‘The Military Chartmaker’

Extract

Vice Admiral Shannon D. Cramer, Jr., presented the American contribution to the development of navigational charts in his paper (this Journal, 30, 15, Jan. 1977). He comments that:

It is seldom realized that the first flight across the Atlantic was completed by the U.S. Navy in 1919—eight years before Charles A. Lindbergh's courageous solo flight.

There are two points which appear to be equally seldom realized.

(1) The U.S. Navy flight certainly crossed from one Atlantic coast to the other, but the crossing was achieved by one flight from Newfoundland to the Azores on 16 May, 1919 and a second flight from the Azores to Lisbon nine days later on May 28.