World-Class Accomplishment : Santa Monica Museum to Celebrate Circling of Globe in 1924 by Open-Cockpit Planes

They flew into sandstorms, driving rain, Arctic winds and, once, a mountain.

But the first around-the-world flight wasn’t all bad. The U.S. Army pilots brought home medals, headlines and the affections of young Parisian women.

They landed 70 years ago this Friday at what would later become Santa Monica Airport, helping to guarantee the future of Douglas Aircraft and put Santa Monica on the map.

Just don’t tell Seattle.

“We are the official start and finish,” said Hollis Palmer, spokeswoman for the Museum of Flight in Seattle. “But, technically, they did take off from Santa Monica first.”

The Museum of Flying at the Santa Monica Airport is planning three days of tours and videos to celebrate the anniversary of the trip, which--unofficially, at least--began and ended at the airport, then called Clover Field.

The eight airmen who took off in four single-engine, open-cockpit Douglas World Cruisers were less concerned about the politics of the finish line than about oil leaks, unreliable maps and unknown hazards.

“Nobody had ever flown over the Pacific before,” said Charles Schwartz, a docent at the museum. “Nobody had ever flown over the Atlantic. Nobody had flown in the Arctic. To this day, it’s never been done (again) in an open-cockpit plane.”

Their fame was eclipsed by Charles Lindbergh, who became the first person to fly solo over the Atlantic three years later, but the eight pilots and mechanics were the best of the 900-man Army Air Service, Schwartz said.

“It was considered an honor beyond belief to be selected,” he said.

Behind the scenes, there was more to the endeavor than heroics. The military and Douglas Aircraft were eager to prove the potential of airplanes to a dubious President Calvin Coolidge.

They also wanted to beat the times of pilots from other countries, including Great Britain and France, who were at the same time mounting their own efforts to circle the globe in the opposite direction. Seattle was designated the Americans’ official start and finish line to shave two weeks off their time, Schwartz said.

But the four planes actually began their trip from Clover Field on March 17, 1924. They headed north to Seattle, where their landing wheels were replaced with pontoons, and flew on to Alaska.

On the way, Maj. Frederick Martin, the flight commander, and his mechanic, Staff Sgt. Alva Harvey, were struggling to catch up to the other three planes, trying to eyeball a safe route over a mountain range, when they miscalculated. They crashed into an isolated, frozen ridge and survived a 10-day hike to the Coast.

The others continued on to Japan., where they were warmly received by military men, politicians and geishas. But one Japanese officer cautioned privately that their countries would eventually come to blows. (In fact, Martin was an Army air commander at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked 17 years later.)

As they flew on to Shanghai, Saigon and Calcutta, U.S. Navy destroyers sailed beneath the planes and advance men met them with fuel and spare parts. Lacking logistics support and planning, planes from other nations broke down or crashed, failing to complete their trips.

But the three remaining U.S. planes continued their journey to the Middle East, enduring 115-degree temperatures and blinding sandstorms. Thousands greeted them when they arrived in Paris in July. They were soon off to London, and then came one of the most dangerous legs of the trip, the North Atlantic crossing.

An oil leak forced one of the planes, the Boston, down in the ocean, and it sank after a destroyer rescued its crew. The other planes, the Chicago and the New Orleans, flew on to Canada and across the continent to Santa Monica, where a crowd of 200,000 welcomed them on Sept. 23, 1924. They were accompanied from the East Coast by a replacement plane, the Boston II.

The planes went on to the official finish in Seattle, 175 days after they had left. The Chicago is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and the New Orleans hangs from the ceiling of the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica.

To commemorate the anniversary Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Santa Monica museum is offering special tours around the New Orleans, an hourly film about the flight and a special exhibit in the Airventure children’s interactive wing.

The museum, at 2772 Donald Douglas Loop, will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults, $5 for senior citizens and $3 for children ages 3 to 17. Children under 3 will be admitted free.

David Price, president of the museum, grew up in Santa Monica watching new Douglas planes roll down the runways. He went on to fly fighter jets for the Navy. Aviation, he said, isn’t the only thing that has changed in the 70 years since the flight around the world.

“I’m afraid we’ve lost our pioneer spirit, not just in aircraft but in lots of things,” he said.

But there’s always hope for new aviation pioneers, he said. Referring to the children who visit the museum and stand beneath the New Orleans, he said: “They look at this big old biplane and they look at the world map, and they understand the significance. And little girls say, ‘I want to be a pilot.’ It gives me goose bumps to hear it.”