SECRET MISSION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 February 1942, Page 4

SECRET MISSION

, MOSCOW TO WASHINGTON. FAMOUS SOVIET AVIATORS. There are two Soviet airmen whose names are known to every man and woman in Russia. They are Michael Gromoff and Major Yumasheff, who four years ago captured for Russia the world’s long-distance flying record. They flew “over the roof of the world” from Moscow to California. Today, Gromoff and Yumasheff are still flying partners and were lately in England. They had taken a party of 47 airmen on a secret mission from Moscow to Washington, via Alaska, and came to London on the way back to report to M. Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador. Michael Gromoff, Russia’s No. 1 airman, aged 43, is tall and shy. He was the first man to be honoured with the “Hero of the Soviet Union” order. He has been flying since he was 17, when he built his own glider out of umbrellas. At 19 he was teaching scores of young Russians how to fly. In 1937, he and Yumasheff, accompanied by Captain Sergei Danilin, set off from Moscow and smashed the long-distance record held by the Frenchmen, Codos and Rossi. Yumasheff, who holds height records for load-carrying aeroplanes, is a wellknown painter and one of Moscow s best ballroom dancers.