Bremen v. Europa

GERMAN AIRPLANE HEADING FOR

AMERICA yelped Monday morning headlines to catch the foggy attention of a population going back to work after the week-end leisure. The population shivered with excitement, devoured the columns. Devouring they found the sentence: "The pilots served in the armies of the Central Powers during the War." The population figuratively and (along the Northeastern coast literally) packed housetops to cheer the oncoming Germans. . . . At 3 p. m. Sunday favorable weather reports sent the word sizzling over Germany that two Junkers monoplanes would start for the U. S. Cornelius Edzard and Johann Risticz, Herman Koehl and Friederich Loose, flyers, sat down to hearty dinners of soup, venison, pork, coffee, wine, beer.

At the Dessau flying field the

Europa and the Bremen, low-winged monoplanes that looked like thick prehistoric lizards received their final tuning up. They received mail for the U. S., $18,000 worth of which (value of the stamps) had been sent to the Dessau post office, much of it from stamp collectors addressing U. S. friends asking that the cancelled stamps be returned. Next the pilots loaded in rations prepared by their good fraus: sausage, chocolate, zwieback, hard-boiled eggs, bananas, lemons, orange juice, tea. A bottle of fine brandy was rejected as too heavy. Officials clapped them on the backs; fraus kissed them goodbye. They climbed into the planes. With them climbed Hubert R. Knickerbocker, U. S. newspaperman representing the Hearst newspapers; also Baron Gunther von Huehnefeld, publicity man for the North German Lloyd steamship line. Both passengers were ignorant of airplanes. They took no mascots. Said Captain Koehl: "Gasoline, plenty of it, is your best talisman."

Into the German sunset rose the two planes now looking like fat fish with long forward fins. The crowd cheered; officials gave out statements to the press: Germany's bid for international air recogni tion was under way.

An hour later the Bremen, bearing Pilots Loose and Koehl, Passenger von Huehnefeld passed over Hanover flying low. Hours passed.

The Europa ran into an inky fog over the North Sea, turned back, tried to skirt the fog; failed; came down near Bremen, Germany, slightly damaged. The pilots said that attempting navigation through the fog would have been suicide.

The Bremen, early separated from her sister plane, apparently avoided the fog. London reported the plane unofficially over the North Sea; later also unofficially over Yorkshire.

After 22 hours, out of the dense fog that now covered most of Germany the Bremen coasted to earth again back in Dessau. It too had been repulsed by a wall of blackness. Said Pilot Loose: "Nobody could fly in that weather. . . ." Herr Professor Hermann Junkers, grieving but not disconsolate, rushed the preparation of a third plane, the D 1198.