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They did land, crumbling their undercarriage and scraping a hole in the ice. Thus was accomplished the first westerly flight across the North Atlantic. It was almost 5:30 p. m. Friday. No one greeted them.
Their great luck was that they had landed near an inhabited lighthouse. One Jacques le Tempier, the keeper, told them, during the pauses of his astonishment, that they were on Greenly Island in the narrow Strait of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland. Hospitably he put on water to boil and meat to cook. The fliers ate in the yellow light of kitchen lamps.
The lighthouse keeper carried their first message by walking across the Strait ice to the telegraph station at Lourdes de Blanc Sablon. A message went to Point Armour, where one William Barrett operated the wireless station. That first message announcing the Atlantic crossing was for the North German Lloyd steamship offices in Manhattan. The line had provided money for the flight.
From Quebec "Duke" Schiller, Canadian pilot, and Dr. Louis Cuisinier, French ace, left in a Canadian Transcontinental Airways Co. plane for Greenly Island. They returned with Major Fitzmaurice, whom the Irish Free State Government had just promoted from Commandant. The Germans remained behind.
¶ At Bremen, a coalition of Socialists, Communists and Democrats prevented the Municipal Council from sending the German fliers praise because the plane had carried Monarchist instead of Republican colors.
¶ At Berlin, Frau Koehl joyously celebrated her husband's 40th birthday and packed her prettiest dresses for a swift trip to Manhattan as the guest of the North German Lloyd's Dresden.
¶ At Dublin, Mrs. Fitzmaurice packed her prettiest dresses to join Frau Koehl aboard the Dresden at Queenstown.
¶ From Manhattan flew Fraulein Herta Junkers, handsome tall daughter of Professor Junkers, the plane's builder, in another Junkers, bearing equipment to Greenly Island to repair the disabled Bremen.