Round-the-World Flights

Baron Hunefeld and Lindner Round-The-World Flight Attempt

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Calcutta to Bangkok	Calcutta to Tokyo	Baron Huenefeld	Junker's Europa	Pix 5

	On April 12, 1928  Baron Ehrenfried Guenther Freiherr von Huenefeld (a.k.a The Crazy 
Baron), Captain Hermann Koehl (Germany) and Major James C. Fitzmaurice (Ireland) left 
Baldonnel Aerodrome near Dublin, Ireland bound for New York City but landed in Newfoundland in 
their Junkers W33L monoplane named "Bremen 2504."  Thirty six hours thirty minutes later on 
April 13, 1928 they crash landed on a frozen lake at Greenly Island,  Newfoundland  (off the 
coast of Labrador), successfully completing the first East to West transatlantic flight.  The 
weight of their aircraft broke through the  ice, partially sinking and damaging the propeller, 
but was later recovered. During the rescue mission the American pilot,  Floyd Bennet died from 
double pneumonia.  The three transatlantic pioneers were rescued to later attend a jubilant  
reception on May 17th in New York City where two million people turned out to greet them.  
President Calvin Coolidge presented them with the Distinguished Flying Cross making them the 
first non-Americans to receive that honor.

	On September 18, 1928 Baron von Huenefeld and K.G. Lindner (Sweden) took off from Berlin 
in the "Europa 2506"  (sister ship of the Bremen) in an attempt to fly to East Asia and onward 
round-the-world.  Their first stop was in Sofia, Bulgaria.  They arrived in Bushire, Iran on 
September 21st.  Due to  documentation details, they were detained in Calcutta by Indian 
officials until October 1st. They flew non-stop (1,200 miles) to Hanoi, French Indo-China. 
They flew on via Canton, China arriving at Shanghai, China on October 15th.  They continued on 
to Japan landing in Tokyo on October 20, 1928, two days later than planned.  History is 
somewhat silent on their attempt to cross the Pacific but its known that they gave up on 
October 25th when weather conditions did not improve and Huenefeld's health became suspect..

	Baron Ehrenfried Guenther Freiherr von Huenefeld (a.k.a The Crazy Baron) died 
from cancer in Berlin on February 6, 1929 (1892-1929).

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