“Byrd felt the fuselage heave up. The plane went over on her nose, turned completely over. Something struck him with an awful impact, and he felt his arm snap. They had to get out of this! They were trapped in a mass of wreckage which might at any moment burst into flames and burn them to death before they had a chance to escape. Noville, beside Byrd, broke a hole in the fabric with his fist, and they crawled out. The wreckage did not burn. Someone had turned off the switches of all three motors.
“Bennett? He was hanging head down in the pilot’s seat, unable to free himself. His leg was broken; his face bleeding. He was badly injured—so badly that for a week it was thought that he would never recover. But he did—of course. His iron nerve and grit pulled him through. But any thought of his going on the trip was out. This was a blow to Byrd. There was no man he would rather fly with than Bennett, Floyd Bennett, the cheerful companion, the willing worker, himself an expert pilot, and able to divine instructions before they were even given. Tough luck!
“But tough luck, too, was the fact that the plane was almost irreparably damaged. Byrd set his arm on the way to the hospital, had them put it in a sling so that it would be out of the way, and went back to the factory to supervise the repairing of the America. It took over a month of work night and day to repair the damage that had been done, and re-design the nose so that the craft would be balanced.
“May 21st was set for the christening of the plane. The christening-was changed into a celebration of the successful flight of Lindbergh. Bennett was pleased with Lindy’s achievement, since Lindy had proved the very things that Byrd himself had set out to prove—that with careful preparation, the ocean could be spanned; and that a successful ocean flight would stir the imaginations of the people, making them more conscious of aviation and its strivings. Then, too, Lindbergh cemented relationships between France and the United States, which was one of Byrd’s purposes in flying to France instead of to England, or any other country.
“Well, after the ocean had been crossed, there was no need for hurry. Not that Byrd had been in a rush; but there was a great deal of criticism concerning the delay of his trip. Nobody knows how these things start, or why. It seems that it should have been Byrd’s, and Byrd’s business alone, as to when he chose to cross the ocean. After all, it was his life being risked, and his glory if the flight were successful. But a great many people in the United States felt that there must be some ulterior motive in his not starting immediately; and that he had been bested by a mere boy when he let Lindbergh be the first man to conquer the ocean.
“But Byrd didn’t care. He knew what he was about. He was a southern gentleman, and he said nothing to his defamers. And he went on completing his preparations. Chamberlin, with his passenger Levine, broke the world’s record for flying to Germany, in a remarkable flight. Byrd hailed their success.
“Then at last, on June 29th, early in the morning the weather man reported that weather conditions, while not ideal, were favorable. Dick Byrd decided to delay no longer. He called together his crew, and met them on the field at 3:00 o’clock in the morning. It was a miserable morning, and a light rain was falling. By the light of torches the crew was putting the finishing touches on the huge’ America. There she was, atop the hill that they had built for her, so that she would get a good fast start. And a good fast start she needed, all 15,000 pounds of her. Think of the speed they had to get up in order to lift that bulk from the ground! They’d have to be going a mile and a half a minute!
“Bert Acosta was at the wheel; Noville, recovered from his serious injuries in the trial crash, sat with his hand on the dump valve, by means of which he could dump a load of gasoline if they didn’t rise into the air; Bert Balchen, the young Norwegian relief pilot and mechanic, was busy with the spare fuel.
“The engines were warmed up. The great ship was ready—no, not quite ready. But she was eager to be off. The America broke the rope that held her, and glided down the hill on which she had been held. It was a tense moment. Would they be able to get this great hulk into the air? Along the ground she sped, gathering momentum. Her wheels lifted. There was a shout. She had cleared the ground. But the danger was not over. They must fly to at least 400 feet. Then the America showed her metal. She climbed on a turn, and they were flying at an altitude of 400 feet. They were off!
“On they sped to their destination at last. The wind was behind them, helping them; the weather was disagreeable, and slightly foggy, but this did not bother them. They reached Nova Scotia easily. But when they got there they got a horrible shock. They had run into a fog. But what a fog! One so thick that they couldn’t see the land or ocean under them. And they flew for 2,000 miles like this, absolutely blind, with black towering clouds ahead of them, below them, and when they ran through them, all around them.