By Alan Smith

Everyone knows about Charles Lindbergh and his 1927 flight from Long Island NY to Paris, but there were others that took on the Atlantic challenge and he was not the first to cross the Atlantic. The London Daily Mail had put up a fifty thousand dollar prize for the first non-stop crossing by air, and a number of pilots had their eye on that. The first actual Atlantic crossing had been made by a U.S. Navy NC-4 Curtiss flying boat in early 1919, but it was far from non-stop and took weeks with engine and navigation problems.  In June of 1919, two British teams were at St John’s, Newfoundland with converted biplane bombers. They had shipped the planes over to Newfoundland to attempt West to East crossings with prevailing winds as a tailwind.

Harry G. Hawker and McKenzie Grieve planned to try with a Handley-Page bomber powered by four Rolls Royce engines, while John Alcock and navigator Arthur W, Brown were preparing a Vickers Vimy twin-engined bomber that had been built too late to be used in WW I. Both crews, of course, were thirsting for the Daily Mail prize, and both were making preparations at Lester’s Field near St John’s.