guns on his own.
He returned to Providence and production went full steam
ahead, with or without Swiss consent. On June 6, 1941 the first
test-firing of an American-made Oerlikon cannon took place, and
later in the month the first truckload of completed cannon rolled
out of the Pawtucket assembly plant
At the end of June Mr. Houston, President of American
Oerlikon Gazda, advised Gazda that the US Navy had demanded
his resignation, because the Navy was contemplating direct orders
for the Oerlikon cannon and under law he as a foreigner could not
continue to act in a management capacity.
Gazda did so, but kept his stock ownership. The name of the
company was officially changed toA. O. G. Corporation. ByAugust
the Navy had taken over the British contract, and what had begun
as a small private operation was greatly accelerated.
Gazda was certainly not perturbed by the legal maneuvering.
A contemporary Providence Journal article reported that he
apparently had “…ample funds to live on a lavish scale.”
He rented Vinton Lodge on Boston Neck Road in Narragansett
Pier where he entertained extensively. He was invited to join the
Dunes Club, and his Chris-Craft Cruiser “Loly”, named for his wife,
was based at the Perkins and Vaughn shipyard in Wickford, and
was “…a familiar vessel among yachtsmen along the bay.”
In addition to plenty of money, he had a number of highly-
placed friends—to include Lord Louis Mountbatten, cousin of King
George VI, who visited the Gazdas in Narragansett that heady
summer of 1941
He quickly enamored himself to local (and national) military
and law enforcement authorities. He drove a 1939 12-cylinder
Lincoln Zephyr --“Well above the speed limit,” according to one
detractor, who believed he was “…covered by being a member of
the Police Chiefs Association.” Interestingly enough, Gazda was
also made an Honorary Captain in the Arizona Highway Patrol.
This lifestyle came to an abrupt halt, however, after the attack
on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war against Japan
and Germany. Overnight, Gazda and his wife became enemy aliens.
Despite the fact that he was working on an initial Navy order valued
at more than $27 million for the Oerlikon cannon, he and his wife
were arrested on December 9, 1941 on a Presidential warrant. This
was part of the sweep designed to scoop up suspected enemy
saboteurs and fifth columnists. They were taken from the luxury
apartment they maintained at the Waldorf-Astoria and were detained
at Ellis Island.
Newly-elected Governor McGrath called on the Attorney
General of the US to release Gazda. “Not only was the Gazda gun
being manufactured and assembled here,” wrote McGrath, “But
Gazda also proposed several other ideas of considerable importance,
all of which would have been to the benefit of the country and to
Rhode Island in particular.”
It took the FBI, the Army, the Navy and other departments of
the government three months to decide that he was of more benefit
than harm to the Allied cause. In March, 1942 he and Loly were
released into the custody of the Commanding General, First Service
Command in Boston, who was ordered to keep an eye on them.
Taking that charge literally, an Army captain, lieutenant and
ten enlisted men were sent to Providence. Gazda and his wife were
living in a suite on the 10th floor of the Biltmore, so the soldiers
moved into the hotel as well. For the next several months, the Gazdas
were guarded 24 hours per day. (One report says the soldiers had to
get special pistol carry permits from the Governor, because they
could not tell local police who they were or what they were doing.)
A connecting door to an adjacent suite was bricked up and
plastered over so that there was only exit and entrance, making it
easier to guard. Anyone visiting Gazda at his office also had to be
vetted by a soldier.
The captain in charge of the detail told the Journal after the
war that the arrangement was bizarre—on the one hand the Army
was guarding Gazda as a suspect, but when he went to Washington
to visit the War Department, all doors were open to him. At the
same time the Navy was sending him top secret plans and
documents. “The Army couldn’t guard Gazda with a division of
troops,” marveled a close friend. “At the end of two weeks, it would
be Tony Gazda’s division.”
The Gazdas were paroled from this custody to the Boston
Ordnance District in August, but it would be another year before
they were totally free.
Meanwhile, Rhode Islanders who worked at A. O. G.
headquarters experienced a top-secret culture. "I was like a bit player
6
6. Postwar photo shows Gazda and his wife Leopoldine (Loly), probably at
Beechwood, their estate on Post Road in Wakefield. They married in 1926;
it was the second marriage for both. She was his mechanic when he road-
raced in the 1920s, and he bragged that she could change a tire in 42
seconds flat. She was also a pilot and the daughter of an Austrian general.
in a large production and didn't realize how important it was until I
started to work there, to do the work with no questions about why I
was doing it," Dorothy Smalley McKenna told the Providence
Journal many years later.
At its peak in 1943, A. O. G. employed some 800 people.
They did no manufacturing, but they assembled parts produced
elsewhere into cannons. The workers at 100 Fountain Street
performed the design and engineering tasks. Survivors in 1999
recalled a special bond “because of the secrecy of the project, the
long hours they put in each day, and the sense that they were making
a big contribution to the war effort.”
Parts were made in small machine shops around Providence
and the Blackstone Valley, including the Taft-Pierce Company in
Woonsocket; Pantex Pressing Machine Company, in Pawtucket;
Liberty Tool & Gauge Company, in Providence; and Lincoln
Machine Company, in Pawtucket. Gazda also helped setup
production in the Pontiac Division of General Motors in Detroit.
By the end of World War II, nearly every vessel in the Allied
fleet - up to and included the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth, which
carried 80 of them - was armed with Gazda’s antiaircraft guns.
Between December 7, 1941 and September 1944, the Oerlikon was
responsible for 32% of all identifiable anti-aircraft kills in the fleet.
About 26,000 of these cannons were assembled at the Manville-
Jenckes complex in Pawtucket and at other factories Gazda set up
around the country, especially at Hudson and General Motors
factories in Michigan. The U.S. government had spent about $2.8
billion developing the Oerlikon-Gazda gun; some $187 million
worth of the cannons were made in Rhode Island.
"It was in this little state of Rhode Island that I had the privilege
of transforming idle workshops and textile-machinery plants, in the
shortest time, into important participants in the foundation of what
was to become a gigantic United States armament industry," said
Gazda after the war.
Although many accounts described Gazda as the inventor or
developer of the 20mm cannon (and Gazda did not contradict such
assertions), he had nothing to do with its invention or development.
Records show that Oerlikon had been working on this cannon in
1924, some 11 years before Gazda joined the firm.
In Gazda’s defense, Oerlikon designed and built the gun as
an aerial cannon, to be mounted on aircraft for aerial combat. Gazda
may well have played a pivotal role in converting the gun for use as
a ship-mounted anti-aircraft weapon.
As mentioned above, Gazda severed his operational ties with
Oerlikon (and A. O. G.) because aliens were not allowed to hold
managing positions in any company with defense contracts.
He branched out on his own by establishing Gazda
Engineering and opening a two-room office in the Industrial Trust
Building.Two Swiss designers from Oerlikon, Leopold Lammeraner
and Walter Hofmann (who had helped him set up the production
and assembly operation), came with him.
They first attempted to design and market a new 23mm
cannon, but the military saw no need to change caliber, and that
project was shelved. Instead, Gazda modified the Oerlikon cannon
and tried to sell what he called the “20mm Gazda Automatic
Cannon” as an alternative to the Oerlikon.The primary improvement
was absence of recoil; he used to test-fire the gun with a glass of
water sitting on the receiving block behind the barrel.
Governor McGrath attended the well-publicized launch of
this initiative, test-firing the gun himself in January of 1943.Aphoto
of Hitler was the target. The headline in the paper the next day
read, “Governor in New Role - Aerial Gunner.”
Despite his salesmanship and powerful friends, he was unable
to interest the US military in the new gun. “We have two 20mm
guns right now and I certainly don’t think we’d ever want a third
one,” concluded Colonel D. J. Martin of Army Ordnance.
Undeterred, Gazda continued with his other ventures. One
was an airboat that he proposed as an answer to the submarine
menace. Powered by a 6-cylinder aircraft engine, the “Sea Skimmer”
as he called it had no underwater propulsion, arguably making it
difficult for subs to detect. This was a derivative of the concept he
had first used on the Danube in the 1920s; he also successfully
tested a prototype on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland in 1939.
The South Kingstown Town Council rented him land on Salt
Pond, behind South County Hospital and next to Hanson’s Boat
Yard. He built a small office and workshop in what used to be a
summer cottage near Point Judith and went to work reproducing
the airboat. Despite making the cover of the February, 1943 issue
of Popular Mechanics Gazda had no luck selling his "Sea Skimmer"
to the British or the US Navy, primarily due to handling problems
in anything other than a calm sea. (In 1947, he almost drowned
when one of his pontoons caught a wave at the Dunes Club in
Narragansett and flippped the boat, momentarily trapping him.)
When one idea failed, he always came up with two or three
more. Some of his less spectacular innovations were more
successful, especially in the automotive field. He patented the self-
canceling directional signal switch, as well as various forms of
superchargers. He invented a device for setting the hands on a watch,
a self-winding auto clock mounted on steering wheel, and a truck
pontoon. He even patented a “shaving cream applicator”.
In 1943, expecting (correctly) a post-war boom in Brazil,
Gazda also set up the “Amazonia Transportation and Exploration
Company” to speed development along that great river.
Gazda was also a protege of Otto of Hapsburg, pretender to
throne of theAustro-Hungarian Empire, and during the war he held
many meetings in Rhode Island concerning the possible post-war
restoration of the Austrian monarchy. He openly claimed that he
was “Working to unify Austrian factions opposed to the Nazis.”
Archduke Otto himself visited the Gazdas in Narragansett on Labor
Day weekend of 1944.
Continued on page 26
7
7. It was later learned that his wife’s daughter Rosemarie was
imprisoned by the Nazis along with her two children. The Germans
reportedly shot her first husband in front of her, then tortured her in
an attempt to get to Gazda.
Through all of this, Gazda’s first love was aviation. In addition
to his flying during World War I, he formed the Austrian Glider
Association and was its first president in 1923. He continued flying
through the 1930s, and obtained a Royal Aero Club pilot’s license
in 1937 at London Air Park. By 1938, according to the British
magazine Flight, Gazda was the UK representative for the US
aircraft manufacturer Fairchild. Late in 1939, he and his Oerlikon
boss, Emil Georg Buehrle, founded the Pilatus Aircraft Works in
Stans, Switzerland--an enterprise that continues to this day.
He was also never without his airplane stickpin, which shows
in all his portrait photos. As the Providence Journal reported in
1943, “He always wore a small silver tiepin in the form of an
airplane…He never went anywhere without it.”
One of his first US patents (filed in 1939) was for a
revolutionary form of fighter aircraft based on a hydroplane concept,
and he was fascinated by the helicopter concept. He hired Hal
Lemont, a designer from Sikorsky, to work on a project he called
the Gazda "Helicospeeder". (See page 5.)
Gazda considered rotary wing experiments on a DC-3, using
a two-bladed rotor that could be retracted lengthwise into the
fuselage. He extrapolated the concept to the B-36 bomber,
calculating that the additional weight in a B-36 from the rotor and
the mechanism required to lower it into the fuselage would be only
1550kg. He received a patent for a retractable wing system designed
to enable heavy bombers or airliners to take off and land in limited
space. At one point he also worked on a twin-engine amphibian
with rubber treads instead of wheels for landing on the ground.
By 1946 he was continuing to pursue military technology,
but he also turned to the applications of such technology to the
civilian world. Gadgets and models of new products he was
developing covered his desk, which was also adorned by a
manufacturer’s model of the P-80 jet fighter In addition to the office
in the Industrial Trust Building, Gazda Engineering operated at four
other sites, and was supposedly setting up a London branch. The
“jet-rocket” division on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston was
reportedly developing a rocket with “unusual stability”. His
“armament division” on Salt Pond continued experimental work
for the Navy, and was the base for his Sea Skimmer, which he still
drove around the Bay. He also had an “aviation division” at
Hillsgrove. By the late 1940s, however, his most active operation
was at 111 Main Street in Pawtucket.
There he was producing the “octanator”, the civilian version
of water injection used to increase performance of fighter planes--
a “humidifier for carburetors” as he called it in his patent application.
The RI State Police were one of his first customers, and he set up a
separate company to produce and market these devices. Less
successful despite its great name was the “derusticator”, a magnetic
radiator cleaner and water softener.
Domenic DeNardo, who worked as a designed for Gazda
starting in 1948, remembers “a flamboyant man who always stood
erect. He usually wore a long black overcoat, which added to the
mystique. By then he was driving a“fancy Lincoln Continental”.
DeNardo marveled at the man’s vision. One product he drew
up for Gazda was an illuminated side view mirror that contained
directional signals -- more than fifty years before they actually
appeared. He also became the Citroen distributor for New England,
and operated a dealership on Reservoir Avenue that eventually
became Scarpetti Oldsmobile.
By the end of the 1940s Gazda still faced a major problem.
Despite the time he had spent in this country, and despite his
contribution to the war effort, he and Loly were, for all practical
purposes, stateless. When efforts with Immigration failed, his old
friends stepped in. Supported by J. Howard McGrath, (USAttorney
General under President Truman); Senator Theodore Francis Green;
and Thomas Dodd, Nazi war crimes prosecutor, legislation was
introduced into Congress to authorize their naturalization.
Congress granted them citizenship, and the Gazdas took the
oath in Providence in February, 1951. “We are very proud and
happy,” Gazda told reporters. “We have been looking forward for a
long time to this…”
Gazda left for Europe on July 12, 1957 on a two week trip,
which was extended by the condition of his ailing mother, Mrs.
Anna Gazda. He died unexpectedly on September 19, 1957 at his
mother’s estate near Vienna. No cause of death was ever announced,
giving rise to speculation that he may have been murdered, or that
he had killed himself over some major business reverses he had
recently suffered. The workshop on Salt Pond and all its contents
were sold in an estate auction on May 31, 1958. The diverse list of
items to be sold included his experimental helicopter, the Sea
Skimmer…and even an Oerlikon cannon.
According to neighbors who knew Leopoldine afterAntoine’s
death, the story about financial losses was probably true. Loly sold
much of her jewelry over the years to make ends meet, and wound
up working as a seamstress in Wakefield. Loly, who had been born
in Krakau in 1896, died in 1978.
Trying to resurrect the Gazda story has been difficult, because
the current whereabouts of any descendants he may have had are
unknown. The last reference to Hans Otto, the son from his first
marriage, was in Gazda’s 1949 citizenship application; he was last
known to be residing in Turkey.
After Leopoldine’s daughter Rosemarie was released from
prison, she met her future husband at a USArmy PX in Paris. Friends
of Loly recall that Rosemarie came to Wakefield to be with her
mother for a while, but then moved to Seine-et-Oise outside Paris.
Much data about Gazda and his companies were lost in 1954
to Hurricane Carol, which destroyed Gazda's South County retreat,
and in a later fire that claimed the home of one of his engineers.
Former RI Governor Bruce Sundlun, himself a B-17 pilot in
WWII and an industee into the Rhode IslandAviation Hall of Fame,
was introduced to Gazda by J. Howard McGrath. “I saw quite a bit
of Tony in the years right after the war,” Sundlun wrote. “ I spent
hours talking with him about his experiences in Germany and
Switzerland, and his moving to Rhode Island, and his delight in
being a resident of this state.”
Sundlun concluded,“If the opportunity ever comes to
recognize Antoine Gazda, please do so, and record my
overwhelming support for such an action. Tony's contribution to
the United States military during World War II was substantial and
unique.”
Gazda points to the rotor assembly he designed for the B-36 bomber.
GAZDA Continued from page 7
Special thanks to Eric Ethier, Carrol Voss, Frank Crook Long,
Andrew Lemont and Ethan Yankura of Owls Head Transportation
Museum for the assistance they provided in this research.
26
