Flights & Flyers

Worthy Failure, Oklahoma wiseacres, who for years have jeered the never-quite-successful flying exploits of Bennett Hill Griffin, last week had to admit that he is no mean flyer and is desperately in earnest. With James Joseph Mattern, another seasoned pilot from Texas, in a lightning-swift Lockheed he rocketed up from Floyd Bennett Field, N. Y., determined to shatter the round-world record of his friends Post & Gatty (8 days, 15 hr. 51 min.) by at least two days. For a time it looked as if Griffin & Mattern would succeed. Their plane, named Century of Progress, was the pride of the "grease monkeys" who conditioned it. ("An awful fast ship, and don't fool yourself.") They had not only the friendly counsel of Post & Gatty but had borrowed the extra fuel tanks from the latters' record-breaking Winnie Mae. They had rigged their ship for dual control (unlike the Winnie Mae} enabling them to alternate at catnaps and cut their resting time on the ground far below that of Post & Gatty. From Irkutsk to Nome their course called for a single straight jump--dangerous, but cutting off a wide detour made by the Winnie Mae. From Harbor Grace, N. F., where they tarried less than 3 hr., Griffin & Mattern shot out over the Atlantic -- which they never once saw through the rain, fog & clouds. Spanked by a tail wind they reached Tempelhof Airdrome, Berlin, in the phenomenal time of 18 hr. 41 min., took off again nearly 11 hr. ahead of Post & Gatty's schedule. Weather ahead was good, ob servers predicted a swift hop to Moscow. But just across the Russian border from Poland a sudden gust tore a hatch cover from the top of the Lockheed's fuselage. The hatch cover tore into the tail surfaces, knocked off a stabilizer fin. Pilot Griffin made what might have been a perfect landing but the wheels mired in a peat bog, overturned the ship, wrecked it. Pilot Griffin suffered a cut above the eye, Pilot Mattern a sprained knee. Said they afterward: "We crawled out of the wreckage . . . and began doctoring each other. We are a little ashamed to say that both of us were violently sick. When we looked at our poor ship we couldn't help crying. . . . She was one swell piece of machinery. . . . We got a tough break, that's all. . . . But we'll tackle it again this year if it's not too late, certainly next summer if we can get a plane."

Lizard-Eaters-- Two months ago Capt. Hans Bertram, 27, and Mechanic Adolph Klaussmann took off from Koepang. Timor Island, for Darwin, Australia, 500 mi. south. In their Junkers seaplane Atlantis they had left Germany three months prior, on a tour to boost German trade. From Koepang they never reached Darwin. For weeks flyers and foot parties searched the bush of Australia's north coast. Last month some black natives found the abandoned plane, and Capt. Bertram's cigaret case and a handkerchief, on the beach near Drysdale Mission, 100 mi. northwest of Wyndham. Australian officials continued searching, dubiously. At last, one day last week, a police launch brought Bertram & Klaussmann ashore at Wyndham, nearly deranged by suffering. Blown off their course in the night the flyers had landed near Drysdale, thinking it was Melville Island. They had a few biscuits, no water. For days they tramped the bush in search of water and friendly natives, later drank the contents of the plane's radiator. On several occasions they plodded miles to what they thought was a signal fire, arrived exhausted to find an unattended bush fire. They "caught lizards on the rocks, which we ate raven ously." They fashioned a raft from one of their seaplane floats, paddled for five days in a rough sea, saw a steamer pass within a mile of them. Hunger drove them again ashore, to feed on snails and leaves. On the 38th day "to our great excitement we sighted a black, who brought a large fish, which we cooked and ate ravenously. We knelt and offered prayers to the good God for our deliverance."

In Remscheid, Prussia, Capt. Bertram's home, his mother had turned grey, his grandmother had died of grief.

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