The Curtiss NC-4: The Flying Boat That Crossed the Atlantic Before Lindbergh

The Curtiss NC-4 crossed the North Atlantic in May 1919, eight years before Charles Lindbergh, carrying a crew of six Navy men across 1,500 miles of open ocean. The aircraft completed its journey from Newfoundland to Plymouth, England on May 31, 1919, with a total flight time of approximately 53 hours. It hangs today in the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida - largely unknown outside of aviation history circles, but undeniably first.

Why the Navy Built the NC Flying Boats

In 1917, German submarines were devastating Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic. The U.S. Navy needed long-range maritime patrol aircraft - fast. Glenn Curtiss, who had been building flying boats since before the war, received the contract.

The resulting NC boats (Navy Curtiss) were enormous biplane flying boats powered by four Liberty engines each. The Liberty was the defining American aircraft engine of the era: 400 horsepower, 12 cylinders, liquid cooled. Three engines were mounted in a tandem center arrangement - one tractor, one pusher between them - with a fourth on a wing nacelle.

The numbers tell the story of their scale. Wingspan: 126 feet. For comparison, the Curtiss Jenny, the most common trainer of the era, had a 43-foot wingspan. The NC boats spanned nearly three of those, side by side. Gross weight loaded: approximately 28,000 pounds. Crew: six men.

The armistice in November 1918 ended the war before the NC boats flew a single anti-submarine patrol. But Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels already had a different mission in mind.

The Atlantic Prize and the Navy’s Ambition

The British newspaper the Daily Mail had posted a prize of £10,000 for the first aircraft to cross the North Atlantic. More than the money, Daniels saw a global stage: American aviation technology and American ambition, demonstrated for the world in peacetime.

Four aircraft were prepared: NC-1, NC-2, NC-3, and NC-4. NC-2 was later disassembled to supply spare parts for the others. Three aircraft would make the attempt.

The planned route was ambitious: north up the East Coast to Halifax, Nova Scotia, then to Trepassey Bay, Newfoundland - the departure point. From there, the hardest leg: 1,500 miles of open North Atlantic to the Azores. Then east to Lisbon, Portugal, and north to Plymouth, England.

The Destroyer Chain: A Highway Across the Atlantic

To give the crews something to navigate by across 1,500 miles of open ocean, the Navy positioned 68 destroyers in a line between Newfoundland and the Azores - one every 20 miles. Each destroyer burned smoke during the day and flashed searchlights at night. If a crew was on course, they could find the next ship, and the one after that.

No peacetime navigation aid before or since has matched this in scale. The United States Navy built a highway of warships across the North Atlantic for three flying boats.

The Commanders and Their Crews

NC-1 was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Patrick Bellinger. NC-3 was commanded by Commander John Towers, who held overall operational command of the transatlantic attempt. NC-4 was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Albert “Putty” Read - quiet, methodical, and deeply competent. Read had been in the Navy since 1907.

Read’s crew included Lieutenant Elmer Stone as navigator, Lieutenant James Breese as flight engineer, and Ensign Herbert Rodd as radio operator, along with two additional Navy men completing the crew of six.

Engine Trouble Before Departure

Before the crossing even began, NC-4 nearly missed it. While staging down the East Coast from Naval Air Station Rockaway on Long Island, the aircraft developed engine trouble and was forced down near Cape Cod. She taxied to the Naval Air Station at Chatham for repairs while NC-1 and NC-3 continued north without her.

The repair crew worked through the problem. NC-4 then flew to Halifax and on to Trepassey Bay - late, but intact.

Departure from Trepassey Bay: May 16, 1919

Weather held the crews at Trepassey Bay for days. Fog, rain, low ceilings, Atlantic swells. Then on the afternoon of May 16, 1919, a window opened. All three NC boats lifted off and turned east.

They flew into the night over open water - no radio navigation, no weather radar, no satellite signals. A magnetic compass. A drift indicator. Dead reckoning. And 68 destroyers below, if the crews could find them through whatever the sky decided to do.

What Happened to NC-1 and NC-3

NC-1 ran into serious trouble in the fog, lost contact with the destroyer chain, and was forced down on the open ocean. The swells were too heavy to take off again. Her crew was rescued by a surface ship, cold but alive. NC-1 was taken under tow and later sank.

NC-3 also came down on the open ocean near the Azores. Commander Towers refused to abandon his aircraft. Over the next 58 hours, he and his crew used their remaining engines and the wind working on the flying surfaces to navigate approximately 200 miles of open ocean to reach port. They sailed a flying boat across the Atlantic. Their transatlantic crossing was over, but what followed was an extraordinary feat of seamanship and determination in its own right.

NC-4 flew on.

NC-4 Reaches the Azores: May 17, 1919

Navigator Lieutenant Elmer Stone, working by dead reckoning through fog and shifting winds, kept calculating and correcting. Lieutenant Commander Read held the aircraft on heading. Then, through broken clouds, came the island of Flores.

NC-4 landed at Horta on May 17, 1919. It had covered 1,500 miles of open ocean. No aircraft had ever done that before.

Lisbon and Plymouth: The Crossing Complete

After several days at the Azores - thorough inspection, refueling, crew rest, and waiting for weather - NC-4 departed on May 27, 1919. When she settled onto the Tagus River in Lisbon, Portugal, the city understood what had happened.

Ships in the harbor fired their guns. Crowds lined the waterfront. Wire services around the world carried the story. Six Navy men in a biplane flying boat had flown from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere.

On May 31, 1919, NC-4 set down in Plymouth harbor, England. The crossing was complete. Total flying time across all legs: approximately 53 hours. The full journey from Naval Air Station Rockaway to Plymouth, counting weather delays, repairs, and stopovers, had taken just under a month.

Why History Forgot NC-4

Sixteen days after NC-4 arrived at Plymouth, British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown climbed into a modified Vickers Vimy bomber at Lester’s Field, Newfoundland, and flew nonstop to Clifden, Ireland in approximately 16 hours. One takeoff. One landing. The Atlantic in between. They collected the Daily Mail’s £10,000 prize and became legends.

The public decided nonstop was what mattered. NC-4 had crossed first but with stops. In the popular imagination, the stops felt like disqualification - even though navigating 1,500 miles of fog and darkness by dead reckoning to a small island in the mid-Atlantic was arguably the more demanding feat of airmanship.

Then came 1927: Lindbergh. Solo. Nonstop. New York to Paris in 33 hours, 30 minutes, 30 seconds. The world never forgot.

NC-4 became a footnote.

Albert Read After the Crossing

Albert Read continued a long Navy career, rising to the rank of rear admiral. He died in 1967 at the age of 82. He was never a household name, and by all accounts never sought to be. Those who wrote about the crossing described him consistently as proud of the flight but not defined by the need for recognition. He did the job. The job mattered. That was enough.

Seeing NC-4 Today

After the crossing, NC-4 was displayed at locations on both sides of the Atlantic before being donated to the Smithsonian Institution. Large fabric-and-metal aircraft are difficult to preserve, and NC-4 is a very large aircraft. She deteriorated in storage - salt air working into the fabric, wood drying and checking, aluminum corroding along hidden seams.

The restoration that brought her back was decades of painstaking work by Navy craftsmen, museum professionals, and dedicated volunteers. New fabric over original framing where the original could be saved. Liberty engines sourced and rebuilt. The hull restored section by section.

Today, NC-4 hangs in the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. The building is enormous; the aircraft fills it. That 126-foot wingspan overhead. Four Liberty engines, cold and quiet, still impressive as objects alone. Six open cockpit positions where six men sat for 53 hours over the North Atlantic.

Standing under those wings, the numbers stop being abstract. These were Navy aviators navigating by dead reckoning, finding a small island in the fog because the math was right and the piloting held and the machine kept running. The NC-4 has been waiting patiently in that hangar for more than a hundred years. She is worth the trip.

Key Takeaways

The Curtiss NC-4 completed the first transatlantic crossing in May 1919, eight years before Lindbergh, with a crew of six Navy men.
The 1,500-mile overwater leg from Newfoundland to the Azores was flown entirely by dead reckoning; the Navy deployed 68 destroyers as navigational markers, one every 20 miles.
NC-4 reached Plymouth, England on May 31, 1919, accumulating approximately 53 hours of flight time across all legs.
History gave the fame to Alcock and Brown (first nonstop crossing, 1919) and then to Lindbergh (1927), effectively erasing NC-4’s prior first from public memory.
The restored NC-4 is on permanent display at the National Naval Aviation Museum, NAS Pensacola, Florida - the only place to understand, in physical terms, what six men and one flying boat accomplished over the North Atlantic.