Airmen Rescued After Sopwith Fails to Cross Atlantic, May 26, 1919

From the Hickory Daily Record, May 26, 1919. Harry Hawker, a test pilot for Sopwith Airplanes, and his navigator Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve were trying to win the Daily Mail’s 10,000-pound prize for the first flight across the Atlantic. They set off from Mount Pearl, Newfoundlant, in Sopwith biplane on May 19, 1919, but the engine overheated and they changed course to intercept with the shipping lanes, and landed near a passing freighter, the Mary. The public didn’t learn of their rescue until the Mary reached Scotland six days later. Hawker died July 12, 1921 when his Nieuport Goshawk crashed while practicing for an air derby. This photo was taken in Newfoundland, May, 1919, shows Hawker with his Sopwith. It was taken by Bain News Service, New York City. For more photos and more information, see https://www.firhilldroxford.com/mackenzie-grieve-family

Rescue of Men

London, May 26—Harry G. Hawker and Lieutenant Commander Mackenbie Grieve, the two airmen who started last Sunday in an attempt to fly across the Atlantic ocean from St. Johns, Newfoundland, have been picked up at sea. Both men are in perfect health.

It is officially announced by the admiralty that the aviators were picked up in latitude 50.20, longitude 29.30, having alighted close to the little Danish steamer Mary, owing to a stoppage of circulation in the water pipes between the radiator and the water pipe.

The airplane, a Sopwith machine, was not salvaged.

The first report of the aviators since their “jump off” last Sunday came when the Mary, which was ound from Norfolk to Aarhuus, rounded the Butt of Lewis Sunday and wigwagged the fact that she had Hawker and Grieve aboard.

“Saved hands of Sopwith airplane,” was the signal.

“Is it Hawker?” was the question sent out by the flags form the Butt, which is the most northwesterly point of the Hebrides group off Scotland.

“Yes,” laconically replied the Mary.

The admiralty immediately sent out a fast torpedo boat destroyer in an endeavor to intercept the Mary and take off the aviators. There was an anxious wait of several hours, when the word was flashed that the destroyer had come across the steamer and transferred Hawker and Grieve and was taking them to Thurso, on the northern coast of Scotland, about 100 miles east of the Butt of Lewis.

The destroyer, the Revenge, reported to the admiralty this evening that Hawker and Grieve would sleep on board tonight. The aviators will reach London at 7 o’clock Tuesday evening.

The news of the rescue has electrified all Britain. All destroyers, after a thorough search of the Atlantic for 300 miles from the Irish coast, had given up the quest and there was practically no hope that the airmen were alive.

Yesterday morning, however, the forlorn hope that the aviators might be picked up by some craft without wireless was realized. The Danish steamer Mary, crawling along at nine knots, was the lucky vessel, and her brief message to the watchers at the Butt of Lewis, as she proceeded on her way to Scotland, left the public to speculate wonderingly over the details of the airmen’s adventures.

The Admiralty immediately dispatched destroyers from northern points to intercept the Mary and the Daily Mail instructed all signal stations to try to communicate with the captain with the urgent request to land the aviators at some Scottish port. The admiralty quest succeeded, and a wireless message came from the destroyer Woolsun late in the evening that she had overtaken the Mary and had transferred the aviators.