In 1923, the U.S. Army Air Service was interested in pursuing a mission to be the first to circumnavigate the Earth by aircraft, a program called "World Flight".

The two-place, open cockpit DT biplane torpedo bomber had previously been supplied to the Navy, thus shortening production time for the new series.

[3] The DTs to be modified were taken from the assembly lines at the company's manufacturing plants in Rock Island, Illinois and Dayton, Ohio.

The Air Service agreed and lent Lieutenant Erik Nelson, a member of the War Department planning group, to assist Douglas.

To ensure a more robust structure, a tubular steel fuselage, strengthened bracing, a modified wing of 49 ft (15 m) wingspan and larger rudder were required.

[12] The remaining two aircraft continued across the Atlantic to North America, where they were joined by Boston II at Pictou, Nova Scotia.

[N 4] In returning to their starting point, during the ceremonial flight across the United States, when the aircraft made it to Chicago for a celebration attended by thousands, Lieutenant Smith, as the spokesman for the mission, addressed the crowd.

Eddie Rickenbacker, the celebrated flying ace and chair of the welcoming committee, formally requested that the Chicago, as the mission flagship, remain in its host city, donated to the Field Museum of Natural History.

Major General Mason M. Patrick, Chief of the Air Service, was on hand to accept the request, and promised its formal consideration.

In 1974, the Chicago was restored under the direction of Walter Roderick,[23] and transferred to the new National Air and Space Museum building for display in their Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight exhibition gallery.

[28] The original Boston sank in the North Atlantic, and it is thought that the only surviving piece of the original prototype, the Boston II, is the aircraft data plate, now in a private collection, and a scrap of fuselage skin, in the collection of the Vintage Wings & Wheels Museum in Poplar Grove, Illinois.