R34 airship + Wopsie the cat completed the 1st return Atlantic air voyage in 1919
On July 13, 1919 RAF R34 airship and a stowaway cat completed the first Atlantic round trip.
Mere weeks after Alcock and Brown’s historic non stop Atlantic flight, the R34 with a crew of 31 and a cat called Whopsie set off from Fortune, Scotland in the early hours of July 2, 1919. Their goal was to be the first aircraft of any sort to complete a return voyage across the Atlantic
You can always rely on either Jersey or the Isle of Man to celebrate UK history in style. This stamp is part of a set from Manx Post issued in 2019 to celebrate 100 years of Transatlantic trips.
R34 Dirigible
Issued in 2019 by IOM post
Designed by Glazier Post
When they arrived at Mineola, Long Island, USA on July 6 – the first nonstop flight from UK to North America, they were running on fumes after the 108 hour and 12 minute trip. The ship started with 22,712 liters fuel and by the time it hovered over the airfield, R34 was down to its last few gallons.
The journey was filled with adventure and near disasters. The crew contended with dwindling fuel supplies and violent squalls, as well as a leak that was repaired with the crew’s entire supply of chewing gum.
https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalogue/stowaways-and-cats-the-first-transatlantic-flight-from-britain-to-the-united-states
The return trip took far less time. The airship met with favourable winds as it left US territory on July 10. It took only 75 hours to cross back over the Atlantic and dock at RNAS Pulham, Norfolk on the 13th.
Some of the crew of the R34 airship plus their 2 dog mascots, Punch and Judy, who stayed in the UK, and the intrepid Wopsie. Unknown date. Courtesy National Museum of Scotland.
Oh, and one human, William (Billy) Ballantyne, smuggled himself aboard for the trip. He gets a mention because he smuggled not only himself, but Wopsie aboard the R34 airship. Billy helped construct the R34, but was not picked for the historic voyage. To say he was disappointed doesn’t begin to describe his reaction to being grounded. So both Wopsie and Billy were the world’s first passenger stowaways!
Two hours before embarkation, cuddling the crew’s mascot, a tabby kitten called Whoopsie, he smuggled himself aboard, hiding in the darkness of the hull, squeezed between girders and mammoth gas bags holding almost two million cubic feet of hydrogen.
After 12 hours he had to give himself up. Stiff with cramp, he was also nauseous from seeping gas and fumes from the 6,000 gallons of petrol which powered the ship’s five 250hp engines.
After being hauled into the control car he was given a rollicking by senior officers, Brigadier-General Edward Maitland, a parachute pioneer, and the intrepid, celebrated airship pilot, George Herbert Scott.
Had R34 been over land, they’d have put him out by parachute. He added to the weight and was another mouth to feed, which strained the already limited rations. But remembering their own youthful adventures, Scott and Maitland let him off lightly. For the rest of the voyage he had to pump petrol by hand to the engines, as well as peel potatoes – the traditional lot of a ship’s cabin boy.
https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/osprey-blog/2019/airship-design-development-and-disaster/
Note: The cat’s name is spelt Wopsie by the Museum in Scotland, so I went with that spelling throughout this article.
Previous SODs were interesting but not nearly as exciting as Wopsie’s trip across the Atlantic