In the Pacific

The city fathers of San Francisco were busy last week, or their wives were, polishing top hats and brushing out morning coats. Engineers cleaned factory sirens and the police force rubbed its buttons honor bright. The S. S. Maui, with Heroes Maitland and Hegenberger aboard, was churning up under the western horizon from Honolulu. The Golden Gate was flung open wide to let the heroes in.

Being U. S. Army officers on active duty, the two lieutenants could not lend themselves altogether freely to the week-long demonstrations of the Hawaiian Islanders; they could not accept the $25,000 prize for first non-stop California-Hawaiian flight, which still stands as the munificence of James D.

Dole, pineapple man and son of Hawaii's first president.

But they could and did let themselves be strewn with island blossoms and lei (wreaths). They were made to feel tremendously important when the Maui left Honolulu by a dozen planes hawking, towering, swooping over the harbor in their honor. A dark shaft struck through their glory when an Army monoplane maneuvered by Lieut. Charles Linton Williams plummeted down and was wrapped, plane and man, in sea death.

It was a foregone conclusion that both heroes would receive Distinguished Flying Crosses. They were to present themselves to President Coolidge in South Dakota, visit Milwaukee (Hero Maitland's home) and be told about that city's new Maitland Airport, and visit Dayton, Ohio, scene of their preparations. Later, Lieutenant Hegenberger would return to his post in the office of Assistant Secretary of War F. Trubee Davison; Lieutenant Maitland to his as instrument chief of the Army post at Dayton.