In 1923, the U.S. Army Air Service decided that it would attempt to become the first group to circumnavigate the globe by airplane. This was an audacious undertaking, especially for a country that was not known for its prowess in aviation. Indeed, in the early 1920s, the United States was far behind European countries in this field.
In relatively short order, the U.S. Army Air Service developed a plane that could, in theory, complete the journey, and selected and trained four crews each consisting of a pilot and mechanic. I won’t go into the details of the preparations and the flight itself. Those are well covered in an excellent article in the National Archives Prologue Magazine that is available online. I also highly recommend a book titled, Into Unknown Skies: An Unlikely Team, A Daring Race, and the First Flight Around the World by David K. Randall. There is also silent footage of the journey on YouTube.
All eight aviators survived with two teams completing the entire flight, but it was far from a quick journey. The teams departed Clover Field in Santa Monica, California on March 17, 1924, heading north to Seattle and Alaska and then west over the Pacific Ocean. They arrived back in the United States in Mere Point, Maine on September 5, 1924. After stops in more than a dozen cities in the U.S., including Boston on September 6, the aviators made their final landing in Seattle on September 28, 1928. All told, they were in the air for more than 363 hours over 175 calendar days and traveled in excess of 26,000 miles. The map in Figure 1 shows their entire journey.
Figure 1 - Route to U.S. Army Air Service Round the World Flight 1924. Source: National Archives.
Not surprisingly given concerns about weight, none of the planes carried mail on the journey, but that did not stop philatelists from finding ways to celebrate the accomplishment. One such individual was Philadelphia native, Joseph Steinmetz (1870-1928). I highlighted Steinmetz in an earlier post, but here is a brief overview of his life from a January 1987 article by Stanley M. Bierman that appeared in The Chronicle, the publication of the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society:
Steinmetz should be...remembered...for his pioneering work in aviation and national air defense, a distinguished career as a mechanical engineer, and by philately, in great measure, for his remarkable showing at the 1913 New York International Philatelic Exhibition. Described as " . . . a brilliantly organized philatelic achievement," the Steinmetz Exhibit which was entitled, in part, "Talismans of the Arabian Nights of Stampdom," included critical Government correspondences regarding the manufacture of U.S. postage stamps during the 1851-60 period, preserved in large measure for scholars through his own particular intervention. Steinmetz also possessed a major U.S., Essay-Proof, Foreign and Aerophilatelic collection, and played a key financial role in the acquisition of the pane of the 1918 inverted flying Jenny.
Steinmetz was present at the start of the round-the-world flight at Clover Field and was in Boston when the aviators alighted there. His presence in Boston even garnered a mention in the Boston Globe of September 2 (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - Boston Globe, September 2, 1924, p. 22.
Figures 3 and 4 show a 1-cent postal card (listed as Scott UX27) prepared by Steinmetz postmarked at the airport station in Boston on September 5, 1924, with a slogan killer cancellation reading "BOSTON FIRST LANDING in U.S. of WORLD FLIERS." The aviators expected Boston to be their first stop back in the United States, but due to weather problems, they ended up spending the night of September 5 in Mere Point, Maine, between Brunswick and Portland. They finally arrived in Boston on September 6 to great fanfare. Thus, weather explains the discrepancy between the postmark and cancellation and the actual sequence of events.
Figure 3 - Address side of postal card that Joseph Steinmetz mailed to Seattle from Boston on September 5, 1924. It was mailed from Seattle back to Steinmetz at his Philadelphia business address on September 28, 1924.
Figure 4 - Message side of postal card.
Steinmetz addressed the postal card to James Bothwell in Seattle and wrote:
Sept 5, 1924
Dear Mr. Bothwell: Here we are down at Boston's new Airport awaiting arrival of our boys from Around the World Flight.
I was out at Clover Field when they started off & must now greet 'em when they arrive. Did not get here yesterday - got stuck in fog off Maine somewhere, but will surely be here tomorrow. This mail will be held here anyhow until they arrive. Please mail a few of these cards back to me.
Sincerely,
Jos. A. Steinmetz
Bothwell franked the postal card with the required 1-cent in postage (the stamp depicts Benjamin Franklin and is listed as Scott 552), had it postmarked on September 28, 1924, when the flyers landed in Seattle, and mailed it to Steinmetz at his business address in Philadelphia.
The special Boston postmark is listed in the American Air Mail Catalogue, 7th edition, volume 3 as AAMC #168. Per this catalogue, "The special airmail was dispatched by plane to New York to connect with regular transcontinental service. None of this mail was carried by the fliers." I suspect this postcard, however, did not travel by plane to Seattle since at the time, the air mail rate started at 8-cents per ounce per zone and there were three zones between the East and West Coasts. It is highly unlikely this postal card with 1-cent of postage would have been given special treatment. Consequently, this is not an air mail piece, but rather a regular piece of mail associated with an historical aviation event and a famous philatelist. That's what makes it special.
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