Notes

Bills Payable. A taxpayer saw in the newspapers that the Navy consumed 383,550 gallons of fuel oil and gasoline searching for the Dole flyers. Irate, he telegraphed the War Department, received an answer that he and other taxpayers would pay for those oils to the tune of $67,142.49.

Handwriting. Newspapers last week printed the last words of Paul Redfern, lost flyer to Brazil. In scratchy manuscript, dropped to the deck of the steamer Christian Krogh, the facsimile read: "Point ship to nearest land, wave flag or handkerchief once for each 100 miles. Thanks, Redfern."

Healthy & Wise. Connecticut's governor, John H. Trumbull, shook his head. He would not fly in the Maine State Forestry Department's plane from Moosehead Lake to Augusta. He inspected the plane, took a train to Augusta. Soon the plane fell into Lake Caucomgumoc, killing pilot and passenger.

Balloons

Diplomats, soldiers, scientists stood at Henry Ford's Detroit Airport peering upward at round blobs in the sky. Official Starter Edsel Ford had sent away 15 balloons in the 16th annual Gordon Bennett trophy race. The U. S. and Germany each had three balloons; France, Belgium and Italy two each; England, Spain and Switzerland one.

South winds shouldered the bags over Ohio, over the Carolinas. The next day five descended.

At various points in the South, frenzied blackamoors scuttled in from fields to report balloons overhead. Three more bags dropped safely the second day. Farthest South (the race was for distance) finally dropped the Detroit, piloted by R. C. Hill and A. G. Schlosser, having floated some 800 miles. (Frenchman Bennaime's 1,358-mile float from Stuttgart to Moscow in 1920 remains the record). The Goodyear VI placed second, W. T. Van Orman piloting.

Around-the-World

Twenty-eight days, 14 hours and 6 minutes is the briefest time in which man has ever gone around the world. Edward F. Schlee, Detroit dealer in oil, and William S. Brock, onetime airmail pilot, set out from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to lower this record, flying all the way in the Pride of Detroit, monoplane.

First Ten Days. See (TIME, Sept. 12.)

Eleventh Day. Eighty-eight actual flying hours since their departure from Harbor Grace in the Newfoundland dawn, the record wreckers slid skillfully to earth at the Dumdum Airdrome, Calcutta. Rejecting much well-meant hospitality they whipped out wrenches and overhauled the Pride of Detroit, Still in flying clothes, faces fringed with unshaven stubble, they shopped in the city, regretted a dinner invitation from the U. S. consul, went to bed early.

Twelfth Day. Flyers Schlee and Brock took another hop and came down in Rangoon, India. In far-off Washington a possible hurdle was raised across their path. Detroit relatives and friends requested the Navy Department to forbid the flight from Japan, pleading that neither man was a navigator and that their chances of reaching the tiny Midway Islands, over 3,000 miles from Tokyo, were remote; Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Douglas Robinson replied in hearty agreement, but said the Department had no authority over the movements of private individuals.

Thirteenth Day. For the first time the Pride of Detroit was lost.

Soon came despatches saying she had omitted Bangkok, flown farther on to Hanoi, French Indo-China.

Fourteenth Day. Schlee and Brock worked on their plane, slept at Hanoi and hopped off for Hongkong; slid safely down on British soil in China.

Fifteenth Day. Head winds tugged at the Pride of Detroit and cut her speed to 80 m.p.h. Undismayed she nosed ahead, to drop again to earth at Shanghai.

Sixteenth Day. Bidding China goodbye the Pride of Detroit darted toward Tokyo, in the land of little yellow men. She plunged into a thunder storm and for the first time in the trip was forced down; at Omura, Japan; undamaged; 600 miles from Tokyo.

Seventeenth Day. From Omura Flyers Schlee and Brock tried for Tokyo. Hampered by Japanese regulations forbidding them the air over fortified zones, hindered by a belching volcano, drenched by a rainstorm, they landed near Nago-saki. Downhearted, they inspected charts; figured that, to wreck the record, they had a little less than half way to go in about one third the required time.

Going up to London

Capt. Terence Tully and Lieut. James Medcalf, Canadians, reached that last haven of the eastward flyer, Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. Several days previously they had set out from London, Ontario, for a non-stop flight to London, England, for a $25,000 prize. Bad weather forced them back. Again they hopped; fog barred the way; they groped back to Washburn, Me. They flew to Harbor Grace.

A few hours after Old Glory had gone out to sea, Tully and Medcalf climbed into the Sir John Carling, a Stinson Detroiter, similar to the ship in which Edward F. Schlee and William S. Brock started around the world. In their map case was a short note. It told of the Old Glory's SOS. The message had come just before Tully and Medcalf left; friends feared to shake their nerves on the take-off by telling them. Somewhere out at sea they must open the map case, and learn how somewhere into the tossing water beneath them another ship had tumbled from the air. Whether or not they ever read the note was not known. The Sir John Carling carried no radio. She was not seen by any ship after she left Newfoundland. She did not arrive in London. The waves whisper her story; but man cannot understand the sombre argot of the sea.

The Road to Rome

A little boy jumped with a para- chute made from a tablecloth, felt the parachute give way above him, felt the world come up beneath him, rolled over uninjured. He had landed on a pile of hay. The boy was James De Witt Hill. About 35 years later he jumped from Old Orchard, Me., in an airplane made of wood and wires and steel; felt the airplane give way around him; felt the world coming up beneath him; splashed down into the ocean, disappeared.

Another boy constructed a glider and flew 1,000 feet off a California cliff. He was Lloyd W. Bertaud, aged 12. Grown-up he became an Army instructor in the War; an airmail pilot, a stunt flyer. Five years ago he went into the air with Miss Helen Lent of New York, and Belvin W. Maynard, "the flying-parson." The Reverend Maynard shouted a service into their ears; they came down to earth as Mr. & Mrs. Bertaud. Last week Lloyd Bertaud came down again, but not to earth. He splashed into the ocean, disappeared.

Philip A. Payne was not a child-hood aviator. He served in France during the War, but not in aviation. He embarked upon a field of work new to U. S., but it was not aviation. Mr. Payne took charge of the New York Daily News, the first of Manhattan's tabloid newspapers. Under his daring guidance it became an undreamed of success. Such a success that William Randolph Hearst engaged Mr. Payne to edit his New York tabloid, the Daily Mirror. The Mirror jumped amazingly in circulation. Last week Philip A. Payne jumped from Old Orchard, Me., in Mr. Hearst's airplane the Old Glory; splashed into the rough and foggy sea, disappeared.

Months of preparation had preceded their disappearance. Publisher Hearst had taken every known precaution for Old Glory: A complete radio set, rubber raft, flares, much food for the flyers, even little metal mouthpieces which distill a cup of water from the breath every 24 hours. The destination of the plane was Rome, 4,100 miles away (115 miles beyond Clarence Chamberlin's endurance record into Germany.) The Pope in his Vatican nodded, pleased, when the wires told how Father Mullen, Old Orchard priest, had blessed the plane and tits mission just before the takeoff.

For 14 hours after this take-off the Old Glory radio functioned perfectly, saying for the first 500 miles "all well." Then an electric whisper went up the spine of the listening world. SOS. Silence. Five minutes later another SOS. WRHP*--Five Hours out from Newfoundland, east. Silence.

Four ocean liners wheeled from their courses to comb the estimated spot where Old Glory radioed distress. It was a foggy night, rainy, winds were high. Though the ships reached the vicinity within a few hours after the cry for help, the nervous fingers of their groping searchlights could not touch the spot where three men may have floated in a soggy plane, or on a little rubber raft.

William Randolph Hearst published in his Mirror: "I will gladly give $25,000 to the captain and the crew of the ship which finds them." He also published telegrams through which he said, "I did my best to prevent him [Philip Payne] from going." Also, a telegram sent to Editor Payne prior to the flight: "I will not assume responsibility, but will proceed only if the Government will assume authority and responsibility." Editor Payne replied: "Secretary of Aviation F. Trubee Davison and Department of Commerce pronounce Old Glory the finest ship to attempt the trans- atlantic flight. You have been a great chief to work for. I honor and love you."

William Randolph Hearst did not publish a telegram from F. Trubee Davison, Assistant Secretary of War for Aeronautics, stating that he had sat in the plane, that it seemed all right, that he had made no minute examination, and that he could not accept any responsibility for its fitness for the flight.

With Flyers Hill, Bertaud and Payne in the Old Glory, there splashed into the ocean a wreath marked with the words: "Nungesser and Coli. You showed the way. We Follow." Days later, publisher Hearst's Daily Mirror sought and found a postscript. From a point approximately 600 miles northeast of St. Johns their "rescue" boat, S. S. Kyle sent a wireless. "Located wreck of Old Glory . . . but no sign of crew."

*WRHP--Old Glory's wireless code call, derived from the initials of "William Randolph Hearst's plane."