AIR MAIL MIRACLES.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1923, Page 4

AIR MAIL MIRACLES.

All; MAIL Mll fA L I ; |*;S. SAX FRANCESCO. .Vugasi 30. The dream of decades I hilt tile two outposts of the American continent. •Nov York on the eastern sea hoard, and Sag Francisco, the chief port of tile west, might bo personally connected with only a day elapsing, lias at last, been virtually a reality by the successltd establishment of a transcontinental air mail by I'ndo Sam through the intrepid performances of lelays of daring aviators who guided their ebaiiots of the "night riders of the sky” in special 'planes across the I'nited States from coast to coast under the most trying circumstances of hurricanes and hanks of fog on route.

Letters written in New Voile on the Tuesday morning wore delivered the folio wing evening in San Francisco, and Now York daily newspapers printed on the Tuesday were photographed in the hands of dames Rolpli. the Mayor of San Francisco, .in the western metropolis on the Wednesday evening, the air mail having succeeded in bringing the Atlantic, and Pacific coasts closer together. It was an epoch-marking event when winging down the crimson highway of tile setting sun. a giant do Havilaml aeroplane, piloted by Claire K. Vance, and carrying Uncle Sam's first load of westbound transcontinental air mail from Xew York City, settled like a dun, gray gull at C-ressy Field in San Francisco at G. 24 o'clock on the evening ot August- 2->ul, having negotiated the 2(180 miles from coast to coast in 34 hours and 28 minutes. At 4.14 p.m.'. eastern standard time, a. sister ’plane, driven by Pilot C. Eugene Johnson, of tile U.S. air mail service, made a similar landing at Curtiss Field, Hampstead. Xew Yoik. marking an equally dramatic delivery of the first parcel of east hound mail from the Pacific Coast.