Saigon may have been considered a friendly city to most tourists during the early 1920s yet the World Fliers found it anything but agreeable. They spent the first night as guests at the home of the manager of the Standard Oil Company and worked on their planes most of the next day. In late afternoon they borrowed white shirts and trousers from the Noah’s officers and went into the city to a sidewalk café. This brought back for several of them happy memories of their days in Paris during and after the Great War. The fliers found that Saigon, forty-five miles from the sea, was a modern city with many European buildings, schools, and colleges, and a heterogeneous population with about five thousand Europeans, mostly French. The intercity main means of transportation was still the time-honored rickshaw.
After sitting awhile and noting that everyone was being waited on but them, Wade called a waiter over to give him their orders. The waiter was surly and said he couldn’t serve them and they would have to leave. When they asked why, he replied that no one could be served at that café who was not wearing a coat.
“We fully appreciated that it was somewhat uncommon for Europeans to be without coats,” Wade explained, “and we tried to explain who we were and how, as Air Service officers, we could put on our naval friends’ trousers and shirts in order to come ashore, but that it was impossible for us to wear their tunics and masquerade as members of another branch of the United States government service.”1
It made no difference to the waiter. He said he knew who they were and they would still have to leave. “This frosty reception didn’t increase our enthusiasm for Saigon,” Wade added. “We voted the city a ‘washout.’ To make the affair all the more unpleasant, the Frenchmen sitting at adjoining tables apparently relished our embarrassment and sided with the café management.”2
On another visit into the city, the fliers boarded two rickshaws and told the drivers to take them to the Governor General’s house where they had been invited to dinner. After winding through a number of streets and alleys, they became suspicious of where they were being taken. They arrived at a house of ill repute where the madam, standing on the porch, told them she was sorry, the house was full. The fliers were late for dinner but their French host understood. He told them they looked like American sailors in their borrowed white clothes so the drivers thought they must have wanted to go to a ‘sporting house.’
The airmen were glad to leave Saigon on the morning of 18 June for Kampongson Bay. This was on the eastern side of the Gulf of Siam in Cambodia. Their purpose in going there was for refueling from an American destroyer. Smith and the others had decided to make this stop after reaching Saigon because of the extreme heat that meant longer takeoff runs for the planes. They would have had difficulty getting off the water at Saigon if they had taken on a full load of fuel. It had not been contemplated originally but they had to delay an extra day in Saigon so the destroyer could proceed to that location.
After takeoff from Saigon, the three Cruisers followed the coast of the China Sea and the coast of Siam (now Thailand) for the first 430 miles around the southern extremity of Cochin China (now part of united Vietnam). This coast was low and sandy; in surprising places it was bordered by mangrove swamps. There were many lagoons where safe landings could be made in emergencies and where help could be obtained from passing vessels. At least a hundred miles could have been saved if Smith had decided to cut across the lower end of Indochina. Still, a forced landing in the mangrove swamps would have meant disaster for a downed crew because the plane would surely be wrecked and it would have been nearly impossible for the crew to make their way to safety or allow a rescue party to get to them.
The planes flew for three hundred and fifty miles along the coast until they reached the city of Kampot. Here the character of the country had changed to rugged mountains. The fliers landed at the mouth of the Kampongson River, which was sufficiently sheltered to protect the planes from high winds. They were refueled with the help of the destroyer’s crew. They then took off for Bangkok, the capital, 245 miles to the northwest at the northern end of the Gulf of Siam. They landed on the Menam River and again had to dodge junks, sampans, and houseboats. Once in a while human bodies were seen floating by with no attempts being made to retrieve them. The heat and humidity were extremely debilitating as the crews began to service the planes. Right off the fliers had the same problem as before of protecting the planes from being rammed and crushed by curious boatmen. To protect them, the Siamese police strung circles of boats around each Cruiser.
It was at this time that stress began to take its toll. There were sharp words among the crews as they labored in the heat and drenching humidity on their respective planes. But when the work was finally done, harsh remarks were soon forgotten.
Minor repairs and routine inspections were made before the crews went into the city, famous for its beautiful palaces and temples. A modern city already equipped with electric street cars and electrically lighted streets, it was the gateway for the country to the outside world. Although cholera epidemics broke out frequently, it was rapidly becoming one of the more healthful cities in the Orient, despite the deplorable unsanitary water supply.
When the brief tour was completed, some of the men spent the night on the destroyer while the others decided to take advantage of the soft beds, mosquito netting, and electric fans at the Royal Hotel of Bangkok. Next morning, they all met with Mr. Dickerson, the American chargé d’affaires, who escorted them around the city. Unfortunately they could not meet King Rama VI; he had been unable to reach the city in time. They visited his palace and met a number of generals, admirals, and ministers. They were escorted to the stables of the royal white elephants and the temple of the Sleeping Buddha. When they paid their respects to the ranking Siamese prince, they were ushered into his drawing room. To their surprise, a framed picture of General Billy Mitchell, Assistant Chief of the Air Service, occupied a place of honor on the prince’s table. Mitchell had visited Siam for a tiger hunt a few weeks before. The prince was deeply impressed with the man who was trying to make the world conscious of the potential of the airplane for defense and international commerce.3
It had been a busy sightseeing day and Smith commented later, “I imagine we saw nearly as much during our half-day ashore in Siam as many visitors see in a week.”4 Before they left, they received one invitation they could not accept. Smith explains:
“One quaint old world custom remains as popular as it ever was—decapitation. As a special honor, it was suggested that a beheading bee should be arranged for us. This event was to have taken place a fortnight later, but we were told it could easily be hastened for our benefit: no doubt it would have had we not sent our regrets at being unable to attend the ‘frolic’ owing to our desire to get on with the flight.”5
By this time, the flight had covered 10,795 miles since leaving Santa Monica and had 14,536 miles to go to return there, plus the additional distance to Seattle, the official starting point. Before they departed Bangkok on 20 June, the planes had to taxi up and down the Menam River several times to ruffle the water’s surface in order to take off. The next major stop where maintenance could be performed was Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) but Smith decided again to take on a lighter fuel load at Bangkok and make a refueling stop part of the way near a destroyer on the Tavoy River. This waterway empties into the Bay of Bengal on the east coast of Burma, 240 miles south of Rangoon, then a part of India.
But there was another command decision that Smith had to make. To go directly to Tavoy, they would have to cross the Malay Peninsula, a distance of 130 miles, or fly around it so they would be over water in case of emergency. An engine failure over the Malaysian jungle would mean almost sure disaster for a downed crew but would save more than eight hundred miles. They were behind their original schedule and the monsoon rains were about to begin. On the other hand, the engines had been operating so well and the navigation would be relatively easy. Smith decided to take the risk: he opted for the short cut that would save two days.
Although taking the risk paid off, the flight was anything but routine for Nelson and Harding as they skimmed over the jungle treetops. Harding explains:
At times our pontoons barely skimmed the jungle-covered summits of these untrodden mountains. We would shoot out over a valley and suddenly a downward current of air would catch us with such a bump that I thought we’d be impaled on the horn of one of those rhinos that live down there.
While crossing a fissure in the middle of the peninsula, we were suddenly drawn down toward the jungle just like a gnat inhaled by a green monster. The Chicago and Boston were to our right at the time and were not affected by this particular “pocket,” although they too were having the bumpiest trip they had ever experienced. It just seemed as though we couldn’t get over that ridge, so Erik banked to the left and we flew right back the way we came in order to get out of the depression and into a “raising” air current. But again when we started over the ridge we were drawn into that valley of vapors.
Meanwhile, the other boys were wondering what had happened. So they flew back and circled around waiting for us. At last we made the ridge, and I’ll say we were the happiest airmen east of Suez when we finally succeeded in climbing out of the pocket and winding through the mountains until we reached the sea.6
The three planes reached Tavoy and saw the USS Picard waiting to refresh their fuel and oil tanks at the moorings the sailors had placed. While they were being serviced, a monsoon wind suddenly engulfed them in rain and high winds. The sea boiled up dangerously and the waves seemed too rough to allow takeoff. But there was no sheltered cove to escape to so Smith signaled the others to follow and managed to get airborne. Wade in the Boston bounced along on the waves and hit a big one that rode over the stay wires on his wings; one of them gave way but he continued with the wire dangling, thinking that he could make Rangoon rather than take a chance on a landing in the rough sea. The New Orleans followed and had two wing wires snapped by the strong waves. Nelson decided that with two wires gone, it was better to taxi back and repair them. This took a half hour and Nelson was on his way behind the others.
While Smith and Arnold had gotten off without a problem at Tavoy, the landing and its aftermath on the Irrawaddy River at Rangoon was not routine. They had flown seven and a half hours to cover the 430 miles and were dead tired. The planes were met in the harbor by the USS Pruitt for refueling and the crews found the river off Monkey Point as crowded with boats as at other places they had visited in the Far East. After landing and taxiing to the mooring buoy in the Chicago, Arnold fell in the water as he reached for it. Smith, intent on avoiding a collision with a boat coming toward him, didn’t see him fall and quickly taxied away. Arnold shouted and floundered in his weighty flying clothes. When Smith finally saw that Arnold was missing, he maneuvered the plane so Arnold, sputtering and mad at himself for his predicament, could climb back onto a pontoon.
The river traffic at Rangoon nearly ended the flight for the New Orleans that first night. A large river boat under full sail, apparently being steered by a careless helmsman, drifted down the river and headed for all three Cruisers. Everyone else thought they were moored well out of the waterway traffic. But the U.S. Navy saved the day. Arnold relates the story:
When the sailors from our destroyers guarding the planes saw this huge hulk with its sail silhouetted above them, it was almost too late for them to prevent her from riding down all three Cruisers. The New Orleans happened to be the nearest plane in line. Realizing that they had only a few instants in which to save her, one of the sailors clambered up the stern of the Burmese boat, clipped the helmsman in the jaw, and took charge.7
The collision was fairly gentle but extensive repairs were needed to the lower wing’s leading edge and spars. Nelson arranged to have the plane towed to the beaching area used by an airplane company operating seaplanes. The plane was pulled up on a ramp with a dolly and the wing was repaired. The pontoons were also repainted and varnished. It took five days to do the work and more would be needed when they reached Calcutta, a major repair base.
It was fortuitous for Smith that they would have this delay. He was completely debilitated with an attack of dysentery which had gradually worsened ever since he drank the water he had been given on the lagoon near Hue. Thanks to an English doctor, Smith was moved to the house of a Mr. Kemp where he rested for three days and recovered sufficiently to leave. The others meantime stayed at the British Royal Engineer’s clubhouse, a few miles outside of the city, where they swam in the club’s pool, played water polo, and sipped cool drinks.
While the repair work was going on, the men took turns visiting the city to see the lifestyle of the native-born Burmese and the Europeans. They visited Shwe Dagon, the largest pagoda in the world. But five days was enough and when Nelson said his plane was ready and Smith said he felt better, they taxied out for takeoff. This was now 25 June. The Boston and New Orleans were able to get off by following in the waves left by an ocean steamer, while Smith in the Chicago took advantage of Wade’s ability to make enough waves to allow his pontoons to break loose from the surface. Watching this, Arnold wrote later, “In finesse and delicacy of touch no airman has ever surpassed Leigh Wade. To take a heavy Cruiser down and daintily run its pontoons through the water so that they are barely an inch below the surface and skim along like that for a mile, is the feat of a wizard. That’s Wade!”8
To make up for lost time and to escape the increasing monsoons as much as possible, Smith led the flight northwest across the Irrawaddy delta and copious rice fields toward Akyab, Burma, and the Bay of Bengal. En route they flew into one of the heaviest rainstorms they had ever encountered. They attempted to fly around it when they couldn’t find any breaks in the downpour and managed to stay together despite the poor visibility. The route went over the Arakan Mountains.
The Cruisers landed at the Akyab seaport and hurriedly took on gas and oil. This was a stop they wanted to leave as soon as possible. The area had the dubious distinction of averaging more than four hundred inches of rainfall a year. They were preparing to take off when a message was received from the Preston that the moorings were not yet safe at Chittagong, their next stop, and they should delay one day. They went ashore and were entertained that night at a club by the British commissioner and other Europeans.
Stuart MacLaren, the British pilot, who had now received his second plane courtesy of the U.S. Navy, had been delayed for weeks at Akyab waiting for his replacement plane and had just left. The Americans, without knowing it, had passed over him where he had landed on a small bay to escape the storm they had just flown through. He afterwards told them he had heard but not seen them when they flew by. By this time, the French and Portuguese fliers had failed in their efforts to conquer the globe.
Despite the rain, they left at 7 A.M. next morning, 26 June, for Chittagong. Smith was leading and noticed that the rain was heaviest near the shore so he turned out about 15 miles over the Bay of Bengal. The rain lessened after about an hour and they followed the coast to the seaport of Chittagong (now in Bangladesh) at the mouth of the Chittagong River. They landed, refueled quickly from the U.S. destroyer Preston, and headed for Calcutta, the southern terminus of the third division. Linton Wells, in a motorboat, was able to chat with them briefly while they were tied up at the buoys for refueling and catch up on their experiences since he had last seen them.
There was now a dangerous flight ahead as they took a compass course over the deltas of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. These swampy areas were known for the tigers that inhabited the jungle areas and the crocodiles in the marshes. If a plane went down, it might take months to locate it. Each crew flew with all eyes ahead looking for stretches of water where a landing could be made. As soon as one was located, they would look ahead for another and steer toward it—just in case. The weather most fortunately was clear. They spotted the Hooghly River easily and flew upstream eighty miles to the city of Calcutta, then the second largest city of the British Empire and known as the “City of Dreadful Night.” They flew an additional sixteen miles to Port Canning north of the city, then followed a railroad up the river and landed in midafternoon at a mooring area where they hoped there would be fewer boats to harass them.
They were to tie up at moorings for oceangoing ships which were so large that the planes had to be towed to them. It was hot work and when the planes were finally attached and prepared for the night, each man realized how oppressive the air was. There was no breeze and all of them were soaked with perspiration. The British river police agreed to guard the planes and the crews were invited on board the launch of the governor of Bengal for a trip downstream to the city. Hundreds of people lined the riverbanks and the rails of the river steamers that thumped along nearby. When they arrived at the dock near the European quarter of the city, a number of Americans, British, and Bengali officials waved a welcome and cheered them as they debarked.
Fatigued from the work and the heat, they were taken to the Great Eastern Hotel and assigned rooms. Smith, as flight commander, was given a luxurious suite, consisting of two bedrooms, a bath, an office, and a sitting room. Uncomfortable in such posh surroundings, he asked Arnold to share it with him. While they were looking around, there was a knock on the door. A bearded man wearing a turban, long white coat, and skintight pants entered and asked if they desired a personal servant. They immediately accepted the offer and found that he had the power to order others to wash their clothes, get food and drinks, and bring anything else they desired. They named him “Bozo.” When they didn’t need him, he would squat on his heels outside their door. If they called out for Bozo, he would quickly open the door and comply with their wishes. The other men had similar experiences.
Everyone was so tired and hot that they spent the first evening in their rooms entertaining callers and newspapermen. Everyone realized that much hard work lay ahead of them. The ponderous pontoons were to be exchanged for wheels, and the planes were to undergo as much of an overhaul and replacement of parts as could be managed. To accomplish this, the planes should be moved to an airfield or some area where they could be worked on in close proximity to each other. The only one of any size was at Dum Dum, twenty miles outside the city. The planes would have to be hauled ashore, the wings removed, and then hauled by truck to the airdrome and reassembled. This would take an inordinate amount of time and Smith disapproved the idea. After much discussion with British harbor and street maintenance officials, arrangements were made to fly the Cruisers downstream and land in the midst of the river traffic near Fort William in the center of Calcutta. The planes were towed to a dock by a motor launch from one of the destroyers and a large crane lifted them out of the water so the pontoons could be removed and the wheels and tail skids attached. The planes were then rolled to the Maidan, a large park in the center of the city. City officials authorized the cutting of some trees, electric equipment, and telephone wires that were in the way.
After positioning their planes to work on them, the fliers were taken to the Great Eastern Hotel where Linton Wells found them and reported that they had a “damp and hilarious” reunion. He offered to help work on the planes and his offer was gladly accepted.
Before the Cruisers had departed from Seattle, Lt. Harry A. Halverson, the advance officer for the fourth division along the planned route of the flight between Calcutta and Constantinople (later Istanbul) had his own adventures. He had left Manila on 25 March 1924 and traveled by ocean vessel to Hong Kong, Singapore, Rangoon, and Akyab before going by rail to Chittagong and ten other cities in India. Subsequently he visited three cities in Persia, two in Iraq, four in Syria, and four in Turkey. These trips were by steamer, rail, automobile, and airplane which were hampered many times by infrequent and uncertain steamer and train schedules. Poor roads and washed-out bridges caused enforced layovers. Hardships were experienced with officials who did not speak English. The Turkish government’s enforcement of strict passport regulations also caused him great inconvenience. By the time he had visited all the stops required and arrived in Constantinople on 27 June, he had traveled 11,000 miles in the previous three and a half months to make the preliminary arrangements. His report explained the difficulties he had at each stop and the final paragraph explained why it had taken so long to complete his assignment:
Many conditions combine to make traveling and the completion of a mission such as mine over the route which was covered very difficult. For one thing the wheels of progress move slowly in all Eastern countries. Officials are hard to see due to their office hours and the word “expeditious” is taboo in most places. What little advance information I had received was erroneous and of little or no use. Little and in many cases no information of the desired kind was available and the means for disseminating such information as was available was practically nonexistent. In many instances I had recourse to files but needed to find and write up personally such information as was available and pertinent. Owing to the same reason and scarcity of clerks and stenographers at various consulates, it has been necessary to personally accomplish all typing and detail work.9
Halverson was very frank in his evaluation of the many places he visited. He summarized the territory between Karachi and Baghdad as “extremely uninviting from the standpoint of flying. Along the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, landings cannot be attempted except in the water with any degree of assurance that even the lives of the pilots could be saved.” He quoted Major W. T. Blake, one of the British fliers who attempted a World Flight previously, that Chabar “is a most desolate hole, as indeed are all these stations along the Persian Gulf. There is nothing to do except fish and occasionally obtain a little shooting in the mountains nearby, though if a white man, or an Indian, ventures too far from camp he will be captured and murdered by the natives.”10
The crews were made aware of the potential dangers and possible delays they might experience from information Halverson left behind at each stop. All were grateful for the forewarnings and mindful of the difficulties that the advance officers, all pilots, had experienced.
The Maidan proved to be an excellent location for the work that had to be done at Calcutta. A large number of supplies and spare parts had been accumulated there as planned. The planes were pushed into a grove of trees out of the sun and the disassembly and replacement of parts began. A thorough inspection of all fittings, control wires, fasteners, and fabric was made. Grease was cleaned off the planes to prevent dust from collecting on them while flying over land.
Gasoline strainers, tanks, and screens were thoroughly cleaned and the fuselage fabric was repainted. Larger engine radiators were installed to counter the extreme heat of the ruthless desert that lay ahead. They worked until long after dark for several days because the monsoon season was approaching rapidly and the fliers were anxious to get away as soon as possible. New engines were needed but it was decided to send them ahead by train to Karachi because it was beyond the monsoon belt and would probably save time that might be lost because of the rains. Hundreds of Indians gathered day and night to watch the Americans and it took fifty policemen working in shifts to hold them away from the planes.
One obstacle they had not counted on was the sacred cows that wandered the city and could not be touched. Occasionally one would stroll under a plane’s wing and lie down. Ogden, tired of the interference with his work, would twist their tails until they bellowed in resentment and plodded off. The police did not notice.
A call for volunteers from the two faithful American destroyers anchored in the harbor resulted in an overwhelming demonstration of enthusiasm to help out. Every man not assigned a watch volunteered and selections for shore liberty had to be made by their respective commanders. “If the World Flight had done nothing else,” Smith commented, “it would certainly have stimulated a fine spirit of comradeship between the Navy and the Air Service.”11
The tired airmen did take some time off to see the sights of Calcutta, one of the world’s most crowded cities. They went shopping, had their laundry done, and had tropical uniforms made. The American Legion Post of India gave the men a banquet; they were so tired, they left early. Next morning, as they were leaving the hotel to go to the Maidan to work, they met their hosts on their way home.
The fliers were treated to a dinner with the Standard Oil Company representative in Calcutta on 29 June and again left early. As they were leaving in the darkness, Smith stepped into a hole in the walkway and fell heavily to the ground. He was in intense pain all that night but refused to admit he was injured. Next morning a British doctor examined him and found he had broken a rib. He was taped up and although obviously in pain with every movement, said they would definitely leave on 1 July. After a day of rest while the others put the finishing touches on the planes, he was at the Maidan at daybreak, obviously in pain and still weak from the effects of diarrhea. He led the trio of planes out to the center of the park for the takeoff to Allahabad. Mysteriously, instead of six men in the three planes, there were now seven.
Linton Wells had been instructed by his office in Tokyo to return there after the fliers departed from Calcutta. He was reluctant to do so. He had been covering the story for weeks since the flight left Seattle and felt that the big story of the flight still lay ahead. He pleaded to be taken along. “We sympathized with him but gave him a flat ‘No,’ ” Wade recalled later. “The hot, humid weather dictated that we keep the planes as light as possible. He had helped with the maintenance during the stay in Calcutta but orders were orders.”12
Wade had been impressed with Wells’s eagerness to report their story and finally gave in. Wells’s argument that he could fill in on the work shift for the injured Smith made sense to him because he had indeed worked hard assisting the fliers and ran errands for them while they worked on the planes. Wade told Wells that if Smith approved, he could fly in the rear seat of the Boston with Ogden. Nelson, always sensitive to the performance of the aircraft, objected strenuously to the idea. Wells countered that changing from the heavy pontoons that weighed nearly half a ton to the lighter wheels weighing only about two hundred pounds would enable the planes to climb and cruise faster and the extra weight would not matter. Smith still did not like the idea but Wells was persuasive and Smith, knowing that the Air Service would probably benefit from accurate reporting of that portion of the flight, finally gave in. He cabled General Patrick in Washington asking for permission to have Wells fly to Allahabad and perhaps as far as Constantinople. Wells hurriedly packed a few belongings weighing about 25 pounds and arranged for shipment of the rest to Paris, hoping that he could go that far with the flight. Yet no answer had been received from Washington by takeoff time and Wells was ready to go. He reported what happened next:
Appearing at the Maidan at six o’clock the next morning I was under the impression I was about to accompany the American World Flight as a representative of the Associated Press. This was an erroneous assumption. On receipt of a cable saying that I was going to Europe with it, the Associated Press fired me for disobedience of orders in not returning to Tokyo, but news of the fact didn’t reach me for several days.
Thousands of people had packed the Common to witness the takeoff. Just before we were to leave, Wade asked Ogden if he thought he could share the after cockpit with me and Ogden had drawled, “Suits me.” When the Boston roared across the Maidan, Ogden and I were jammed into the cockpit like a pair of Siamese twins, and during the six hours and thirty minutes’ flight to Allahabad neither of us could move an inch. Thereafter, we placed a board across the arms of the single seat, which gave us about eight inches more width, but it elevated us an equal distance, so our heads protruded over the fuselage. As a consequence our faces became badly burned. It speaks well for Hank Ogden’s disposition that never once during the two thousand miles of flying did he utter a word of complaint over the discomfort by sharing his seat with me.13
But Ogden was miserable trying to get comfortable in the seat designed for one man. He later stated bitterly after the flight from Allahabad to Ambala near the snow-capped Himalayas, “If it hadn’t been that we were flying high enough to keep fairly cool and if it hadn’t been for the glorious scenery of the snow-capped Himalayas, I believe I should have thrown Wells overboard. As it was I was sorely tempted to feed him to the crocodiles in the Jumma River.”14
For many years it has been erroneously reported that Wells was a stowaway and had hidden in the Boston’s baggage compartment with only his toothbrush and a pencil. Smith wrote a memorandum for the record to prevent any future misunderstandings:
“Lieutenant Leigh Wade, having given his consent to the request of Linton Wells, an American newspaper man representing the Associated Press, that the latter be permitted to accompany the American World Flight in the capacity of a passenger in Plane Number Three [the Boston], piloted by Lieutenant Wade, I, as Commanding Officer of the Flight, also approve the proposal.
“If in my opinion the presence of Mr. Wells in Plane Number Three, at any time or any place, is likely to endanger the success of the American World Flight, it is understood that he, Mr. Wells, shall be forthwith left behind.”15