On July 17, 1938, Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan, the last
of the early adventure seeking aviators, took off from Floyd Bennett field in
Brooklyn, New York, on a flight that would finally win him a place in aviation
history. Eleven years earlier, American Charles A. Lindbergh had become an
international celebrity with his solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic.
Corrigan was among the mechanics who had worked on Lindbergh's Spirit of St.
Louis aircraft, but that mere footnote in the history of flight was not
enough for the Texas-born aviator. In 1938, he bought a 1929 Curtiss Robin
aircraft off a trash heap, rebuilt it, and modified it for long-distance
flight. On July 8, 1938, Corrigan piloted his single-engine plane nonstop from Long
Beach, California to New York. Although the transcontinental flight was far
from unprecedented, Corrigan received national attention simply because the press
was amazed that his rattletrap aircraft had survived the journey.
Almost immediately after arriving in New York, he filed
plans for a transatlantic flight, but aviation authorities deemed it a suicide
flight, and he was promptly denied. Instead, they would allow Corrigan to fly
back to the West Coast, and on July 17 he took off from Floyd Bennett field,
ostentatiously pointed west. However, a few minutes later, he made a 180-degree
turn and vanished into a cloudbank to the puzzlement of a few onlookers. Twenty-eight
hours later, Corrigan landed his plane in Dublin, Ireland, stepped out of his
plane, and exclaimed, "Just got in from New York. Where am I?" He
claimed that he lost his direction in the clouds and that his compass had
malfunctioned. The authorities didn't buy the story and suspended his license,
but Corrigan stuck to it to the amusement of the public on both sides of the
Atlantic. By the time Corrigan and his crated plane returned to New York by
ship, his license suspension had been lifted, he was a national celebrity, and
a mob of autograph seekers met him on the gangway. He died on December 5, 1995
in Santa Ana, California and is buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park.
Michael Thomas Barry is the author of numerous books that includes Final Resting Places Orange County’s Dead & Famous. The book was a 2010 USA Book News Best Book Awards “Finalist.” Visit his website for more information www.michaelthomasbarry.com. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:
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