Obscure Barnstormer Upstages Millionaire Hughes

A Texas-born barnstormer coaxed his second-hand airplane into the thick clouds over a New York airfield on July 17, 1938, and to the amazement of wide-eyed onlookers turned a routine flight into an unscheduled trans-Atlantic crossing.

The handful of spectators waited in vain for Douglas Corrigan to set a course for a California. When he vanished from sight on an easterly heading, one witness remarked, “I