Vintage glossy 13.75 x 10.75 photo of Anna Q. Nilsson holding a bouquet of flowers and standing with a dozen aviators and aircraft personnel in front of a Douglas World Cruiser at Clover Field in Santa Monica, California, near the tail-end of the first aerial circumnavigation of the world, which was completed in 1924 by four aviators from an eight-man team of the United States Army Air Service. Signed and inscribed in fountain pen, "To Clover Field Aviators, 'Play ring around Rosie with me,' Best to you all, Anna Q. Nilsson.” Reverse bears a J. C. Milligan credit stamp. In fine condition.
Four Douglas aircraft—the Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans—left Clover Field, Santa Monica, California, on March 17, 1924, for Sand Point in Seattle, Washington, marking the official start of their around-the-globe journey. Disaster struck when the lead aircraft, Seattle, crashed in dense fog into a mountainside near Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula on April 30th. However, the crew survived six harrowing days in the elements before finding shelter in an unoccupied cabin on Moller Bay and made it to a cannery four days later. The three remaining Douglas World Cruisers successfully forged ahead and eventually made it back to the West Coast, where they embarked on a multi-city celebratory tour. They stopped on September 22nd, at Rockwell Field, San Diego, for new engines and then arrived in Santa Monica to a welcoming crowd of 100 to 250 thousand. Their final landing in Seattle was on September 28, 1924.
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