ACROSS THE EQUATOR WITH THE AMERICAN NAVY 



595 



Official Photograph, U. S. Navy Air Service 



AN AERIAL VIEW OE THE "NEW MEXICO" 



This photograph conveys an excellent idea of the arrangement of the four turrets, from each 

 of which three fourteen-inch guns are operated. 



Or, rather, the day had been a bad one 

 for alighting. From our 1,000 feet in 

 the air the tiny whitecaps that sparkled 

 below had but added to the beauty of the 

 scene, to my amateur eye. Now I dis- 

 covered that the airboats, for all their 

 seeming strength, are but fragile things 

 when they measure their forces against 

 those of the sea. 



Ten seaplanes began this cruise and 

 only seven reached Colon. Yet every 

 possible care had been taken, and not 

 once did they take the air except when 

 flying conditions were excellent. 



"Our trouble," as the commander of 

 the flotilla said, "is that if we make the 

 boats strong enough to be thoroughly 

 seaworthy the craft is too heavy to be 

 forced into the air." 



A FLYING BOAT LOST 



On the first day of the flight from 

 Kingston to Colon No. 431 1 was lost. 

 The air was perfect. There was not a 

 hint of fog, the flying man's bugaboo, 

 and there was a following wind. The 



squadron's commander, speaking for his 

 adventurers, had begged permission to 

 fly straight through to Colon, a distance 

 of 630 miles. But the flotilla com- 

 mander had learned conservatism in 

 dealing with the air force. His experi- 

 ence is that something invariably hap- 

 pens if a flight is projected on the as- 

 sumption that nothing will. 



"Old Providence Island is about half 

 way," he said. "We will stop there first. 

 Maybe we will not all get in." 



Old Providence Island is 380 miles 

 from Kingston, and next day, as we 

 were rolling blithely along in the SJuvzc- 

 mut, spilling the dishes over the fiddles 

 whenever a flying-fish kicked up a sea 

 alongside, the wireless began to talk : 



"Forty-three eleven is forced down on 

 Sarrana Reef." 



We began to hammer through the Car- 

 ibbean seas. 



One began to realize the anxiety that 

 preys continually on every one connected 

 with the flying forces. No one knew 

 what had happened to 43 tt. but what 



