The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was completed in 1924 by four aviators from an eight-man team of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force. The 175-day journey from April to September covered over . The team generally traveled east to west, around the northern Pacific Rim, through to South Asia and Europe and back to Seattle's Sand Point Airfield in the United States. Airmen Lowell H. Smith, Leslie P. Arnold, Erik H. Nelson, and John Harding Jr. made the trip in two single-engined open-cockpit Douglas World Cruisers (DWC) configured as floatplanes for most of the journey. Lead aircraft Chicago, and the New Orleans completed the expedition. Four more flyers in two additional DWC began the journey but their aircraft crashed or were forced down. All airmen survived. They were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, and the flight won the Mackay Trophy aviation award for 1924.
U.S. preparation for circumnavigation attempt In the early 1920s several countries were vying to be the first to fly around the world. The British had made one unsuccessful around-the-world air flight attempt in 1922. The following year, a French team had tried; the Italians, Portuguese, and British also announced plans for world-circling flights. In early 1923, the US Army Air Service became interested in having a squadron of military aircraft undertake a round-the-world flight. It assigned a group of officers in the War Department planning group, formed as the World Flight Committee, the job of finding a suitable aircraft and planning the mission.Swanborough and Bowers 1963, p. 548. This high-level Army enterprise, under the command of Major General Mason M. Patrick, Chief of the Air Service, would have the support of the Navy, Diplomatic Corps, Bureau of Fisheries and Coast Guard Services.The War Department instructed the Air Service to look at both the Fokker T-2 transport and the Davis-Douglas Cloudster to see if either would be suitable and to acquire examples for testing. Although deemed satisfactory, the planning group considered other US Air Service military aircraft both in service and production, with a view that a dedicated design that could be fitted with interchangeable landing gear, wheeled and pontoons for water landings, would be preferable.Rumerman, Judy. "The Douglas World Cruiser – Around the World in 175 Days." U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, 2003. Retrieved: 7 July 2012.
When the head of Davis-Douglas, Donald Douglas, was asked for information on the Davis-Douglas Cloudster, he instead submitted data on a modified DT-2,"First to fly around the world." Did You Know.org. Retrieved: 7 July 2012. a torpedo bomber that Douglas had built for the US Navy in 1921 and 1922. The DT-2 had proven to be a sturdy aircraft that could accommodate interchangeable wheeled and pontoon landing gear. Since the aircraft was an existing model, Douglas stated that a new aircraft, which he named the Douglas World Cruiser (DWC), could be delivered within 45 days after a contract was awarded. The Air Service agreed and sent Lieutenant Erik Henning Nelson (1888–1970), a member of the planning group, to California to work out the details with Douglas. "Collections: Douglas World Cruiser Chicago – Long Description." National Air and Space Museum. Retrieved: 7 July 2012.
Douglas, assisted by Jack Northrop,Boyne 1982, p. 80. began to modify a DT-2 to suit the circumnavigation requirements. The main modification involved its fuel capacity.Yenne 2003, p. 48. All the internal bomb carrying structures were removed with additional fuel tanks added to the wings and fuselage fuel tanks enlarged in the aircraft. The total fuel capacity went from .
Nelson took the Douglas proposal to Washington where General Patrick approved it on 1 August 1923. The War Department awarded an initial contract to Douglas for the construction of a single prototype."Douglas DT-2 World Cruiser." Aviation Central.com. Retrieved: 7 July 2012. The prototype met all expectations, and a contract was awarded for four more production aircraft and spare parts.Francillon 1979, p. 75. The last DWC was delivered on 11 March 1924. The spare parts included 15 extra Liberty engines, 14 extra sets of pontoons, and enough replacement airframe parts for two more aircraft. These spare parts were sent ahead to locations along the route around the world the aircraft planned to follow.Bryan 1979, p. 122.
The aircraft were equipped with no radioscommunicating by message bag and hand signals nor avionics of any sort, leaving their crew to rely entirely on dead reckoning to navigate.
Douglas World Cruiser aircraft and crew
Seattle (No. 1): Maj. Frederick L. Martin (1882–1956), pilot and flight commander, and SSgt. Alva L. Harvey (1900–1992), flight mechanic (failed to circumnavigate) Chicago (No. 2): Lt. Lowell H. Smith (1892–1945), pilot, subsequent flight commander, and 1st Lt. Leslie P. Arnold (1893–1961), co-pilot Boston (No. 3)/Boston II (prototype): 1st Lt. Leigh P. Wade (1897–1991), pilot, and SSgt. Henry H. Ogden (1900–1986), flight mechanic (failed to circumnavigate) New Orleans (No. 4): Lt. Erik H. Nelson (1888–1970), pilot, and Lt. John Harding Jr. (1896–1968), co-pilot
The pilots trained in meteorology and navigation at Langley Field in Virginia, where they also practiced in the prototype. From February to March 1924, the crews practiced on the production aircraft at the Douglas facility in Santa Monica and in San Diego.
Team circumnavigation Four aircraft, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans, left Clover Field, Santa Monica, California, on 17 March 1924, for Sand Point in Seattle, Washington, the official start of the journey.Stoff 2000, p. 21. The individual aircraft were christened with waters from their namesake cities, prior to departure from Seattle where Boeing Company technicians configured the aircraft for the long over-water portion of the flight, by exchanging wheels for pontoon floats.
On 6 April 1924,"First round-the-world flight." National Museum of the United States Air Force, 8 July 2009. Retrieved: 14 July 2017. just 13 days after the British, under Stuart-MacLaren, set off from England in the opposite direction, they left Seattle for Alaska. Shortly after departing Prince Rupert Island on 15 April, the lead aircraft Seattle, flown by Martin with Harvey (the only fully qualified mechanic in the flight), blew a hole in its crankcase and was forced to land on Portage Bay. A replacement engine having been provided, Seattles crew resumed their journey on 25 April, in an attempt to catch up with the other three aircraft awaiting in Dutch Harbor but which ended in failure on 30 April when Seattle crashed in dense fog into a mountainside near Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula. It was destroyed in the crash. The crew survived six days in the elements before finding shelter in an unoccupied cabin on Moller Bay, making it to a cannery four days later."South Hangar: Douglas World Cruiser 'Seattle'." Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. Retrieved: 7 July 2012.
The three remaining aircraft continued, with Chicago, flown by Smith and Arnold, assuming the lead. Tracing the Aleutian Islands, the flight traveled across the North Pacific, landing in the Soviet Union notwithstanding the lack of entry permission. The Aleuts of Atka applied the term "thunder-bird" from their mythology to the aircraft.
On 25 May, whilst in Tokyo, the team received a cable reporting "MacLaren crashed at Akyab [Burma]. Plane completely wrecked. Continuance of flight doubtful." They responded by arranging delivery of a spare plane from Tokyo to Akyab (Sittwe) on the USS Paul Jones (DD-230), transshipped in Hong Kong onto the USS William B. Preston, enabling the British to continue in their attempt to be first, as the Portuguese and Argentinians also pressed on.
The aircraft continued via Korea and down the coast of China to French Indochina (now Vietnam). After leaving Haiphong in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Chicago engine broke a connecting rod and it was forced to land in a lagoon near Huế. The aircraft was considered a novelty in this region and missionary priests supplied the pilots with food and wine while locals climbed aboard its pontoons. The other flyers, who had continued on to Tourane (Da Nang), searched for Chicago by boat and found the crew sitting on the wing in the early morning hours. Three paddle-powered sampans with local crews towed the aircraft for 10 hours, and , to Huế, where the engine was replaced with a spare shipped from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City): "[T]he fastest – and undoubtedly the first – engine change that had ever been made in Indochina."
The flight continued through Thailand and on to Burma where they came within earshot of MacLaren during a torrential downpour east of Akyab, MacLaren having just resumed his attempt in the aircraft delivered by the Americans and sheltering on the surface at the time. Visual contact was not made and the Americans were unaware of their proximity to MacLaren.
After carrying out the major operation of exchanging the Cruisers' floats for wheeled undercarriage at Calcutta, on the evening of 29 June Smith, in the dark after dinner, slipped and broke a rib. He nevertheless insisted on continuing without delaying the mission.Wendell 1999/2000, pp. 339–372, 356–366. All three aircraft were fitted with new engines in Karachi, New Orleans having suffered a catastrophic engine failure just short of the city and limped in on intermittent power.
They then proceeded into the Middle East and then Europe.Mackworth-Praed 1990, p. 235. The flight arrived in Paris on Bastille Day, 14 July. From Paris the aircraft flew to London and on to the north of England in order to prepare for the Atlantic Ocean crossing by re-installing pontoons and changing engines."Douglas World Cruiser Transport." Boeing. Retrieved: 7 July 2012.
On 3 August 1924, en route from Orkney to Iceland, an oil pump failure forced Boston down onto the sea less than halfway to the Faroes. The accompanying Chicago flew on to the Faroes where it dropped a note onto the supporting U.S. Navy light cruiser USS Richmond about the troubled aircraft. The crew having been rescued unhurt, Boston, then on tow, capsized and sank shortly before reaching the Faroes. Chicago and New Orleans had flown on to Hornafjörður, Iceland, the most northerly point of the circumnavigation (65 deg N).
After a long stay in Reykjavík, Iceland, where they met Italian Antonio Locatelli and his crew, also in the course of a circumnavigation attempt, and there accompanied by five navy vessels and their 2,500 seaman, Chicago, with Smith and Arnold still in the lead, and the New Orleans, with Nelson and Harding, continued for Fredricksdal, Greenland. This was to be the longest leg of the entire journey, with those five vessels strung along the route. New engines were installed on arrival at the second stop in Greenland, Ivigtut.
On 31 August, they reached Labrador, Canada,Haber 1995, pp. 72–73. a fuel-pump failure in Chicago having been overcome by four hours of hand pumping by Arnold. After the original prototype, now named Boston II, arrived in Pictou, Nova Scotia, the original Boston crew of Wade and Ogden were able to join the other two aircraft to fly on to Boston (where pontoon floats were exchanged for wheels again) and Washington DC."Fliers At Seattle End World Flight of 27,000 Miles." The New York Times, 28 September 1924, p. 1. Retrieved: 29 July 2012. After a hero's welcome in the capital, the three Douglas World Cruisers flew to the West Coast, on a celebratory multi-city tour, stopping, on 22 September, at Rockwell Field, San Diego, for new engines and then arrived in Santa Monica to a welcoming crowd of at least 100,000 people. Their final landing in Seattle was on 28 September 1924.