It's a strange image to stumble across first: a man in a shirt and tie, standing indoors, holding what looks like a toy airplane suspended beneath a parachute stamped "WINGS."

The caption in the Evening Star, August 6, 1926, identifies him as William Wellman, a decorated WWI pilot who, a month later, would start directing the film that gave the parachute its name, the movie that won the first-ever Best Picture Oscar.

But the device itself was credited to Harry D. Doucett, described simply as a naval mechanic.