[5][6] Time magazine reported on December 21, 1936, that six U.S. fliers were on the ocean liner SS Normandie, headed for Spain, to join their leader, Bert Acosta.

[1][7][8] Time reported that the six men were: "[h]ilariously celebrating in the ship's bar of the Normandie with their first advance pay checks from Spain's Radical Government ... en route last week for Madrid to join Bert Acosta, pilot of Admiral Byrd's transatlantic flight, in doing battle against Generalissimo Francisco Franco's White planes.

Acosta, Schneider and Lord planned to escape from Bilbao to Biarritz, France by motorboat after they had been refused a promised Christmas leave.

[3] The fliers later told the Washington Post that they had quit because "'it would be suicide to continue' and because their actions 'might not be in tune with the spirit of neutrality'...

While other airmen – British and French – were afforded a two-week courtesy for training, American fliers were just shown to loyalist hangars, given a plane and ordered to do their stuff.

'"[1] Eddie August Schneider explained his motives in flying for the Republic: "I was broke, hungry, jobless ... yet despite the fact that all three of us are old-time aviators who did our part for the development of the industry, we were left out in the cold in the Administration's program of job making.

Acosta and Berry started legal proceedings against the Spanish steamship Mar Cantabrico to try to collect the back pay that was due each of them.