Photograph of NC-4 Flying Boat

May 1919

The fourth of a series of Navy flying boats built for transoceanic flight, the NC-4 took off from Newfoundland on May 8, 1919, landing at Portugal on May 27, completing the first transatlantic flight. Before the flight, the plane and its crew were in Halifax, Canada, where machinist Pat Carroll wrote a letter to his brother Charles, a corporal with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Pat asked a member of the NC-4 flight crew to carry the letter and mail it after the flight. When the crew reached Lisbon, Portugal on May 27, they placed that letter in the mail. The letter is now in the collection of the National Postal Museum.