Samishiro to Wenatchee

When the Pacific Ocean was finally crossed nonstop by an airplane last week, the feat caused barely more excitement than many of the attempts and untoward incidents preceding it. Manhattan evening papers considered it far less important than that day's World Series game. Even the "hardluck flyers," Socialite Hugh Herndon Jr. and oldtime Barnstormer Clyde Pangborn, flyers of two oceans, seemed to sense an anticlimax when they skidded their wheelless Bellanca monoplane into the airport at Wenatchee, Wash., 41 hr. after taking off from Samishiro Beach, 280 mi. north of Tokyo. Their troubles on the flight had been less than their troubles with the Japanese authorities in Tokyo (TIME, Sept. 28, et ante). Yet their flight, 4,500 mi., was one of the greatest long distance flights accomplished. They had crossed the last of the northern oceans.

Soon after they left Samishiro Herndon cut a wire which let the plane's landing gear drop into the sea, reducing the load by 300 Ib. and the head resistance by 17%. It meant that wherever they came down they would have to land the plane on its belly.

For the first 1,000 mi. the flyers had good weather. After that, ice began to form on the wings as they climbed high over cloud banks, making the plane logy. A painful moment occurred at 3,000 mi. when the engine coughed -- until the flyers remembered to switch from an empty gasoline tank to a full one. At first Herndon & Pangborn intended to fly to Salt Lake City, if possible, for a new distance record. They did fly as far as Spokane but turned back to Wenatchee "because we liked the looks of it better." With Pangborn at the controls they circled the field three times, dumped the last of their gasoline and glided down. The ship landed on its iron belly, slid along in a cloud of dust, tipped up on its nose. The propeller snapped but the plane settled back with a thud.

As the flyers crawled out of the cockpit they were met by a representative of the Tokyo Asahi, waving the $25,000 prize check for the first Japan-U. S. flight.

Said Herndon: "Gimme a cigaret!"

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