Wings of Desire

In 1927, two pilots with high hopes of breaking a record set off to fly around the world in the ‘Pride of Detroit.’ They didn’t meet their goal, but their adventurous spirit still made Detroiters proud

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To continue home by air, Schlee and Brock still had to make it over the Pacific, a series of water jumps that was the most intimidating part of their journey. Locating Midway Island, a speck of sand about 2,500 miles from Tokyo, was a Herculean task, especially without the aid of a radio beacon. It was made more hazardous by the early arrival of typhoon season, whose winds could easily blow the plane off course. After Midway, there was a 1,440-mile hop to Honolulu, to be followed by a 2,400-mile flight to San Francisco, flying the same stretch of the Pacific that had just swallowed up several Dole racers.

Amid a flurry of frantic messages from Detroit asking the government to intercede, Washington officials said they had no authority over the movements of private citizens. However, the Department of the Navy could — and did — withhold any offers of help, including shipping fuel to Midway and having its vessels provide navigational assistance. Over the last several weeks, the Navy had spent millions of dollars searching for lost fliers, but now the Detroit airmen were on their own.

Telegrams continued to pour into the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. Friends, family, and politicians beseeched the fliers to stop what the press and top aviation experts were now calling a suicide flight. “In the name of the people of Detroit … I beg you to abandon your intended flight over the Pacific,” cabled Detroit Mayor John W. Smith. “Daddy,” pleaded 10-year-old Rosemarie Schlee, “please take the next boat home to us. We want you.”

Finally, on Sept. 15, the men caved in. They announced they would take a liner back to the States. “We quit,” said Brock, “because the whole world is fighting us.” Two weeks later, the Korea Maru pulled into San Francisco Harbor, the Pride of Detroit “hanging tailless by ropes on the upper afterdeck, looking like a yellow jacket that had alighted in the rigging.” The dejected pilots criticized the Navy, but Ted Schlee sees things differently. “It’s a good thing the Navy decided not to cooperate. They probably wouldn’t have made it.” Ted Schlee points out that the pilots gained more admiration for their near-triumph than if they had completed the trip. One aviation publication praised their decision to quit as “a sane interlude in a succession of disastrous ventures.”

The fliers reassembled their plane and flew home, landing at Ford Airport on the afternoon of Oct. 4. “As they landed, crowds surged in upon them,” reported Time magazine, which had followed the men’s exploits. “Into Mr. Schlee’s arms rushed his wife. As he was pushed through the crowds on his way to City Hall, congratulatory hands clapped him on the back, hundreds of people shouted at him from all directions, automobile sirens shrieked in his ears.” After being received by Mayor Smith and other dignitaries, the pilots attended a banquet given by their friends. Schlee was called upon to speak, but he could get out only a half-dozen words before collapsing. The strain of the adventure had finally caught up with him. The mayor helped carry him out of the room and the banquet was adjourned.

Was the truncated flight a legitimate attempt to push aviation’s envelope or just two more pilots succumbing to the siren call of fame? Detroit dailies gave the local heroes the benefit of the doubt. The Free Press reminded readers: “Schlee and Brock flew more than halfway around the world with only brief stops, traversing oceans and continents, mountain ranges and deserts, combating fierce storms in strange lands and waters. Their skill and courage never failed them and their machine proved staunch. They demonstrated the practicability of sustained, long-distance flying. All these things combine to make their trip ‘the greatest flight.’ ”

Over the next couple of years, Schlee and Brock undertook various endurance and distance flights around the country, though nothing nearly as ambitious as their globe-girdling “greatest flight.” Bad luck continued to dog them. One summer day in 1929, Schlee was hand-starting a plane when the propeller kicked back. The blades sliced his shoulder, fractured his arm, cracked his skull, and left him permanently deaf in one ear. He survived, but the small aircraft company he and Brock operated didn’t. The Great Depression hit both men hard. In 1931, the Pride of Detroit — which Schlee had once praised as “more faithful than a woman” — was auctioned by the county sheriff to satisfy a debt. It sold for $700. The following year, Brock died of cancer at 36. Schlee drifted into obscurity. His last job was working as an aircraft inspector at Packard during World War II. He died in 1969, the year Apollo XI traveled to the moon and back.

Today, the flying machine that once carried two dreamers halfway around the world hangs inside the Henry Ford Museum, though its original canvas skin — bearing the faded signatures of new friends made in Belgrade, Baghdad, Karachi, and other exotic locales along the journey — was unaccountably replaced by a curator. Tucked away in the archives is a full-page newspaper tribute published the day of the airmen’s homecoming: “Detroit is proud of the Pride of Detroit and its Intrepid Pilots — Ed Schlee and Billy Brock.”

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