Read was born in Lyme, New Hampshire on April 29, 1887 into a Boston Brahmin family. He attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, graduating in the class of 1907. In 1915, he was designated naval aviator number 24. As a Lieutenant Commander in May 1919, Read commanded a crew of five on the NC-4Curtiss flying boat, the first aircraft ever to make a transatlantic flight, a couple of weeks before Alcock and Brown's non-stop flight, and eight years before Charles Lindbergh's solo, non-stop flight. Read's flight started from Rockaway Beach, Long Island, took 23 days before arriving in Plymouth, England. The six stops included layovers at Trepassey Bay, Newfoundland, the Azores, and Lisbon, Portugal. Later in 1919, upon returning to the U.S., Read predicted: "It soon will be possible to drive an airplane around the world at a height of 60,000 feet and 1,000 miles per hour." The next day, The New York Times ran an editorial in reaction, stating: "It is one thing to be a qualified aviator, and quite another to be a qualified prophet. Nothing now known supports the Lieutenant Commander’s forecast. An airplane at the height of 60,000 feet would be whirling its propellers in a vacuum, and no aviator could live long in the freezing cold of interstellar space." On June 3, 1919, he was made a commander of the Order of the Tower and Sword by the Portuguese government. After returning to the United States, Read was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, which at the time was a more prestigious award than the Navy Cross that the other five NC-4 crew members received. In 1929, Read and the rest of the flight crew of NC-4 were awarded Congressional Gold Medals.
Later life
On June 24, 1924, Commander Read assumed command of both and the aircraft squadrons of the Asiatic Fleet. He served in this position until Ajax was relieved by in June 1925 and subsequently decommissioned in July 1925. Read trained naval aviators through World War II. He was nicknamed "Putty Read" because his face rarely showed any emotion. On June 4, 1962, he appeared on the TV game show I've Got a Secret. He died in retirement in Coconut Grove, Florida, on October 10, 1967. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was married to Elizabeth Anderson “Bess” Burdine.
