An attack of measles ensured that seven-year-old Harry Sullivan saw the climax of one of the greatest feats in aviation history - the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic ocean by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown on Sunday, June 15th, 1919, writes Brendan Lynch.
Now a youthful 92, the Clifden supermarket proprietor is possibly the world's last surviving witness of that pioneering flight. "It was all due to the red spots," Harry chuckled. "I had to stay at home that Sunday morning, while my family and the rest of the town went to half-past-eight Mass.
"They had hardly left when I heard a terrific noise, the like of which I had never heard before. It seemed to be coming from the sky and when I looked up I saw this big machine right over the main street. There were no wirelesses then and I knew nothing about any transatlantic flight. Because of the Mass, there wasn't a soul about, I could only see one man in the distance.
"But though I could see the machine and its wheels, I couldn't see anybody in it, as it flew over. I waited for it to cross over again, but it was gone as quickly as it had arrived. I could hear the noise for a long time and I wondered what it was and where it had come from.
"All the people in the church had heard the machine too, and I had some exciting news for the rest of the family when they returned home. But nobody seemed to think an awful lot about it, though - until news arrived that the machine had landed a few miles away beside the Marconi radio station in Derrygimla bog. Then, crowds of people went out there and the first of them to return brought the news that the plane had come all the way from America. That caused a lot of excitement, I can tell you.
"Because I was sick, I wasn't allowed to go out to the bog, and I remember being very envious of my brother Billy who saw both the plane and the fliers. But I was happy enough to have been one of the few who had seen the plane in flight. I was a lot older, of course, before I realised that I had seen history being made."
After only one test flight of their Vickers Vimy biplane, Alcock and Brown had left St John's, Newfoundland, just after 4 p.m. (GMT) on Saturday, June 14th. Due to the heavy fuel load, the fliers endured anxious minutes before the plane lifted sluggishly into the sky. Once airborne, the wind pushed them along and ensured that they could nurse their two Rolls Royce engines by not travelling at full throttle. However, they were not long aloft before they entered a fog bank and their radio failed when its wind-driven generator sheared off.
The plane was then hit by a storm which flooded the open cockpit. After they rose to 11,000 feet, ice built up on the radiators and controls. Despite a twisted leg from a crash in the first World War, Brown climbed out on five occasions to hack away the ice with a jacknife. The ice affected the plane so badly that at one stage it fell to within 300 feet of the water. Both men were experienced night fliers and as the darkness dragged on, they sustained themselves with sandwiches and chocolate, ale and coffee. Engine noise, exacerbated by a broken exhaust, made conversation impossible.
After 14 hours of practically blind flying, they finally broke into fitful morning sun 200 miles west of Galway. Ninety minutes later they spotted land. Alcock said afterwards: "Our delight in seeing the islands and coast was great. The only thing that upset me was to see the machine get damaged at the end. From above, the bog looked like a level field, but the machine sank in it up to the axle and fell over on her nose."
Deafened by the noise of the 16-hour, 1,900-mile flight, both men were unable to communicate for some time after their 8.40 crash-landing. They also had difficulty in walking. In reply to congratulations from Marconi personnel, Brown insisted: "After all, though the voyage has been a long one, it was straightforward flying all the way." Their feat earned Alcock and Brown the £10,000 prize offered by the Dublin-born founder of the Daily Mail, Lord Northcliffe, and on their return to London they were knighted by King George V. Sadly, Sir John Alcock was killed only six months later in a French air crash. Sir Arthur Whitten Brown died in 1948. His flying-coat, boots and torch can be seen in Clifden's museum, while the Vickers Vimy is on permanent display in London's Science Museum.
Harry Sullivan plans to take to the air himself next month. "I am off to Pennsylvania," he says. "And I am thrilled that I will be retracing the route that Alcock and Brown travelled.
"Even if they frightened me once, I will raise an 85th anniversary glass to them! They were truly great and courageous men to fly all that way without shelter from either cold or storm. And no one could have saved them, if anything had happened to their plane."