CAPTAIN ALCOCK'S ACCOUNT, NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 16, 1919

On the front of the June 16, 1919 New York Times under the banner headlines announcing the successful flight there is a box with Captain John Alcock's exciting account of the historic flight. Here it is in its entirety.

Captain Alcock's Own Narrative

Of His Flight From Newfoundland to Ireland

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By Captain J. Alcock, D.S.C.

Special Cable to the New York Times

(By Courtesy of London Daily Mail)

LONDON. June 15, (By telegraph from Clifden, Ireland) We have had a terrible journey. The wonder is that we are here at all. We scarcely saw the sun or the moon or the stars. For hours we saw none of them.

The fog was very dense and at times we had to descend to within 300 feet of the sea. For four hours the machine was covered in a sheet of ice, caused by frozen sleet. At another time the fog was so dense that my speed indicator did not work, and for a few seconds it was very alarming.

We looped the loop, I do believe, and did a very steep spiral. We did some very comic stunts, for I had no sense of the horizon.

Winds were favorable all the way, northwest, and at times southwest. We said in Newfoundland we would do the trip in sixteen hours, but we never thought we should. An hour and a half before we saw land we had no certain idea where we were, but we believed we were in Galway or thereabouts.

Our delight in seeing Eastal Island and Turbot Island, five miles west of Clifden was great. People did not know who we were when we landed and thought we were scouts on the lookout for the Vimy.

We encountered no unforeseen conditions. We did not suffer from cold or exhaustion, except when looking over the side. Then the sleet chewed bits out of our faces. We drank coffee and ale and ate sandwiches and chocolate.

The flight has shown that the Atlantic flight is practicable. It should be done not with an aeroplane or a seaplane but with a flying boat.

We had plenty of reserve fuel, using only two-thirds of our supply. The only thing that upset me was to see the machine at the end get damaged. From above, the bog looked like a lovely field, but the machine sank into it up to the axle and fell over on to her nose.