The Douglas World Cruiser Chicago and the Army Airmen Who Circled the Globe in 1924

On April 6, 1924, four biplanes lifted off from Sand Point Airfield near Seattle, Washington, and began the first successful circumnavigation of the globe by aircraft. Eight men, four airplanes, 175 days, and 26,303 miles - completed three years before Charles Lindbergh’s celebrated North Atlantic crossing. By the time Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in 1927, it was already proven fact that the oceans could be crossed by air.

Why the U.S. Army Air Service Mounted a Round-the-World Attempt

Britain, France, Italy, and Argentina had all attempted round-the-world flights before the Americans. None succeeded. The U.S. Army Air Service decided American aviators would be first, and spent the better part of a year making the logistics work.

Twenty-three countries had to grant landing rights. Fuel depots were pre-positioned across Alaska, Japan, China, India, Arabia, Europe, Iceland, and Greenland. Spare engines were shipped ahead and staged along the route, because the powerplants on these aircraft required a major overhaul roughly every 50 flying hours - and 50 hours went by fast on a trip of this scale.

The Aircraft: How Donald Douglas Built the World Cruiser

The Army turned to Donald Douglas, a young engineer operating out of a converted motion picture studio in Santa Monica, California. Douglas had founded his company just three years earlier. The requirements handed to him were extraordinary: build a two-seat aircraft capable of legs up to 2,000 miles, with interchangeable float, wheeled, and ski landing gear - the same airframe, three configurations, field-swappable.

Douglas built four of them and called them the World Cruiser.

They were large, purposeful biplanes powered by a Liberty 12-cylinder engine producing approximately 400 horsepower. Construction was fabric over spruce, wire-braced - standard for the finest aircraft of that era. Both cockpits were open, with the pilot forward and the mechanic/co-pilot aft. The instrument panel would look sparse to a student pilot today. These men navigated by compass heading, elapsed time, and the color of the water below them.

Each aircraft was named for an American city: the Seattle, the Chicago, the Boston, and the New Orleans.

The Eight Airmen and Their Crews

Major Frederick Martin commanded the expedition from the Seattle, with Sergeant Alva Harvey in the rear cockpit. Lieutenant Lowell Smith and Lieutenant Leslie Arnold flew the Chicago. Lieutenant Erik Nelson and Lieutenant John Harding drew the New Orleans. Lieutenant Leigh Wade and Sergeant Henry Ogden had the Boston.

Each rear-cockpit crew member was primarily responsible for keeping the engine alive - watching gauges, catching small problems before they became fatal ones.

The Route North: Alaska and the Aleutian Islands

The formation departed heading north up the Pacific coast, then west across Alaska toward the Aleutian Island chain. The Aleutians are among the most hostile flying environments on earth: fog that materializes in minutes, williwaws (sudden violent gusts off volcanic terrain), and water temperatures around 38°F - which tells you exactly how long survival in the water would last.

Twenty-three days into the flight, the mission nearly ended.

The Loss of the Seattle in Alaska

Major Martin was leading the formation in heavy fog along the Alaska Peninsula, following the coastline at low altitude as the ceiling dropped. The Seattle struck a snow and rock slope and came to a stop. Martin and Harvey were alive, but the aircraft was destroyed.

What followed was a test of a different kind. Stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with no working radio, the two men spent ten days traveling out on foot - miles of tundra, river crossings, and coastal terrain - before a fishing boat found them working along the coast.

The three remaining crews had been waiting at Dutch Harbor. When word came that Martin and Harvey had survived, the decision was made: the mission would continue with three aircraft and six men.

Japan, Asia, and the Challenge of Equatorial Heat

Japan received the crews with genuine warmth. At Kagoshima and Kasumigaura Naval Air Station north of Tokyo, Japanese military officers in dress whites met American lieutenants in oil-stained leather flying suits. In 1924 - a full decade before Pacific tensions began building - aviation had a particular diplomatic power. Anyone who understood what these men were doing respected them for it.

The route ran south down the Asian coast through Shanghai, Saigon, and Bangkok, threading mountain passes on the margins of the Himalayas. The Liberty engine didn’t have the ceiling to cross the Himalayas directly; local knowledge of those passes, accumulated by traders and pilots over centuries, guided the route.

India in midsummer brought a different problem: heat that drove oil temperatures toward redline. The mechanics watched their gauges constantly, catching problems early. The Persian Gulf, Constantinople (modern Istanbul), a landing on the Bosphorus between two continents, then into Southern France and England.

The Boston Lost Over the North Atlantic

Approaching the British Isles, the Boston developed engine trouble. Lieutenant Wade made a controlled open-water landing in the North Atlantic - both men safe, aircraft floating normally. A British warship moved in to assist. During the tow, the ship’s wake rolled over the floatplane. The Boston sank.

Wade and Ogden were rescued. Two aircraft lost, two remaining.

The Arctic Crossing: Iceland, Greenland, and Home

The Chicago and the New Orleans crossed the North Atlantic through Iceland and Greenland. Icebergs filled the Davis Strait below them. Fingers worked the controls through leather gloves that were never quite thick enough. Navigation was compass, clock, and sea ice - experienced eyes could read ice variations for position, if they knew how.

Down the east coast of North America the two aircraft came, with newspaper reporters at every reporting stop. The American public had been following dispatches from Burma, Greece, and Greenland for months.

In Pictou, Nova Scotia, the expedition gained its third aircraft again. Leigh Wade - whose original Boston sat on the bottom of the North Atlantic - had been given a replacement aircraft, the Boston II, and flew it north from the States to rejoin the formation.

The Return to Seattle: September 28, 1924

On September 28, 1924, all three aircraft landed back at Sand Point. The same water they had left 175 days earlier. 363 hours and 7 minutes of flight time. 26,303 miles of earth.

The crowds were enormous - people who had followed the telegraphed dispatches since April pressed to the ropes to see what they had only imagined.

Where the Chicago Is Today - and Why It Matters

Lowell Smith’s Chicago is on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. It is the aircraft that completed the full circumnavigation.

Standing next to it, what strikes you is how honest it is. Fabric and spruce. A Liberty engine with twelve cylinders and no digital systems of any kind. A windscreen about the size of a dinner plate. The men flying it found Japan by flying a compass heading and counting the hours.

Donald Douglas, meanwhile, applied what he learned building the World Cruiser to everything that came after. The company that started in a Santa Monica movie studio went on to produce the DC-3, DC-4, and DC-6 - airliners that defined commercial aviation for three decades. Eight men in four open-cockpit biplanes helped lay the foundation for one of the great aerospace companies of the twentieth century.

Key Takeaways

The 1924 U.S. Army Air Service World Flight was the first successful circumnavigation of the globe by aircraft, completed three years before Lindbergh’s Atlantic crossing.
Four Douglas World Cruisers were built specifically for the mission, each capable of swapping between float, wheel, and ski gear in the field.
Two of the four aircraft were lost - the Seattle in Alaska and the Boston in the North Atlantic - but all eight airmen survived.
The flight covered 26,303 miles in 363 hours and 7 minutes of total flight time over 175 days.
The Chicago, piloted by Lowell Smith, is preserved at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Donald Douglas used the engineering lessons from the World Cruiser program to build the DC-series airliners that defined commercial aviation through the mid-20th century.