Sir John William Alcock

Sir John William Alcock (born Nov. 6, 1892, Manchester, Eng.—died Dec. 18, 1919, Cottévrard, France) was an aviator who, with fellow British aviator Arthur Brown, made the first nonstop transatlantic flight.

(Read Orville Wright’s 1929 biography of his brother, Wilbur.)

Alcock received his pilot’s certificate in 1912 and joined the Royal Naval Air Service as an instructor at the opening of World War I. In 1916 he was posted to a wing group of the Eastern Mediterranean theatre, based at Munros. During his service he performed many daring exploits, including the bombing of Constantinople. In September 1917 enemy antiaircraft fire forced him down into the sea near Suvla Bay (Anafarta Limanı), near the Dardanelles, where he and his crew of two were taken prisoner by the Turks. He remained a prisoner until the end of the war and left the service in March 1919.

Britannica Quiz

History of Flight Quiz

After the war he became a test pilot for Vickers Aircraft, which was preparing an airplane to fly the Atlantic Ocean nonstop for a £10,000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail. Alcock and Brown left St. John’s, Nfd., at 4:13 pm GMT, on June 14, 1919. They landed the next day in a marshy bog near Clifden, County Galway, Ire., after a flight of 1,890 miles (3,040 km) in 16 hours 12 minutes. Both airmen were honoured throughout Great Britain and were created Knight Commanders, Order of the British Empire. They also received a prize of £10,000 from the London Daily Mail. Several months later, while delivering an amphibian aircraft to Paris, Alcock crashed in bad weather and was fatally injured.