The Douglas World Cruisers, Lowell Smith, and the First Flight Around the World in Nineteen Twenty-Four

In 1924, eight U.S. Army Air Service pilots flew open-cockpit biplanes around the world - no pressurized cabins, no GPS, no weather radar. They departed April 6, 1924, from Sand Point Field near Seattle and returned September 28, 1924, having covered 26,345 miles across six continents in 175 days. It was the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe.

The State of Aviation in 1924

The Wright brothers had flown just 21 years earlier. Charles Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic crossing was still three years away. The aircraft of the era were largely open-cockpit biplanes descended from Great War designs - wood, wire, and fabric. A typical instrument panel carried an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, a compass, and an oil pressure gauge.

General Billy Mitchell, the visionary and frequently combative commander of the U.S. Army Air Service, had been arguing for years that aviation was a strategic reality, not a sideshow. A round-the-world flight would prove that argument in a way no congressional hearing ever could.

Congress approved a limited budget. Planning began in earnest in 1923 - route mapping, support ship positioning, fuel pre-staging, and diplomatic negotiations with every nation on the route. Over 100 support vessels were assigned or repositioned along the planned path. The logistics alone were an extraordinary achievement before a single aircraft left the ground.

The Douglas World Cruiser: Built for the Mission

The aircraft was designed specifically for this attempt by Donald Douglas and his team in Santa Monica, California. Douglas took the basic structure of his DT torpedo bomber, rebuilt the fuselage, and added extended fuel tanks. The result was a purpose-built machine:

• Engine: Liberty 12, producing approximately 400 horsepower
• Configuration: Two-seat, open-cockpit biplane
• Gross weight: Just over 8,000 pounds fully loaded

The critical engineering decision was interchangeable landing gear. The World Cruiser could operate on either wheeled undercarriage or pontoon floats, with crews swapping between configurations at major stopovers. In 1924, roughly half the stops on a round-the-world route had prepared airfields. The rest were harbors, rivers, and protected bays. The ability to operate on water wasn’t a convenience - it was a survival requirement.

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

The Eight Crew Members

• Major Frederick Martin and Sergeant Alva Harvey - Seattle
• Lieutenant Lowell Smith and Lieutenant Leslie Arnold - Chicago
• Lieutenant Leigh Wade and Sergeant Henry Ogden - Boston
• Lieutenant Erik Nelson and Lieutenant John Harding - New Orleans

Average age: late twenties to early thirties. Most carried flying experience from the tail end of World War I or the immediate postwar years. None had attempted anything remotely like this.

Departure and the Alaska Leg

All four aircraft lifted off from Sand Point Field on Lake Washington, just north of Seattle, on April 6, 1924. The planned route ran west: Alaska, the Aleutian Chain, Japan, across Asia, through the Middle East, across Europe, over the North Atlantic, and back down the East Coast to Seattle - roughly 27,000 planned miles.

Alaska started punishing them almost immediately. The Gulf of Alaska in April means unpredictable weather systems, severe terrain, and ceilings that can drop from 3,000 feet to zero in under an hour. The mountains of the Alaska Peninsula rise steeply from coastlines that offer almost no warning. Every pilot who has flown in Alaska understands this; others have to take it on faith.

On April 30, Major Martin was leading the formation near Port Moller when the weather closed hard. Descending through an overcast to maintain visual contact with the coastline, the Seattle struck a fog-shrouded ridgeline near Chignik. The aircraft was destroyed.

Both Martin and Harvey walked out alive. It took them ten days - through rain, patches of snow, and early mosquitoes - before they stumbled into a coastal village, still wearing the same flight gear they’d left Seattle in. Command of the mission passed to Lieutenant Lowell Smith.

Lowell Smith: The Right Man at the Right Moment

Smith was 32 years old when he assumed command. In 1923, he had been part of the team that completed the first successful aerial refueling experiment over Rockwell Field, San Diego. A modified DH-4 acting as a tanker transferred fuel via rubber hose to a receiver aircraft in flight, keeping it airborne for nearly 37 continuous hours. That operation required precision formation flying, constant mechanical improvisation, and a level of sustained focus that very few pilots possessed.

Smith was not a showman. He was the pilot who looked at the map, identified the problem, and flew the next leg.

The Pacific and Asia

The three remaining aircraft pushed west. Island-hopping across the Aleutian Chain and onward to Japan meant open-ocean navigation with no electronic aids and no reliable weather information beyond what support ships could relay by radio. Salt spray worked into every rivet and fitting. Mechanics rebuilt and checked engines at every stop. The Liberty 12 was a capable engine, but it demanded constant attention - not a machine you could leave unattended between legs.

The reception in Japan in May was something none of them had anticipated. Massive crowds at the harbors. Official ceremonies. International press. Japan had been building its own aviation culture, and the arrival of these American airmen in open-cockpit floatplanes was a public event of the first order. The crews attended the ceremonies, smiled for the cameras, and got back to work.

From Japan: across the Yellow Sea to China, south through Indochina, into India.

The heat over India and the Persian Gulf presented a different set of problems. The Liberty 12 already ran hot in cooler conditions. Over the Indian subcontinent in summer, engine management required constant throttle discipline and careful oil temperature monitoring. The crews navigated continuously shifting terrain - jungle, desert, mountain, coastline - by chart and compass, adjusting for wind drift by watching the ground and sea surface below.

In Calcutta, the aircraft were converted from pontoon floats to wheeled undercarriage for the overland segments across the Middle East and Europe. New landing gear, weight-and-balance adjustments, systems checks on everything that had taken a beating since Japan. The crews did most of the work themselves.

Europe: Paris, London, and a Rival’s Respect

The Americans landed at Le Bourget, Paris - the same field where Lindbergh would land three years later - and were met by enormous crowds and official ceremonies.

The reception in London carried a particular weight. Britain had mounted its own round-the-world attempt that same year, attempting an eastward crossing of the Pacific. Their team had not been able to complete it. The British aviators who greeted Smith’s crew understood exactly what had been accomplished. Those handshakes carried genuine respect.

The North Atlantic: Two Aircraft Down, One Replacement Ready

Crossing the North Atlantic meant going north first - Iceland, then Greenland, then Labrador - keeping individual open-ocean hops as short as possible. In August, even at those latitudes, seas can build fast.

Leigh Wade brought the Boston down for an emergency landing in the waters near Iceland after a failing oil pressure system left him no other option. The aircraft got down safely, but the open-water landing with a compromised engine was hard. The Boston sustained damage severe enough that it could not continue. Wade and Ogden were rescued. The aircraft was lost.

The Army had planned for contingencies. A spare World Cruiser was already assembled and waiting at Pictou Harbor, Nova Scotia, designated Boston II. Wade and Ogden were transported to Nova Scotia, given the replacement aircraft, and rejoined the formation for the final legs home.

The Return to Seattle

Down through Greenland. Across to Labrador. South along the East Coast - past Boston, past New York, past Washington. The country had been following this story for months.

On September 28, 1924 - 175 days after departing - the Chicago, the New Orleans, and Boston II crossed the Cascade foothills and descended toward Lake Washington. They landed at Sand Point Field at 1:14 p.m.

Total distance: 26,345 miles. The first flight around the world.

Why This Matters for Pilots

The 1924 world flight established something pilots and aviation planners would rely on for the next two decades: that long-range flight was fundamentally a planning and logistics problem, not just a flying one. Pre-positioned fuel, spare parts shipped to dozens of stops in advance, diplomatic clearances obtained months before departure, support vessels spread across oceans - all of it was necessary before anyone climbed into a cockpit.

The flight also demonstrated that mechanical failure, bad weather, and navigation in uncharted conditions were problems to be solved in sequence, not reasons to abort. Two of the four original aircraft were lost. All eight crew members survived. The mission continued. That combination of preparation, adaptability, and forward momentum is something every long-range operation since has drawn on.

When a reporter asked Smith what he thought of completing the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe, he reportedly said they had just been doing their jobs. That is both the modest answer and the accurate one. They had planned it, prepared it, adapted when it went wrong, and finished it.

Where to See the Chicago Today

The Chicago hangs in the main hall of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. - alongside the Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, and the Bell X-1.

It is smaller than you expect. The cockpit is an open section of fuselage: a leather seat, a handful of gauges, and nothing else. That is the seat Lowell Smith occupied over the North Pacific, over India in summer heat, and working across Greenland toward home.

Key Takeaways

• Eight U.S. Army Air Service pilots completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe, departing and returning to Sand Point Field, Seattle, between April 6 and September 28, 1924, covering 26,345 miles in 175 days.
• The Douglas World Cruiser was purpose-built for the mission with interchangeable wheel and float landing gear, allowing operations from both prepared airfields and open water.
• Two of the four original aircraft were lost - the Seattle in Alaska on April 30 and the Boston near Iceland - but all eight crew members survived. A replacement aircraft, Boston II, was waiting in Nova Scotia and rejoined the formation for the final legs.
• Lieutenant Lowell Smith assumed command after the Alaska loss and led the mission to completion; his background in the first aerial refueling endurance record directly informed the sustained focus the mission demanded.
• The flight required over a year of pre-mission logistics - 100+ support vessels, spare parts pre-staged globally, and diplomatic clearances from every nation on the route - establishing long-range aviation as a planning discipline as much as a flying one.