page_title: Lituanica
section_title: Memorials
hierarchical_section_title: Lituanica / Memorials
caption_attribution_description: 10 litai banknote. Released in 2001.
context_page_description: Lituanica was a Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker airplane flown from the United States across the Atlantic Ocean by Lithuanian pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas in 1933. After successfully flying 6,411 km, it crashed, due to undetermined circumstances, 650 km from its destination, Kaunas, Lithuania.
context_section_description: Chicago's Lithuanian community erected an Art Deco Monument commemorating Girėnas and Darius in Chicago's Marquette Park in 1935 where it still stands to this day. Feliksas Vaitkus was inspired by the flight and commemorated it with the flight of the Lituanica II in 1935.
  The flight is commemorated in a movie Skrydis per Atlantą (Flight over the Atlantic) (1983). Kaunas's sports stadium, S.Darius and S.Girėnas Stadium, where the Lithuanian national soccer team plays its home matches, is also named in their honor. There is a tall stone monument near the stadium, the Lithuanian Academy of Sport and the Ąžuolynas Park dedicated to the pilots.
  Sculptor Bronius Pundzius made a relief of the pilots' faces on the Puntukas, then the largest known boulder in the territory of Lithuania, in 1943.
  In New York City, in 1957, the fliers were memorialized with a granite flagstaff showing the pair in bas-relief. The monument is located in Lithuania Square, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
  In Kaunas, a model of the Lituanica was put in 2013 to commemorate 80 years of the event.
  Lituanica Ave, Bridgeport neighborhood in Chicago, IL is named after this flight. The avenue runs between Halsted and Morgan streets from 31st and 35th streets, and after a jog east proceeds south to 38th place between Sangamon and Halsted streets.
  The small town of Beverly Shores, Indiana (just west of Michigan City, Indiana), has another memorial to the Lituanica flight.  There, in 1968, the American Lithuanian Club established a park and named it Lituanica Park after the Bellanca CH-300 used in the flight.  In 1971, to honor the pilots, a large modern sculpture by J. Barkis was placed in the park's pond.
  Before the flight Girėnas and Darius left a testament to the Lithuanian nation:
  "Young Lithuania! Inspired by Your spirit, we embark on a mission we have chosen. May our success strengthen Your spirit and confidence in Your own powers and talents! But should Neptune and the mighty ruler of storms Perkūnas unleash their wrath upon us, should they stop our way to Young Lithuania and call Lituanica to their realm – then You, Young Lithuania, will have to resolve anew, make sacrifice and prepare for a new quest, so that gods of stormy oceans be pleased with Your effort, resolution, and do not summon You for the Great Judgement.
  May Lituanica's victory strengthen the spirit of young sons of Lithuania, inspire them for new quests. May Lituanica's defeat and sinking into the depths of the Atlantic nurture perseverance and resoluteness in young Lithuanians, so that a Winged Lithuanian conquers the treacherous Atlantic for the glory of Mother Lithuania! We therefore dedicate and sacrifice our flight for You, Young Lithuania!"
caption: 10 litas banknote featuring the flight
exif: {}