Permission was asked from Washington, and the Navy flashed back its approval and its blessing, assigned five experienced officers to the project: Lieut. Comdr. Coil, Lieuts. Lawrence, Little, Preston, and Peck. The USS Chicago was sent ahead to St. John’s to stand by and give any help needed.
Shortly after sunrise on May 15, 1919, motors were warmed up and the ship shoved off from the tip of Long Island with six men aboard headed for Newfoundland. At 7 o’clock the next morning they circled over the deck of the Chicago, dropped their handling lines to the waiting ground crew on a rocky point at St. John’s. The first leg had been made in a little more than 24 hours, at an average speed of nearly 60 miles per hour.
The morning was clear and comparatively calm. Coil and Lawrence went aboard the Chicago to catch a little sleep before the final hop over the ocean. The others saw to re-fueling the C-5, stowing provisions aboard, topping off a bit of hydrogen from the cylinders alongside. Mechanics swarmed over the motors. All was well.
But about 10 o’clock gusts began to sweep down from Hudson’s Bay, dragging the ground crew over the rocks. There were no mooring masts in those days. A modern mast would have saved the ship. More sailors were put on the lines and word sent to Coil and Lawrence. If the ground crew could hold the ship till the pilots could get aboard and cut loose, the storm would give them a flying start over the Atlantic.
But the wind blew steadily stronger as the commander was hurrying ashore. It reached gale force, hurricane force, 40 knots, 60 knots in gusts, varying in direction crazily around a 60-degree arc. It picked the ship up and slammed it down, damaging the fuselage, breaking a propeller. Little and Peck climbed aboard to pull the rip panel and let the gas out. After the storm passed, they could cement the panel back in, reinflate the bag and go on.
But the fates were against them. The cord leading to the rip panel broke. Desperately, the two men started climbing up the suspension cables to the gas bag with knives, planning to rip the panel out by hand. But a tremendous gust caught the ship, lifted it up. Seeing the danger to the crew, Peck shouted to them to let go, and he and Little dropped over the side. Little broke an ankle.
The ship surged upward, crewless, set off like another “Flying Dutchman” across the Atlantic, was never seen again.
Just three days later Hawker and Grieve set out from St. John’s, landed in the ocean. Alcock and Brown cut loose their landing gear a month later and landed in Ireland. One of the three Navy seaplanes, the NC-4, reached Europe on May 31 and the British dirigible R-34 set out on July 2 for its successful round trip to Mitchel Field.
But for a trick of fate and the lack of equipment available today, a blimp would have been first to get across.
Many things happened in the airship field between the two wars, but most of them affected non-rigid airships only indirectly, as the Navy was primarily concerned with the larger rigids.