This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of one of the most daring feats of early aviation: flying from Europe to North America - and it had an Irish hero, writes Teddy Fennelly.
Almost 100 years ago, at 10.35 a.m. on December 17th, 1903, the dream of Orville and Wilbur Wright, bicycle-making brothers from Ohio, became a reality. Their 12-second powered flight in a spruce, ash and muslin aircraft, across all of 120 feet of Kitty Hawk, in North Carolina, revolutionised the world. They and their fellow aviators soon passed a series of milestones. Less than six years later, the French engineer Louis Blériot crossed the English Channel; in the summer of 1919, the Britons John Alcock and Arthur Brown made the first non-stop Atlantic crossing, from Newfoundland to Connemara.
But Alcock and Brown had flown from west to east. The even greater challenge of going against the wind, from east to west, was not to be met until April 12th, 1928, when the Bremen took off from Baldonnel, in Co Dublin. Tomorrow, when invited guests gather at Casement Aerodrome to re-enact the flight on its 75th anniversary, they will be remembering James Fitzmaurice, the aircraft's Irish navigator and co-pilot, an Army officer feted in the euphoria after his record-setting flight but honoured fully only after his death.
Fitzmaurice, or Fitz, had been interested in flight since he was a boy in Maryborough, as Portlaoise was then known. The local Christian Brothers school, where he received all his formal education after moving from Dublin with his family, was but yards from Aldritts, a family firm of motor engineers. When the Aldritts decided to copy the Wright brothers and build their own aircraft, Fitz joined in. Their creation never managed to fly, but it was a formative experience.
By the time Fitzmaurice was in his late teens he had endured months of trench warfare on the front line in France. Then he trained as a bomber pilot, although by the time he was ready for combat the first World War was ending. He was sent back to Britain but, with civil war at home after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, he decided to return to Ireland with his wife.
As a member of the infant Irish Army Air Corps, he flew reconnaissance missions from Fermoy, in Co Cork. Later he was made officer in charge at Baldonnel, where he became obsessed with becoming the first person to fly the Atlantic non-stop from east to west. First he tried to organise an all-Irish attempt, but he could not get enough financial backing. Then he teamed up with Capt RH McIntosh to navigate the British pilot's attempt. They were lucky to escape with their lives when their aircraft, Princess Xenia, flew into a storm.
It was one of many mishaps that turned public opinion against any more transatlantic attempts, which governments began to frown on. They were a dreadful waste of life and resources, it was claimed, no longer justifiable under the cloak of scientific research. This was a problem for the German aircraft manufacturer Hugo Junkers, who was keen to show that his all-steel creations were the world's most reliable and durable aircraft but was now banned from making any more attempts to cross the Atlantic from German airfields.
So his pilots Capt Hermann Koehl and Baron von Huenefeld looked to Baldonnel. They felt Fitzmaurice would understand the nature of the challenge. His key position with the Air Corps was also important, as it gave the team full back-up staff and facilities. Fitzmaurice, whom they asked to be co-pilot, was thrilled by the performance of the Bremen as it took to the skies around Dublin on trial runs.
The aircraft was a full-cantilever, all-metal, low-wing monoplane, typical of the Junkers aircraft of the period. As it would be carrying 500 gallons of fuel for its transatlantic attempt, they chose not to carry radio equipment, which was heavy and unreliable. It was a decision Fitzmaurice was to regret, but for now they were carried along on a wave of optimism.
The first moments of the flight had all the makings of a disaster. As William T. Cosgrave - president of the executive council of the Irish Free State - and a throng of well-wishers cheered the Bremen as it taxied along the runway, there were gasps of disbelief as a sheep wandered across its path. Koehl was blissfully unaware from the pilot's seat and was startled when Fitzmaurice grabbed the control column from him and eased it back. With its lethal cargo of highly flammable fuel on board, the aircraft briefly rose, just clearing the sheep, then hit the ground once more before finally making its way into the air.
It was clear skies and uneventful flying for many hours. Then, inevitably, the Bremen ran into a raging storm, during which Fitzmaurice discovered oil covering the cabin floor. It turned out to be a false alarm - the oil had come from a tachometer - but it was an unnecessary worry they could well have done without.
Then a true crisis: malfunctioning compasses. Fitzmaurice estimated they were near Newfoundland, where erratic magnetic variations were known to confuse compass readings. Battling to make headway against an icy storm and denied all visual guides, Koehl and Fitzmaurice had to rely on their blind-flying skills to keep the Bremen aloft.
At last, after more than 36 hours in the air and having been forced 500 miles off course over Labrador, they saw daylight through breaking cloud. On Friday, April 13th they saw a vast landscape of deep valleys and snow-carpeted mountains: North America. But fuel was running low; they had to find somewhere to land.
After several hours of searching, Koehl finally brought Bremen down safely on a frozen reservoir on Greenly Island, between Newfoundland and Quebec, from where the aviators waited to be rescued. Floyd Bennett, a well-known American airman, died in the attempt, despite a heroic flight of mercy by his friend Charles Lindbergh - solo crosser of the Atlantic a year earlier - who arrived too late with the serum doctors had hoped would save Bennett's life. Despite this misfortune, the flight was celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic after Alfred Cormier, the telegraph operator in nearby Blanc-Sablon, announced the trio's safe arrival.
More than two million people, including 10,000 troops, turned out for a reception in New York. President Calvin Coolidge rushed a bill through Congress to let him confer the Distinguished Flying Cross on the aviators, the first foreigners to receive the tribute. US newspapers called the flight and the rescue "the greatest story ever told". It was a significant moment for the Irish press, too. Bremen had flown the first newspaper across the Atlantic: four copies of The Irish Times of April 12th, given to Fitzmaurice by RM Smyllie, its editor. At home Fitzmaurice was promoted to colonel and received freedom of the city of Dublin.
The Bremen never flew again. Eventually it was shipped to Germany, although it soon came back to the United States to hang from the ceiling of Grand Central Station, in New York, for several years. Then, in 1935, it moved to the Henry Ford Museum, in Michigan, where it remained until 1999. It is due back there next year, having been restored by Lufthansa and put on display, fittingly, at Bremen Airport. On its way back to the Ford museum it will, with luck, stop at Baldonnel.
As for Fitzmaurice, he was keen for Ireland to become a hub in the fast-developing international aviation network - and he yearned the wealth and the fame he felt he was entitled to. The government refused to back his plans, snubbing him time and again. He almost clinched a deal to sell Junkers aircraft in the US, but the final contracts were due for signing on the day of the Wall Street crash of 1929.
Fitz made one last bid for renewed glory by entering the world's biggest ever air race, from England to Australia, in 1934. But on its eve the stewards disqualified the Irish entry on a weight technicality. Fitz believed that had his been a British entry therewould have been no such problem. He was livid, and the bitterness stayed with him for the rest of his life.
His marriage had also collapsed, and he had to go through the ignominy of a divorce. His daughter, Patricia, met her father only once more. She died in 2001, but her son, Haydn Selwyn Jones, who lives in England, will be in Ireland for the 75th-anniversary celebrations.
Fitzmaurice lived out his final years in Dublin in poor circumstances.
Although Ireland had turned its back on him during life, in death he became a hero again. When he died, in 1965, he was given a State funeral, with full military honours.
This would only have reinforced Fitz's view of the country. As he once said: "If you have the misfortune to do anything useful for Ireland, they do everything possible to destroy you. Then, when you are dead, they dig you up and laud your achievements as a bolster to their own mediocrity." Has anything changed?
Teddy Fennelly is the author of Fitz - And The Famous Flight (Arderin)
Up, up and away
The 75th anniversary of James Fitzmaurice's record-setting flight will be commemorated in a private ceremony at Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel, Co Dublin, today before a re-enactment of the flight tomorrow.
The event, which is being hosted by the Air Corps, South Dublin County Council and the Bremen 75 Committee, will start with a military ceremony at a plaque marking where Bremen took off, followed by a blessing and renaming of the twin-propeller aircraft that will recreate the flight, leaving at 6.38 a.m. tomorrow.
The aircraft, which is to be called Fitz, in honour of its co-pilot and navigator, will be flown by Brig Gen Ralph James.
Flying high: The life of Fitzmaurice
James Christopher Fitzmaurice, right, was born at 35 Mountjoy Cottages, on the North Circular Road in Dublin, on January 6th, 1898. His father, Michael, was a warder in the adjoining prison.
As a teenager in Portlaoise, where his father was transferred, he got involved with Redmond's Volunteers, and on the outbreak of the first World War he joined the British army. He trained as a cavalry soldier on the Curragh with the 7th Royal Lancers but was then posted with an infantry regiment, the West Surreys, to the front lines in France. Twice wounded, he was recognised as having exceptional qualities and was sent back to England, where he was commissioned. He joined the Royal Flying Corps and trained as a bomber pilot. He was sent back to the front on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918.
He was due to cross the Atlantic while on leave from the Irish Air Corps, but that meant his wife would not get his pension if he died en route. So his close friend Oliver St John Gogarty arranged for Fitz to deliver a letter to President Coolidge on behalf of William T Cosgrave - president of the executive council of the Irish Free State - to make the flight an official trip.
Fitz had a reputation as a philanderer and gambler - his involvement with a German baroness led to his divorce. Though fond of the occasional gamble, the reality did not live up to the myth. He had an air of affectation and spoke with a distinct English accent, which were a carry-over from his days in the RAF. This turned many Irish people off him.
