The 1924 Army World Flight, the Douglas World Cruiser, and the Eight Men Who First Circled the Earth by Air

On September 28, 1924, two biplanes settled onto the water at Seattle, Washington, completing the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. Four Douglas World Cruisers had lifted off 175 days earlier carrying eight U.S. Army Air Service men and the ambition of a nation. Two aircraft were lost along the way. All eight men came home.

Why the U.S. Army Wanted to Fly Around the World

In 1924, aviation was only 21 years past Kitty Hawk, and governments around the world were moving fast to claim what the airplane could do next. The United States Army Air Service recognized that being first to circle the globe by air was not merely an adventure - it was a declaration of military capability and national prestige.

They were not alone in that recognition. The British Royal Air Force had a team preparing and had already departed on an attempt heading in the opposite direction. The French, Portuguese, and Argentinians were working on their own expeditions. This was geopolitics conducted at altitude.

Two Years of Planning Before a Single Engine Started

The Army spent nearly two years organizing the expedition before a wheel left the ground. They negotiated diplomatic clearances with dozens of governments, pre-positioned fuel and spare parts at stops distributed around the entire planet, and coordinated with the United States Navy to station ships along every oceanic leg as emergency rescue platforms.

The logistics were the foundation of the mission. As events would prove, the depth of that support structure would determine whether the expedition succeeded at all.

The Douglas World Cruiser: Built for Everything

For the aircraft, the Army contracted Douglas Aircraft of Santa Monica, California. Donald Douglas had founded the company just three years earlier. The design brief was demanding by any standard: the aircraft needed to withstand Arctic temperatures in Alaska and tropical humidity in Southeast Asia, convert between wheeled landing gear and pontoon floats depending on the next stop, and carry enough fuel and spare components to operate independently in regions with no support infrastructure within several hundred miles.

The World Cruiser was a biplane with an open cockpit, powered by the Liberty 12-cylinder engine - approximately 400 horsepower, the same powerplant that had pulled American aircraft through the skies of France in World War One. It carried 475 gallons of fuel, providing roughly 1,200 miles of range. It was purposeful and heavy rather than elegant, and it was exactly right for the mission.

Four aircraft were built and named after American cities: Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans.

The Eight Men

Two crew members flew each aircraft - a pilot and a mechanic-pilot whose primary responsibility was keeping the Liberty engine alive across every leg.

Major Frederick Martin, the expedition’s designated flight commander, flew the Seattle with Sergeant Alva Harvey. Lieutenant Lowell Smith commanded the Chicago with Lieutenant Leslie Arnold. Smith was 32 years old, a World War One veteran whose leadership operated through competence and quiet authority rather than rank. Lieutenant Leigh Wade and Lieutenant Henry Ogden had the Boston. Lieutenant Erik Nelson and Lieutenant John Harding flew the New Orleans.

Departure: April 6, 1924

The four World Cruisers lifted off from Sand Point, near Seattle, Washington, on April 6, 1924, under an overcast sky and turned north into Alaska.

The Aleutian Island chain is a place pilots who have actually flown there describe with particular care. Weather builds off the North Pacific in minutes. Ceilings drop without warning. Fog obscures ridgelines. The wind changes direction too fast to chart accurately. And these men were sitting in open cockpits - no enclosure - absorbing the full force of Alaskan April wind for hours at a time. Goggles iced. The Liberty engines ran differently in the cold. The mechanics in the rear seats listened to exhaust notes the way a physician listens to a heartbeat.

The Seattle Goes Down in Alaska

Major Martin and Sergeant Harvey, flying the Seattle, were picking their way through low cloud over the Alaska Peninsula with no attitude indicator, no gyroscope - navigating by feel and by whatever they could see through the windscreen. They got too close to the terrain. The Seattle struck a mountainside.

Both men survived. The aircraft was gone.

Martin and Harvey hiked out of the Alaskan wilderness, a process that took more than two weeks before they reached a settlement and word reached the outside world. By then, the three remaining aircraft were already well across the Pacific.

Lowell Smith assumed command without ceremony. He got the Chicago running and pointed west.

Across the Pacific, Asia, and Into Europe

The formation crossed to Japan, where the reception reflected the mutual recognition of military cultures that understand the demands of flight. They continued south along the Chinese coast, where the humidity arrived with the latitude change and oil temperatures in the Liberty engines climbed. Into the Philippines, across to the Malay Peninsula, northwest to Rangoon and Calcutta and across the Indian subcontinent.

The monsoon season was building to the south throughout the Asian legs. A slower pace would have pushed the North Atlantic crossings into autumn - a season that has no mercy for open-cockpit biplanes over open ocean.

The formation pressed northwest through Persia and across the ancient landscape of Mesopotamia, into Constantinople and north through Europe - the Alps, France, England, Scotland. By the time Smith’s three aircraft were working through Europe, the British expedition had been effectively ended by mechanical failures. The record was within reach. Then they turned north, toward Iceland and Greenland, and the Atlantic.

The Boston Goes Down in the North Atlantic

Lieutenant Leigh Wade and Lieutenant Henry Ogden, flying the Boston, made it through Iceland and were somewhere over the open ocean when the engine failed. The aircraft went down into the sea.

The Navy ships pre-positioned along the route for exactly this contingency were in place. The USS Richmond was on station. Both men were pulled from the water. They survived.

The Army made a spare aircraft available. The crew took to calling it the Boston Two. Wade and Ogden rejoined the formation and flew the remaining legs home.

September 28, 1924: The Finish at Seattle

The Chicago and the New Orleans settled onto the water at Seattle on September 28, 1924, with the Boston Two alongside. 27,553 miles. 28 countries. 175 days. Every ocean on the map. The first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe.

The reception across American cities in the weeks that followed was enormous - ticker tape, official receptions, crowds at every stop. The country recognized clearly what had been accomplished, and who had accomplished it.

What This Flight Means for Aviation History

The 1924 World Flight succeeded not because conditions were favorable - they were not - but because the planning was deep enough to absorb failure. Two aircraft destroyed. No lives lost. Mission complete.

For anyone who flies today, the expedition stands as an early proof of what operational aviation demands beyond skill: logistics, preparation, contingency thinking, and support systems capable of functioning when primary elements break down. The qualities that brought the Chicago and New Orleans back to Seattle are the same qualities that underpin every serious long-range flight operation since. The flight commander walked out of the Alaskan wilderness. Two men were pulled from the North Atlantic. The structure held.

Where to See the Surviving Aircraft Today

The Chicago hangs at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., in the company of the Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, and the Apollo 11 command module. It looks small and worn. That is exactly right. It is a working airplane that worked harder than almost any machine in aviation history, and it belongs in that collection.

The New Orleans is on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Both original airframes survived the century.

Key Takeaways

• On April 6, 1924, four U.S. Army Douglas World Cruisers departed Sand Point, Washington; two aircraft plus a replacement returned on September 28, 1924, completing the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe.
• The expedition covered 27,553 miles across 28 countries in 175 days, crossing every ocean.
• Two aircraft were lost - the Seattle to a mountainside in Alaska and the Boston to engine failure over the North Atlantic - but all eight crew members survived.
• Lieutenant Lowell Smith assumed command after the Seattle crashed in Alaska and led the remaining formation to completion.
• The mission’s success depended as much on two years of pre-positioned logistics and Navy rescue ships as on airmanship - a lesson in operational depth that still applies to aviation planning today.