Dublin to Labrador

Unheralded, unawaited, after a secret start from Berlin, the Bremen dropped from the sky above Dublin on March 26. Three head-erect Germans stepped from her cabin: Baron Ehrenfried Gunther von Huenefeld, monocled Prussian nobleman, owner of the plane; Capt. Hermann Koehl, stolid flyer from Berlin, proud possessor of a heroic war record; Arthur Spindler, co-pilot and mechanic, who had been Capt. Koehl's sergeant during the War. They announced themselves on the way to the U. S., determined to be the first to make the hazardous wind-bucking passage East to West.

Day followed day. Impatient, fretful, the three Germans waited for clearing weather. There was nothing to do but pace the turf of Baldonnel Airdrome, inspecting and reinspecting their Junkers plane and its powerful Junkers engine. Talk in idleness led to argument. Baron von Huenefeld spoke a fiery word. Mechanic Spindler packed his bag, left, and then there were only two. No one dared ask the tight-lipped Prussian exactly why.

A short test flight was hastily arranged and an Irishman climbed into the seat beside Pilot Koehl and the controls. Commandant James Fitzmaurice it was, and, as befitted an adventurous Irish lad of 30 with a flair for the romantic and a record for the daring, he was head of the Air Force of the Irish Free State. He too wanted to fly across the Atlantic; had, indeed, made a start last September with Capt. Robert H. Mclntosh in the Fokker monoplane Princess Xenia, only to turn back after three hours' weary bicker with the winds.

At 9 o'clock on the evening of April 11, the two Germans and the Irishman were bending over maps and weather reports. Twice before that day the weather news had disappointed them. Also, word had come from Paris that Frenchmen were tuning up rival planes. The Germans decided, Fitzmaurice rushed from the room, burst into the Officers' Mess at Baldonnel. "Crack goes the whip, off go the horses, and round go the wheels at 5 o'clock!" he shouted. The report just received from the British Air Ministry said that almost ideal conditions might be expected as far as mid-Atlantic, though beyond lay possible danger.

The Irishman drank farewell toasts with his brothers of the Saorstat Corps. Said he: "Ten-thirty is my bedtime and I refuse to crawl in earlier just because there's a little job of flying over the Atlantic to be done tomorrow." It was midnight when he finally retired, in the room next to that of his eight-year-old daughter Pat, who, he said, "doesn't give a hump about all this flying." The Germans, strange figures in Ireland, plodded back to their quarters, the Baron to play a final game of solitaire, the phlegmatic Captain to make a final study of weather charts before turning in.

Long before 4 o'clock on the morning of the 12th, the roads to Baldonnel were burdened with men, women, children, donkeys, cycles, motorcars. The Bremen was trundled from her hangar and poised for flight, away from a perfect dawn. Koehl and Fitzmaurice, devout Catholics, made their confessions and Father O'Riordan blessed the plane. Baron von Huenefeld, doffing his yachting cap, hung a silken flag of the old German Empire beside that of the Irish Free State. President and Mrs. William T. Cosgrave, the German Consul-General, the Chief of Staff of the Army and other officials, watched.

Shortly after 4, von Huenefeld, monocle anchored in his right eye, sat down to a hard-boiled egg breakfast. Then he lighted a cigar and offered another to the Irishman, who smilingly declined; he could "wait till we get to New York."

Provisions were packed aboard: six unsalted beef sandwiches for each, six bananas, and six peeled oranges wrapped in buttered paper and placed in a biscuit tin with some chocolate. Half a dozen other oranges, prepared at the Baron's special request, had to be left behind to make room for nine vacuum flasks, five filled with beef tea, three with strong tea, and one with black coffee.

The motor was whirled. Once it spat and died, again it sputtered and coughed, finally it roared action. A man picked up the butt of von Huenefeld's discarded cigar for a souvenir.

For 15 maddening minutes the engine "rested," then Koehl gave her the gun, Fitzmaurice waved, and five tons of man, hope, and machinery lumbered down the long runway. Once they rose and bumped, but, with the ditch in sight, the Bremen took the air, swung sharply to the right to avoid the hills encircling Baldonnel, climbed to 2,000 feet. . . . Men and women fell to their knees, as their eyes followed the vanishing ship into heaven.

At 7:07 the Bremen passed over Costelloe, Galway, so high that only the conduct of other people remained discernible. Then--

P: On the Atlantic steamship lane, thousands of passengers on 24 ocean liners looked.

P: In Berlin, Mrs. Koehl stayed in her room, refusing any and all unofficial news.

P: In Dublin, Mrs. Fitzmaurice put Baby Pat to bed, and kept an all-night vigil.

P: In Times Square, Manhattan, drivers of busses which nightly carry yokels to Chinatown changed their signs to read "Mitchel Field"; made money.

P: At Mitchel Field, 25,000 swarmed up to the landing field, bought out sandwich stands, played with the cat which was abandoned by Charles Augustus Lindbergh.

P: In a locked room at 455 East 135th Street, Manhattan, Uncle August Koehl, music teacher, composed a march for his nephew, entitled "Mitchel Field or Heaven."

P: In Washington and elsewhere, smart Germans recalled to each other the gallant War record of much-wounded von Huenefeld. The monocled eye is said to be almost sightless. The heart, loyally Hohenzollern, has never recovered gaiety since 1918.

P: On Greenly Island, in bleak Belle Isle Straits, southern Labrador, the population of 14 slept a long night's worth.

Thursday passed cheerily for the three men in the plane, and Thursday night. Friday morning they were west of mid-Atlantic. Their drinks were still warm. Weather was cold and foggy.

Friday afternoon they headed into a gale. Ice began to cover their vessel; wind heaved it roughly about. Darkness was coming on; their benzine was almost gone. So they dipped in a cautious glide toward the earth's surface, not knowing whether below the fog's bed was land or water.

There was land, an island. And on it, or between it and another island, was a stretch of level ice, perhaps over a lake. With practically no fuel left, they were obliged to try a landing.

They did land, crumbling their undercarriage and scraping a hole in the ice. Thus was accomplished the first westerly flight across the North Atlantic. It was almost 5:30 p. m. Friday. No one greeted them.

Their great luck was that they had landed near an inhabited lighthouse. One Jacques le Tempier, the keeper, told them, during the pauses of his astonishment, that they were on Greenly Island in the narrow Strait of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland. Hospitably he put on water to boil and meat to cook. The fliers ate in the yellow light of kitchen lamps.

The lighthouse keeper carried their first message by walking across the Strait ice to the telegraph station at Lourdes de Blanc Sablon. A message went to Point Armour, where one William Barrett operated the wireless station. That first message announcing the Atlantic crossing was for the North German Lloyd steamship offices in Manhattan. The line had provided money for the flight.

From Quebec "Duke" Schiller, Canadian pilot, and Dr. Louis Cuisinier, French ace, left in a Canadian Transcontinental Airways Co. plane for Greenly Island. They returned with Major Fitzmaurice, whom the Irish Free State Government had just promoted from Commandant. The Germans remained behind.

P: At Bremen, a coalition of Socialists, Communists and Democrats prevented the Municipal Council from sending the German fliers praise because the plane had carried Monarchist instead of Republican colors.

P: At Berlin, Frau Koehl joyously celebrated her husband's 40th birthday and packed her prettiest dresses for a swift trip to Manhattan as the guest of the North German Lloyd's Dresden.

P: At Dublin, Mrs. Fitzmaurice packed her prettiest dresses to join Frau Koehl aboard the Dresden at Queenstown.

P: From Manhattan flew Fraulein Herta Junkers, handsome tall daughter of Professor Junkers, the plane's builder, in another Junkers, bearing equipment to Greenly Island to repair the disabled Bremen.