Round-the-World Flights

Presidential envoy, Wendell Willkie Round-the-World Goodwill Tour

Page 3c (rev: 1000)

Wendell Willkie	Willkie's Autograph	One World	Consolidated C-87	Crew

FDR asked Willkie to make this round-the-world trip to raise the morale of America's allies and to gather strategic facts with the expanding war. Willkie represented America's unity in its resolve to win this war. The years of chain smoking and overeating, combined with Willkie's distaste for exercise, had finally caught up with him, and Willkie died of a heart attack in October 1944 at the relatively young age of 52.

The "Gulliver was piloted by Richard T. Kight with co-pilot, Alexis Klotz. Willkie was accompanied by: Gardner "Mike" Cowles Jr (publisher), Joseph Barnes (foreign correspondent), Captain Paul Pihl (US Navy) and Major Grant Mason (US Army).

"Our thinking of the future must be world-wide."

See a Pix of the GULLIVER "Copyright Gareth Bahlmann" that was taken in North Africa.

Departed New York City, NY 08/26/42 
   West Palm Beach, FL 
   Puerto Rico (Note 1) 
   Brazil: Belém, Natal 
   Ascension Island (Note 2) 
   Accra, Ghana 
   Kano, Nigeria 
   Khartoum, Sudan (Note 3) 
   Egypt: Cairo, El Alamein, Alexandria 
   Ankara, Turkey (Note 4) 
   Beirut, Lebanon (Note 5) 
   Jerusalem, Palestine (shown as Lydda on map) 
   Iraq: Habbaniya, Baghdad 
   Teheran, Iran 
   Soviet Union: Kuibishev, Moscow, Tashkent
   China: Urumchi, Lanchow, Chengtu, Chungking, Sian
   Soviet Union: Chita, Yakutsk, Seimchan
   Fairbanks, AL
   Edmonton, Alberta Canada 
Arrived Minneapolis, MN 10/14/42 

Note 1) In Puerto Rico Willkie visited his son, Philip who was stationed with the US Navy there. Note 2) The Gulliver landed on Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean. This stopover is not cited in "One World" because the island had a secret US military base at the time. Note 3) The Gulliver flew from Kano via Khartoum to Cairo. Note 4) To maintain its wartime neutrality, Turkey did not allow the Gulliver to enter Turkish airspace, so Willkie flew to Ankara on a Pan-American flight. Note 5) Willkie stopped in Beirut, Lebanon to meet with French General Charles de Gaulle.

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