The Curtiss NC-4 and the Forgotten First Crossing of the Atlantic

On May 16, 1919, the Curtiss NC-4 lifted off from Trepassey Bay, Newfoundland, and became the first aircraft in history to cross the Atlantic Ocean. That milestone belongs to Commander Albert “Putty” Read and his crew of six - not to Alcock and Brown, who made the famous nonstop crossing fourteen days later. The NC-4’s story is one of the most consequential in aviation history, and one of the least told.

Why the U.S. Navy Flew the Atlantic

The British newspaper lord Northcliffe had offered £10,000 for the first nonstop transatlantic flight, and the race to claim it was already underway in the spring of 1919. The Navy wasn’t chasing the prize. They were making a different argument entirely - that naval aviation had matured enough to operate at oceanic distances. Prove you can fly the Atlantic, and you’ve proved you can patrol it.

To make that argument, the Navy needed the right aircraft.

The Curtiss NC Flying Boat: What It Was

The Curtiss NC - Navy Curtiss - was a purpose-built flying boat of a scale that had no real parallel in 1919. Her wingspan stretched 126 feet. Four Liberty V-12 engines, each producing roughly 400 horsepower, were mounted on struts above the lower wing. She carried a crew of six and weighed more than 27,000 pounds fully loaded.

The Liberty engine itself was a product of wartime urgency. A committee of automotive and aviation engineers designed it in a single weekend in Washington in 1917, locking themselves in a room until they had a finished specification. The result became the standard American aviation powerplant of the First World War.

Four NC boats were eventually ready. NC-2 was cannibalized for parts before the mission began, her engines redistributed among her sisters. Three planes remained: NC-1, NC-3, and NC-4.

The Navy’s solution to oceanic navigation in 1919 was audacious: 57 destroyers and cruisers strung across 840 miles of the North Atlantic between Newfoundland and the Azores, one ship every 50 miles. Each vessel carried radio equipment, searchlights, and flares, with orders to mark its position clearly for any aircraft overhead.

The idea was to create a corridor through the dark. Thousands of sailors standing cold watches, pointing searchlights skyward, firing flares into the night - all so three flying boats might find their way. It remains among the most ambitious aviation support operations ever mounted.

The Three Crews

Each aircraft carried a distinct crew and commander.

NC-1 was led by Patrick Bellinger, with Lieutenant Marc Mitscher at the controls. The name is significant: Mitscher would go on to command the fast carrier task forces in the Pacific during the Second World War. He was on the bridge of USS Hornet when Doolittle’s bombers launched for Tokyo. In 1919, he was a lieutenant over the North Atlantic.

NC-3 was commanded by Commander John Towers, the Navy’s overall mission commander. Towers had designed the entire operation.

NC-4 was under Commander Albert Callatin Read - “Putty” to everyone who knew him. Deliberate, methodical, not given to theatrics. His crew of six included Lieutenant Elmer Stone of the Coast Guard as primary pilot, along with a second pilot, navigator, radio operator, and mechanic.

What Happened Over the Atlantic

The three aircraft departed Trepassey Bay on the evening of May 16, 1919. The weather held for a short while, then deteriorated.

NC-1 flew into fog so dense that Bellinger and Mitscher lost visual reference entirely. Coming down through the overcast to find the destroyer lights, they hit the water hard in heavy swells. The hull broke apart. The crew survived - rescued by a Greek freighter - but the aircraft was lost. Marc Mitscher spent a night in the North Atlantic in a life jacket.

NC-3 found the corridor but lost the formation in overcast. Towers brought his aircraft down on the open ocean to assess damage. He couldn’t get her airborne again. The swells were too heavy, the hull too stressed.

What Towers did next is one of the most extraordinary acts in aviation history, and almost no one knows about it. For 52 hours, he and his crew rode the broken NC-3 across the open Atlantic under engine power - taxiing on the surface of the ocean, water washing over the hull, for 200 miles - until they limped into the harbor at Ponta Delgada in the Azores. Not a rescue. They brought themselves in.

NC-4: The Crossing

The NC-4 flew through the same fog, the same black water, the same overcast that destroyed the other two aircraft. Fifteen hours and eighteen minutes after departing Trepassey Bay, she settled onto the water at Horta in the Azores. Hull intact. Engines running. Crew alive.

After servicing the engines and waiting on weather, Read and his crew departed again on May 27. Nine hours and nineteen minutes later, the NC-4 came down over the Portuguese coast and entered the harbor at Lisbon. Ships sounded their horns. The city came out to watch. Telegraphs had been carrying the story across Europe all week.

The NC-4 pressed on to Plymouth, England, completing the full journey in 23 days from New York, with approximately 54 hours of total flying time over the transatlantic route.

Why Alcock and Brown Got the Headline

Fourteen days after the NC-4 touched down at Plymouth, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown climbed into a converted Vickers Vimy bomber at St. John’s, Newfoundland. Sixteen hours and twelve minutes later, they landed in a bog in County Galway, Ireland. First nonstop transatlantic flight. Winners of the Northcliffe prize. Front page around the world.

History gave the clean headline to the cleaner story. One aircraft, no destroyers, no stops - Alcock and Brown’s crossing was a different and in some ways purer achievement. The two stories aren’t in competition.

But Read crossed the Atlantic first. His crew flew where no aircraft had flown before. They proved the thing was possible. That’s not a footnote - it’s the opening sentence.

Albert “Putty” Read: What Came After

Read returned to a ticker-tape parade in New York and a meeting with President Wilson at the White House. He received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. He continued serving, rose through the ranks, and retired as a rear admiral. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Where the NC-4 Is Today

The NC-4 is preserved at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. The museum built a space that does justice to that 126-foot wingspan. The hull sits low as a boat hull should, and the wings extend further than the eye expects. The Liberty engines are long gone, but the structure is otherwise remarkably intact after more than a century.

The museum’s restoration is documented and honest - original materials preserved where possible, replacements noted. The surrounding displays include the charts of the route, crew photographs, and communications logs from the destroyers. The story is told properly.

Standing under those wings, the weight of what Read’s crew did becomes tangible. Six men in an open cockpit, in leather and wool, over the North Atlantic in the dark - no weather service ahead, no terrain avoidance, just compass and clock and dead reckoning and the faith that the math would hold.

Key Takeaways

The Curtiss NC-4 made the first transatlantic crossing on May 16–27, 1919, arriving in Lisbon before Alcock and Brown made their famous nonstop flight 14 days later.
The Navy deployed 57 warships across 840 miles of the North Atlantic as a navigation corridor - the most ambitious aviation support operation in history to that point.
NC-1 crashed in fog; NC-3 taxied 200 miles across the open ocean with a broken hull over 52 hours to reach the Azores - one of the most extraordinary acts of airmanship on record.
Commander Albert “Putty” Read commanded the NC-4; Lieutenant Marc Mitscher of NC-1 would later become one of the most important admirals of the Second World War.
The NC-4 survives intact at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, and is worth making a trip to see.