The flight to Allahabad was long but relatively pleasant compared to the weather of the previous several days. Each pilot was pleased at how much more easily his plane handled without the weighty pontoons attached.
Smith led the trio of planes north along the Hooghly River, west across the plains of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, and then the United Provinces to the junction of the Ganges and Jumna rivers where the city of Benares was located. They dodged in and out of rain showers and eventually came to Allahabad for a landing at the large Royal Air Force flying field six miles from the center of the sprawling city. They had been in the air for six and a half hours and arrived under a broiling sun. Wells and Ogden climbed down stiffly from the rear seat of the Boston and stretched their limbs. Ogden immediately handed Wells a gas can and motioned him to fill the tank and the other two planes as well while the six fliers sat in the shade. The crews, especially Ogden, had decided that Wells would pay for his transportation.
“This meant sitting for hours in the broiling sun atop a hot metal engine cowling, emptying countless two-gallon tins of gasoline into a chamois-covered funnel,” Wells wrote later. “After that I had to feed the engine oil and wipe the wings and fuselages clean of dust and grease. By the time the ships were serviced for the next jump, I was ready to drop in my tracks, but the boys had another job for me: making their speeches at the inevitable nightly banquet. And, as they sneaked quietly off to bed, I had to remain and entertain their hosts.”1
The Royal Air Force pilots, having a good reason for a party, kept Wells up most of the night telling stories. At 7:30 the next morning, he climbed in with Ogden for another day of cramped misery. The destination was Ambala, the principal base for the British RAF on the Indian frontier 480 miles away. En route they passed near Agra, the home of the magnificent Taj Mahal, and flew over Delhi, crossroads of the ancients. Delhi was also the interim capital of British India while the modern administrative city of New Delhi was being built.
The British gave the fliers an enthusiastic welcome and offered to help in any way they could. The New Orleans had developed a leak in a cylinder jacket and Nelson said he did indeed need their help to find a new cylinder. The RAF quickly volunteered to have a new cylinder airlifted to Ambala from the major repair and supply depot at Lahore where they maintained a surprising stock of about 2,000 Liberty engines and parts. The plane that was bringing the part unfortunately developed engine trouble and made a forced landing at Amritsar. The pilot, uninjured and intent on completing his mission, rented a bullock cart to take him to a station where he caught a train and arrived at the base at 3 A.M.
Nelson and Harding installed the new cylinder that morning. “It was no small favor that this British airman had done for us,” Nelson remarked later, “and we appreciated it more than we had words to express.”2 The RAF pilots that evening hosted the American crews in their mess. It was especially enjoyable, according to Nelson, “because it was not marred by a lot of unnecessary speeches.”3
The temperatures that night varied only between 102 and 106 degrees and although Indians waved punkas over them all evening and while they slept, they did not rest well. Concerned when they saw that the Americans were not tolerating the heat well and were still wearing the regulation flying clothing used in temperate climates, the British pilots told stories about airmen going mad from the heat. They gave each of the Americans an RAF pith helmet which the fliers wore on the ground until they left the desert countries. They also adopted British shorts and light shirts.
The Cruisers left for Multan on 3 July and climbed to six thousand feet to escape the heat. The route of flight was over the Sind desert and Smith was following a railroad line that would take them to their destination. They soon encountered a sandstorm that completely obscured both the earth and the railroad. The sand was so fine that it sifted through their clothes and stung their faces. In order to keep the railroad in sight, they descended to fifty feet but were severely blinded by the sand that tore at their planes. They flew right over Multan without seeing it. Colonel Butler, the British commander, had ordered hundreds of troops to line up around the airfield but they didn’t see the planes cross overhead. When Smith realized that they had passed the airport, he returned to the area, finally saw the field, and made several passes before leading the other two planes in for a landing.
The planes were led into a parking area and the seven men with bloodshot eyes, lobster-red faces, and dry and parched lips had difficulty getting down from their cockpits. Butler, before he shook hands, handed each flier a tall glass of ice-cold lemonade. “I have had many delicious drinks in my life,” Arnold wrote in his diary, “but none to compare with that one in Multan.”4
Arnold thought the name Multan should be changed to “Molten” since the temperature that day was 120 degrees and only cooled off to 98 degrees at night with no breeze. Butler confirmed that it was the hottest place in all of India. Wells commented that “no sensible person would ever go there voluntarily. Like the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and other British army men, they are always sentenced to Multan. And what a deadly monotonous life they lead; there are no white women because of the climate, and only the constant threat of revolt by fanatical, unfriendly Indians makes the place endurable.”5
The crews fueled their planes, then went to the officers’ guest quarters for a bath and a nap. Thoroughly fatigued from the flying and the heat, Nelson, Wade, and Smith, his rib still hurting from his injury, did not accept the invitation to attend a formal dinner as guests of the regiment that evening. Arnold, Harding, Ogden, and Wells did go and were entertained with a picturesque ceremony outdoors by a regimental band that had been held over for five days awaiting the Americans. None of the four got much sleep that night but were up at daybreak next morning, the fourth of July, and the three planes were off the ground at 6 A.M. heading for Karachi. Again they flew over more of the Sind Desert but there were no sandstorms this time, although they could see them swirling in the distance on both sides of their route of flight.
The flight was cruising at 4,000 feet to escape the heat and all went well except for Nelson. When about an hour out of Karachi, the engine of the New Orleans suddenly started to rattle and bang as if it were coming apart. Puffs of white smoke trailed behind and Nelson throttled back. Oil spewed down the sides of the engine and the fuselage and there were a number of holes in the fabric. Both men looked for a likely place for a landing on what appeared at first to be open desert. As they began a slow descent, though, they found it was really baked mud that had cracked into hard, open seams and would have spelled disaster for any plane trying to land there.
Nelson knew there was a railroad about thirty-five miles to the east that ran from Lahore to Karachi. He signaled his intentions to Smith and Wade and headed toward it so that if they had to go down they would at least be near a means of transportation to get to Karachi. When he was near the railroad, he turned toward Karachi seventy-five miles away. Pieces of a cylinder continued to be ejected through the engine cowling and thrown out the bottom of the engine. A chunk of metal ripped a hole in the wing; another blasted into a strut; a third grazed Harding’s head as both men frantically continued to look for a place to land.
Nelson throttled back some more and the engine still responded enough for him to keep flying speed just above stalling. It coughed and died briefly several times and both men expected it to catch on fire but Nelson was able to keep the plane in the air and continued to fly along the railroad to Karachi, fully expecting at any moment to make a forced landing during the flight. Nelson later wryly reported that the engine continued “to run very nicely on eleven cylinders.”6
Harding passed pieces of cheesecloth to Nelson in the front seat so he could wipe the oil off his goggles. While the New Orleans pressed on, Smith in the Chicago sped ahead to locate the landing field and circled so Nelson wouldn’t have to search for it. Wade, Ogden, and Wells in the Boston looked for relatively safe landing spots in case Nelson had to land. Nelson continued to nurse the Cruiser carefully and landed safely at the large RAF flying field, home of one of the best repair depots in the world at the time. This was still the fourth of July, a day that the British do not celebrate.
A large crowd was waiting and the six fliers and Wells were welcomed by British RAF officers and administrative officials. William B. Douglass, the American consul, stepped out of the crowd and approached Smith with a cable in his hand. It was from General Patrick. Smith’s request to allow Wells to accompany them was disapproved. Douglass also handed Wells a cable from the Associated Press office in Tokyo. It was the official notice from his boss that he was fired for disobeying orders to return to Tokyo after the fliers left Calcutta.
Wells was concerned that Wade and Smith might be court-martialed for taking him across India but nothing was ever said. Wells thought that since a reporter for Reuters News Agency in Allahabad had reported him as a stowaway who had been found in Wade’s baggage compartment, it satisfied anyone who might be critical. The story apparently assured General Patrick and others as to how he had come to be with them, and Wells was content to have everyone believe that he was the world’s first aerial stowaway until his memoirs were published in 1937. Smith and Wade were never chastised for the incident, probably because Smith accepted full responsibility for allowing Wells to accompany the flight and there had been no unfavorable publicity as a result.
Having gone that far, Wells tried to find ways to keep up with the flight and report its progress as a roving, freelance reporter. There was no airline service to Europe at that time but he found that he could book passage to Egypt and said he would try to rejoin them in Constantinople. He never did but instead got involved in reporting riots in Sudan and later appeared in London in time to accompany the Prince of Wales during his visit to America where he met the fliers again.
The fliers had dinner that evening with the RAF officers, the first time they had dinner with ladies present since leaving the States. They were reminded in a speech by the base commander that they had flown 12,577 miles after leaving Seattle, farther than any of the others, but still had nearly 14,000 miles to go. They had been in the air a few minutes over 178 hours.
The men worked in the daytime for the next two days changing engines on all three planes. The work went rapidly with the help of British mechanics. Returning tired and dirty in the evenings, they split up and accepted invitations for dinner at the homes of the British commissioner, the tax collector, and the commanding general of the Sind Rajputana District. They were up at 3 A.M. for breakfast on 7 July and were in the air by 6:30 headed west for Chahbar.
The route of flight took the trio of planes across Baluchistan, an uninteresting countryside totally without vegetation except for a few date trees and cactus. “Great stretches of sand, sand hills, ancient lava flow, some 5,000-foot mountains—the most lonesome, barren and desolate place imaginable,” Arnold scratched in his diary.7
Shortly after noon, they crossed into Persia (now Iran) and descended at a small port city on the Gulf of Oman. They were met by George A. Tomlinson, a representative of the Indo-European Telegraph Company who had arranged for a supply of gas and oil and also a group of Indians to help with the tedious task of refueling. The fliers hurriedly ate sandwiches provided by the wife of the British consul and were airborne at 2:35 bound for Bandar Abbas, one of two chief Persian ports on the Strait of Ormuz that connects the Gulf of Oman with the Persian Gulf.
They were met there by a Mr. Richardson, the British consul, who had volunteered to act as an advance agent for the World Flight and had been instrumental in improving the air strip east of the city. Lieutenant Halverson, the advance officer, had made all the necessary arrangements and had left for Baghdad before their arrival. Richardson warned them to stay away from the Indians as much as possible because there was an epidemic of cholera raging at the time and hundreds had fled to the mountains to avoid it. The six men split up for the night to stay in two houses and were up at 3:30 A.M. They themselves had not refueled the planes after they landed when they saw that the gasoline was piled up in two-gallon cans. They hired a group of locals and had them form a line to pass the cans along from the cache to the planes where the crews put the fuel into the gas tanks. The process worked and they were off two hours later without eating breakfast.
They arrived at Bandar Abbas on 6 July. Between that date and 21 June when they’d left Bangkok, they had covered 3,710 miles and had made eleven stops. During this period they had overhauled their planes, fitting them with new engines and new wings, and had substituted the pontoons for wheels. The official report noted, “There is no question but that the change of landing gears will speed up their progress in no small measure.”8
The next destination was Bushire, considered then as the most important seaport on the Persian Gulf. They landed at 9:30 A.M. beside the shore on an excellent airfield that had been built by the French. They were met by George Fuller, the American consul, who offered to send to the city for sandwiches while they loaded up with fuel, oil, and water. When this refueling was completed in about ninety minutes and the sandwiches had not arrived, they quashed their hunger and departed for Baghdad, Mesopotamia (now Iraq).
The route from Bushire took them over a vast desert to Basra; they followed the Euphrates River to Hilla and then took a compass course direct to Baghdad. It was 5:55 P.M. when they landed at a large British Royal Air Force airdrome and were surprised by the size of the crowd of British civilians and military personnel who greeted them. They were immediately offered sandwiches and cold drinks while they tended to their planes. RAF officers then took them to the officers’ club for dinner. Afterwards, noting that they were greatly fatigued, their hosts showed them to the guest quarters. “I remember getting into bed,” Arnold wrote, “but I don’t remember lying down.” He added that they all were suffering from sunburned knees since they had adopted the English shorts at Calcutta.9
The fliers, used to getting up long before daybreak, slept until 7 A.M. the next morning. They left at 11 A.M. for Aleppo in northwest Syria and were escorted for the next hour and a half by five British fighter planes. The weather was excellent. The flight followed the Euphrates River and took them over more monotonous desert. “Sometimes we could see as many as fifteen or twenty small-sized sandstorms traveling along the ground,” Arnold noted. “About sixty miles from Aleppo we encountered some good-sized ones. The dust extended to 4,000 feet and the sun striking on the top of this white dust gives it the appearance of a real vapor cloud.”10
Aleppo, located in a semidesert area, had been a French mandate since 1918. Grains, cotton, and fruit were grown there and it was a center for silk, wool, hides, and dried fruits. The fliers landed at the French airdrome north of the city and were immediately surrounded by laughing French pilots who insisted on toasts with champagne of a special vintage that they had saved for the occasion. The crews as always worked on their planes first before accepting transportation to the principal hotel in the city.
After a reception by the French, the Turks gave a dinner which lasted until 2 A.M. They were nonetheless up at 6 A.M. and en route to the airport were able to see a little of the local lifestyle as they traveled through the ancient city. Nelson commented, “Camels were burbling and complaining as their drivers loaded them. Merchants were on their way to the bazaars, and nearly every other person sat astride a diminutive donkey.”11
Departure on 10 July was at 9 A.M. for Constantinople (now called Istanbul), which had been occupied by the Allies from 1918 to 1923. The trio of planes passed over miles of cultivated lands and then over a stretch of desert where camel caravans plodded relentlessly. Ahead were the 10,000-foot, snow-capped Taurus Mountains which the planes could not possibly top. Smith chose to lead them along the Berlin-Baghdad railroad that had been cut through the valley. They followed it single-file at 4,000 feet with the mountain walls uncomfortably close to their wing tips. It was their first experience with real cold air since they had left the Kurile Islands. The route took them over the rich homeland of the Turks and the Sea of Marmora to Constantinople with its picturesque cathedrals, minarets, mosques, red-roofed houses, ancient forts, and walls.
There had been some concern about this leg of the flight because the Turks had not readily accepted the idea of foreigners flying over their country and had delayed approving the request from the U.S. State Department for overflight and landing privileges. Smith landed first at 2:30 P.M. at the San Stefano airdrome, an excellent facility. In addition to a few Turkish officials, they were met by Admiral Bristol, American ambassador to Turkey, Lieutenant Halverson, the division advance man, and Maj. Carlyle Wash, U.S. air attaché at Paris who had been assigned as advance officer for the flight through Europe. There were a few other Americans on hand and there would have been more if the messages Smith had sent from Baghdad and Aleppo had reached Constantinople and the public had been informed. The telegraph system in that part of the world had not yet caught up with the technology of the day.
Excusing themselves after the introductions, the fliers worked until 4:30 P.M. and then were taken into the city. There were no dinners or receptions to attend since no one knew exactly when they were coming. They had dinner that evening at a hotel and went to a cabaret. They hoped to get off early the next morning, but the Turks had requested that members of their air force be permitted to inspect the American planes. Realizing that the Turkish government had been reluctant to let them land in the first place, Smith agreed they would stay another day.
The group went on a sightseeing tour the next morning and had lunch in the American embassy with the ambassador and his family. They spent the afternoon talking with the Turkish general and his staff and answering the questions of the flying officers. That evening was spent writing letters, packing, studying maps, and resting.
The crews were up before dawn on 12 July and were off the ground at 7:45 A.M. bound for Bucharest, largest city and capital of Romania. It is located in the southeastern part of the country on the Dimbovita River, a tributary of the Danube. The city had been occupied by the Central Powers from 1916 to 1918.
The three Cruisers made the flight in four hours and landed at the Franco-Romanian Aero Company airdrome shortly before noon. They had flown over some of the battlefields and ruined towns where trenches, pockmarked fields, wreckage of military equipment, and destroyed bridges were still in evidence from battles that had been fought a decade before. Dark clouds formed but threatening weather did not materialize and after crossing the Transylvanian Alps, the weather was clear.
When the crews landed and taxied to the Franco-Romanian hangars, strangely there was no official party to greet them. They were relieved that they could service their planes with the help of local airport personnel without a crowd of officials and curious spectators to slow them down. Smith located a telephone in a hangar and called the American embassy. Colonel Foy, the American consul, was embarrassed and thought they were still hundreds of miles away since he had received no word of their progress for days. They were treated to an impromptu dinner by members of the foreign colony in the city and while they dined, the chief of the Romanian Air Service rushed in from the country’s summer capital. Breathless, he apologized on behalf of the government for not welcoming them with a formal reception. The crews made a quick sightseeing trip through the city and turned in early at a hotel. Arnold’s diary reports: “Bucharest is a clean and snappy-looking place, has numerous cafes and cabarets, and many well-dressed and attractive-looking girls.”12
The three planes departed Bucharest at dawn, 13 July, for Budapest via Belgrade. They flew due west in remarkably clear weather, crossed the Carpathian Mountains to the Danube River where it flows through the Transylvania Alps, and then to Belgrade, Yugoslavia. They flew directly over Panchevo Airport at Belgrade where diplomatic officials were waiting for their arrival. But despite having made arrangements to land there, with plenty of fuel on board and engines purring contentedly, Smith decided to continue to Budapest. (He later wired an apology.) They followed the Danube and crossed into Hungary. It was a six-hour, fifty-minute flight to Budapest’s Matyasfold Airdrome and once again they landed with only a small crowd on hand. Earlier, hundreds had gathered to witness their arrival but when a rumor had passed through the crowd in midmorning that the Americans were not coming, many had gone home. Cornelius Poppe, the Hungarian air director, government official representatives, members of the Hungarian Aero Association, and Robert Brentano, the American minister, had remained. There were congratulatory speeches, followed by signing of autographs before the fliers were invited to a nearby hangar where a lunch was hastily provided.
They departed at 2:10 P.M. for Vienna, Austria’s capital, and arrived there two hours later. This time there was a huge crowd waiting; to their surprise, they were mostly American tourists, all armed with cameras and shouting for them to pose.
“Kodaks to the left of us. Kodaks to the right, front, and rear,” Arnold said. “It looked as though we were not going to be able to get our planes ready for the next day’s flight to Paris. So Smith finally announced that if they would all line up with their picture machines, we also would line up and then they could get us all with one volley. But in spite of this, the Kodaks clicked until dusk, and indeed long after, for the amateur photographer is not particular about lighting.”13
When they were finally able to get their work done, the crews were taken for a quick drive through the city, around the famous boulevard, the Ringstrasse, to the Imperial Palace and the shopping district, and then to the luxurious Imperial Hotel. They were told that the hotel was once the palace of the Prince of Wittenburg and that he had lost it in a game of cards.
They went to bed soon after dinner and were impressed with the tasty food, wonderful room service, and the size of their hotel rooms with twenty-foot ceilings and 500-light chandeliers. The room assigned to Smith and Arnold had twin beds on raised daises draped with silk canopies. According to Arnold, “The mattresses were so soft that we sank right down almost out of sight.”14
The six airmen had breakfast next morning where they were served bowls of raspberries and cream, so delicious that to Arnold, “it was almost worth flying around the world to eat them.” He was reminded of those long days and nights in the shacks in the Aleutians “where we made our beds on boxes to keep the rats from running over us, and where Smith had fed us on ‘eggs Vienna.’ ”15
Anxious to continue, Smith had promised the others in India that if they could get to France twenty-four hours ahead of schedule, they would all take a holiday in Paris. They had already gained four days by spending minimum time in each city after leaving Calcutta. Although they would have liked to spend more time enjoying the deluxe accommodations of Vienna and seeing the sights, they all wanted to push on and left the ancient city before 7 A.M. on 14 July in good spirits, intent on reaching Paris on that very French national holiday known as Bastille Day.
It was raining heavily when they left Vienna. They flew in restricted visibility all the way across Austria and into France. “The rain and fog drove us down to the river,” Wade said, “and often we shot around sharp bends and kicked rudder just in time to avoid crashing unannounced into a castle. For several hours we followed the winding Danube, flying against a stiff head wind that held us down to fifty miles an hour.”16
As they crossed the dark pine trees of the Black Forest in southwest Germany, they suddenly emerged into bright sunshine, a welcome change from the gloom and danger of the first several hours. After flying for more than six hours, they landed at Strasbourg, capital of Alsace in northeast France, which had been regained by France from Germany in 1919. Although elaborate arrangements had been made to entertain them, they stayed only long enough to refuel and have a quick lunch before they were off on the four-hour flight to the famous City of Light.
The route took them north to Nancy, then swung northwest over the trenches and fortifications of the famous battlegrounds of World War I: Verdun, the Argonne Forest, Rheims, Saint-Mihiel, and the old Hindenburg Line. On this day, the trees and grass were green and the growing fields were cultivated, a much different scene from the days when the Allies had challenged the Germans in French skies six years before.
About a hundred miles from Paris, a flight of French Aviation Service planes met the American trio to escort them to the city. Fifty miles out, they could see the Eiffel Tower and the white dome of the Church of the Sacré Coeur on Montmartre. Nearing the famous capital city, they could see thousands of people in the streets celebrating Bastille Day. Accompanied by the French planes, Smith led the flight over the many famous landmarks and, as a mark of respect, circled over the Arc de Triomphe. Built originally to commemorate Napoleon’s victories, in 1920 the Arc had become the national tomb of the French Unknown Soldier.
They approached Le Bourget Airport and were saluted by a parachute rocket that was lofted high over the field in welcome. There were more than five thousand Parisians on hand shouting, waving flags, and crowding onto the airport; many of them had been waiting since early in the morning. The three planes landed and taxied to the hangar line where they were mobbed by the throng that was intent on taking pictures up close and grabbing at the American fliers. Reporters shouted questions in French and English while French officials and diplomats tried to shake their hands while they posed for photographs.
“During that hour on the outskirts of Paris,” Wade recalled, “we met more generals, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, and celebrities, than we had encountered in all the rest of our lives. There were so many of them that we couldn’t remember their names, despite the fact that they were all men whose names are constantly in newspaper headlines.”17
It took an hour before the fliers had a chance to get their planes into a hangar and conduct a postflight inspection and refueling. Smith, always cordial but a man of few words, answered reporters’ questions in short bursts. He in turn asked reporters how the Americans were doing in the Olympic Games that were being held in Paris that summer. He learned that the Americans had won a number of track and field events and claimed two world records. Smith met with Maj. Carlyle Wash, American attaché to France and advance man for the European division of the World Flight, to discuss the schedule for their stay in Paris and on to England. A French reporter, commenting in the sensational style of the day, reported their arrival in the next day’s newspaper:
Flying in a perfect triangle above us, the great planes come, with the sunlight glinting on their wings. One by one they drop to earth with the light grace of a dragonfly. Slim khaki figures emerge from the cockpits—one cries, “Just in time for tea!” … Wade lifts his goggles with a placid air. Nelson pulls off his helmet, watches the cameramen, and then, with a full-throated laugh, takes a Kodak and shoots back in return. Congratulations, speeches, glasses of champagne. The heroes, with Generals Niessel and Dumesnil, pose for posterity before the newsreel men and press photographers.
There are cries of “Vive la France!” and “Vive l’Amérique!” But where are the heroes? They have vanished. “Feeding their horses,” someone explains. And in fact, the fliers have left the throng, and with a gesture that is simple as it is symbolic, they are wiping down the engines to which they owe a part of their glory.18
The men were whisked into the city by staff cars from the French Aviation Service after finishing their chores. Dead tired from more than ten hours in their cramped cockpits, they bathed, changed their coveralls for clean uniforms, and had dinner in their rooms. An invitation from the Vacuum Oil Company had been extended to them to attend the famous Folies Bergère and they felt they couldn’t turn it down. They were ushered into a special box along with other guests and settled into their soft seats. When the lights were lowered to signal the beginning of the show, the six fliers promptly fell asleep. Next day, one newspaper editorialized, “If the Folies Bergère won’t keep these American airmen awake, we wonder what will?”19
Those who fly in open cockpit, single-engine airplanes will understand the fatigue the fliers must have felt. They had made the fastest time across Europe and Asia of the pilots of any nation before them and had clipped two days off a record over the distance that the French national hero Pelletier d’Oisy had set flying from Tokyo to Paris. They had not had any real time to relax and be on their own to act like tourists since arriving in Tokyo. They had hoped to have time to see the sights without the public crowding their every move but their bodies were not up to such pleasure. Returning to the hotel, they hand-lettered a sign and placed it on each room door:
PLEASE DO NOT WAKE US
UNTIL NINE O’CLOCK TOMORROW MORNING
UNLESS THIS HOTEL IS ON FIRE
AND NOT EVEN THEN
UNLESS THE FIREMEN HAVE GIVEN UP ALL HOPE
Any plans they had to “do” Paris by themselves the next morning were shattered when they learned the schedule for the day. Wash had arranged for them to place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe and then make a number of official calls. The surprise of the day to them was a luncheon at Foyot’s Restaurant with Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. “As we were lieutenants in the army,” Wade said, “he had seemed about as far from us as the Dalai Lama of Tibet. But there in Paris he put his arms around us, told us funny stories, and proved himself a genial host and a regular fellow!”20
They were officially welcomed to the city in the afternoon and signed the Golden Book of the City of Paris for the Vice President of the municipal council and at 6 P.M. met President Gaston Doumergue at the Palais de l’Elysées, where they expected to stay only a few minutes. But the French leader was effusive about meeting them and kept them for about an hour. Instead of letting them go, he invited them to accompany him to the Olympic Games and stood with him as he reviewed the four thousand participating athletes. Afterwards he said he wanted to bestow on each of them the French Legion of Honor. Smith thanked the president but said that the United States government would not allow military men to accept foreign decorations without the consent of Congress. In place of this award he gave them each autographed photographs of himself.
There was a banquet that evening at the Allied Club. It was attended mostly by French ministers and high-ranking military officers of several nations who were assigned to duty in France. Anxious to experience the city’s night life, albeit briefly, several of the fliers who had served in France during the war made a quick trip to Maxim’s and the Montmarte “for old times’ sake.”21
The next morning, 16 July, they were back at Le Bourget Airport and were impressed with the number of airliners taking on passengers and taxiing out for takeoffs to the other cities of Europe every few minutes. The European nations had truly pioneered commercial airline operations and proved that schedules could be set and met. What he saw caused Nelson to exclaim, “The era of transport by air is not coming some day in the future. It is here!”22
The airport had been decorated in their honor and the planes were rolled out of the hangar. Major Wash and a number of French airmen were on hand to see them off and the flight was in the air by 11 A.M. bound for London. As they climbed on a westerly heading, two airliners with passengers flew alongside the Cruisers. A motion picture cameraman could be seen filming from one of them. A squadron of French fighters joined in and soon the occupants of a dozen planes were waving them on. The Americans would soon be off on what promised to be the most dangerous leg of the entire flight plan.