In Paris

Having bubbled over with affectionate excitement for Charles Augustus Lindbergh a month before, Paris last week settled down to a steady schedule of festive welcome for its second detachment of transatlantic air guests--Heroes Byrd, Acosta, Noville, Balchen, Chamberlin and Levine. The last two arrived from Berlin via Austria and Czechoslovakia in their Bellanca ship, Columbia. The first four arrived hollow-eyed and shaken after their fog-ridden cruise, anxious night and wet landing in the America. In Paris they had difficulty mixing sleep with hospitality and with their natural inclinations to make the most of a great moment.

Commander Byrd, pale and erect in Navy whites, had to shoulder most of the honors and speechmaking. A gallant Virginian, he repeatedly explained that his comrades were more creditable than himself, and it was to them all that President Louis Delsol of the Paris Municipal Council said: "Paris, gentlemen, salutes in you the United States." But it was to Commander Byrd directly that Marshal Foch said: "It was one of the great feats in history." Commander Byrd had the presence of mind to reply: "There is no one in the world I would rather hear say that than you."

The Byrd crew supplied Parisians with types for all tastes. Some chose sleek, swart Bert Acosta who had piloted the big ship to the French coast and then collapsed with exhaustion. While Commander Byrd slept on the first night in Paris, Pilot Acosta, despite a broken collar bone, continued to pilot his comrades through an informal demonstration at Joseph Zelli's justly celebrated Montmartre night club. Lieutenant Noville, rough, ready and with gay French blood in him was perfectly at home. Blond, blocky Bernt Balchen did not come into his own until his fellow Scandinavians held a special Viking evening for him in the Quartier Latin. Newsgatherers made life hard for Hero Chamberlin by treating Hero Levine, politely yet distinctly, as a large black fly in the ointment. Mr. Levine was a civilian and owed his place in the sun to being a shrewd, adventurous moneybags. His omnipresence in a company of aeronauts was grotesque, obtrusive, they hinted. They plagued Pilot Chamberlin until he admitted that he had unwillingly taken certain orders from Mr. Levine, that he had been embarrassed by Mr. Levine's forwardness in cabling Commander Byrd about a flight home together in their two ships.

Hero Levine's standing with Frenchmen was ameliorated when he gave 100,000 francs ($4,000) for a pilots' clubhouse at Le Bourget. Hero Levine's standing with his countrymen was salvaged by onetime (1920-21) U. S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, who described the Levine flight and proposed return as a passenger (see p. 19), as a challenge "to you, to me, to everyone."

The welcoming festivities lasted the whole week--luncheons, receptions, a ball, street demonstrations. Besides Marshal Foch, Commander Byrd visited Mme. Nungesser, the statue of Alan Seeger, the Unknown Soldier's tomb, Louis Bleriot (first English Channel flyer) and onetime (1902-24) Ambassador to the U. S. Jules Jusserand who lay ill. He received from Premier Poincare a Cross of the Legion of Honor with an officer's ribbon, higher than Colonel Lindbergh's decoration because of Commander Byrd's rank, age, prior exploits; and, with his crew, a hatful of other medals. He visited War wrecks at the Hotel des Invalides and one of them, a Captain Legendre, paralyzed aviator who had not walked for nine years, took his hand, murmured, "I will accompany you," and walked with him towards Napoleon's Tomb.

At a luncheon given by the Anglo-American press Commander Byrd had some respite from the tension of more formal functions. A girl pressed forward to him with some violets and he kissed her, twice. Into his speech he brought a few easy going "hells"--"high up in the clouds and cold as hell ... I tell you it is a hell of a strain. . . ."

All but Hero Levine left Paris at the week's end, the Byrd quartet motoring between blossom-throwing ranks of peasants and villagers to the coast, where they dined with the Prince of Wales at Le Touquet and prepared to board the Leviathan for home at Cherbourg. The America, one of her three motors disabled by her forced landing, awaited them at the dock, crated for shipment, after a creaking journey on a truck over rutty country roads and narrow forest lanes from historic Ver-sur-Mer.

In Manhattan, a demonstration "equal to and possibly greater than" the Lindbergh one was cooked up for the Leviathan's arrival. More eager than any to see that ship come in were Rodman Wanamaker, transatlantic flight backer since 1914, owner of the America; and Pilot Floyd Bennett, U. S. N., who, still recuperating from injuries received when the America crashed in May, would have had ship-mate's share of the glory had his luck been better. (A message to Pilot Bennett was among the first Commander Byrd sent from France).