It is uncertain who first advanced the idea of sending U.S. Army Air Service pilots on a flight around the world. However, it is known that the thought of such a flight in fixed-wing aircraft first began to form in the minds of a few military pilots as early as 1922. Maj. Gen. Mason M. Patrick, Chief of the Air Service, officially endorsed the proposal in early 1923. The Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica, California constructed four specially designed biplanes. Two crewmen for each plane were selected and on April 6, 1924, they took off from Seattle, Washington. Almost six months later, two of the four aircrafts landed in Seattle, covering a total of 26,445 miles, with a total flying time of over 360 hours, the first flight around the world. This book depicts the trials and tribulations of this historic trip with an extensive text an hundreds of photographs and newspaper articles.