Birth - Nov. 6 1892 Death - Dec. 18 1919 Aviator He was the first man, in partnership with Arthur Whitten Brown, to fly non-stop across the Atlantic. Born in Manchester,he was educated at the parish school at St. Anne's on Sea. His first job (in 1909) was as an apprentice at the Empress motor works in Manchester. The following year, he went to Brooklands, as the assistant to the French pilot, Maurice Ducroq. In November 1912, he obtained his aviator's certificate, then went to work for Sunbeam as a racing pilot. When the First World War broke out, he joined the Royal Naval Air Service as a Warrant-Officer instructor at the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch in Kent. (One of his pupils, Reginald Warneford, went on to become the first naval pilot to be awarded the Victoria Cross.) In December 1915, he received his commission as a Flight Sub-Lieutenant, but remained at Eastchurch for another twelve months, when he was posted to the Mudros base in the Eastern Mediterranean. On September 30, 1917, whilst flying a single-seater Sopwith Camel, he earned his Distinguished Service Order for an attack on three enemy aeroplanes, two of which crashed into the sea. At 8.15 that same afternoon, he left on a Handley Page aircraft for a bombing expedition on Constantinople. He had reached Gallipoli when one of his engines failed and forced him to turn back. He had covered sixty miles with his one remaining engine, but had to make a landing on the sea, near Suvla Bay. Alcock, and his crew of two, managed to keep their aircraft afloat for two hours, but their Very Lights failed to attract the attention of the nearby British destroyers. When the aircraft began to sink, they swam for an hour and reached the shore, then lay concealed through the night, but were captured at noon by the Turkish forces. Alcock remained in captivity until the Armistice, then left the Royal Air Force in March 1919. On June 21, 1919, Alcock and Brown were knighted at Windsor Castle by King George V. On the 18th. December that year, Alcock flew to Paris to exhibit a Vickers Viking amhibious aircraft, which was designed to alight on land or water, but was forced to land in a slight mist at Cote d'Evrard, about twenty miles from Rouen. The aircraft crashed slightly on its nose, but Alcock was thrown forward and sustained a fracture of the skull. He was taken to Rouen Hospital, but died without regaining consciousness. He was unmarried and is buried, along with his parents, in the central circle, which is reached by walking directly North from the Barlowmoor Road entrance. Southern Cemetery, Manchester, England Plot: G 966 http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?LinkID=mp00062&rNo=0&role=sit
