Historic Douglas Aircraft Globe Is Missing in Action

What on Earth happened to the globe?

That's the question being asked in Long Beach, where America's first modern aircraft factory could soon be converted into houses and offices.

Boeing Co. wants permission to tear down the famed Douglas Aircraft Co. production plant and headquarters so a $1-billion commercial and residential village called Douglas Park can be built there.

Planners for Boeing Realty Corp. say the development next to the Long Beach Airport will pay homage to thousands of aircraft workers who toiled at the 261-acre site.

That's why they're hunting for the 16-foot copper globe that for decades stood as a company symbol above the plant's main entrance. They want to make it the development's centerpiece.

The eye-catching globe -- which depicted the Earth's continents with dark metal cutouts -- was encircled by a jauntily tilted band that swept past three soaring airplanes.

The miniature planes initially were models of the Douglas World Cruiser. They were two-seater, open-cockpit biplanes built by Donald Douglas that in 1924 were the first planes to fly around the world.

There was a race at the time between the United States and Britain, France, the Netherlands and Germany to be the first to circumnavigate the globe. The American team used planes built in Los Angeles by Douglas.

Seventy refueling and maintenance ground stations were set up in various countries to service Douglas' planes during the 27,000-mile expedition. The five-month trip ended in victory at Santa Monica's Clover Field.

In 1930, a proud Douglas selected the globe with its tiny biplanes as the company's logo. Underneath the globe were the words, "First Around the World." The logo was updated in 1935 with three more modern-looking aircraft replacing the biplanes.

Nonetheless, Donald Douglas ordered craftsmen to build tiny models of the World Cruiser for the 1-ton globe that he placed over the entrance to the Long Beach plant that he built in 1941.

The warplane factory was considered the county's most up-to-date production plant. Designed without windows so it could operate 24 hours a day during World War II blackout conditions, it was the nation's first air-conditioned manufacturing facility.

Special double-door entryways allowed planes and equipment to be moved in and out at night without light escaping from the 1.4-million-square-foot work space.

Bomb shelters for the thousands of workers were part of the plant.