Navy Wins

Lieutenant A. J. ("Al") Williams, formerly pitcher for the New York Giants, won the Pulitzer Race (at St. Louis) in a Curtiss-Navy racer at an average speed of 243.67 miles per hour over the triangular course of 200 miles. Lt. H. J. Brow in a similar machine averaged 241.78 and Lt. L. H. Sanderson of the Marine Corps flying a Navy-Wright plane of 750 horsepower was third with a speed of 230 miles per hour. Of the seven picked entries, the three Navy pilots won the first three places. Not a casualty or even a broken wire marked these wonderful flights, which 100,000 people had paid to see.

The spectators got their money's worth. When a bomb started the race, the pilots swooped into the air like bullets. The machines seemed to flash across the course. On the last heat, in going round the pylons the pilots banked so sharply that they seemed to rest in the air on their wing tips.

When " Al" Williams went round the course he felt sleepy. On turning pylons, his brain refused to function for several seconds owing to the terrific pressure of centrifugal force. On the last leg he forgot he had finished and went around once again. When he got out of his cockpit, his legs had gone to sleep. But he forgot sleep, fatigue, grease, wind and dirt, when his chief Admiral Moffett slammed his own hat on the pilot's head and asked some one to "give the boy a drink."