ADAM'S Country House Collections Day II - 28th April 2026

142 664 AN IRISH BRASS HILTED OFFICER SWORD presented to Major James Fitzmaurice who, on April 12th 1928, was co-pilot of ‘The Junkers W.33, Bremen’ that completed the first east-west non-stop transatlantic flight, with presentation inscription in Irish ‘An Ceann Foirinne Agus/ na hOifigig, Ogláig na h-Eireann/ Do Bronn/An Citilt treasana na Fairrge Móire, 1928’. The entire 103cm high, the blade 83cm long € 3,000 - 5,000 One of the great but often overlooked achievements in early aviation is the first non-stop east–west crossing of the Atlantic, completed on 12th- 13th of April 1928 by a German and Irish crew aboard the Junkers W33 Bremen. The journey was made directly against the prevailing winds. The son of a prison warden, Colonel James Fitzmaurice (1898-1965) saw active service on the Western Front during the First World War before training as a pilot in 1918. He later joined the Irish Air Corps in 1922, rising to become its commanding officer at Baldonnel. Unlike Lindbergh’s crossing the year before, the westward route meant battling strong headwinds, greater fuel demands, and difficult navi- gation; widely considered near impossible. Fitzmaurice had already attempted the journey in 1927 with Captain Robert ‘All-Weather Mac’ McIntosh aboard the Princess Xenia, forced back by storms far out in the Atlantic. Departing from Baldonnel at dawn on 12th of April 1928, he joined Cap- tain Hermann Köhl and Baron von Hünefeld on a flight lasting over 36 hours. Blown far off course, the Bremen made a forced landing on the ice at Greenly Island on the 13th of April, having flown over 3,200 miles. The crew were celebrated worldwide, receiving a ticker-tape parade in New York and the Distinguished Flying Cross from President Calvin Coolidge, the first non-Americans to be so honoured. A landmark achievement in aviation, the present lot relating directly to this historic achievement, Fitzmaurice’s flight remains a rare example of determination and skill - flying the Atlantic not with the wind, but against it.