21-25 November 1917: The Kaiserliche Marine dirigible L 59 (LZ 104), nicknamed "Das Afrika-Schiff" ("The Africa Ship"), attempted a one-way flight to resupply Lettow-Vorbeck's troops in Africa—cut off for three years—to deliver cargo & then be cannibalized for matériel, but turned back when radioed the Germans had been forced to retreat from the planned flat landing zone to hazardous mountains.
Lest we forget.
Commentary: The flight of Das Afrika-Schiff, ninety-five hours airborne traversing four thousand two hundred miles, remains the longest non-stop military flight in history, a century after the feat. The L 59 still had fuel for another sixty-four hours of flight at the time she returned to her hanger in Bulgaria.
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