Today is the anniversary of the flight that created one of the most famous nicknames in American History.
Douglas Corrigan became enamored with flying when he took a ride in a plane for $2.50. He was 18 years old. He became an airplane mechanic and helped build The Spirit of St. Louis. He became a pilot who loved to do tricks. For a while, he barnstormed, making money by landing in fields and giving people rides. He bought a ramshackle plane and rebuilt it. He crossed the country in it. He developed a reputation for flying risky aircraft. In 1938, he decided he wanted to fly across the Atlantic, but his application was turned down by the authorities because they determined it would be suicidal in his plane. Corrigan filed a flight plan for a trip to California. On July 17, 1938, he took off from Brooklyn in a plane called “Sunshine”. He was 31 years-old. He knew that his plane had a gas leak, but did not want to take the time to fix it. Soon after taking off he entered a cloud bank and he made a 180 degree turn. Carrying two chocolate bars, two boxes of fig bars, a quart of water, and a U.S. map, he headed across the ocean. The fuel leak caused gasoline to pool on the floor, so Corrigan used a screw driver to poke a hole in the floor to drain the gas. 28 hours after taking off, he landed near Dublin, Ireland. He asked an Irishman “Just got in from New York, where am I?” When questioned by the press and authorities, he blamed the wayward flight on the clouds and a malfunctioning compass. “I got mixed up in the clouds and I must have gone the wrong way.” This quote created his famous nickname “Wrong Way” Corrigan. By the time he sailed back to New York, he was a celebrity and got a ticker-tape parade. He continued to insist he was headed for California, but usually with a wink.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wrong-way-corrigan-crosses-the-atlantic
https://www.historynet.com/the-adventures-of-wrong-way-corrigan.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Corrigan
0 Comments