“We could not have wished for better assistance than we had from the Air Ministry. The non-success of the wireless was not due to the wireless itself but to our fittings. As to the reports of ships, I think that if we had had ships every twenty yards apart you people would have looked on it as a joke and not a serious attempt to fly the Atlantic. If you are going to fly the Atlantic you have to weigh it up in your mind whether it is a serious proposition or a do-or-die effort, as the Americans like to call it.
“We weighed it up perfectly well, and it was a perfectly serious attempt in every way, and with the ordinary means and the ordinary amount of luck that you get in a machine there is no reason why you should not fly the distance to-morrow. You would think nothing of it overland. If you put a ship every fifty miles apart it only shows that you have no faith in your motor or in your machine.”
Commander Grieve, also received with loud and prolonged cheers, said:
“When I left St. Johns I did not know how things would pan out. The sun was shining and there were clouds below. I said, ‘Here are clouds, here is the sea, navigate as on the sea and use the clouds as your horizon’—with certain technical differences. This went on very well for four hours, until the middle of the night, when the clouds got up higher than ourselves at a time when they were most required. I got no sights for about four or five hours, until the moon came up and the clouds flattened themselves out a bit, and I managed to get a sight of our position.
“This only shows that navigation in aircraft is quite possible. Wireless is a valuable adjunct, the position of ships is valuable as a check, but unfortunately our wireless went wrong through lack of trial. We only got our fittings out just before we left. In every way, I think the navigation on the whole was a success, so far as it got.
“In conclusion, I would like, on behalf of my parents, to thank the Daily Mail for the sympathy shown and for the way they kept them informed of events.”
The health of Mr. Marlowe, the Chairman of the gathering, was proposed by the Right Hon. Andrew Fisher. Mr. Marlowe, in reply, said he could not help wishing that his chief, Lord Northcliffe, had been able to be present. All the great flying prizes which the Daily Mail had offered—the £10,000 prize for the flight from London to Manchester, another for a flight round England, the seaplane prize, in which Mr. Hawker played a very gallant part, and many others—all owed their origin to the personal initiative and action of Lord Northcliffe, who was, in his opinion, the first Englishman to foresee the great importance of aviation to the people of our islands, and to grasp, with that practical imagination which is one of his richest gifts, the developments of which it had shown itself to be capable.
On the morning of May 30th Harry, Grieve, and myself had the honour of being received by Queen Alexandra, who was greatly interested in the story of their rescue by Captain Duhn.
Later Harry and Grieve were the guests of the Royal Aero Club at a luncheon in their honour at the Savoy. The menu was: