One Summer: America, 1927

‘swart’ in Time .) Pinedo was in fact not especially swart and not at all an ace – he had spent the war flying reconnaissance missions – but he was indeed a loyal fascist. With his black shirt, brilliantined hair, thrusting jaw and habit of standing with his fists pinned to his hips Pinedo was, to an almost comical degree, the very model of a strutting, self-satisfied fascist. This was not a problem to anyone so long as he stayed in Europe, but in the spring of 1927 he came to America. Worse, he did it in the most heroic way possible.
    While America’s Atlantic hopefuls were struggling to get their planes ready, Pinedo efficiently made his way to the United States via coastal Africa, the Cape Verde Islands, South America and the Caribbean. It was the first westward crossing by aeroplane of the Atlantic Ocean, a feat in itself, even if it was not done in a single bound. Pinedo reached the United States in late March at New Orleans and began a lavish, if not always wholly welcome, progress around the country.
    It was hard to decide what to make of him. On the one hand, he was unquestionably a gifted flyer and entitled to a parade or two. On the other, he was a representative of an obnoxious form of government that was admired by many Italian immigrants, who were thus deemed to represent a threat to the American way of life.At a time when America’s air efforts were suffering one setback after another, Pinedo’s prolonged victory lap around the country began to seem just a little insensitive.
    After New Orleans, Pinedo proceeded west to California, stopping at Galveston, San Antonio, Hot Springs and other communities along the way to refuel and receive ovations from small bands of supporters and a rather larger number of the merely curious. On 6 April, en route to a civic reception in San Diego, he landed at a reservoir called Roosevelt Lake in the desert west of Phoenix. Even in this lonely spot a crowd gathered. As the observers respectfully watched the plane being serviced, a youth named John Thomason lit a cigarette and unthinkingly tossed the match on the water. The water, coated with oil and aviation fuel, ignited with a mighty whoompf that made everyone scatter. Within seconds, Pinedo’s beloved plane was engulfed in flames and workmen were swimming for their lives.
    Pinedo, having lunch at a lakeside hotel, looked up from his meal to see smoke where his plane should be. The plane was entirely destroyed but for the engine, which sank to the lake bottom sixty feet below. The Italian press, already hypersensitive to antifascist sentiment in America, concluded that this was an act of treacherous sabotage. ‘Vile Crime against Fascism’, one paper cried in a headline. ‘Odious Act of Anti-Fascists’, echoed another. America’s ambassador to Italy, Henry P. Fletcher, made matters even worse by dashing off a letter of apology to Mussolini in which he described the fire as an ‘act of criminal folly’ and promised that the ‘guilty will be discovered and severely punished’. For days afterwards, a Times correspondent reported from Rome, the citizens of Italy talked of little else but this catastrophic setback to ‘their hero, their superman, their demigod, de Pinedo’. Eventually, all sides calmed down and accepted that the act was an accident, but suspicions simmered and henceforth Pinedo, his crew and his possessions were guarded by menacing Fascisti volunteers armed with stilettos and truncheons.
    Pinedo left his lieutenants to haul the dripping engine from the lake and get it dried out while he headed east to New York to await delivery of a substitute plane from Italy that Mussolini promised to dispatch at once.
    He could have no idea of it, of course, but his troubles, in life and in the air, had only just begun.
     
    The world’s attention moved to Paris, where at dawn on 8 May two slightly ageing men in bulky flying suits emerged from an administration building at Le Bourget airfield to the respectful applause of well-wishers. The men, Captain Charles Nungesser and Captain François Coli, walked stiffly and a little self-consciously. Their heavy gear, which was necessary because they were about to fly 3,600 miles in an open cockpit, made them look almost uncannily like little boys in snowsuits.
    Many of their well-wishers had been out all night and were still in evening dress. The New York Times likened the scene to a garden party. Among those who had come to see them off were