One Summer: America, 1927

same make Pinedo had used to fly to Australia, so it had a pedigree, but it was not an engine built with long ocean crossings in mind. In any case, they could carry no more than about forty hours’ worth of fuel, which left them almost no margin for error. Nungesser seemed to know that what they hoped to achieve was probably not possible. As he moved around his plane on 8 May he smiled weakly at well-wishers and seemed distracted. To boost his alertness he accepted an intravenous injection of caffeine, which cannot have done his nerves any good.
    Coli by contrast appeared entirely relaxed, but agreed with Nungesser that the plane was overloaded and should be lightened. They decided to discard most of their rations, as well as their life jackets and an inflatable dinghy. If forced down, they had nothingnow to aid their survival but a contraption for distilling seawater, a length of fishing line and a hook, and a small, curious assortment of food: three cans of tuna and one of sardines, a dozen bananas, a kilo of sugar, a flask of hot coffee, and brandy. Even after unloading supplies, their plane weighed almost 11,000 pounds. It had never taken off with that much weight before.
    When preparations were complete, Coli and his wife embraced, then he and Nungesser waved to their well-wishers and clambered aboard. It was 5.15 a.m. when they assumed their takeoff position. The runway at Le Bourget was two miles long and they would need nearly all of it. The plane crossed the grass expanse with fearful sluggishness at first, but slowly gathered speed. After some time, it lifted briefly, but came down again and bouncily proceeded another three hundred yards before finally, agonizingly and barely getting airborne. The chief engineer, who had run along beside the plane much of the way, fell to his knees and wept. Just taking off was a unique triumph. No plane in the Atlantic race had done even that before now. The crowd roared its approval. The White Bird climbed with painful slowness into the milky haze of the western sky and set a course for the English Channel. One hour and twenty-seven minutes later, at 6.48 a.m., Nungesser and Coli reached the chalky seacliffs of Normandy at Étretat. A squadron of four escort planes tipped their wings in salute and peeled away, and L’Oiseau Blanc flew off alone in the direction of the British Isles and the cold Atlantic beyond.
    All France waited breathlessly.
     
    The following day came the joyous news that the two airmen had made it. ‘Nungesser est arrivê,’ the Parisian newspaper L’Intransigeant announced excitedly (so excitedly that it put a circumflex rather than an acute accent on ‘arrivé’). A rival publication, Paris Presse , quoted Nungesser’s first words to the American people upon landing. According to this report, Nungesser had made a smooth and stylish landing in New York Harbor and brought theplane to a halt before the Statue of Liberty (also from France, as the paper proudly noted). Once ashore the two aviators were greeted by a deliriously impressed and jubilant city and showered with ticker tape as they paraded up Fifth Avenue.
    In Paris, the happy news all but stopped the city. Bells rang out. Strangers weepily embraced. Crowds gathered around anyone who had a newspaper. Levasseur sent a telegram of congratulations. At Coli’s mother’s home in Marseilles, champagne was broken out. ‘I knew my boy would do it because he told me he would,’ Coli’s mother said, tears of joy and relief shining on her cheeks.
    Soon, however, it emerged that the two news stories were not just mistaken but sadly imaginary. Nungesser and Coli had not arrived in New York at all. They were in fact missing and feared lost.
    An enormous ocean manhunt at once swung into action. Naval ships were dispatched and merchant vessels instructed to keep a sharp lookout. The navy dirigible USS Los Angeles was ordered to search from the air. The passenger liner France , en route to New York from Le Havre, received instructions from the French government to take a more northerly course than normal, despite the risk of icebergs, in the hope of coming across the floating White Bird . At Roosevelt Field, Rodman Wanamaker offered $25,000 to anyone who could find the missing aviators dead or alive.
    For a day or so people clung to the hope that Nungesser and Coli would at any moment putter triumphantly into view, but every passing hour counted against them, and now the weather, already grim,