The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-10-20
BY PAUL FRIGGENS

"
 NEA Service Staff Correspondent
 A weather-hardened, nervously alert young fellow leaned out of the cockpit of his trinotored plane at Brisbane, the sunny morning of June g, 1928, and requested:
 Please, 3 cigaret."
 He was Sir Charles Kingsford- Smith, fatigued but still polite after 75OO miles flying from Cali fornia to Australia-the first air crossing of the Pacific.
 Smith and three companions Capt. Charles P. T. Ulm, Harry w. Lyon, and James w. Warner, had zoomed away from the Okland airport in the Southern Cross at 87 miles an hour early May S1.
 Back of them lay months of meticulous preparation: ahead of them, the still unconquered, m- charted Pacific.
 Twenty-seven hours, 25 min- utes later the Southern Cross set- tied down at Wheeler Field, Hon. olulu, the first leg of 2404 miles completed. The next stop was Suva in the Fiji islands, 3l44 miles from Honolulu. The last stretch, l78O miles to Brisbane, was flown continuously.
 That in sketchy retrospect Is the story of the greatest airplane flight ever made to that time.
 HH
 Zeppelin Spans Ocean <
 From that date the conquest of the Pacific moved apace. The next attack came from the Ger man dirigible Graf eppelin on its remarkable globe circling trip in 1929.
 It took off Aug. 8 from Tokio and early the morning of Aug. 26 its great bulk cast shadows over the Los Angeles airport, to record the first nonstop flight across the Pacific.
 Two years alter, in June, 1881, another round-the7world flight, this time by airplane, spanned the Pacific again. Wiley Post and Harold Gatty in the monoplarc Winnie Mae crossed from Siberia to a point near Nome, Alaska.
 Later, in July, 1883, Post was to cross the Pacific alone via the same northern route, on a record smashing, globe-circling flight.
 October, 1881, found Hugh Hern- don, Jr., New York socialite, and Clyde Pangborn, old-time barn stormer, landing in Japan on pro- jected round world flight. Win Japanese Prize
 The Japanese newspaper Tokio Ashia offered $25,000 for the first successful nonstop flight to Amer ica. Herndon and Pangborn took off Oct. 3 and landed q hours at Wenatchee, Wash.-4558 miles dis tant-to chalk up the first non- stop trans-Pacific flight.
 In January, 1884. the United States Navy launched beautiful and well-organized mass flight of six naval patrol planes, which flew from San Francisco to Hono- lulu in formation.
 These planes were equipped with the latest instruments. They carried skilled personnel.
 Above all, they were flying boats capable of withstanding forced landings at sea and able to take off when repairs were effected.
 
 KingsfOrd-Smith Again
 And then, on the morning, of Nov. 4, out of the empty curve of sea and sky into which he had vanished six years before, Sir Charles Kingsford- Smith returned to San Francisco from Australia.
 He came through a vast sweep of offshore murk with his naviga- tor, Capt. P. c. Taylor, and emerged to a bright, clear dawn at the Oakland airport, his Lady Southern Cross touching earth at 7:44 a. m. to make him all-time veteran air pilot of the Pacific.
 He had crossed first. and in both directions. A year later he was to hop off on one more try at the