The £10,000 Atlantic Dare That Sent a Bomber into a Bog

Simon Carver

So, Billy, picture- picture a quiet Sunday morning, right? June 15th, 1919. Out in the absolute middle of nowhere in Connemara, western Ireland. This local policeman gets what has to be the most baffling phone call of his entire career. Two blokes have just literally fallen out of the sky and landed headfirst in a bog.

Billy Galligan - Author

Ah, the bog! (laughs) Sure, where else would you put a multi-ton bomber after flying it across the Atlantic? You couldn't make it up, Simon. It's the most- it is the most Irish landing spot in the history of aviation. But- but tell me, how did they even get into the air in the first place? Because in 1919, nobody was doing this.

Simon Carver

Well, it actually starts six years earlier, in 1913. There's this newspaper tycoon, Lord Northcliffe—who was actually born in Chapelizod, just outside Dublin, funnily enough. He owns the Daily Mail, and he puts up this- this absolutely absurd dare. He offers ten thousand pounds to the first person who can fly non-stop across the Atlantic. From North America to Great Britain or Ireland. Ten thousand quid in 1913, Billy. That is easily over half a million pounds today. Maybe six hundred thousand.

Billy Galligan - Author

Six hundred thousand pounds! Mother of God. In 1913, they were still flying things made of- of basically canvas and piano wire! It's like offering half a million today to the first fella who builds a functional warp drive in his garden shed. Most sensible people back then thought it was a- a suicide mission. Or just a cheap stunt to sell newspapers.

Simon Carver

Oh, completely. Some people called Northcliffe a madman, others said he was just exploiting desperate pilots for headlines. But then, of course, the Great War breaks out in 1914, and the whole mad race gets put on ice. But the war- the war actually changes everything because it forces aviation technology to leap forward by about fifty years in the span of four. By 1918, you suddenly have these- these massive multi-engine bombers designed to carry tons of weight over long distances. So when the Armistice is signed, Northcliffe puts the ten thousand pounds back on the table. And this time, it's not a joke. It is a desperate, high-stakes sprint.

Billy Galligan - Author

And where do they all go? They end up in Newfoundland, right? St. John's. I've seen photos of that place from 1919, Simon, it- it looked like a travelling circus had collided with an engineering workshop. Just- just pure chaos.

Simon Carver

Exactly! It became this bizarre aviation enclave. You had four main teams camped out in the freezing cold, all trying to find a flat piece of land. There was Hawker and Grieve with their single-engine Sopwith. There was Raynham and Morgan in a Martinsyde. Then you had this massive Handley Page team led by Admiral Mark Kerr. Kerr had the biggest plane by far, but he was so- so incredibly cautious. He refused to fly until every single nut and bolt was completely perfect. Which, in Newfoundland weather, basically meant he was never going to leave the ground.

Billy Galligan - Author

Classic military bureaucracy, eh? (laughs) "We'll fly just as soon as the paperwork is signed in triplicate and the wind is exactly three knots from the east." Meanwhile, the other fellas are probably holding their wings together with spit and prayer.

Simon Carver

Literally! And then you have the Vickers team. Who were the absolute definition of underdogs. Captain John Alcock—Manchester lad, been flying since he was seventeen, spent the end of the war in a Turkish prisoner-of-war camp after his bomber's engines died over the Gulf of Xeros. He gets back to England, unemployed, and literally badgered Vickers into giving him a job as a test pilot. But he needs a navigator. And in walks Arthur Whitten Brown. Now, Brown was an American citizen but grew up in Manchester. He'd been shot down, spent years as a POW, walked with a heavy limp, and was completely out of work. He literally walked into the Vickers offices just looking for any job at all, and started chatting about long-distance navigation. Next thing you know, he's the co-pilot.

Billy Galligan - Author

Hold on. So you've got a pilot who spent the war in a Turkish prison, and a navigator with a gammy leg who only got the gig because he wandered in off the street asking for a desk job? That's- that's spectacular. They weren't even supposed to be there, let alone win the bloody thing!

Simon Carver

No one expected them to! But they had this secret weapon: the Vickers Vimy. It was a twin-engine bomber built for the RAF, but they ripped out all the military gear—the bomb racks, the gun mountings—and replaced every spare inch of space with massive, custom-built fuel tanks. They basically turned a war machine into a flying petrol bomb.

Billy Galligan - Author

A flying petrol bomb is right. Because to get across three thousand kilometres of open, freezing ocean, you need a terrifying amount of fuel. What was the weight of it, Simon? It must have been- they must have been right on the edge of what those Rolls-Royce engines could actually lift.

Simon Carver

They were massively overloaded, Billy. The plane's standard maximum weight was supposed to be around twelve thousand pounds. By the time they filled those custom tanks, they were pushing over thirteen thousand five hundred pounds. And they had to take off from this place called Lester's Field. I mean, calling it a "field" is a massive compliment. It was only five hundred yards long. They had to blast boulders out of the way with dynamite and tear down stone walls just to give themselves a fighting chance.

Billy Galligan - Author

Five hundred yards! For an overloaded bomber? That is- that is madness. My school bus in Gwinnett County needs more room than that to turn around, never mind taking off with enough petrol to drown a village! If those engines coughed once on takeoff, they were absolute toast.

Simon Carver

Absolutely. It's mid-afternoon, June 14th, 1919. The wind is howling. The engines are roaring at full throttle, the whole wooden frame of the Vimy is groaning and shaking like it's about to shake itself to pieces. Alcock releases the brakes. The plane slowly—so slowly—starts rolling down this bumpy, muddy field. It's bouncing, struggling to get any lift at all. They get to the very end of the five hundred yards, right at the edge of the clearing, and the wheels finally leave the mud. They cleared the rooftops and the pine trees of St. John's by maybe several feet. Just- just skimming the branches.

Billy Galligan - Author

Jesus. I'm holding my breath just listening to that. Can you imagine the people on the ground? Just watching this massive, roaring machine disappear over the cliffs, out into the grey fog of the Atlantic. And then... what? Just silence?

Simon Carver

Total silence. Their wireless generator actually broke off almost immediately after takeoff, taking their antenna with it. So they had zero radio. No way to call for help, no way to tell anyone they were still in the air. Just two men, in an open cockpit, flying into the gathering dark over three thousand kilometers of freezing water, with absolutely no one knowing if they were alive or dead.

Billy Galligan - Author

Well, if that doesn't set the scene for a long, cold night, I don't know what does. Sure, why not, eh? Let's see if they actually make it to that Irish bog.