Maj. Carl Cover, executive vice president of the Douglas Aircraft Company, piloted the Douglas B-19 bomber within 100 feet of completed Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach on October 17, 1941 as 30,000 people watched. The plane, named "Guardian of a Hemisphere," circled the crowd and made a second overhead pass above a banner that was the largest ever made at the time and measured 100 by 40 feet.