The sun., 1919-05-28

(which had been shrieking since the
start superseded the roar Of the
meas four Liberty motors, and the
cheers and wild wboops of the Amer
jean sailors swelfed into hearing.
Flyfns Time 70 Hours 40 Minutes.
In actual flying time the Atlantic
flight from the island Of Newfound-
vland to the mainland of Europe occu-
epied only % hours and 40 minutes
little more than a day. The NC-4
salighted not far from the spot where
christopher Columbus dtsembarked
v'on returning for the first time from
America. In way the flight across
ethe Atlantic Ocean Is rs momentous
as that voyage Of the Genoese navl-
ggHtor. 10 the people of to-day per-
rhaps It merely means the crossing
of the Atlantic by air, not the dis
covery Of a new world, but to the
lpeople Of tomorrow 1t may stand as
the first step In the building up of
great aerial routes as great, perhaps,
As the ship and railway routes Of
TODAY.
Far fetched though such thought
Imay seem, 1t was with this In view,
as Commander John II. Towers, the
lleader Of the great venture, himself
ssaid before the start at Rockaway
that the seaplanes flew. The pur-
l pose of the flight, he declared, was
not only the crossing Of the Atlantic,
tbut the demonstration that 1t might
I'm the future be crossed as safely as
Sships cross 1t now. The development
lof aviation was the real reason for
the flight.
Mead Hailed as Hero.
But the achievements of the pres
lent, rather than what they may bring
forth in tue future, are in the public
ieye The plucky fight of the vic
It0rfous navigator, Commander Read,
against the forces of Ill luck which
Isomehow picked out the NC-4 to
shower their malice upon, Is cele-
Ibrated here fs the daring of Harry
IC. Hawker was celebrated In London.
1 Commander Read, the smallest man
of the nineteen. who set out upon the
hazardous journey, and one Of the
grittiest in that courageous company,
met such Ill fortune within q 100
miles or so Of the start that 1t seemed
l he would not complete the first
stretch of the blight. Three Of his
-Four engines were disabled. At the
naval STATEN at Chatham he had two
wrenched out of the framework Of
the machine and replaced by new
0nes Storms held him up after the
repairs had been completed. He
waited cautiously until flying weather
came instead Of risking his machine
J in hurricane rs a grand stand play
which would bring plaudits from the
whole country. Then he made up the
time in two fast flights and dropped
down at Trepassey, Just as the other
planes were endeavoring to take Off.
In the digit to the Azores he led
all the way, running the risk of
|going nstray between the thin line
of destroyers, fifty miles apart. He
took his plane through a thick fog
with pilots blinded by fog and unable
-. oh tsxn Baa
And when he reached Horta, and
later Ponta Delgada, he again waited
coolly for decent flying weather, for
by that time he was alone in the
Night, for the NC-1 had gone down in
the rough sea and the NC-3, after
three days upon the surface, was
brought into port q wreck by Com
mander Towers after as hard fight
as any captain ever made to bring
his ship safe into harbor.
|, When Commander Read did give
the word to fly this morning he did
80 practically certain that II he failed
in the flight It would be due to the
failure of the NC-4 or her crew and
not to the agency of bad weather.
| He realized that on this last lap,
with the success or failure Of the en-
tire naval venture resting solely on
his shoulders. that he must be eau
tious. But when he did take OF he
sent his machine spinning along the
course far faster than her cruising
speed Of about seventy or seyenty-five
land miles an hour.
The sky was practically cloudless
when he set of, although he had been
warned to beware Of rain squalls at
the middle point in his journey. A
fresh wind from the southwest was
blowing, a wind which he counted
upon to add its own speed to the great
rush of his seaplane, hurled through
the air by the terrific power Of four
\ great Liberty motors.
4 Fourteen DestrOyers on Route.
From fourteen destroyers, tossing
at intervals along the route, flashes
Of the progress Of the plane came
flying to Washington. They shSwed
that Commander Read, as In the great
flight to the Azores, was pushing his