Pilots Alcock and Brown complete the first non stop Atlantic flight on June 15, 1918.

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  Alcock and Brown were chasing the 1913 Daily Mail £10,000 reward for the first successful Atlantic flight. In 1919, with the end of WW1, competition was heating up. Among the teams competing wer: 

• Australian legend Harry Hawker and Mackenzie-Grieve flying a Sopwith Atlantic (ditched in the Atlantic and was rescued)
• Frederick Raynham and C. F. W. Morgan in a Martinsyde Raymor single engine aircraft
• Maj. Herbert Brackley, Adm. M. Kerr, Maj. T. Gran, F. Wyatt, H. A. Arnold & C C Clements flying a 4-engine converted Handley Page bomber
• Alcock and Brown in a Vimy Vickers

“We have had a terrible time”

The flight skirted disaster from the start. Shortly after their 1:42pm take-off, the electric generator propeller broke off, depriving them of heating, the cockpit intercom system, and the wireless radio for outside communications. Brown didn’t alert Alcock to the electric failure. Had he, the pilot would have aborted the flight:

 Both Captain Alcock and Lieutenant Brown described their journey as a very trying one – fog clouds rain and wind all the way. Their altitude varied up to 13,000 ft., and they were unable at times to know whether they were flying upside down or not.
They did not sight a ship but ascended hurriedly when on one occasion they saw the green Atlantic some thirty feet below them.

The breaking away of the generator propeller soon after the start prevented them from using their wireless.
When this happened Lieutenant Brown noticed that the propeller carried away with it one of the stay wires, but he did not tell Captain Alcock until after they landed at Clifden. Captain Alcock said, ‘I would have turned back had I know.’ –  June 16, 1919 Daily Mirror

The weather cooperated around midnight, allowing Brown to plot their position with the sextant, enabling them to stay on course. At 3am, the Vimy flew into a snowstorm that caused some instruments and the engine to ice up. Brown, at one point, is said to have climbed out of the cockpit to clear the ice away.

“The wonder we are here at all. We scarcely saw the sun or the moon or the stars. For hours we saw none of them. The fog was very dense, and at times we had to descend to within 300ft of the sea.

“For four hours the machine was covered in a sheet of ice carried by frozen sleet; at another time the fog was so dense that my speed indicator did not work, and for a few seconds it was very alarming.” June 16, 1919 Daily Mirror

At times, they were unsure if they were even flying upright. Alcock was sure they had looped the loop at one point. Despite the conditions, the pair kept flying eastward until they sighted the coast of Ireland

We looped the loop, I do believe, and did a very steep spiral. We did some very comic ‘stunts’, for I have had no sense of horizon.
…
We drank coffee and ale and ate sandwiches and chocolate – June 16, 1919 Daily Mirror

At 9:40 am (British Summer Time), Alcock and Brown landed in Derrygilmlagh Bog, near Clifden in County Galway in Ireland, tipping the nose into the bog.

When making the landing the pylons of the centre section, as well as the main spar of the lower plane, were broken, but the steel construction of the fuselage saved the machine from further damage.
The machine will, however, have to be dismantled in consequence of this damage – June 16, 1919 Daily Mirror

The landing touched down on what they thought was solid ground. It wasn’t. Alcock landed in a bog, and the plane rolled forward and pitched into the soft soil.

“The machine circled over the town of Clifden, untroubled by the gusty wind prevailing, with the object apparently of seeking a safe landing place, and the roar of the engines created considerable surprise and excitement amongst the inhabitants.

Eventually, the machine turned towards the Marconi wireless station and landed on the soft ground. After running along the ground, the machine stopped and buried both propellers in the soft earth.” – June 16, 1919 Daily Mirror

Alcock and Brown were international heroes. Both were knighted within the month. Unfortunately, Alcock didn’t live long enough to enjoy his knighthood, he was killed in an air accident in Paris, Dec. 18, 1919. Brown died Oct 4, 1948.
(previously published October 05, 2020. Read the entire article here.)