1924 Round The World Flight Covers (Not Zepps)

The first of these came in the mail today. The other I've had for a while:



Above: Event cover issued for the so-called "First Leg" of the 1924 Army Round the World Flight. The historic flight itself started and ended in Seattle, Washington. But the aircraft were constructed by Douglas in Santa Monica, and after training with the prototype at Langley Field, Virginia, the Army fliers assembled in Santa Monica where the planes left for Seattle, to great fanfare, on March 17, 1924. The "official" start of the flight from Seattle was on April 6, 1934.

Below: Event cover commemorating the arrival of the Chicago and the New Orleans back in the US. The last stop before arriving back in the US was Pictou Bay, Nova Scotia, where they were joined by the "Boston II" (the original prototype DWC used in training). The three planes then left for Boston which was supposed to be the first place the planes would touch down on returning to the US. But they were forced down by fog along the coast of Maine in a cove at Mere Point in Casco Bay, before finally reaching Boston.



Below: These will make up a page in my Hap Arnold exhibit. Below is a picture of Arnold (left) talking to one of the pilots, Lt. Lowell Smith (center). Arnold's wife, Bee, flew with Lowell in his Douglas World Cruiser (the second of four, named "Chicago") on the flight to Seattle.

Very nice. Two more items you might keep an eye out for are a cover on the England to USA leg (pretty much impossible to find) and perhaps one of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum relic series aviation print that has a 2 inch by 2 inch square of the actual fabric that covered the "Chicago", one of these cruisers (not overly difficult to find and obtain). The Smithsonian made a small number of these with actual pieces of the fabric back around the 1970s but soon stopped the practice that they did on this and a few other historic aircraft as they rethought the idea of selling off original pieces of their historic aircraft.

Thanks, Kimo. I'll keep my eyes open, especially for the Smithsonian print. Especially nice that it is of the Chicago, since that's the aircraft most applicable to my exhibit. I didn't mention it above, but Arnold specially recommended Lowell Smith to be one of the pilots. Smith was involved in other early aviation feats under Arnold at Rockwell Field in San Diego, like the first aerial refueling.

I always appreciate you sharing your expertise in aerophilately with the forum.

Basil

Happy to share. First flights and historical aviation artifacts are one of my main collecting interests.

The England to US leg I mention to keep an eye out for would be postmarked Brough, England on July 27, 1924 and are canceled on arrival at Seattle, Washington on September 28, 1924. The arrival cancel is on the front upper left corner and is on a US stamp placed there to ensure the arrival cancelation. There may have been as few as just 3 of these carried so it would be essential to see that both the proper postmark and arrival postmark are in place. My own thought of which I have no proof is that it is possible that there could have been more than 3 flown since these are on envelopes that have a pre-printed cachet across the top reading "ROUND THE WORLD FLIGHT / U.S.A. ARMY AVIATORS / Western Leg - England -U.S.A. / THE NORTH ATLANTIC" There are also reserved areas in this pre-printed cachet for both the British and American stamps and cancels to be placed. My thinking that, again is purely my personal suspicion, is why would someone go through the bother of pre-printing special envelopes if they were only going to use three of them?

Here is a photo of what the Chicago World Cruiser print with the
2" by 2" cutting of the actual original fabric looks like. I have one of these in my complete set of this very short-lived and in my opinion misguided Air and Space Museum program to cut up original fabric from historical aircraft in the museum and glue it to these prints and sell them to the public. It is amazing that these can still be found today for under $100 (depending on how nicely preserved and/or framed they are) from places like ebay.