In Greenland

The U. S. globe-circling aeronauts sat in lonely Reykjavik (Iceland) and looked out westward over a cold grey sea. Naval scouts wirelessed them that the eastern harbors of Greenland were jammed with ice-floes, that their next hop would have to be 825 miles, to Ivigtut on a southerly Greenland cape. That meant they would need to carry extra fuel. Hoisting spare gasoline tankards aboard, the pilots started their engines, sought to take off. But the tankards were too heavy. The planes could not rise. Exasperated, the pilots tossed away every nonessential ounce, repaired minor breakage occasioned by their false starts, shot off hazardously. After 10 hours and 19 minutes in the air--fortunately not tempestuous--they soared down through a dense fog that blanketed their haven, "taxied" safely to anchorage. Lieut. Locatelli, exploring northern airways for the Italian Government (TIME, Aug. 25), who had preceded the U. S. couple out of Reykjavik by a few minutes, did not turn up in Ivigtut that night. The Americans had last seen him as they neared the Greenland fog banks and felt sure he had not overshot his mark. Searchers from Ivigtut cruised the perilous icebound coast to eastward, Esquimaux trotted along the shore, looking, looking. Late Sunday night, 125 miles from shore, floating helplessly with a dead motor, Locatelli and his companions were sighted amid the waves by the U. S. cruiser Richmond, were taken aboard worn with fatigue but sound. To save the patrol ships further trouble, Locatelli scuttled his plane.