Daughter of the sky : $b The story of Amelia Earhart

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Title: Daughter of the sky : The story of Amelia Earhart
Author: Briand, Paul L.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Daughter of the sky : The story of Amelia Earhart" ***

[Illustration: (cover)]

_Daughter of the Sky_

_Courage_[A]

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.

How can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day,
And count it fair.

--AMELIA EARHART

[A] Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.

_Daughter of the Sky_

THE STORY OF AMELIA EARHART

by PAUL L. BRIAND, JR.

_DUELL, SLOAN and PEARCE_
New York

All rights reserved. No part of this book in excess
of five hundred words may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher.

_First edition_

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 60-5457

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

VAN REES PRESS · NEW YORK

The author wishes to thank Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., for
permission to quote from the following books: _The Fun of It_,
copyright, 1932, by Amelia Earhart; _Last Flight_, by Amelia Earhart,
copyright, 1937, by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.; _Soaring Wings_,
copyright, 1939, by George Palmer Putnam; _Wide Margins_, by George
Palmer Putnam, copyright, 1942, by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.

For Margaret, my wife,
who allowed another woman--
Amelia Earhart--into my life.

_Contents_

_Author’s Note_ xi

_Introduction_ xiii

PART ONE _THE FRIENDSHIP FLIGHT_

1. _Boston Social Worker_ 3

2. _Girlhood in Kansas_ 12

3. _Halifax and Trepassey_ 15

4. _Atchison Tomboy_ 20

5. _Over the Atlantic_ 25

6. _Premed at Columbia_ 27

7. _Land!_ 30

8. _A Sack of Potatoes_ 32

9. _In the Public Eye_ 35

PART TWO _THE WORLD OF FLIGHT_

1. _Wealth and Independence_ 43

2. _Vagabond of the Air_ 48

3. _The Kinner Canary_ 54

4. _Aviation Editor_ 56

5. _The First Women’s Air Derby_ 59

6. _Developing Air Lines_ 62

7. _George Palmer Putnam_ 66

8. _Marriage_ 71

9. _Solo Across the Atlantic_ 77

10. _Other Atlantics_ 84

11. _Flying in California_ 86

12. _The Girl and the Machine_ 94

13. _A Real Heroine_ 99

14. _Solo from Hawaii to California_ 105

15. _Nurse’s Aide in Toronto_ 112

16. _Back Home Again_ 117

17. _Solo from California to Mexico_ 120

18. _Solo from Mexico to New Jersey_ 125

19. _Purdue University_ 131

PART THREE _THE LAST FLIGHT_

1. _Crack-up in Hawaii_ 141

2. _New Route, New Preparations_ 154

3. _Miami to Africa_ 160

4. _Africa to India_ 171

5. _India to Australia_ 180

6. _New Guinea to Howland Island_ 190

7. _The Disappearance and the Search_ 200

8. _The Fog of Rumors_ 208

9. _The Light of Fact: A Mystery Solved?_ 211

_Record Flights_ 219

_Awards and Decorations_ 221

_Bibliography_ 223

_A Note About Sources_ 227

_Acknowledgments_ 229

_Illustrations_

_following page 46_

Amelia Earhart

AE’s parents

AE, the fledgling flier

AE’s birthplace

AE after her first solo in an autogiro

Learning to fly

AE and Lady Heath’s Avro Avian

AE at Southampton

AE signs her autograph

AE after her transatlantic solo

AE and the Lindberghs

Famous fliers

AE, GP, and the King and Queen of Belgium

AE and President Hoover

The Lockheed Electra

Before taking off for Honolulu, 1937

Fragment of wood possibly associated with AE’s last flight

Josephine Blanco Akiyama

AE and Fred Noonan on the last flight

_Author’s Note_

There are many women who wish they were men; few men who wish they were
women. Amelia Earhart did not want to be a man--she was the essence of
femininity; but she did want to do many of the things men can do--and
a few of the things men cannot do. For her, the greatest challenge in
the world of men was the ability to fly, and this ability in AE (as she
liked to be called) was the flowering of an attitude that took root
early in her childhood. Having learned to fly, she was not content,
however, simply to be able to fly; she wanted to be “the first to do,”
to set new records, to prove that women could try things as men have
tried.

Amelia Earhart was one of America’s great heroines; her life was in
many ways unique. She was one of a kind, and the fabric of her life
was woven of strands that are rarely produced: she had an insatiable
curiosity about everything in life--ideas, books, people, places,
mechanical things; she loved all kinds of sports and games, especially
those “only for boys”; she fidgeted with an implacable unrest to
experiment, to try new things; she teemed with a zest for living,
paradoxically entwined with a gnawing and pervasive longing to be
alone; and, finally, she brooded with a fatalism toward death, which
she met with a tremendous will to live.

Of such strands was the fabric made that produced the public figure
acclaimed throughout the world; the woman who succeeded in such
incredible achievements as flying solo across the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, and then resented the publicity which they brought; the girl
who simply wanted to do because she wanted to demonstrate the equality
of her sex with that of the opposite in all fields of constructive
endeavor. But what she wanted to do could not be done simply, and in
that complexity lies the mystery of a human soul and the fascination of
a woman who dared the dominion of that soul.

My research into the life of Amelia Earhart led me into a study of
many lives and of the period in which they were lived; it has also led
me thousands of miles across these United States and occasioned from
me hundreds of letters of inquiry. I pored over books, magazines, and
newspapers, and from them gained the basic story of the woman flier’s
life; but it was the people I interviewed and wrote to, who answered
my many and persistent questions and provided me with their private
letters, pictures, and other memorabilia, who in the last analysis made
the writing of this biography an enjoyable undertaking.

My purpose in choosing the narrative-dramatic-expository technique of
the modern biographer in telling my story was a simple one: while I
used many of the resources of the objective scholar in gathering and
marshaling my materials and in establishing their accuracy, I tried
to show the novelist’s interest in background influences, in hidden
motives, in the complex nature of character. In short, I wanted to
translate an intriguing woman out of aviation terms into human terms.

PAUL L. BRIAND, JR.
Captain, USAF

_United States Air Force Academy
Colorado_

When time has smoothed out somewhat the rough sorrows
of the present, there will be another book--the full
story of Amelia Earhart’s life. That’s a project for
a tomorrow of retrospect.

--GEORGE PALMER PUTNAM, 1937

_Introduction[B] by
Colonel Hilton H. Railey,
United States Army (retired)_

On the pivot of my casual conversation with George Palmer Putnam turned
the career of Amelia Earhart, her transformation from social worker at
a Boston settlement house to a world figure in aviation.

If it had not been for that conversation with Mr. Putnam the chances
are that Amelia Earhart would still have become a constructive factor
in the industry to which she was so devoted; and that she would be
alive today.

In the spring of 1928 I dropped in to see Putnam in New York. He told
me that Commander Byrd had recently sold his trimotored Fokker to “a
wealthy woman who plans to fly the Atlantic.” He did not know her name
or anything more about it, except that he believed floats were being
fitted to the plane at the East Boston airport.

“It’d be amusing to manage a stunt like that, wouldn’t it?” he
remarked. “Find out all you can. Locate the ship. Pump the pilots.”

In Boston I cornered Wilmer (Bill) Stultz, the pilot, and Lou Gordon,
his copilot and mechanic. Stultz admitted he was getting ready for a
transatlantic flight, but maintained that he knew only his backer’s
attorney, David T. Layman.

In New York, some days later, I got in touch with him and learned
that Mrs. Frederick E. Guest of London and New York, whose husband had
been Secretary of State for Air in Lloyd George’s cabinet, was the
mysterious sponsor who had planned to be the first of her sex to fly
the Atlantic. Her family, said Mr. Layman, was much concerned. Soon it
was agreed that if I could find the “right sort of girl” to take her
place Mrs. Guest would yield.

When I returned to Boston I telephoned Rear Admiral Reginald K.
Belknap, retired.

“I know a young social worker who flies,” he said. “I’m not sure how
many hours she’s had, but I do know that she’s deeply interested in
aviation and a thoroughly fine person. Call Denison House and ask for
Amelia Earhart.”

Guardedly, when Miss Earhart came on the wire, I inquired whether she
would like to participate in an important but hazardous flight. I had
to come out with it because she had declined an interview until I
stated the nature of my business. That afternoon, accompanied by Miss
Marion Perkins, head worker at Denison House, she appeared at my office.

At sight convinced that she was qualified as a person, if not as a
pilot, I asked forthwith:

“How would you like to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic?”

She asked for details, whatever I was at liberty to tell her. Miss
Earhart had owned several planes and had flown more than five hundred
hours. She said the role of passenger did not appeal to her much, and
hoped that, weather conditions permitting, she could take her turn at
the controls. At that time, however, she was unable to fly with the aid
of instruments alone, and her experience with trimotored ships had been
inconsequential.

In the light of subsequent events, in the tragic shadow of the last, I
quote a letter addressed to me by Miss Earhart on May 2, 1928:

It is very kind of you to keep me informed, as far as you are able,
concerning developments of the contemplated flight. As you may
imagine, my suspense is great indeed.

Please, however, do not think that I hold you responsible, in any
way, for my own uncertainty. I realize that you are now, and have
been from the first, only the medium of communication between me
and the person, or persons, who are financing the enterprise. For
your own satisfaction may I add, here, that you have done nothing
more than present the facts of the case to me. I appreciate your
forbearance in not trying to “sell” the idea, and should like you
to know that I assume all responsibility for any risks involved.

Some weeks after Mrs. Guest had retired in Miss Earhart’s favor, my
wife, in daily touch with our secret preparations, broached the subject
and, woman to woman, urged her to back out if she felt the slightest
degree uneasy. Her reply was characteristic:

“No, this is the way I look at it: my family’s insured, there’s only
myself to think about. And when a great adventure’s offered you--you
don’t refuse it, that’s all.”

At Mrs. Guest’s request, Mr. Putnam agreed to act as the “backer” of
the flight. It was at Miss Earhart’s request, primarily, that I agreed
to see her through the rumpus in Europe. About the middle of May I set
out for London. Mrs. Guest had preceded us.

Stultz and Gordon, the press believed, were Byrd’s men, grooming the
giant Fokker, named the _Friendship_ by Mrs. Guest, for the trip to the
South Pole.

Toward noon on June 17 the _Friendship_ cracked the ill luck which had
glued her pontoons to the bay at Trepassey, Newfoundland, for more than
two weeks. News of the take-off was flashed to the world.

Early the next morning we heard that the _Friendship_ had circled the
S.S. _America_, a few hundred miles out, to get her bearings; silence
through the night had meant only that her radio was out of commission.
After some hours I received direct word from Gordon that they had come
down safely at Burry Port, Wales. I telegraphed them to remain aboard
ship until I arrived by flying boat from Southampton.

That afternoon, landing near the _Friendship_, I caught a glimpse of
Miss Earhart seated in the doorway of the fuselage.

“Hello!” she said.

After a flight of twenty hours and forty minutes they were
all dog tired, but there was something else in Miss Earhart’s
expression--disappointment.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Aren’t you excited?”

“Excited? No. It was a grand experience, but all I did was lie on my
tummy and take pictures of the clouds. We didn’t see much of the ocean.
Bill did all the flying--had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of
potatoes.”

“What of it? You’re still the first woman to fly the Atlantic and,
what’s more, the first woman pilot.”

“Oh, well, maybe someday I’ll try it alone.”

The next morning we boarded the _Friendship_ and flew to Southampton,
where, for the first time, Miss Earhart met Mrs. Guest, to whom she
owed the position which, thereafter strengthened by her own steady
hands, she was to turn to such brilliant account.

As Miss Earhart’s escort, I felt increasing pride in her natural
manner, warmed, as it was, by humor and grace. Whether confronted
by dozens of cameramen demanding over and over, “A great big smile,
please!” or asked to wave to crowds (a gesture she used sparingly);
whether laying a wreath at the Cenotaph or before a statue of Edith
Cavell; whether sipping tea with the Prime Minister and Lady Astor at
the House of Commons or talking with Winston Churchill, she remained
herself, serious, forthright, with no bunk in her make-up.

Even in those days I sensed that for all her lack of ostentation she
would yet write drama in the skies; her simplicity would capture people
everywhere, her strength of character would hold her on her course; in
calm pursuit of an end not personal she would achieve greatness. Above
all, she had a quality of imaginative daring that was to wing her like
an arrow.

Aboard the mayor’s boat, _Macom_, during Miss Earhart’s welcome in the
harbor at New York, Commander Byrd told me that he needed help in the
financing of his projected expedition to the Antarctic and urged me to
join him as soon as I could cut loose from the _Friendship_’s show.
After a day or two I did.

In the years that followed, with pride and sure knowledge of Amelia
Earhart’s motivations, but with a tinge of fear as to the outcome, I
watched her gain distinction in aviation.

Genuinely as a tribute to her sex rather than for her own
glorification, she accepted the honors that accrued; for the
participation of women in aviation, which at all times she strove to
encourage and pace, was the obsession which lured her to her death.

After she had flown the Atlantic as the first woman passenger, it was
inevitable that she should attempt to fly it alone. Having done so,
having established, seriatim, transcontinental records of one kind and
another, there remained the Pacific.

Long before she mentioned it, I knew that next, and perhaps fatally,
must come her globe-circling adventure. Why--when even to her it must
have seemed a stunt without constructive benefit to the aeronautical
industry--did she attempt that hazardous expedition?

She had to. She was caught up in the hero racket that compelled her to
strive for increasingly dramatic records, bigger and braver feats that
automatically insured the publicity necessary to the maintenance of her
position as the foremost woman pilot in the world. She was a victim
of an era of “hot” aeronautics that began with Colonel Lindbergh and
Admiral Byrd and that shot “scientific” expeditions across continents,
oceans, and polar regions by dint of individual exhibition.

[B] Reprinted by permission of Colonel Hilton H. Railey and the
North American Newspaper Alliance.

PART ONE

_THE_ FRIENDSHIP _FLIGHT_

1. _Boston Social Worker_

A low-slung yellow Kissel roadster with top down, a grinning
tousle-haired girl at the wheel, rounded the corner, sped down Tyler
Street in Boston, and screeched to a stop in front of Denison House.
Before the girl could get a leg out of the car, a swarm of children
from the settlement house gathered about their favorite teacher.
Jumbled greetings accosted her on all sides.

“Miss Earhart,” said one of the older Italian boys, “you been flyin’?”
His black eyes sparkled. “Gee, I wish I could fly.”

Amelia Earhart smiled at the boy and pulled his cap down over his eyes.
“Your mother would send you back to Italy if you did.”

The others laughed and followed the tall and slender English teacher
into the front door, a polyglot wake of Armenian, Syrian, Greek,
Chinese, Jewish, and Italian childhood. She herded them down the hall
and corralled them into one of the classrooms.

Finally settled down in the classroom, the children listened to
simplified explanations of English grammar. They screwed their faces in
disbelief and squinted their eyes in helpless confusion.

The Italian boy of the cap looked at his little brother to see if he
understood; he didn’t. The older boy raised his hand. Miss Earhart
recognized him. “Me and Gino,” he said, fingering his tight black curly
hair, “we don’t....”

“Gino and I,” Amelia corrected him.

“Gino and _you_?”

Amelia pushed back her hair with a quick sweep of the hand. “No, no.
You and your brother. You should say....”

In the middle of that afternoon in April, 1928, AE was called to the
telephone.

“I’m too busy to answer just now,” she said. “Tell whoever it is to
call back later.”

“But he says it’s important.”

Unwillingly Amelia went to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” the voice said at the other end. “My name is Railey, Captain
Hilton Railey.”

“Yes, Captain Railey?” She could not place the name.

“I wonder if I could speak to you on a very important matter?” His
voice was low and strong.

“What could that be?” Amelia answered matter-of-factly.

“You are interested in flying, are you not?”

“Yes, sir!” Her interest quickened.

“Would you like to do something for the cause of aviation?”

“That sounds like a big order.”

“Well, would you?” There was a challenge in Railey’s inflection.

Amelia twisted the long string of beads that hung from her neck. “Yes!”
she said.

“It might be hazardous.”

Captain Railey refused to tell over the telephone the exact nature of
the risk involved, and asked Miss Earhart to call at his office at 80
Federal Street in downtown Boston.

Amelia asked him for references; she wanted to make sure that this
was not somebody’s hoax. Railey gave First Army Headquarters and the
name of Commander Byrd. She was satisfied for the moment. As an added
precaution, Amelia asked Marion Perkins, the head worker at Denison
House, to accompany her to Railey’s office as chaperone and adviser.

Late that afternoon, nearly bursting with curiosity, AE drove her
“yellow peril” faster than usual. She was annoyed at having to trail
even one car through the narrow streets of the city. Miss Perkins,
rigid stolidity beside her, cautioned against speeding with matronly
authority.

The Kissel parked, Amelia tucked her hair under the rarely worn cloche
hat and hurried to Railey’s office, but only at the pace which Marion
Perkins’ decorum allowed.

Upon meeting Captain Railey, the two women discovered that he was a
civilian who had been a captain in the Army during the war. He was now
the president of a public-relations firm with offices in Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia. He numbered among his clients such aviation
notables as Richard Byrd, Clarence Chamberlin, Sir Hubert Wilkins,
Lincoln Ellsworth, and Ruth Nichols.

A dark-haired, handsome man, Hilton Railey seated the two women off
to the side of his desk. He was pleased with the appearance of the
humble social worker, who, he had learned, had a private pilot’s
license, and had logged more than five hundred solo hours. What he
liked above all was her striking resemblance to the greatest of
American heroes--Charles Lindbergh. Here before him, if his eyes were
not deceiving him, was a “Lady Lindy.” Like Lindbergh, she was shy and
modest. She didn’t know it, but she had been discovered.

“Miss Earhart,” Railey asked, “have you ever heard of Mrs. Frederick
Guest?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Amelia answered. She sat on the edge of the
chair, her back straight, her legs pressed firmly together.

“A short time ago, Mrs. Guest bought a trimotored Fokker from Commander
Byrd. She wanted to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic.” Railey
looked for initial stirring from the girl. “However, although she is
courageous, she is also a mother, and her children have talked her out
of it.”

Marion Perkins, suspicious as a protective aunt, unbending as a ramrod,
eyed Railey coldly.

Guessing the direction of the interview, Amelia warmed to the thought
crossing her mind. She eased back in the chair. “That’s too bad for
her,” she said.

Hilton Railey gave the young woman a hard look; then he stole a glance
at her long, straight legs. AE blushed. “Miss Earhart,” he continued,
“Mrs. Guest still wants a woman to be a passenger on that flight. Would
you like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic?”

Amelia flushed in excitement. Despite the hazard involved, she
reasoned, this was a rare opportunity. There were no more than a dozen
women in the country with flying licenses, and that seemed to be one of
the requirements. Perhaps her chances were good. She made up her mind.

“Yes, sir,” she said finally, “I certainly would.”

Captain Railey rose to shake her hand. He was delighted that he had
found such a charming candidate. “You will have to go to New York with
me,” he told her, “to meet the backers of the flight. Other women
fliers are being considered, too.” He paused, then added, “By the way,
Miss Earhart, has anyone ever told you that you look like Lindbergh?”

In New York, plans for the flight were being completed. George Palmer
Putnam had been commissioned by Mrs. Guest to find a woman flier to
take her place. He had called everyone he knew who could possibly find
a likely candidate.

It had been the intention of the Honorable Mrs. Frederick Guest of
London, formerly Amy Phipps of Pittsburgh, to do for English-American
relations what Charles Lindbergh had done for French-American relations.

Among the several women who had already been considered for the flight
was Ruth Nichols of Rye, New York, who became a famous woman flier. In
her career she paced AE all the way.

Waiting in New York to interview AE was an all-male jury. It was
composed of George Palmer Putnam, the publisher; David T. Layman, Jr.,
Mrs. Guest’s attorney; and a brother of Mrs. Guest, John S. Phipps.

Amelia had never seen such a stern-looking group. After Captain Railey
introduced her to each of them in turn, they began to question her.
Was she willing to fly the Atlantic? Would she release them from
responsibility in the event of disaster? What was her education? How
strong was she? How willing? What flying experience did she have?
What would she do after the flight? Was she prepared not to be paid,
although the two men in the flight would be?

The demure Boston social worker survived the examination. Recalling the
experience, Amelia said later: “I found myself in a curious situation.
If they did not like me at all or found me wanting in too many
respects, I would be deprived of the trip. If they liked me too well,
they might be loath to drown me. It was, therefore, necessary for me
to maintain an attitude of impenetrable mediocrity. Apparently I did,
because I was chosen.”

Impenetrable mediocrity to the contrary, the committee discovered in
the girl much of what they were looking for. She was tall and slender
and boyish-looking. She was humble and soft-spoken. The men could not
help but agree with Railey: she did indeed look and act like Charles
Lindbergh.

Amelia was thrilled because she had been selected for the flight. With
unbounded enthusiasm she followed the preparations. It had been decided
to make the take-off from Boston Harbor, for if news of the project
should leak out to the press, then everyone could say that Boston’s own
Commander Byrd was preparing another Arctic expedition and that the
plane was his.

By the time AE returned to Denison House much had already been done.
Acting for Mrs. Guest, Commander Byrd had picked the pilot. He
was Wilmer L. “Bill” Stultz, who in turn could make his choice of
mechanics. Stultz decided on Lou “Slim” Gordon, who was working in
Monroe, Louisiana.

In the event of an emergency, Byrd had also chosen an alternate pilot,
Lou Gower. Stultz, however, an exceptional pilot, never had to be
replaced, although there were times when he might have been.

The plane, named the _Friendship_ by Mrs. Guest, was brought to a
hangar in East Boston to undergo alterations. Because of the risks
involved in a long over-water flight and the ever-present possibility
of having to make a forced landing, it was decided to replace the
wheels of the Fokker with pontoons. For added range, two large gas
tanks, which could hold 900 extra gallons of gasoline, were fitted
to the forward bulkheads in the cabin of the plane. As an extra
precaution, new flight instruments and radio equipment were installed.
The work done, Stultz and Gordon took the plane up for many test
flights before they pronounced it ready.

The press never discovered what was afoot. According to the agreement,
everyone connected with the flight kept quiet about it. Amelia did
not tell even her family, who were living in nearby Medford. She did,
however, tell Samuel Chapman, a good friend, who was in turn supposed
to tell her family after the take-off.

Little is known about Samuel Chapman. He was a lawyer who worked in the
Boston office of the Edison Company. According to some reports, Amelia
met him in Los Angeles when she was first learning to fly. Some claimed
that Amelia was engaged to him.

If there was an engagement, something happened before, during, or after
the _Friendship_ flight to break it. After the flight, whenever Amelia
was asked about Chapman, she was vague and elusive. She would say that
she didn’t know where he was, that she hadn’t seen him, that she didn’t
plan to see him. She managed to be as secretive about Samuel Chapman as
she had been about the _Friendship_ preparations.

By the middle of May, 1928, the plane was declared ready by Stultz and
Gordon. Weather information was gathered, coordinated, and plotted.
Reports came in from ships at sea to the Weather Bureau; British
reports were digested and cabled to New York. Dr. James H. Kimball, the
great friend of fliers, collected, studied, and advised from his New
York office of the United States Weather Bureau. Weather became the
great obstacle.

Three weeks of waiting for the right weather drew nerves taut. Because
she was so well known about the local airports, Amelia avoided East
Boston and the hangar. She and George Palmer Putnam (known to everyone
as GP) often visited with the Byrds on Brimmer Street, looking over the
vast preparations for the commander’s forthcoming expedition to the
Antarctic.

On good days Amelia and either Hilton Railey or GP would take long
drives into the country in the yellow Kissel. Each night they would eat
at a different restaurant specializing in foreign dishes, and after
dinner they would attend one of Boston’s legitimate theaters.

Bill Stultz and Slim Gordon stayed at the Copley-Plaza where they
shared a room. Stultz, the man of action, the rare combination of great
pilot, navigator, instrument flier, and radio operator, grew more
restless with the passing days. A somber melancholy began to creep
into his waiting hours. He turned to brandy to relieve his boredom and
anxiety. His daily intoxication became an acute concern to Amelia,
Putnam, and Railey. Gordon, himself sick with ptomaine poisoning,
nevertheless knew and insisted that everything would change for the
better for both of them if they ever could get out of Boston and into
the air.

Spirits dampened during the long, gray days. When the weather was
favorable in Boston, the mid-Atlantic was forbidding; when the
mid-Atlantic was favorable, Boston was shrouded in fog; when the
Atlantic and Boston favorably agreed, the harbor offered only a
peaceful calm that made it impossible for the heavy plane to take off.

Amelia wrote what she called “Popping off Letters.” One for her father
in Los Angeles, and one for her mother in Medford; the one was gay and
stoically resigned, the other was serious and somewhat grim. The letter
to her father read:

May 20, 1928

Dearest Dad:

Hooray for the last grand adventure! I wish I had won, but it was
worth while anyway. You know that. I have no faith we’ll meet
anywhere again, but I wish we might.

Anyway, good-by and good luck to you.

Affectionately, your doter,

Mill.

To her mother she wrote: “Even though I have lost, the adventure was
worth while. Our family tends to be too secure. My life has really been
very happy, and I didn’t mind contemplating its end in the midst of it.”

Toward the end of May everything seemed ready. But two attempted
take-offs were unsuccessful. Too little wind and too much fog mutinied
against human will and seabound craft.

At three thirty in the morning of still another day the group left the
Copley-Plaza and entered the gray of still another dawn. Once more
sandwiches had been made, thermos bottles filled with coffee and cocoa,
gear readied and packed. Again they climbed into waiting cars and drove
through the wet deserted streets to T Wharf and clambered aboard the
tugboat _Sadie Ross_. They chugged once more out to the Jeffrey Yacht
Club in East Boston, and out to the anchored plane. The _Friendship_
seemed a desultory bird, its golden wings and red body bubbled over
with morning dew. It was Sunday, the third of June.

The fog was not too thick. The wind was reasonably right, blowing in
from the southeast and churning up waves that pounded the pontoons and
splashed over the outboard motors.

There were no good-bys; there had been too many before. Slim Gordon
took the tarpaulin covers off the three motors. Bill checked the radio
and the cockpit instruments. Slim, jumping from pontoon to pontoon,
cranked the motors, and then climbed into the copilot’s seat.

The plane started to taxi out of the harbor. Amelia stood between
the two large tanks in the cabin and glued her eyes on the air-speed
indicator. Lou Gower crouched in the aft end of the plane, hoping the
added weight of his body would help bring up the nose of the plane for
take-off. The attempt failed.

A five-gallon can of gasoline was cast overboard, but that did not
help. The plane was still too heavy. Lou Gower had hoped to go as far
as Newfoundland, but realizing the inevitable, he gathered his gear and
signaled for a boat from the tug. He wished the crew good luck and left
the plane.

The _Friendship_ taxied again down the harbor, propellers whirring in
the spray, pontoons cutting the whitecaps. The tug trailed the plane in
the churning wake of foam.

Inside the Fokker Amelia watched the air-speed needle while they tried
for the take-off. The hand on the instrument moved slowly--to thirty,
to forty, then beyond the necessary fifty to fifty-five, and finally to
sixty. The three motors roared and snarled and strained. The pontoons
rose on the steps, then quickly lifted from the sea. At last they were
off.

Amelia glanced at her watch; it was 6:30 A.M. She looked out the window
in the side door. Boston and the tugs and fishing boats began to
disappear in the fog as the plane climbed to cruising altitude. The sun
broke over the rim of the harbor. They were on their way straight up
the New England coast, bound for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

As official recorder for the flight, AE pulled out her stenographer’s
pad that served as a logbook. She sat on a water can and wrote:

96 miles out (1 hour). 7:30. 2,500 ft. Bill shows me on the map
that we are near Cash’s Ledge. We cannot see anything (if there is
anything to see), as the haze makes visibility poor. The sun is
blinding in the cockpit and will be, for a couple of hours. Bill is
crouching in the hatchway taking sights.

One hour and fifteen minutes later they sighted Nova Scotia and Fear
Island. The plane dropped to 2,000 feet for a closer look. The haze had
lessened. White gulls flew over the clustered houses on the green land
and headed out over the waves rocking a lone dory on the shore. A rocky
ledge ruffled the edge of the island. Pubnico Harbor was directly
below. The _Friendship_, motors humming sweetly, had averaged 114 mph
since it left Boston.

Amelia changed her seat to a gas can and looked down through the
hatchway. A green dappled shore came into view. The plane raced
fast-scudding clouds and churned through the reappearing haze. Bored
with nothing more to see, AE now lay on the floor of the fuselage and
pulled up the fur collar of her oversized leather flying suit. She felt
snug and warm. Beside her along the bulkhead the gas cans squeaked
against the heavy tie ropes. “Having a squeaking good time,” Amelia
said to herself, and remembered those other squeaking good times she
once had in Atchison, Kansas.

2. _Girlhood in Kansas_

Grandfather Otis stood in front of the fireplace in the long living
room of his home. He clasped his hands behind his back and rocked
back and forth, his black, square-toed, handmade shoes squeaking on
the hard wood floor. He was a big, thick-chested man, and even in
retirement he was still every inch the judge he had been before his two
granddaughters were born.

His wife Amelia sat in the rocking chair, darning a black knee
stocking. The chair creaked as it rocked, keeping involuntary time with
the heel-and-toe swaying of the thick black shoes.

Two little girls, their daughter Amy’s only children, sat on the stiff
horsehair sofa and exchanged knowing looks. The older girl, Amelia,
who was named after her grandmother, bent over and whispered into her
sister Muriel’s ear. “A squeaking good time!” They giggled. They wished
they had shoes that squeaked, too.

The girls loved their grandfather because he often entertained them
with stories about his early days in Kansas. Judge Otis had been one
of the first settlers of Atchison. Shortly after the Civil War, when he
graduated from the University of Michigan, he came by overland stage
from Kalamazoo to Chicago, took a flatboat to St. Louis, then went
up the Missouri River and debarked at Atchison to make his home. He
built a large two-story brick-and-frame house on a site overlooking
the river, and added a big barn and woodshed. The work completed, he
sent for his bride, who had been staying with her Quaker family in
Philadelphia.

Amelia Otis found the country nearly savage. The railroad tracks
going into Atchison were lined with buffalo bones, and the so-called
“friendly” Indians scared her half to death. They were too friendly.
Whenever she went shopping in town, the curious Indians fingered her
dress and poked into her shopping basket. Grandfather Otis chuckled
when he told this story about his wife, for she would always remind him
that she had preferred the civilization of Philadelphia and the society
of Friends.

The Earhart girls enjoyed their grandfather but he never replaced
their father, who, it seemed, was always away on a business trip. One
of Amelia’s earliest memories of her childhood was waiting for her
father to come home for the weekend, to see what presents he would
bring and, best of all, to play with him during the day and to listen
to his stories at night. He had bought them a baseball and bat and also
a basketball, and had shown them how to play with them, despite the
protests of some of the neighborhood mothers.

At bedtime for the girls, instead of sending them upstairs to their
room, he would sit in the straight-backed chair by the fireplace, cross
the long legs of his slender frame, and tell them stories of his family
and boyhood.

Edwin S. Earhart had been born a few miles from Atchison, the youngest
of twelve children. His father David and his mother Mary had labored
many long hours on the tough Kansas sod, only to encounter crop
failure, drought, dust storms, and grasshopper plagues. David Earhart
had been a missionary minister for the Lutheran Church, and though he
had traveled sometimes sixty miles to preach a sermon, his congregation
had never numbered more than twenty. During the great drought of 1860
his family would have starved if David had not received two gifts of
money, totaling $250. Thereafter, to insure some income, however small,
David became a schoolteacher. Eventually he was named as one of the
regents of the state college at Lawrence. Certainly the greatest figure
in the Earhart family was David’s uncle, John Earhart, who had been a
private in General Washington’s army and was killed in the battle of
Germantown. All twelve children were proud of Uncle John, a hero.

Edwin Earhart received his law degree from the University of Kansas in
1895 and the same year married Amy Otis. He worked for the railroad
as a claims agent and his job kept him from home and family for days,
often weeks, at a time. Grandfather Otis, then a judge of the district
court, had often advised his son-in-law to open up a law office in
Atchison, but Edwin was stubborn. He liked the claims work and he liked
to travel.

Amelia M. Earhart was born July 24, 1898, at the Otis home in Atchison,
where her parents were living at the time. Since her father’s job with
the railroad kept him moving from place to place as he settled claims
or went to Topeka to plead a case before the Supreme Court, and her
mother often accompanied him on the longer trips to Iowa and Illinois,
Amelia and her sister Muriel spent most of their childhood living with
the Otises.

As a child, Amelia was an irrepressible tomboy. “I was a horrid little
girl,” she said about staying with her grandparents, “and I do not
see how they put up with me, even part time.” A harsh judgment upon
herself, but she did cause her mother and grandmother many moments of
fret and anxiety about her unorthodox behavior.

3. _Halifax and Trepassey_

AE grinned as she lay on the cabin floor of the _Friendship_, thinking
that this flight across the Atlantic was perhaps the most unorthodox
happening in any girl’s life; then, as Bill Stultz throttled back and
nosed the plane into a steep glide, she awoke quickly from her reverie,
grabbing at the tie ropes with both hands so that she wouldn’t slide
forward. They were going down through the thick fog that had developed,
for a closer look at check points on the coast. The plane leveled off
at 500 feet. Land was to the left through a clearing in the fog.

It was Halifax Harbor, halfway to Trepassey, the Atlantic take-off
point, and halfway up the Nova Scotia coast line. Bill circled the
harbor twice and slipped expertly down to a landing. The natives
swarmed to the shore, and some of them climbed into dories to form a
welcoming party. The fog had proved too thick for the fliers, much too
thick for visual navigation.

Bill and Slim went ashore to get weather reports. Amelia, meanwhile,
remained in the cabin and ate an orange, one of several carefully
provided by GP. Mournful sounds of a foghorn punctuated the stillness
on the water. A light wind sprang up, and AE hoped that it would help
the take-off from the harbor.

Stultz and Gordon returned with discouraging news of rain and clouds
for the rest of the flight to Trepassey. Nevertheless, because they had
lost an hour by the change in time, they decided to try to make it.
Slim cranked up, then discovered a broken primer. They still wanted to
go. They took off at 2:30 P.M., but in vain.

It was a hopeless task to try to navigate along the coast. The rain and
the fog were too thick and heavy. Disappointed, they turned around and
went back to Halifax. They did not want to run the risk of blind flying.

At the Dartmouth Hotel in Halifax difficulties with the press began.
Publicity about the flight was now inescapable, for it had been
announced in the Boston newspapers that the aviators were on their
way to cross the Atlantic. The three fliers found no chance to take
much-needed rest.

At midnight two reporters and a cameraman were still trying to talk
Bill and Slim into posing for a picture, and at five thirty the next
morning the newsmen were waiting when the three travelers came down for
breakfast. Before, during, and after the meal interviews and pictures
were requested and begged. More reporters and cameramen awaited them at
the dock. The fliers had to wait until 100 gallons of gas, which had
been ordered two hours earlier, were brought by tug out to the plane
and poured into the tanks.

At 9:45 A.M. they took off from a calm sea. Visibility was good and
they cruised at 2,000 feet. The sharp rocks and ledges shone dark and
bright along the coast beneath the left wing. The 200 miles of fog
predicted the night before never materialized, but a thin haze did. At
eleven forty-five they were off Cape Canso, the Atlantic tip of Nova
Scotia.

Amelia and Slim, happy at the smooth progress of the flight, dived into
the sandwiches prepared by the Copley-Plaza. AE munched hungrily and
moved over to the side window. She wrinkled her brow as she looked over
the scalloped sea. Between bites Slim smiled at the strange sight of
Amelia in the oversized flying suit which she had borrowed from Army
Major Woolley in Boston.

At 12:15 P.M. they cruised at 3,200 feet at 100 mph. A thick bank of
fog rolled in from the Atlantic on the right. At twelve fifty they
sighted Newfoundland; at two fifty, Saint Mary’s Bay. Curling masses
of fog began to form over the warm earth below. Trepassey, their
destination, came into view far below; it looked like an open beak of
land. Bill glided and circled down, and landed the Fokker smoothly.

While the plane taxied, Amelia crawled into the cockpit to take
pictures of the reception committee. A dozen small boats had come out
and were circling the plane, each trying to claim the distinction of
being the first to rope the plane and secure it to a mooring.

Slim Gordon had gone out to one of the pontoons. He waved an arm and
screamed warnings in vain above the noise of the motors: one of the
welcomers threw a rope and nearly knocked him into the water. Stultz
at the controls cursed, worried lest the boats get too close to the
propellers and entangle a rope in them.

It was impossible to get the idea across that the plane could get to
its mooring under its own power, until a Paramount cameraman caught the
idea and cleared the way through the boats. Amelia joyfully snapped
pictures of the marine rodeo. She had an entertaining half-hour.

The stop at Trepassey became a nightmare of delay and frustration. Day
after day angry winds churned the bay, making it impossible to load
gasoline into the tanks. For fifteen days, from the fifth of June, sea
and wind, together and separately, conspired to test the patience of
the fliers. On June 7 they tried three times to take off and failed. A
pontoon sprung a leak and an oil tank cracked. Slim patiently repaired
both. The fret of anticipation grew worse by the hour.

At Devereux House, where they stayed, the travelers sought diversion by
playing rummy and chopping wood, reading telegrams and scanning maps
and weather reports, hiking and fishing. The local food became a topic
of conversation. Slim, fearful that he would come down with another
case of ptomaine poisoning, dieted mainly on candy bars, and soon
exhausted the entire stock of the little neighborhood store. Amelia
and Bill braved canned rabbit and boiled lamb, and the inevitable
vegetables of potatoes, turnips, and cabbage. The austerity of the
land forced a simple fare, but the warmth and friendliness of the
Devereux family and the many visitors contrasted with the cruelty of
the land and climate.

Apparently untroubled and indefatigable, Bill Stultz would get up
before the others in the morning and go eeling, trouting, or exploring;
at night he would pick out tunes on the guitar to entertain the others.
Job-like, they all tried to ignore the smothering fog, the howling
winds, and the hurtling sea, but the strain was telling in wrinkles of
concern on all their faces. To dull the sharpened edge of his anxiety,
Bill took to drinking heavily. His melancholy had returned. AE was
worried about it; Slim, evidently, was unconcerned, knowing that Bill
would stop drinking once he was back in the air, as he had in Boston.

On June 12 they tried desperately for four hours to take off, but
the heaviness of the receding tide sprayed and silenced the outboard
motors. The plane seemed heavy and unwieldy. Every item of unnecessary
equipment was unloaded--camera, coats, bags, cushions--but still the
salt spray continued to kill the motors. They were too discouraged to
speak.

The next day they arose at six o’clock. They unloaded 300 pounds of
fuel and tried for take-off, but the left motor cut out. More days of
waiting plagued them until the motor was repaired, but one reassuring
message had reached them. The _Southern Cross_, a trimotored Fokker,
like the _Friendship_ except for pontoons, had crossed the Pacific from
San Francisco.

Back at the Devereux home, they decided to do something about their
clothes. Amelia, who had only the clothes she was wearing, bought
a green-checked Mother Hubbard for ninety cents and a pair of tan
hose, then borrowed a pair of shoes, a skirt, and a slip, so that she
could wash everything from the skin out. Bill and Slim felt the same
crawling need for cleanliness. They borrowed clothes, and had their
suits cleaned and pressed and their shirts laundered. Bill splurged and
bought a new tie and new Trepassey socks.

Finally, a slight break in the weather came on Sunday morning, June
17. At eleven o’clock, after three tries in a heavy sea, the take-off
was successful. Bill Stultz, unfortunately, had to be all but carried
on the plane by Amelia and Gordon, but again he called upon hidden
reserves of airmanship, as in Boston, and piloted the _Friendship_ as
if nothing had ever happened.

Amelia worried lest there would be a recurrence of drinking during the
long over-water flight. Her fears were intensified when she found a
bottle hidden in the rear of the plane. She debated the discovery for a
few moments, but soon acted: she dropped the bottle into the ocean. As
it happened, her concern was unfounded. Stultz never came back to look
for his stimulant; flying, it appeared, was for him stimulant enough.

The _Friendship_ wobbled through the fog, one engine still spluttering
from the sea spray on take-off, climbed to 3,000 feet, and leveled off
to cruise for a while. More wisps of fog flitted by. Bill nosed the
plane higher, out of the fog, but into a sudden snowstorm. Lighter by
2,000 pounds, because of the excess baggage and fuel that had been
removed at Trepassey, three tons of aircraft now flew through the air,
shaking violently in the buffeting of the storm.

Bill pointed the nose down; the motors roared wide open. At 3,000
feet they bucked a head wind and a lashing rain; the plane bumped and
lurched in the downdrafts and updrafts. The air speed was steady at 106
mph. Suddenly a clear sky, sun shining, and blue sea broke as far as
Amelia could see; then, ominously, mountainous peaks of clouds towered
dead ahead. The plane upended and hurtled headlong in a steep dive.
Amelia braced herself against the forward bulkhead and waited for the
plane to right itself.

4. _Atchison Tomboy_

How often before had she known the same sensation, long before she had
ever seen or learned how to fly an airplane. Like the day she decided
to build a roller coaster out behind her grandfather’s woodshed. With
her sister Muriel and her cousins Katherine and Lucy Challiss to help
her, Amelia had nailed some cross boards to two long planks for the
runway, then tacked some old roller-skate wheels to a wide board for
the coaster. The girls lifted the crude runway and leaned it against
the top of the shed, while Amelia climbed up a ladder to the roof. The
coaster was handed up to her, and as she knelt with the board between
her hands, she felt a shiver along the middle of her back. She wondered
for a moment if she could make it down the steep incline. The first
time she tried, she flipped over when the coaster reached the ground,
and her sister and cousins screamed. Amelia cautioned them against
making too much noise, then insisted that she would try it again after
the boards were made longer. On the second attempt she shot from the
end of the incline onto the ground, right side up and unharmed.

The next day when Grandmother Otis discovered the roughly built roller
coaster she disapproved strongly. Young girls just didn’t do those
things. They stayed at home and sewed and learned how to cook. “Why,”
Grandmother Otis used to say to Amelia and Muriel, “the most strenuous
thing I ever did as a girl was to roll a hoop in the public square.”

Despite Grandmother’s remark, the girls would scamper hand in hand
through the paths from the bluff down to the river where they would
search the caves for arrowheads and play Pioneers and Indians. One day
when they had returned from such an adventure, Mrs. Earhart looked at
her daughters’ dirty pinafores and decided they needed costumes more
in keeping with their play. Amy Otis bought for her girls some new gym
suits. The neighborhood was shocked. Amelia and Muriel were delighted:
now they could climb on the back of the cow in the barn, or play
baseball and basketball, and never worry about tearing their dresses.

Amelia and Muriel attended the College Preparatory School in Atchison.
Of her days at grammar school Amelia wrote later: “Like many horrid
children, I loved school, though I never qualified as teacher’s
pet. Perhaps the fact that I was exceedingly fond of reading made
me endurable. With a large library to browse in, I spent many hours
not bothering anyone after I once learned to read.” But there was
some difficulty with her mathematics teacher, Sarah Walton, who had
insisted that Amelia put down all the steps she went through to arrive
at her answers if she expected to win honor prizes at the end of the
term. Amelia didn’t care about the honors: she knew she could work the
problems in her head, and it was a waste of time to put the steps down
on paper.

Early in her life Amelia revealed a mind that was inventive, original,
and stubborn. She was bright and inquisitive about everything. Her
parents encouraged her interest in books and took turns reading aloud
from Scott, Dickens, George Eliot, and Thackeray. The reading habit
became ingrained, and later, when Amelia and Muriel helped in the
housework, instead of both of them doing it together, one would read
while the other worked. One of Mr. Earhart’s favorite games with his
girls was to spring words on them which they had to define without
running to a dictionary.

Edwin Earhart, much like Lincoln in stern appearance and with gentle
and pervasive humor, was unusually open-minded about his girls and
what they wanted to do. He did not think he should keep his daughters
in school at all costs. Sometimes he took Amelia and Muriel with him
on his trips for the railroad--to Kansas City, Des Moines, St. Paul,
Chicago--thinking the visits as educational as classes in school. He
also took the girls along whenever he went on a fishing jaunt. For such
things as a lunar eclipse he would let them stay up late at night. And
Amelia never forgot the one occasion in 1910 when she saw Halley’s
comet.

“Anything unusual is educational,” Amy Earhart said, supporting her
husband’s views. And the girls, dressed in their dark-blue flannel
suits and their “shocking” full-pleated bloomers, collected the unusual
and did the unusual. They added toads and spiders and chameleons to
the collection of Indian arrowheads. They cooked and baked at the oven
outside, and Amelia, forever the experimenter, once tried to make the
manna she read about in the story of Moses. She was convinced that it
was a cross between a popover and angel-food cake. Whenever she was
asked why she wanted to do such things, her answer was always the same:
“Because I want to!” The reply may have been unsatisfactory, but she
used it all her life--for her ungirl-like interest in house painting,
working metal, taking mechanical gadgets apart and putting them
together again, and flying an airplane around the world. These were the
things she wanted to do.

But nothing was more enjoyable than the new flat sleds with steel
runners that Mr. Earhart bought the girls for Christmas, 1905, when
Amelia was a round-faced, towheaded girl of seven. As soon as she heard
that the hill nearby was covered with snow, she rushed out to try her
new sled--a “belly whopper,” she called it. When Amelia and Muriel
reached the slope, the other neighborhood girls were sitting on their
old-style upright sleds with wooden runners. Amelia noted that her
sled was much more practical; it was a sled you could steer this way
and that. She made a running start and thumped onto the sled. Down the
steep slope of the hill she swooped, blinking, her wet eyes whipped
by the icy wind, feeling the cold rush into her nostrils. Suddenly
a junkman’s cart labored out of a side street at the bottom of the
hill. Amelia shouted to the driver, but he did not hear. The horse,
plodding carefully across the icy patches on the road, had blinders
on and could not see her. It was impossible for Amelia to stop and
too dangerous for her to go off the side of the road into the ditch.
With presence of mind born of necessity, she coasted on straight,
then carefully guided the sled by the steering bar up front, and shot
through the underside of the horse, between his front and back legs.
The tomboy way to sled had saved her life.

Despite the disapproval of his mother-in-law, Mr. Earhart continued to
give his girls what they wanted to play with, and they wanted to play
with footballs, baseballs, and basketballs.

Amelia loved strenuous games and she tried them all. She rebelled at
the idea that they were not proper exercise for girls. That made her
nearly as mad as some of the stories she read: the heroes were always
boys. “Exercise of all kinds gave me intense pleasure,” she said
later in her life, after she had become an accomplished equestrienne.
“I might have been more skillful and graceful if I had learned the
correct form in athletics. I could not get any instruction, so I
just played and acquired a lot of bad habits.” She had always wanted
to ride a horse, and she would climb onto the back of any nag that
stopped in front of her house for a delivery. The most fun was riding
the heavy-footed sorrel that pulled the butcher’s wagon. He bucked
with devilish determination for no reason at all, and Amelia was often
unseated.

Her favorite horse was a neighbor’s mare named Nellie. Nellie’s owner
kept her in a small, hot, confining shed near the Otis property.
Whenever Nellie, tormented by flies, would kick her heels at the sides
of the shed, her owner would beat her with a buggy whip. Amelia hated
the neighbor for his cruelty, and often tried to calm the horse with
cubes of sugar before Nellie’s clattering and banging aroused her
master.

One day, in the summer of 1906, Amelia and Muriel watched the neighbor
saddle and mount Nellie. The girls glared as the rider reined his
horse in tight. They followed horse and rider as they moved into the
street. Suddenly Nellie reared and bucked high into the air. The owner
shouted, cursed, and beat the animal with his riding crop. Nellie
reared again and bucked higher. The owner tumbled off and fell to the
ground in a wild heap. Nellie galloped off to the end of the driveway,
then raced to the foot of the street, to the narrow bridge over a
little stream. The horse was cornered and bewildered. In defiance she
jumped over the railing of the bridge into the rocky stream below. The
next day the broken body of the horse was found near the milldam a mile
below the bridge.

It was an experience Amelia never forgot, and in later years she loved
to read Vachel Lindsay’s poem, “The Bronco That Would Not Be Broken of
Dancing.” It always reminded her of Nellie.

Amelia greatly admired spirited animals, and perhaps even as a young
girl she learned something of her own nature from them. There was much
of the untamed and the unrestrained in herself and she resented what
she considered unnecessary restrictions.

In 1907 her family moved to Des Moines, Iowa, and she saw her first
airplane. She remembered the exact day she saw the plane; it was at the
Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, on July 24, her ninth birthday.

Amelia and Muriel were enjoying the merry-go-round and the pony rides,
but Mr. Earhart was impatient to see the airplane, which, it had been
advertised, was going to give a demonstration flight. Ever since he had
read about Wilbur and Orville Wright, who only four years ago had flown
successfully from the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Edwin
Earhart had wanted to see a plane, especially see one fly. But his
daughters wanted another pony ride, and after that he had to buy them
some paper hats. Mr. Earhart obliged, but only after they promised him
they would go directly to the flying field.

Later, Amelia remembered looking beyond the fence to the airplane. She
thought it was an ugly thing of rusty wire and wood. It had two wings,
one above the other, and between the wings at the center a man sat with
goggles over his eyes and with his feet on a crossbar. Just behind the
man was a motor with a big wooden propeller. The tail looked like a
large box kite. An assistant spun the propeller. The motor sputtered.
Slowly the plane rolled over the ground on its small wheels; then it
moved faster. All of a sudden it rose into the air.

A woman who was standing beside Amelia took her arm and said, “Look,
dear. It flies!” But Amelia was more interested in the ridiculous paper
hat she was wearing, which looked like an inverted peach basket and had
cost fifteen cents.

5. _Over the Atlantic_

AE shook her head and looked out the small square window in the side
door of the _Friendship_. She wondered what the implications were of
her nine-year-old disinterest in that early airplane. Certainly now,
as she had for many years, she hated hats and loved airplanes. Why
the exact opposite in attraction repulsion, why the substitution in
meaningful symbols, why the clean and clear-cut reversal? She did not
trouble herself for the answers; she took out her log and made some
quick entries:

140 mph. 3,600 feet. Mist and fog, white from the afternoon sun
churn in the props. 4:15 P.M. It is cold in the cabin and colder
outside. Bill Stultz has picked up XHY _Rexmore_, a British ship,
which gives him a bearing--48 North, 39 West, 20:45 GMT. The HXY
has promised to give New York the _Friendship_’s position.

Amelia knelt beside the chart table, drinking in the color from the sun
splashing on the mist, fog, and clouds. Cloud peaks tinted pink from
the setting sun towered in the distance; their hollows were gray and
black. The mist on the arc of the props combined with the sun into
three bright rainbows. The pink exhausts from the three motors matched
the pink of the cloud peaks. The plane sank in the fog to 4,000 feet.
They were 1,096 miles out from Trepassey.

It was night. Cloud, mist, and fog combined. Ten o’clock. Amelia
tried to write in the dark by using the thumb of her left hand as the
starting point of a line. The words were uneven on the logbook but
distinct:

How marvelous is a machine and the mind that made it. I am
thoroughly occidental in this worship. Bill sits up alone. Every
muscle and nerve alert. Many hours to go. Marvelous also. I’ve
driven all day and night and know what staying alert means.

Bill climbed to get over the fog and roughness. Five thousand feet.
There was another mountain of fog to climb. Six thousand feet. The
north star was reflected in the wing tip. Three fifteen A.M. More
mountains of fog had to be scaled. Bill gave the plane all she had.
Nine thousand feet. Ten thousand feet. Since Trepassey the _Friendship_
had been in the air thirteen hours and fifteen minutes, despite the
four-hour advance in clock time. Periodically, Slim Gordon focused a
flashlight on the compass so Bill could take a reading.

Stultz had to fly his plane now completely by instruments. He decided
to go down through the fog. He began slowly, then more quickly, down to
5,000 feet. Amelia’s ears hurt from the rapid descent. Water streamed
on the windows. The left motor started to cough, then the other two.
Bill opened the throttles wide, trying to clear the cylinders.

Three thousand feet. The left motor still sputtered. Slim took over
the controls, while Bill came back to try the radio. It was dead.
Everlasting clouds were everywhere. It began to get lighter as the
day dawned. The plane came down through an opening in the clouds.
Everything in the cabin slid forward, Amelia with it. She thumped
against the forward bulkhead. That sensation again. She grinned, then
smiled broadly. The story of her life could be given in forward slides.
The roller coaster, the belly whopper, the Columbia dome. It seemed
that she had always been coming down from altitude, after seeking the
highest point of woodshed, street, or building and exulting to the
thrill of quick descent.

6. _Premed at Columbia_

Amelia studied hard and long at Columbia. She had enrolled in the
fall of 1919, when she was twenty-one, as a premedical student. After
having been a nurses aide in Toronto during the war, she decided to try
medicine as a possible profession. She took all the courses ending in
“ology,” and chemistry and physics; and she treated herself to a luxury
course in French literature.

Marian Stabler, a close friend at the time, was amazed at the number
of credit hours that AE was carrying. “This course she was taking,”
Miss Stabler writes, “was really a three-man job, with the full quota
at Barnard, and listening courses elsewhere. Apparently Columbia and
Barnard didn’t compare notes, as she wouldn’t have been permitted to
carry a load like that if anyone had known. She could only manage
it because there was little homework or preparation in the science
courses.”

But Amelia found time to give free rein to her exploratory nature. As
she had adventured into the caves along the shores of the Missouri
River below the Otis house, so now she had to investigate every nook of
the underground passageways at Columbia. She would go down the steps to
the basement of Hamilton Hall, enter through a heavy door, follow the
maze of steam pipes wherever they led, and, happily surprised, come out
at Schermerhorn Hall on the other side of the campus.

One Thursday evening at about eight o’clock in the summer of 1920
Amelia, seeking unusual diversion on the one night off she allowed
herself during the week, decided to climb to the top of the Columbia
library dome. Somehow she had managed to borrow the key that would
admit her up the winding stairs.

Impatient to be off, she ran up the long, wide steps in front of Low
Library. She brushed past the bronze statue of Alma Mater and puffed up
more steps to the library door.

Once inside, she walked past the check-out desk and around to the
northwest flight of stairs. She climbed the steps to the fourth floor,
and came out on one side of the rotunda. There before her on the north
parapet were the more than life-size statues of Euripides, Demosthenes,
Sophocles, and Augustus Caesar. She turned to the door and unlocked it.

She took the steps of the spiral staircase two at a time. She pushed
open the door and entered onto the narrow walkway at the base of the
dome. Gripping the railing that went around the top, she took a deep
breath. The view was marvelous, but not so good as it could be at the
very top. She now crawled on her hands and knees up the smooth rounded
arches to the peak.

Sitting there and looking out over the city which was veiled in the
half light of dusk, she felt a warm excitement spread through her body;
then suddenly coupled to the warmth, as she caught sight of Alma Mater
far below, a quick chill pierced the base of her spine. She grinned:
this same mixture of feelings had gripped her before. She had them as a
girl when she first tried the roller coaster and when she had coasted
down the hill on the belly whopper and nearly hit the junkman’s horse.
And in Toronto, when she thrilled to the sight of the pilots taking off
in the snow and was suddenly seized with fear. It was a question of
which feeling would overcome the other.

As before, she waited for the warmth to overtake the chill; then calmly
she drank in the view of New York at night as lights turned on against
the enveloping darkness. To the left on Amsterdam Avenue was an angel
perched against the sky on the highest point of the cathedral of
St. John the Divine. Trumpet raised, the angel sounded a flourish of
unheard celestial music to unhearing earthly ears below.

To the right, Broadway stretched downtown into the night as far as she
could see. She swung around on the peak and looked up the Hudson to the
dock at 125th Street. The ferry was on its way across to New Jersey.

The ferry made her think of Sundays when she liked to ride across
the river and go for hikes along the Palisades. It was as much fun
as Atchison had been. Now Atchison was all over. Grandfather and
Grandmother Otis had died and the property had been sold. Amelia’s
father and mother were now living in California; they had been urging
her to come out there so they could be together. Mr. Earhart had left
the railroad and gone into private practice, first in Kansas where he
was eventually raised to a judgeship, and now in Los Angeles where with
a partner he had opened a law office. “Dear Parallelepipedon,” her
father’s last letter had begun. Perhaps the big word for a solid of six
sides was both a description and a prediction. In later life she looked
on herself as having been successively student, nurse, teacher, social
worker, clothes designer, and ultimately flier.

She would like to see California, she mused. Columbia had been
interesting, but she didn’t feel that she really wanted to be a doctor,
after all. She had liked the courses as such, and the lab work. And she
had enjoyed feeding orange juice to the white mice and dissecting the
cockroaches. But visions of the practical application of medicine, the
actual dressing of wounds and the sewing of stitches, sickened her.

For a few more minutes she sat on the top of the dome and breathed
deeply of the clear night air. Then she slid down to the walkway,
opened the door, and clattered down the metal spiral staircase.

Back outside, she stopped at the statue of Alma Mater and for no
reason climbed into her lap. That it was an irrational thing to do,
she readily admitted, but she liked to do silly things once in a
while. She decided to walk for a few blocks down Broadway. She turned
the corner at 116th Street. Campus couples were walking arm in arm up
Broadway and down the side streets to Riverside Drive. She walked in
long, even strides, moving with the easy, unconscious grace of the
natural athlete.

“The girl in brown who walks alone.” She remembered the inscription
under her picture in the high-school yearbook. She had cried over it
when she had shown it to her mother; the tag line had been unkind but
true.

She blinked her eyes quickly at the memory. She could not be like those
other girls who clung to boys as if they were gods or something. It was
worth it to be different and go it alone and do what one wanted to do.

7. _Land!_

“Going it alone,” Amelia repeated the phrase to herself, alone in the
passenger compartment of the _Friendship_, a lone woman, the first
woman in history on a transatlantic flight. She looked up and forward
to the two men flying the plane. Bill was nosing down again, and Lou
was gazing intently out his side window. AE walked carefully up to the
cockpit. Twenty-five hundred feet. Eight fifty A.M. Lou Gordon pointed
out to the right. Two ships!

One of them was the S. S. _America_. Lou took over the controls as Bill
Stultz went back to try to make radio contact with the ships; but the
radio failed to operate. How could he get a position?

The _Friendship_ dropped down and circled the _America_. Bill scribbled
a note. Amelia attached it to an orange, put both in a paper bag, and
aimed through the opened hatchway for the deck of the _America_. The
combination of speed, movement of the ship, wind, and lightness of the
bag made the bombing a failure. A second attempt failed.

An alternative plan was suggested: should they try to land near the
ship, get a position report by voice, then try to take off again? The
rough sea would make a landing difficult, a take-off impossible. Bill
tried again, but in vain, to receive a message on the radio. What to do?

They decided to trust their earlier course determination, and turn
back to retrace the twelve-mile detour they had made to circle the
_America_. They had to trust their own original judgment. They had only
one hour of fuel left.

At this low point of desperation Lou Gordon, smiling as if there were
nothing to be alarmed about, came back for a sandwich. He tore off the
wrapper--another ham sandwich--and crawled back to the cockpit. Amelia
liked his easy manner. She looked out: the cloud ceiling was low and
the visibility limited. Bill headed the plane down to 500 feet.

Suddenly a fishing vessel came into view, then a fleet of them. The
fliers happily noticed that the course of the boats paralleled the
course of the _Friendship_. The gasoline tanks were emptying fast.
Amelia guessed that there must be land near, but where? She scanned the
horizon, hoping.

Then a nebulous blue shadow appeared through the fog. Was it another
mirage of fog, a deceptive cloud formation? Slim Gordon studied the
shape, then threw his sandwich out the window and screamed.

“Land!”

Bill Stultz smiled. He had brought the _Friendship_ across the
Atlantic. To Ireland or England, he did not know which, but he had
found land.

Soon several islands appeared, then a coast line. Bill worked the plane
in close and cruised along the coast, looking for a good place to bring
the Fokker down. There was not much fuel left. He decided to land.
Circling a factory town, he chose a stretch of water beyond it. He
landed beautifully, and taxied to a buoy a short distance away.

They had been in the air for twenty fretful hours and forty exciting
minutes. Now they safely rode the waves at Burry Port, Wales, looking
for a stir of recognition from the earth they had so defiantly left.

8. _A Sack of Potatoes_

Three thousand miles from home and only a half mile from the Welsh
shore, the _Friendship_ lay anchored to a heavy buoy, secure in the
swift-moving tide. Amelia stood in the square open doorway of the
fuselage, gripped the side, and looked out. She saw three men working
on the railroad along the shore; she waved her hand in greeting. The
men looked up, walked down the shore, cast an unbelieving glance at
the big seaplane, then turned their backs and went back to work.
Carmarthenshire of South Wales was unimpressed.

Time passed. The _Friendship_ strained at the rope Lou Gordon had used
to fasten the plane to the buoy. It started to rain. Sheets of water
hit and spread over the Fokker. Pilot, copilot, and passenger stared
out from the doorway, frantically waved their arms, cupped their hands,
and hollered in vain. Slim crawled out again onto one of the pontoons,
and screamed at the top of his lungs. Gray smoke swirled from the
factory stacks of the town, his only answer.

Amelia took out a white towel from the crew’s common duffel bag and
waved it at the shore. A man near the railroad took off his coat,
playfully waved back, put it on again, and returned to his work.

An hour went by. Finally, a boatload of policemen rowed out to the
anchored plane. Other boats, full of the now curious, followed.

The chief of the policemen spoke first. “You be wantin’ somethin’?” he
asked.

“We’ve just come from America,” the fliers answered.

“Have ye now?” The chief was indulgent if not credulous. “Well, we wish
ye welcome, I’m sure.” The policemen rowed back to shore, apparently to
make arrangements for the sudden visitors.

Several hours passed before the crew could disembark from the
_Friendship_. Rowboats and sailboats came out to meet the plane. The
few railroad workers were now convinced that something momentous had
happened; they quickly passed the word, and the curious began to
gather, in hundreds, then thousands.

The rain stopped, and the three fliers were put into a boat and brought
to shore. AE, kerchief and helmet off, her hair in small tightly curled
locks, her face bright in a wide smile, was the center of attention.
She was besieged by autograph hounds before she could get a foot out of
the boat. A boatload of people drew up alongside, and someone reached
out a hand and pulled both boats together. They wanted the fliers’
autographs now, all kinds of people: a handsome dark-haired man in a
gray homburg; a woman in a tweed coat and a cloche hat; a boy in a cap
and short pants; policemen, functionaries, workers.

The public acclaim had begun. To Amelia’s despair, the clamor of the
crowds failed to distinguish her as a mere female passenger. She looked
for Bill and Lou, the men who had done what everybody was praising
her for. It was their show, not hers. Despite her smile, she felt
miserable. She did not like to be taken for what she was not: she hated
phony heroines. At last three policemen escorted her through the crowd
into a factory building.

The wife of the factory foreman brought tea for the three fliers.
Amelia, despite the tumult outside the factory, maintained her
composure and grinned. “Now I know I’m in Britain,” she said
cheerfully, raising her cup and saluting the hostess. In answer to the
cheering crowd outside, AE went three times to the window and waved.
She was beginning to feel the need for the man who had agreed to manage
the publicity.

Hilton H. Railey had crossed the Atlantic earlier by boat. He was
waiting for them in Southampton, where they were supposed to land.
When he heard that they had arrived safely at Burry Port, he left
Southampton immediately by flying boat to join them.

Captain Railey went into action as soon as he saw his charges. Seeing
that they were tired and worn from the long flight, he whisked them off
to a nearby hotel and locked the doors to all well-wishers. He settled
Stultz and Gordon in one room and Amelia in another.

AE sank into a deep chair, threw one trousered leg over the arm of the
chair, and stretched the other leg out straight. She raised her arms
high and yawned wearily.

Railey thought Amelia looked dissatisfied. “What’s the matter?” he
asked. “Aren’t you excited?”

Her answer came slowly. “Excited? No.” Amelia took her leg off
from the arm of the chair and sat up straight. “It was a wonderful
experience, but all I did was lie on the floor of the fuselage and
take pictures of the clouds. We didn’t see much of the ocean. Bill did
all the flying--had to. I was just baggage,” she said, “like a sack of
potatoes.”

“What of it?” Railey replied quickly. “You’re still the first woman to
fly the Atlantic, and, what’s more, the first woman pilot to do it.”

Amelia was not convinced. “Oh, well,” she said, “maybe someday I’ll try
it alone.”

9. _In the Public Eye_

The next morning they flew the _Friendship_ out from Burry Port to
Southampton. For the first time during the trip AE sat at the controls
and did some of the flying. During the letdown for landing Bill Stultz
took over. In the harbor, boats of all descriptions dotted the water.
There was not enough space among them to bring the plane in. A green
light flashed from a launch moving farther out. Bill followed the
signal and eased the _Friendship_ onto the water.

In the launch Amelia looked back at the big plane. It was the last that
any of them saw of the _Friendship_. The plane was sold and later it
crashed on a flight to South America.

Among the welcomers at Southampton was Mrs. Frederick E. Guest, the
sponsor of the flight, and the woman whom AE had replaced as passenger.
It was the first meeting for the two. Mrs. Guest took Amelia by one
arm, Hilton Railey took her by the other. Sponsor and manager would see
the young woman flier through acclaim she could not believe existed in
a country famous for its restraint.

The lady mayor of Southampton, Mrs. Foster Welch, greeted her
enthusiastically. “Well, now,” said the mayor, the long gold chain of
office about her neck, “I’m going out to the States myself next year,
and it gives me pleasure to see you here, for when I get out there I’ll
feel that at least I know someone!”

Amelia was delighted, and smiled broadly at the footman who attended
the mayor and whose mien was so serious behind a long waxed mustache.

From the tumult that was Southampton Amelia was taken to London by
Hubert Scott Pain, director of Imperial Airways. They rode in his
Rolls-Royce, which was the same color as her “yellow peril” back
in Boston. Amelia was still wearing her heavy flying suit, her only
wardrobe, and one brightly colored scarf. Her other scarf had been
snatched by an eager souvenir hunter. As they drove along they were met
on the road by people returning home from the Ascot races; the racing
fans, having heard about the flight, waved at the famed woman flier. AE
smiled and raised her hand. She was anxious to get to London and out
of her flying clothes. Having but a toothbrush and comb, she looked
forward to a whole new outfit.

Rolling into Winchester, the Rolls passed the cathedral. Amelia asked
if they might stop. She wanted to see the famed resting place of
Canute, the shrine of William of Wykeham who built Windsor Castle, and
the place where Alfred the Great was crowned and buried. She might not
come by this way again, she explained.

AE went inside. The stillness of the cathedral came over her like a
cloak. Here the followers of William the Conqueror had built a monument
in thankfulness to God. Amelia walked silently through the church,
stopping occasionally to admire the interior. She loved the skill and
zeal, but not the faith, that marked this marble prayer of arches, like
hands joined and raised.

She planned to stay in London for only a short time, but she remained
for two weeks. With Hilton Railey as her escort, she was caught up in a
succession of teas, parties, exhibitions, testimonials, and visits. She
met hundreds of people, all of them full of compliments for what she
had done. As in Wales, she felt embarrassed: it was Stultz and Gordon
who deserved the praise, not she.

Captain Railey was proud of his charge. At every occasion she was
gracious, charming, modest. He never agreed with Amelia when after a
compliment from him she insisted that she was plain and unattractive.
For whenever he escorted her from Mrs. Guest’s Park Lane home she was
quietly triumphant, tall and lovely in a straight-lined, long-waisted
black dress, with matching coat and cloche hat, gloves, and pointed
silver-buckled shoes.

One of the high points of the London visit was the meeting with Lady
Astor. Amelia found her American-born hostess both “gracious and
brilliant.” Lady Astor was not particularly impressed by Amelia’s
transatlantic flight. “I’m not interested in you a bit because you
crossed the Atlantic by air,” she said frankly. “I want to hear about
your settlement work.”

AE was pleased to find someone who treated her as other than the false
celebrity she considered herself to be. She spent the rest of the day
with Lady Astor discussing Denison House in Boston and its model in
London, Toynbee Hall.

Inevitably, like all visitors to London, Amelia watched the changing
of the guard at Buckingham Palace; then, later, she saw a Tattoo at
Aldershot, where RAF fliers performed in the air while the soldiers
went through their maneuvers on the ground. Amelia wished she were in
one of the planes, with the men in the sky. At a flying exhibition she
would much rather be a performer than a spectator.

During an interview with newspaper reporters, AE was asked: “Should you
like to meet the Prince of Wales?”

Before Amelia could say a word, an American official answered for her:
“That depends on His Highness’ wishes.”

The published account of the interview made AE laugh for many years
to come. “Wal, I sure am glad to be here,” she was quoted as saying,
“and gosh, I sure hope I’ll meet the Prince of Wales.” If there were
a reason for not having met the prince, Amelia chuckled, it was the
implied nasal twang in that newspaper story.

At a luncheon given in her honor by the Air League of the British
Empire, AE met Lady Mary Heath, the famous woman aviator who had flown
from Cape Town, Africa, to London. Lady Heath made the flight in a
small light plane called an Avian.

Amelia decided she would like to have a plane like it. One early
morning she stole from Mrs. Guest’s home and took a taxi out to Croydon
Airport. She had made a date to go up with an English pilot in Lady
Heath’s little two-seater Avian. While they were in the air, Amelia
made up her mind. She would make Lady Heath an offer.

A few days later, when they sailed home on the _Roosevelt_, the little
plane was lashed to the deck. The boat trip across the Atlantic was a
wonderful opportunity to relax. The skipper, Captain Harry Manning,
realizing the strain Amelia had been subject to, set aside a deck for
her exclusive use. “Can’t you take us to South America instead of
New York?” she asked him one day. She did not look forward to more
receptions. Often AE went into the chartroom and discussed navigation
with Captain Manning. One day, they decided, they would make a long
flight together.

During the voyage Wilmer Stultz behaved erratically. Although
the flight was accomplished through his skill as a pilot, and he
was $20,000 richer because of it, he nevertheless sank into deep
melancholy. To deaden the long days of the ocean trip, he had brought a
case of brandy with him aboard the ship. With the liquor he found what
he craved: an escape from mundane realities; in neat water tumblerfuls
he finished off one bottle after another.

One afternoon a friend entered Stultz’s cabin. The flier was naked. In
his right hand he held a full glass of brandy; with his left hand he
gripped the rim of the water basin. He stared dolefully at his face in
the mirror. Suddenly the ship lurched. Stultz slipped from the basin,
swung across the room, and crashed into the portside bulkhead. He lay
sprawled and unconscious on the floor, the water glass broken in a dark
splash of brandy.

Later that day, when he recovered, Wilmer Stultz found his way on deck.
“Drunkenness,” he said to anyone who cared to listen, “is the only true
form of happiness.”

Amelia, Hilton Railey, and the others were stunned by the little,
gentle, modest pilot who from drink could turn into a complete stranger.

Perhaps Bill Stultz knew that he had been marked by the gods; for
within the year, on July 1, 1929, he was killed in an airplane crash
one quarter of a mile short of the runway at Roosevelt Field, New York.

AE walked the lonely upper deck and fussed with her thoughts. She
stopped at the railing and looked down at Lady Heath’s Avian tied down
on the fantail of the ship. Up the metal ladder from the deck below
came the clatter of feet. It was her good friend and manager Captain
Railey.

“Hilton,” she said to him, “I dread all the things coming up--the
business I suspect GP has been promoting in New York in my behalf.” She
paused. “I’m not the type.”

Railey smiled half-seriously. “Ticker tape, receptions, dinners,” he
said. “At least that.”

“You don’t have to tell me what’s in store for me,” she answered.
“I know.” Her forehead wrinkled; she continued: “But why? All I
contributed to the _Friendship_ flight--apart from the fact that
accidentally I happen to be the first woman to fly across, or rather
to be flown across, the North Atlantic--was to lie on the floor of the
fuselage like a sack of potatoes and admire the lovely clouds we were
flying over. That’s all I did, Hilton.”

Captain Railey did not interrupt Amelia, now fierce in working out her
own thoughts. He watched her long fingers grip the railing and turn
white as they tightly turned back and forth around the wood.

Amelia looked out over the waves; then she swung around quickly. “But
someday,” she said strongly, “I will have to do it alone, if only to
vindicate myself. I’m a false heroine now, and that makes me feel very
guilty. Someday I will redeem my self-respect. I can’t live without it.”

Hilton Railey understood. She did not want to be the symbol of
something she was not. Now she would have to spend the next few
years becoming what she was already in the eyes of the press and the
public--a woman flier who deserved the acclaim she had received.

Amelia looked again at the Avro Avian below. The fuselage was covered
with medals and mementoes to which was added: “To Amelia Earhart from
Mary Heath. Always think with your stick forward.”

She had bent her thoughts forward and they had carried her to a
resolute conclusion: she had to become a recognized flier in her own
right.

PART TWO

_THE WORLD OF FLIGHT_

1. _Wealth and Independence_

The accident of sex made Amelia Earhart front-page news. After her
arrival in New York, she received thousands of letters, telegrams, and
invitations. They grew in piles about her feet. Some of the letters
hailed her as a “gallant pioneer”; others called her a “foolhardy
nitwit.” Those that began, “The presence of your company” had to be
accepted or refused.

Thirty-two cities asked the three fliers to visit them. Overnight
Amelia became the native daughter of Boston, Kansas City, Chicago, Des
Moines, Los Angeles, but she still claimed the place where she was
born, Atchison, Kansas, as her native city. Taking the advice of Hilton
Railey, GP, and others, the heroes of the hour decided to accept the
invitations of New York, Boston, and Chicago.

The receptions were wild, frantic, tumultuous. The American people gave
the fliers the same thunderous acclaim they had given Charles Lindbergh
one year before. The two men and their woman passenger were showered
with ticker tape and torn telephone books, and they were given the keys
to each city in turn.

The festivities over, Amelia sought to retire into peaceful seclusion,
but she soon realized that she had become, undeniably and perhaps
irrevocably, a public figure. Opportunities were offered to her which
could not be ignored. G. P. Putnam presented her with a contract to
publish her account of the historic flight, manufacturers wanted her
to endorse their products, and an offer for the syndicated rights to
her story promised her $10,000. Amelia quietly made her decisions, and
within a few months she had earned more than $50,000.

Never had she even dreamed of making so much money. She was now
financially independent, and this new freedom meant that she could act
and do exactly as she pleased. Yet the new wealth plagued Amelia’s
conscience. If, as she painfully realized, she did not deserve the fame
for having crossed the Atlantic, how could she accept the fortune that
came with it?

New feelings of guilt compounded with the old. She would have to regain
her self-respect by someday flying solo across the Atlantic, or die
in the attempt. She could not live with the nickname “Lady Lindy” for
simply having been a passenger; she, too, would have to be a “lone
eagle.”

For the writing of her book Amelia accepted the hospitality of George
Palmer Putnam and his wife at their home in Rye, New York. There, with
the solicitous guidance of her publisher, AE studied her log of the
flight and her many notes; then, slowly and carefully, she began to
join one word to another. The job of writing, she discovered, took much
longer than she had planned, much longer than the actual time of the
flight, which was twenty hours and forty minutes. She dedicated the
book, aptly called _20 Hrs., 40 Min._, to her hostess, Dorothy Binney
Putnam.

Amelia had often been warned about GP; mutual friends had told her
that he would not hesitate to divorce his wife if he thought AE would
capitulate to his charms. But in 1928 Amelia did not seem particularly
interested in any man, although she had become the center of a triangle
of men that included GP, Hilton Railey, and Samuel Chapman.

Samuel Chapman, according to some sources, was supposed to have been
her fiancé, even at the time of the _Friendship_ flight; yet such
a commitment was denied by her, most emphatically, when she was
approached on the subject by a reporter in Boston. “No,” she said to
him, “I am not going to announce my engagement. I have seen Samuel
Chapman since I have been here, but I have seen a great many other
people also.” GP, who had been acting as a buffer between AE and the
press, clearly indicated that the subject was closed.

Pressed further about plans to get married at any time, Amelia
announced: “You never can tell what I will do. If I was sure of the
man, I might get married tomorrow. I am very sudden, you know, and make
up my mind in a second.”

Despite this comment, many years before AE had decided that marriage
for her would never be an escape. Even in her teens she had observed
that too many girls used it for a storm cellar, that, afraid to meet
life head on, they ran from their first real problems to hide behind a
husband.

Amelia had assumed an attitude of almost imperial independence; about
men and a possible husband she was never sudden. It was not until three
years later, and then with considerable reluctance, that she became
Mrs. George Palmer Putnam. She had learned to go it alone, without any
reliance upon any man. She had become, in spite of appearances to the
contrary, a “loner.”

Hilton Railey, her discoverer and manager, had developed a deep and
abiding affection for Amelia, and in spite of tentative signs of
encouragement from her when they were in England and returning home on
the _President Roosevelt_, he was still deeply in love with his first
wife and had every intention of remaining that way. Over the years that
followed, there continued between them a strong friendship, and it was
Railey who was the first to speak seriously to Amelia about GP.

It was just before he discontinued his connection with her as her
unpaid manager. During Amelia’s welcome in the harbor of New York,
Commander Byrd had asked Railey for his help in financing the
forthcoming expedition to the Antarctic as soon as he could break away
from the _Friendship_ celebrations. A few days later, in Amelia’s hotel
room in New York, Captain Railey jotted down on a piece of paper the
one word “brushfire,” and gave it to AE. He told her to consider it
as a code word and to use it whenever she needed help in warding off
George Palmer Putnam. Amelia grinned, took the paper, folded it, and
put it in her purse. She never found the need to use it.

While she had been writing _20 Hrs., 40 Min._, AE was approached for
many new endorsements. The one she remembered and talked about the
most, because it was the funniest, was the offer to sponsor canned
rabbit; the “stunt” was to have _her_ picture on the can. A promotion
which she did agree to, however, was one to help finance Commander
Byrd’s next expedition. Although she was a non-smoker, Amelia signed a
statement for a cigarette advertisement.

For her endorsement she received $1,500, which she immediately gave
to Byrd. It was a gesture of good will that Commander Byrd deeply
appreciated; later he presented her with copy number two of the limited
edition of his book, _Skyward_.

While Amelia was correcting proofs of her book, Lady Heath’s Avro Avian
was finally delivered. AE kept the plane at the nearby polo field of
the Westchester Biltmore Country Club in Rye. She was eager to test it
out. Hastily she finished making her corrections and gave the proofs to
GP.

The Avian was everything she wanted in a plane. It was small, light,
maneuverable, and fast; it reminded her of her first airplane, the
yellow Kinner Canary which she had owned in California, except that the
Avian had two open cockpits in tandem. Amelia walked across the soft,
firm grass to where the plane was parked. She lowered the panel from
the left side of the rear cockpit, and holding her plain black dress
against her legs, she climbed in. She buckled a white helmet under her
chin and adjusted the goggles at her forehead.

She started the engine and watched for the instruments to respond while
it idled, carefully checking the oil and fuel temperature and pressure
and engine revolutions per minute--rpm’s. She fingered the strands of
pearls about her neck and waited for the engine to warm up.

[Illustration: Amelia Earhart (_Courtesy of the Institute of the
Aeronautical Sciences, New York_).]

[Illustration: AE’s parents.]

[Illustration: AE, the fledgling flier.]

[Illustration: AE’s birthplace.]

[Illustration: AE after her first solo flight in an autogiro.]

[Illustration: Learning to fly. AE (_right_) and her first instructor,
Neta Snook.]

[Illustration: AE and Lady Heath’s Avro Avian.]

[Illustration: AE at Southampton. The _Friendship_ is in the
background.]

[Illustration: AE, suddenly famous, signs her autograph at Burry Port,
Wales.]

[Illustration: AE after her transatlantic solo, 1932.]

[Illustration: AE and the Lindberghs.]

[Illustration: Famous Fliers, 1928: (_standing, left to right_)
Eielson, Wilkins, Chamberlin, Balchen, (_seated_) Stultz, Earhart,
Gordon.]

[Illustration: AE and GP and the King and Queen of Belgium.]

[Illustration: AE and President Hoover, after he awarded her the
National Geographic Medal, 1932.]

[Illustration: The Lockheed Electra, AE in the cockpit.]

[Illustration: Paul Mantz, AE, Harry Manning, and Fred Noonan before
taking off for Honolulu from San Francisco, March 7, 1937, in the
Lockheed Electra. (_Courtesy The Smithsonian Institution_)]

[Illustration: Fragment of wood about 23 inches long, possibly
associated with AE’s last flight, 1937, found by Robert D. Weishaupt
at Baranof Island, Alaska, in 1942. (_Courtesy The Smithsonian
Institution_)]

[Illustration: Josephine Blanco Akiyama, who affirms she saw AE on
Saipan in 1937.]

[Illustration: AE and Fred Noonan at Calcutta on the last flight.]

AE curled her long, tapering fingers about the stick and worked the
ailerons and the elevator. She taxied down to the edge of the field,
carefully easing on and off first the left then the right brake as
she zigzagged across the close-cropped grass. She turned into the
wind, held both brakes hard, pulled the stick all the way back into
her middle, then revved up the motor to check out the magnetoes. She
reached up and turned the switch: the rpm’s dropped within the minimum
for first the left then the right, and finally held for both magnetoes.
Amelia smiled in satisfaction.

With her left hand she slowly advanced the throttle. The prop blasted
back hard and loud. Faster and faster the plane moved down the turf,
and she eased the throttle ahead as far as it would go. She held the
stick forward, bringing up the tail, then forced the plane to stay on
the ground until it fought to get into the air. She pulled back on the
stick. The plane clattered noisily off the ground. Amelia grinned. This
little craft soared into the air quicker than the sandpiper she had
owned in California.

Clearing the way ahead, she made climbing turns to gain altitude. At
10,000 feet she looked down, then out to the left and right and to the
back and front. The sky was clear for acrobatics.

Stalls, spins, loops, rolls, Immelmanns: she skillfully commanded the
plane through each maneuver. She slipped and climbed and dived swinging
and dancing the Avian along the reaches of the sunlit sky. The plane
handled perfectly. After an hour of skylarking over the polo field she
felt that she and the plane were ready for a long flight, one perhaps
to California and the National Air Races.

Amelia knew that she needed much more experience in the air before
she could consider herself a qualified pilot. The cross-country trip,
she finally decided, should season her for all kinds of flying--over
large cities, plains, and mountains. Although she had never made such
a flight before, her preparations, considering the distances involved,
were happy-go-lucky and without design. She bought navigation maps and
made her flight plan: she would fly over railroads, rivers, and big
cities whenever possible; once she arrived in the Far West and the
Rockies, she would then determine what to do. Summarily she announced
her plans to the Putnams, thanked them for their hospitality, and was
off.

2. _Vagabond of the Air_

Once in the air and on her way 3,000 miles to the west, she surveyed
the land below. It was a quilted patchwork of green and brown, and
woven through it, now the thick and now the thin threads of light and
dark rivers and tributaries. Even the mighty Hudson and the Palisades
had seemed from 8,000 feet but the thickest thread and the deepest
brown.

This was release from little things. Flat-topped beetled automobiles,
toy houses, clustered beads of cities: such was the Lilliputian world
of men. Cruising along over New York and New Jersey into Pennsylvania,
she knew that she would have to do right by the little Avian. Lady
Heath had flown it back and forth between London and Cape Town for a
record 12,000 miles; now AE would have to add to that record some 6,000
miles of the United States.

She spread her map across her knees and noted the penciled circle in
western Pennsylvania that marked Rogers Field in Pittsburgh, her first
stop. She began her letdown from cruising altitude. The airport, she
observed, had a grass runway.

Amelia dropped down for a closer look. She dragged the field, hoping
to spot rocks, or holes, or ditches. The way seemed clear. She tipped
up one wing in a tight turn and came around for a landing. She reduced
throttle and glided in to what looked like the best part of the field.
The plane started to settle; AE chopped the throttle, pulling back
hard on the stick. At that moment the landing gear hit a shallow ditch
hidden in the grass. The Avian swung up and over, the propeller
cracked and splintered, the tail thumped to the ground. Amelia hung
upside down on the safety belt. Calmly she felt along the instrument
panel and cut the switch. She was unhurt.

The headlines in the morning papers, however, told a different story:
“AMELIA EARHART NEAR DEATH IN CRASH.” AE read the front page, was
irritated and mad. The accident of sex again. If the pilot had been
a man, nothing would have been said about it, especially if he had
walked away from his plane unharmed. Amelia folded the paper and
slapped it against her leg. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? All
this emotionalism about women fliers, as if a female neck were more
important than a male neck.

Amelia went to the phone and called New York. Another plane, twin
sister to the Avian, would be ferried in, so that parts from it could
be used to repair her plane. The following day four mechanics worked
around the clock for a day and a half until the Avian was repaired.

Dayton, Terre Haute, St. Louis, Muskogee followed in uneventful
succession. Then came the towns that were small and displayed no signs
on barns or roofs to tell her where she was. Not recognizing any of
the landmarks and flying by at 100 miles an hour, AE noted that one
small town seemed like any other. She checked her map, then scrutinized
the terrain under her wing. It was no use. Each town was just another
checkerboard of streets and roofs, trees and fields, railroads and
highways. Frankly, she admitted to herself, she did not know where she
was.

Her confusion mounted as she flew west, but at last she found an
airport which, she was happy to discover, was in Fort Worth. She now
decided to stay on course. Once off the ground, however, the light
plane hit bumpy weather. It lurched and climbed and dived; and to
Amelia’s constant annoyance, her map kept slipping from her lap. Flying
the plane with one hand, she found with the other a safety pin in her
handbag. She picked the map up from the floor and clumsily pinned it to
her dress.

AE fought her plane through the updrafts and downdrafts. She scanned
the instrument panel, then noticed that the gas-gauge needle was
leaning toward empty. She reached up to pump fuel from the reserve tank
to the gravity tank. During the refueling the pin loosened from her
dress, a gust of wind swept into the cockpit, and the map started to
blow against the side of the fuselage. Amelia let go of the stick and
grabbed for the map. The plane angled into a sharp dive. Quickly taking
the stick again, she pulled back too hard; the Avian went into a steep
climb. The map, flapping against and over the side, whipped out of the
cockpit. Amelia grumbled. Now she could not possibly determine where
she was. She held her last known course, south of west, and kept on
flying. She hoped that something would turn up.

Finally, to the north, she noticed a highway. It was busy with cars
crawling into the slanting sun. Amelia turned the plane and followed
the road, her only guide across the state; when it ended, abruptly and
with disheartening finality, she was completely without bearings. The
sun sank behind the mountains in the west, leaving a swath of purple
haze along the length of the horizon. It began to get dark too fast for
her to establish any orientation with the ground. Amelia decided that
she would have to find a place to land--soon.

Ahead in the dusk she noticed some houses grouped about a solitary
oil derrick. She hoped that they would yield to a small town nearby.
She throttled back and eased the plane down into a shallow dive, then
circled low, looking for possible places to land. There were none, and
her heart sank as she thought of running out of fuel and having to make
a forced landing. Then, flying over the town, her spirits revived as
she considered an alternative, at once brilliant and desperate. The
main street, which was blessedly empty of traffic, was long enough and
wide enough to accommodate her plane. With decision born of necessity,
she swung the Avian into a low, wide turn and came around, nose down,
over the trees that marked the end of Main Street. Because of the high
altitude of the land, the plane came in fast, but Amelia dropped the
tail smartly, held the nose up straight, and stalled expertly onto the
dirt road. A grin creased wide across her face as she rolled through
the center of the town. She was, she soon discovered, in Hobbs, New
Mexico.

The people of the town turned out in force to see who the sudden and
unconventional visitor was. They were not only surprised to see a plane
parked in the middle of Main Street, but aghast to find a woman seated
at the controls. And when the woman flier took off her helmet and
goggles, they were shocked at her appearance. The sun had burned a red
outline on her face, and when Amelia looked out to greet her welcoming
committee, she looked exactly like a wide-eyed owl.

Amelia climbed out of the plane and asked some of the men to help her
fold the wings and park the Avian off to the side of the street. Then,
as if in ironic commentary on the way she looked, she walked to the Owl
Café for something to eat. She made a dinner of breakfast--fried eggs,
bread and butter, and milk.

After a night of cool and refreshing sleep in the high altitude, Amelia
rose early the next morning in the hope of getting off at dawn. Again
she planned to negotiate reliable Main Street. Down she rolled over the
dirt road for the take-off. Then the left tire blew out. AE chopped
the throttle and cut the switch. She shook her head, then grinned.
It seemed that her troubles would never stop. The nosing over in
Pittsburgh, the loss of the map, the emergency landing in town, and now
a flat tire. She laughed at her new predicament.

While the tire was being patched, Amelia went back to the Owl Café and
had the same breakfast of the night before. When she climbed back into
the cockpit, she felt that the repaired tire was getting soft. The men
who had done the job assured her that she was in error. Convinced but
still suspicious, she took off once more down the street and happily
into the air.

She had been told in Hobbs that if she flew to the southeast, she
would find in about a hundred miles either a river to the right or a
railroad with a highway to the left. Or was it a railroad to the left
and a highway to the right? Which one, they had carefully explained to
her in town, depended on whether she was more west than east or more
east than west. As it had often happened when she became lost in her
car and had asked for the way to a certain highway or town, she didn’t
pay close attention to the directions. Now she wasn’t sure which was
which and what was what. She looked down for guidance from the rivers
that coursed through the land, but they snaked such a confusion of
meanderings that she did not know which one to follow.

Late that morning she found a railroad that led her back to Texas and
into Pecos. Remembering that she might have one bad tire, she circled
to land. She set the Avian down gingerly. The left wheel plopped and
wobbled; the tire was flat! Fortunately the plane was light and rolled
clumsily, but safely, to a stop. Amelia sat in the cockpit, looking
enigmatically straight ahead. Someone asked her if there was anything
wrong. She looked up and smiled, then shook her head. How could she
tell anyone that she had been trying to understand an inscrutable fate?

While the tire was again repaired, Amelia had lunch with the Rotary
Club. That afternoon she started for El Paso, her original destination
of the day before.

Tire trouble now became engine trouble. At 4,000 feet the motor
coughed, then sputtered, and finally stopped. In quick reflex action,
Amelia jammed the stick forward and brought the plane into gliding
turns. She looked for a place to make a forced landing. Noticing a
small clearing among mesquite bushes and salt hills, she nosed the
plane in and landed.

She now wondered if she weren’t having a contest of wills with some
higher power who was trying to keep her earth-bound, or if she weren’t
being tested to see if she had yet the skill and courage to meet and
overcome any danger for the privilege of continuing to fly. She liked
the second possibility better. She much preferred a challenge, for the
joy that lay on the other side of conquest was far superior to any she
had ever known.

Fortunately, AE had landed near a road. Cars began to gather almost
at once; men and women came running to the scene of her emergency
landing. The men, Amelia felt, she could handle in such a situation;
but the women, with their shaking heads and fluttering moments of undue
concern, she dreaded.

The plane had to be towed back to Pecos, where new engine parts could
be ordered from El Paso. Slowly, at a mere ten miles an hour, the Avro
retraced its course, cruelly on the ground, back to the Texas city of
its morning take-off. It was late and dark that night before the plane
was parked behind a garage, there to await repairs.

It took three days before the parts could come the 187 miles from El
Paso and before the engine trouble could be located and repaired.
Amelia was impatient to be off across the mountains to the West Coast.
Thankfully she arrived in Los Angeles in time to see the start of the
National Air Races and to visit friends she had not seen since her
early days of learning to fly in California.

On the way home across Utah, she again had to make a dead-stick landing
because of engine failure. She landed in a plowed field, and again
nosed over and escaped unhurt. As in Pittsburgh, as in New Mexico
and Texas, she rose to fly anew, like the phoenix from its ashes.
With skill and courage she had once more conquered her adversary, the
challenge.

The challenge, she had often reflected upon her luck in flying, had
been with her from the very beginning, and she had always, sometimes
through the workings of a mysterious fate, won out.

3. _The Kinner Canary_

In 1922, when she was twenty-four years old and the owner of her first
plane, a yellow Kinner Canary, she had tried for her first record. She
decided that the ceiling of the Kinner should be tested, and asked an
official from the California Aero Club to seal the plane’s barograph--a
revolving cylinder for recording altitude. The little three-cylinder
Lawrence engine took the plane to 14,000 feet, and a new altitude
record before the 60-horse-power quit. The fault, AE learned when she
landed, had not been with the motor but with the spark control lever.
It had become disconnected during the test run.

Undismayed, Amelia tried again for a higher altitude a few days later.
She hoped this time that everything would work smoothly. The Canary
climbed quickly and easily to 10,000 feet, but ran into a layer of
thick clouds. At 11,000 feet she hit a driving wall of sleet, and at
12,000 feet she looked into a blinding blanket of fog.

AE now did a very stupid thing, she later confessed, one that should
have cost her her life. It was a miracle that she survived the
experience. Rattled because she could not tell her position without
instruments and because she had no outside landmarks for check points,
she did the first thing that came into her mind: she pulled the stick
back and kicked the plane into a spin. She spun, down and around,
winding the Kinner through the overcast until she broke out of it at
3,000 feet. Seeing the ground at last, Amelia straightened out of the
spin and pulled the plane out of its headlong dive.

After she landed, she nonchalantly climbed out of her plane and started
to walk away. She snapped off her helmet and shook her close-cropped
head. From the edge of the tarmac one of the old-time pilots rushed
over to her. He cussed her out roundly.

“Suppose there had been fog all the way to the ground?” he shouted
at her, flailing his arms. “You would have screwed yourself into the
ground.”

“I guess I would have,” Amelia said, refusing to be alarmed. She
held her head high, turned, and walked cockily away from any further
discussion about the incident. She had set a new record of 14,000 feet
a few days before, and that was good enough for her.

Luck had been with her before in other accidents, the kind she liked
to call the “blowout” variety in flying. Once in her early instruction
with Neta Snook, her first instructor, the motor of the Canuck cut out
shortly after take-off. Neta nosed the plane down for an emergency
landing and glided into a nearby cabbage patch. For Amelia the crisis
had produced a slow passage of time, time enough for her to reach
over and calmly cut the switch before the plane hit the ground. The
propeller and landing gear were smashed, but the women fliers walked
away from the crash unharmed.

Another time, on a solo flight, she had to make an unexpected landing
in a field drenched with rain. The wheels had stuck in the mud, and the
plane up ended and nosed over. Unhurt, Amelia hung upside down from the
safety belt.

In yet another emergency landing she had hit dried weeds more than
six feet high. The plane flipped over so suddenly and with such force
that Amelia broke away from the safety belt and went flying out of the
cockpit. Again she had walked away from her aircraft without a scratch.

4. _Aviation Editor_

By the autumn of 1928, after Amelia had returned to New York and
concluded her first cross-country flight, she had survived seven
crack-ups in as many years of flying. But she looked back upon the solo
trip with great satisfaction: it was the first time a woman had made a
transcontinental flight, alone, east to west, and west to east.

The press had closely followed her adventures across the country and
when she was resettled in New York, she was flooded with business
offers of all kinds, many of them having nothing to do with aviation.
Simply because she was a news figure, she had the opportunity to join
many advertising agencies and to take part in other enterprises for
which she had no qualifications.

She had at least two offers to write for the magazines: one was from
_McCall’s_; the other from _Cosmopolitan_. Because AE had endorsed a
cigarette advertisement, _McCall’s_ reluctantly withdrew its contract;
the magazine did not at that time carry any advertising for cigarettes,
and apparently did not approve of women smoking. Ray Long, president
and editor of Hearst’s _Cosmopolitan_, wanted Amelia to join his staff
as aviation editor. Amelia did not deliberate for very long. Realizing
the opportunity she would have to reach many readers because of the
enormous circulation of the magazine and the rare chance she was
getting to write every month about what she knew and liked best, she
accepted. She had now established herself permanently with her one
great love--aviation.

Working for _Cosmopolitan_, Amelia divided her time equally between
writing articles and answering letters. Letters poured in from
everywhere and from everyone. Men, women, boys, girls; teachers,
mechanics, laborers; inventor, realtor, office boy: all had questions
and problems they wanted answered and solved. Some said:

“Do you know the name of a good school of aviation?”

“Why is the monoplane faster than the biplane?”

“I have quarreled with my boy friend and have decided to take up
aviation. Please tell me how.”

“Do you know Colonel Lindbergh?”

“I want to fly, but my mother won’t let me.”

Many of the letters AE answered in the magazine. She cautioned the
young girl who had quarreled with her boy friend and advised her
against taking up flying: no one should take up flying with what
appeared to be thoughts of suicide! She cajoled a youngster and told
him to bide his time; the day would come when he could start flying
lessons without parental approval. Yes, she did know Colonel Lindbergh
and his wife, but she had not yet had the opportunity to know them well.

AE enjoyed the queries from her readers, but one complaint from the
younger ones made her chafe with irritation: restraining parents. “Why
not _now_?” she would say to the mother who refused to let her daughter
fly until she was sixteen, and she continued to ask it of any parent
who had established an arbitrary age somewhere in the future.

She began the _Cosmopolitan_ articles with the November, 1928, issue.
They continued somewhat erratically until one year later. Amelia sat at
her typewriter and pounded out her thoughts and feelings about flying.
Her own sex was often her target for the month: “Try Flying Yourself,”
“Here Is How Fannie Hurst Could Learn to Fly,” “Is It Safe for You to
Fly?” “Shall You Let Your Daughter Fly?” “Why Are Women Afraid to Fly?”

In the same issues other counterpointing writers sounded their
convictions: “I Don’t Want to Be a Mother,” “I Wish I Were a Man,”
“Could You be a Platonic Friend?” “Clinging Vine? Ha!” “I Have My
Rights, Too.”

This was only part of the exciting 1920’s in America. The postwar
period of the disillusioned lost generation, the new place of women
in society, the Freudian explanations for behavior, prohibition, the
automobile, the worship of speed, the idolization of heroes: out of
such an era Amelia Earhart came and conquered.

“I Want You to Meet a Real American Girl,” wrote O. O. McIntyre in an
enthusiastic introduction of AE to his _Cosmopolitan_ readers. In a day
when young women went from “gin-guzzling to calculated harlotry, here,”
he said, was a “wistful slip of a girl” who would be a “highly moral
reaction from the inflamed tendencies and appetites which have aroused
so much alarm. Amelia,” he concluded, “has become a symbol of a new
womanhood--a symbol, I predict, that will be emulously patterned after
by thousands of young girls in their quest for the Ideal.”

Every woman’s goal at the time was the slender, boyish figure, the
flattened breasts, the close-cropped boyish bob, the long, youthful
waist. In Amelia every woman found her image, cleanly liberated in
the speed of solo record-breaking flight. Here was a woman who could
satisfy in an acceptable way the cravings of any woman blocked at home,
of any housewife chained to a husband, home, and children.

She was a product of her times and a reaction to them, too caught up in
them to realize they were driving her to impossible achievement. For
the present, however, she was having a gloriously good time doing what
she wanted to do for “the fun of it.” And what she was doing was well
within her capabilities.

In the spring of 1929 Amelia sold the little Avro Avian and purchased
a used Lockheed Vega--a high-wing monoplane with Whirlwind engine. She
itched to test it out. California beckoned again, not for a visit this
time, but for the chance to enter a race.

5. _The First Women’s Air Derby_

In August the first Women’s Air Derby was held. Amelia left New York
and joined the field of nineteen planes in Santa Monica. This was the
kind of competition she liked. A women’s transcontinental air race had
never been held before. It was something brand-new for fliers, judges,
committees, those in charge of every point.

Early on the morning of the eighteenth, AE rolled her Vega onto the
field and turned into a double row of planes. To her left and right the
planes gleamed under a dear California sky. The lighter planes, six of
them, took their positions in front of her. Amelia counted: hers was
one of thirteen heavier planes lined up in the rear rank.

The starter dropped his flag. At one-minute intervals the planes roared
into take-off. Part of the National Air Races, the women’s event would
terminate eight days later at Cleveland, Ohio. Certain stops had to be
made each day, and no one could fly at night.

As Amelia had done, women from all over the country flocked to take
part. Wealthy women, sportswomen, businesswomen, wives, mothers; all
were young; many of them pretty. Some came with old planes, others with
new; some flew stock planes, others racers. All carried a few canned
goods, enough food for three days in case of a forced landing in the
desert.

From Santa Monica the women headed for the first stop at San
Bernardino. All made it, Amelia learned, except one. Mary Elizabeth von
Mack, flying one of the heavier planes, had found the landing field
overcrowded and turned back to land at Montbello.

The next day, according to plan, the last woman in from the day before
was the first off the ground. This prevented any lagging behind. One by
one the women fliers headed toward the San Bernardino Mountains.

Following in turn, AE slipped through Cajon Pass and headed across the
desert to Yuma, Arizona. Coming into the Yuma airport, Amelia crashed
into a sandbank and damaged a propeller. She escaped unhurt. The other
women, seeing what had happened to AE’s Vega, voted to stay three hours
instead of an hour and a half, until the propeller was fixed.

Amelia loved this kind of sportsmanship. It saved time for her, she
reflected, because her flying time was supposed to be counted from the
starting time, regardless of repair time. Off they flew to Phoenix,
where they would stay for the night.

For all the women the event promised adventure, for many danger, for
a few disaster. Claire Fahy, of Los Angeles, withdrew because someone
had been tampering with her motor. Marvel Crosson, from San Diego and
holder of the women’s altitude record, was the only fatality. She was
killed when she jumped from her disabled plane and her parachute failed
to open.

One of them, her plane out of gas, went down in the sagebrush and
cactus of the desert; another turned back because of engine trouble;
one had to wait for a damaged landing gear to be repaired; another had
wrestled with a whirlwind. Amelia, less fortunate than most because
of the broken propeller, nevertheless thanked her luck that she had
survived yet another crash, her seventh since she first started flying.

The days clicked by. The third day they remained overnight in Douglas,
Arizona; the fourth, in El Paso, Texas. Everywhere they landed, the
women, worn out with weariness, would find hundreds of autograph
hunters and souvenir seekers waiting for them. The crowds thronged to
Amelia’s plane more than to the others. AE despaired to hear that some
of the other women had pencils punched through the fabric of their
planes by the inquisitive. Her friend Blanche Noyes had discovered
fire in her cockpit because of a carelessly thrown cigarette, and was
forced to make an emergency landing.

At many of the fields there was no place to rest, no more than a table
to sit on. At other airports there were banquets to be rushed to and
back from. On the good days AE was happy to find luncheons served at
the field and hotels to go to for the night. Many fields provided soap
and water, clean towels, cold cream, powder, combs.

At the luncheons and dinners Amelia chuckled at some of the names the
speakers used for the women fliers: “sweethearts of the air,” “flying
flappers,” “angels,” “sunburned derbyists.” All they wanted to be
called, AE insisted in vain, were “fliers,” and, if necessary, “women
fliers.”

The press called the race “Lipstick Derby,” “Petticoat Derby,” “Powder
Puff Derby.” The last one stuck and has continued to the present time.

At El Paso, the fourth stop, the women waited for a storm to pass,
rather than risk some of them not having enough fuel to fly around
it; for the next leg, to Fort Worth, was the longest and most
hazardous--600 miles, much of it over mountains.

At Pecos they stopped for food and fuel. All the planes landed safely
except one. Florence Barnes, wife of a San Morino minister, misjudged
her landing roll, overran the runway, and crashed into an automobile.
She was rescued, unharmed, from the wreck.

On the night of the fifth day they stayed in Wichita, Kansas; of the
sixth, in St. Louis. When they landed in Columbus, Ohio, the last stop
before Cleveland, sixteen of the original nineteen had made it.

The morning of the eighth day broke clear. Amelia and Ruth Nichols, her
friend from Rye, had been running neck and neck during the entire race.
AE had landed just two minutes ahead of Ruth at Columbus and looked
forward to the last lap to Cleveland. It would be nip and tuck between
them all the way. The girls started their engines and waited for the
signal to move out in interval.

Ruth Nichols, poised at the far end of the runway, gunned her motor for
take-off. Just as she broke from the ground, the right wing dipped,
then hit a tractor parked at the edge of the runway. Amelia blanched.
Ruth’s plane struck the ground, flipped over three times, and stopped
in a shrieking scrape along the pavement.

AE stopped her engine, climbed out of the Vega, and ran toward the
crash. Ruth Nichols was not hurt, but the wings and landing gear of her
plane were smashed beyond immediate repair. The private race between
the two friends was over.

Louise Thaden of Pittsburgh won the race. Gladys O’Donnell, the mother
of two children, from Long Beach, came in second. AE, just nosing out
Blanche Noyes, was third. In the light-plane class, Phoebe Omlie was
the winner.

6. _Developing Air Lines_

The race had whetted Amelia’s competitive appetite, although the event,
generally, had annoyed her because of the unnecessary excitement and
trouble which the women fliers had caused. She would have preferred a
straight and simple race, one in which she could have competed, without
fanfare, with men. This last possibility was out of the question for
the time being; she turned, therefore, to establishing some speed
records of her own. The Vega had yet to prove its mettle at full
throttle.

In November of that same year AE set the new speed record for women
over a one-mile distance; and a few months later she established the
international speed record for women over a 100-kilometer course.

In her fever of activity, Amelia now turned from competitive flying and
magazine writing to developing air lines. With a characteristic burst
of initial energy, she plunged into first one then another aspect of
air-line operation, first with one organization then with another.
But, as with nursing and medicine, and as at Columbia when she was too
impatient to follow a prescribed course of study, she soon tired of the
new activities. There was no occupation on the ground that could hold
her interest for long.

Her destiny, she knew, lay in the air; but she would have to continue
getting more and more flying time before she could finally break the
ties with mundane pursuits. Working for an air line at least offered
chances to fly, even if it meant paying for the privilege by trying to
sell aviation to stubborn women.

Mothers and wives, Amelia was to complain later, were the great
stumbling blocks in her attempt to convince the American public that
flying was safe. It seemed that sons and daughters and husbands were
willing to take to the air, but a matriarchal opposition barred the
way. As she had used her arguments writing for _Cosmopolitan_, so
now AE used them again in speaking tours for the cause of aviation
in general, and for Transcontinental Air Transport, the air line she
represented, in particular.

Amelia flew from point to point on the Ludington Line of TAT and
delivered her talks to women’s groups. Often her mother would go along
with her. AE would point to her mother seated at the speaker’s table
and indicate her proof: if mother and daughter could fly together, the
air was as safe for any woman and her family as the highway and the
railroad. Gradually women began to be sold.

Working on TAT with Amelia were two young men, Paul Collins and Gene
Vidal. They had many progressive ideas about the running of an air line
and were anxious to put them into operation in their own business. They
took AE into the new organization with them as a vice-president.

As she had before, Amelia worked primarily with the women passengers,
finding them, quieting them, convincing them. Again she made many
lecture tours. She always began her speeches by asking for a show of
hands from those who had flown. The career women invariably won out
over their less daring sisters from a college group or a women’s club.

Difficulties of all kinds were encountered in the running of the
line. Irate customers, usually women, complained to Amelia about
cabin temperatures that were either too high or too low. Would the
plane please stop bumping? Did they have to fly into air pockets? One
passenger insisted that she would not pay extra for her thirteen pieces
of luggage; after all, the trains did not set any silly limits at
thirty pounds. A woman bought a ticket for herself and what she said
was a small lap dog: Amelia insisted that the woman sit in the same
seat with the lap dog, which, it turned out, was the size of a small
pony. At another time the same seat was sold to two different people.
Frequently passengers were grounded by the weather and had to be turned
over to the railroads.

Amelia soon fidgeted with an unrest to try something else. The right
to fly at no cost on the air line was too expensive for her energies
when she had to pay for the privilege with so many irritations on
the ground. If she could fly _and_ earn money at the same time, she
could then build up her hours in the air and yet realize enough funds,
finally, to back her contemplated solo across the Atlantic. The dual
opportunity came in the form of the newest experiment in aviation, the
autogiro.

For AE, the forerunner of the helicopter was a challenge to her flying
skill. In 1931, to the surprise of everyone, she learned how to fly
one in just a few hours, and a couple of days later she took it to
18,415 feet and set a new altitude record for autogiros. Because of the
publicity she had gained from the flight, Amelia was approached by the
Beech-Nut Packing Company to fly an autogiro across the country as a
promotion stunt for the chewing gum. She readily agreed: the venture,
although commercial, was the answer to her desire for flying time and
money.

Beginning in May of 1931, and for the next two months, Amelia flew
back and forth from New York to California, advertising the name of
Beech-Nut painted on the side of her plane.

The cross-country flight, although unusual in some respects, was
even more unusual in another. Three months earlier AE had quietly
slipped away with GP, who had divorced his wife, and married him in
Connecticut. And now by leaving on a “business trip,” Amelia had put
the marital shoe on the other foot, that of the male, and had left her
mate waiting for her at home.

For a long time AE had felt that marriage was a cage; but GP, who had
begun his campaign early after the _Friendship_ flight, had finally
overcome her continued reluctance. He convinced her that the cage could
be attractive if the door to it were left unlocked and open.

The marriage was marked by an interesting public reversal of roles. Not
unlike an anxious woman who has been left behind, George waited for
Amelia to finish her new adventure in the air. He worried about her.
She had already sustained one accident in Texas, and had complained
about the accounts of it in the press as much as any righteously
indignant male.

“A fatal accident to a woman pilot,” she wrote, “is not a greater
disaster than one to a man of equal worth. Feminine fliers have never
subscribed to the super-sentimental valuation placed upon their necks.
I am sure they feel they can endure their share of misfortune, whatever
it be, as quietly as men.”

When Amelia was heading back East on her trip, GP went to Detroit to
meet her. She had been scheduled to appear at the State Fair Grounds,
where she was going to give a demonstration flight with the autogiro.
Waiting for her, George stood on the outside of a circle which had been
marked off for AE to land in. Close by stands had been erected, and
from them long support wires had been stretched and staked into the
ground. GP talked with a group of people who had gathered.

“Here she comes!” someone shouted, pointing over GP’s shoulder.

George Putnam turned his head and saw the giro, whirling and clattering
above the treetops. Assured that everything was as it should be, he
resumed his conversation.

Then he heard a loud crash. GP spun around. The giro lay broken in a
cloud of smoke, the rotor blades cracked and splintered, the landing
gear smashed.

He ran toward the wreck. Ignoring the ground beneath him, he struck one
of the support wires. He flew up, over, and down, and hit the ground
flat on his back.

Amelia emerged from the accident without injury. When she saw her
husband sprawled on the ground, and apparently hurt, she ran to him.
She saw that he was winded but otherwise, it seemed, in good condition.

“So flying _is_ the safest, after all!” she teased him. “If you had
been with me, you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

GP turned to get up. His face creased in pain.

He had cracked three of his ribs.

7. _George Palmer Putnam_

George Palmer Putnam II was a man of many accomplishments. Because of
his highly active and extroverted nature, people either liked him or
disliked him. No one who knew him felt an apathetic indifference toward
him.

Newspaperman, mayor, publisher, explorer, author, promoter, manager,
publicity man extraordinary, he was tall, good-looking, aggressively
masculine, brilliantly informed, and he married some of the most
charming women of his day. (GP’s four wives were Dorothy Binney, Amelia
Earhart, Jean Marie Cosigny, and Margaret Haviland.) In appearance he
was deceptive: he looked like an intellectual, a scholar, a college
professor, perhaps because of the rimless glasses that he wore; yet he
was very much the man of action, the man of constant activity in many
fields at the same time.

“Lens louse,” photographers later dubbed him, as he managed to get
into picture after picture with Amelia. He loved the limelight and as
much publicity for himself as he could manage, yet he would do many
charitable things for people which he would absolutely forbid them to
mention. “The meanest,” some called him; others said, “The kindest.”

Born in 1887 into a family of wealth and position, George Putnam was a
gentleman, a _gentle_ man, yet was capable of an irritability easily
aroused by what he considered stupidity in others. He was capable with
the right provocation of changing from a person of charm and grace into
one of explosive anger and violent fury.

In his lifetime GP wrote ten books in his spare time. He could produce
a book “with his left hand,” while with his right he went about his
daily business of publishing and promoting. His books reflected his
many interests: four on travel, four biographies, and two novels. With
the eye of a close observer he recorded a perceptive understanding of
the land and the people of Central America, the Oregon country, the
Arctic, and Death Valley. His ability to see through the deceptive
surface and into the reality of his own life and the lives of others
produced the biographies of Salomon August Andrée, the gallant Swedish
aeronaut; of Amelia Earhart, his famous wife; of Captain Bob Bartlett,
“the mariner of the north”; and _Wide Margins_, the story of his own
life. Combining his knowledge of people and places, he wrote the novels
_Duration_, about an older man and his son, who are both involved in
World War II, and _Hickory Shirt_, which is laid in the Death Valley of
1850.

Frequently charming, kind, generous--anything but the tough guy he
wanted people to believe he was--George Palmer Putnam would rather be
hanged than have anyone discover he was soft behind the hard shell.
Typically, he was ever quick to respond to distress in others.

Blanche Noyes, a famous woman flier, who is now chief of the Air
Marking Staff, National Aviation Agency, remembers the George Putnam
who didn’t want to be found out. She writes:

The thing that I shall always remember of “G.P.” was my first
public appearance after my husband’s death, when I was mistress of
ceremonies in New York at a large luncheon, at which time I was
to introduce these celebrities without benefit of notes. However,
this time I felt a little shaky and asked “G.P.” to write my
introductions for me, which he did, but swore me to secrecy. It was
quite annoying, after the luncheon, to have two people come up and
thank me for the lovely things I said about them, but each said
that the only thing that spoiled the luncheon was the fact that
they sat next to “G.P.,” the man they disliked intensely. I wanted
to tell them that all the flattering things I had said about them
were “G.P.’s” thoughts and words, not mine, but he had sworn me to
secrecy. Someday I am going to tell them how wrong they were in
their thoughts of this grand person....

Grand indeed. When Mrs. Noyes’ husband Dewey was killed in 1935, AE
had insisted that Blanche come with her and GP from New York to the
West Coast and stay with them as long as she could at their home near
Toluca Lake, California. From time to time on the trip Amelia would
see Blanche crying in the back seat. Husband and wife up front would
whisper; then they would detour off the main highway, sometimes to see
a rodeo, to see a friend whom they thought Blanche might enjoy, or to
spend the night at some interesting historical spot. AE was like that,
and so was GP.

When George was a boy, his father, Bishop, and his two uncles, Irving
and Haven, were the publishing firm of G. P. Putnam’s Sons. In their
time, George Palmer, the founder, and George Haven, his successor,
were the deans of American publishing. Authors on the Putnam list
were famous; they are now required reading in any course in American
literature: Washington Irving, James Russell Lowell, James Fenimore
Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Cullen Bryant, Francis Parkman.

GPP II at the time when his father and uncles were running the firm
had little interest in the classics of literature, either British or
American. He was having a marvelous time growing up.

Like the elder Putnams, GP went to Harvard, but he soon transferred to
the University of California at Berkeley; then, like Francis Parkman
before him in the 1840’s, he went to the wilds of Oregon. The road was
mud, ruts, potholes, and bumps; but up and beyond, as far as his eyes
could see, was the most magnificent scenery he had ever seen. Rolling
hills to the east, the Cascades on the west, California’s valleys to
the south, and rock-rimmed ruggedness all the way to the Columbia River
to the north.

Twenty-three years old, and with three hundred dollars in his pockets,
GP settled in the valley of the Deschutes River at Bend. He was soon
elected mayor of the town. The previous incumbent had died; he had
fallen out of a second-story window of a bawdy house and landed on his
head. GP had needed the job, for he had prevailed upon a young lady in
Connecticut to come out to Oregon and marry him. Dorothy Binney came
northwest, and became his bride in October, 1911.

In the seven years that GP continued to live in Bend, he became the
father of a son, David Binney, and the editor of the local newspaper,
_The Bulletin_. One of the best stories conjured up by George to fill
space in his paper was the tale about Lucy, the tame trout. Lucy had
been kept in a shallow pan, until she spilled out all the water and
somehow learned to live by breathing air. GP would take her to one of
the local bars to perform. One day he forgot to close the door where
Lucy was kept; and having walked halfway across the foot-bridge over
the Deschutes River, GP looked back to see Lucy flapping along after
him. Then, before George could get to the fish to help her across, Lucy
lost her balance, fell into the river, and drowned.

After serving in World War I, GP, his father and brother having died,
now took his place in G. P. Putnam’s Sons. In the beginning his
selections of manuscripts for publication were happy choices. Under the
Putnam imprint were issued, among others, Alexander Woollcott’s first
books, Rockwell Kent’s _Wilderness_, and the novels of Ben Hecht.

One of the cleverest of George Putnam’s literary coups was _Bobbed
Hair_; it was a novel, and it was victorious on all fronts. The book
was a twenty-author production. GP conceived the plot; then, with the
help of ten women authors and nine men writers (Putnam was the tenth),
each to do one chapter, the mongrel fiction was given birth. The novel
was serialized in _Colliers_, published in book form, then made into a
movie. Included in the assembly-line production were Louis Bromfield,
Sophie Kerr, George Agnew Chamberlin, Bernice Brown, John V. A. Weaver,
Alexander Woollcott, George Barr McCutcheon, Carolyn Wells, Rube
Goldberg, Edward Streeter, Kermit Roosevelt, and Frank Craven.

For George Putnam these were fabulous times. Franklin P. Adams, Harold
Ross, Marc Connelly, Heywood Broun, Herbert Bayard Swope, Ben Hecht,
Alexander Woollcott, Maxwell Anderson, Laurence Stallings, Sidney
Howard, Louis Shipman, Burton Rascoe, Christopher Morley: all were
enjoying the first of their many successes. GP was in their midst, and
like cut glass catching and refracting a brilliant light, he shone
among them.

During this period George scored smashing results in publishing books
on exploration, and he was a publisher who practiced what he preached.
In the Putnam stables of authors were Charles Lindbergh, Richard Byrd,
Amelia Earhart, Martin Johnson, William Beebe, Roy Chapman Andrews,
Knud Rasmussen, Lincoln Ellsworth, Bob Bartlett, Rockwell Kent, Robert
Cushman Murphy, Merion Cooper, Larry Gould, William A. Robinson,
Fitzhugh Green, Sir Hubert Wilkins. But GP was not content simply to
publish books on exploration; he had to be an explorer himself.

In 1925 he organized and led an expedition into Greenland for the
American Museum of Natural History. The exploration was also a writing
and publishing success that produced books by Knud Rasmussen, Bob
Bartlett, and David Binney Putnam, GP’s first son. David Binney’s
_David Goes to Greenland_ was a tremendously successful boys’ book. It
was a successor to his equally famous _David Goes Voyaging_, written
at the age of twelve after an expedition to the Galápagos with William
Beebe. For the boy the Arctic Circle was as full of thrills and
adventure as the equator; happily, the son had his father’s talent for
recording new, unusual, and exciting experiences.

In May of 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, alone, and it
was G. P. Putnam’s Sons that published _We_. In June of 1928 Amelia
M. Earhart flew across the Atlantic, as passenger, and it was again
Putnam’s that released _20 Hrs., 40 Min._

George Putnam admired Colonel Lindbergh for his accomplishment but
accused Lindy of having a “mechanical” brain and a “one-track” mind.
Unfortunately, George did not live to read _The Spirit of St. Louis_;
if he had, he would have changed his mind.

The girl from Kansas who looked like Lindbergh, however, became his
wife. “Amelia Earhart,” he wrote later, “knew me better, probably, than
anyone else ever can. With her discernment, why she married the man she
did was often a matter of wonder to me. And to some others.”

8. _Marriage_

Before the wedding of GP and AE in February, 1931, there were warnings
given to both. Why did they want to marry? Why did GP want to become a
hero’s husband? Of all men why did Amelia Earhart choose George Palmer
Putnam?

No one, perhaps, understood heroes better than George Putnam. Himself a
writer, publisher, explorer, and promoter with, as _Time_ said of him,
“the dangerous combination of literary ability, business acumen, [and]
energy,” he was to the young Amelia Earhart the fitting opposite to her
essentially modest and retiring nature. He was, in brief, her kind of
man.

Soon after the _Friendship_ flight AE realized that she needed a man to
protect her, to help her continue as the symbol that she was. GP was
the man to clear the way for her, to find the money, to stand beside
her in the press of circumstance, to support her in every venture.
Although many men could fill such requirements in a husband, Amelia
felt that she could find happiness, if it were possible to find it with
anybody, only with George Putnam.

For GP his first wife, Dorothy Binney, had given him many good years
and two sons. But the Oregon years were in the distant past and by
1928 they had become cool and aloof toward each other. Dorothy Binney
divorced him on a formal charge of “failure to provide,” and moved to
Florida. George continued at Rye. He was never long without a wife.

The marriage of AE and GP was, to employ a metaphor from flight, a
delicate combination of solo and dual. George was forty-two years old;
Amelia, thirty-two.

Before the ceremony at the home of George’s mother in Noank,
Connecticut, on February 8, 1931, AE gave GP a letter that defined an
attitude for the future course of their life together:

Dear GP, there are some things which should be writ. Things we have
talked over before--most of them.

You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feeling that I
shatter thereby chances in work which means so much to me. I feel
the move just now as foolish as anything I could do. I know there
may be compensations, but have no heart to look ahead.

In our life together I shall not hold you to any medieval code
of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you
similarly. If we can be honest I think the difficulties which arise
may best be avoided....

Please let us not interfere with the other’s work or play, nor let
the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection
I may have to keep some place where I can go to be by myself
now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the
confinements of even an attractive cage.

I must exact a cruel promise, and that is you will let me go in a
year if we find no happiness together.

I will try to do my best in every way....

The letter was signed simply “AE.” Willing but reluctant, Amelia
Earhart effected the agreement--it would have been too demanding for
most men--and became Mrs. George Palmer Putnam.

She had refused marriage at least twice before, and as late as 1930 she
had written to a friend, “I am still unsold on marriage.... I think I
may not ever be able to see marriage except as a cage until I am unfit
to work or fly or be active--and of course I wouldn’t be desirable
then....”

Amelia’s mother, Amy Otis Earhart, had been opposed to the marriage. At
Greenwich House in New York, where Amelia was occupying the top floor
as a celebrity in residence, AE and Mrs. Earhart discussed Amelia’s
plans. The mother argued in vain; her daughter had made up her mind.

Hilton H. Railey tried to dissuade GP from his plans. For his efforts
Railey was accused of being in love with Amelia himself.

Amelia was often asked her opinion on the marriage-career question.
“Marriage is a _mutual_ responsibility,” she would answer. “And I
cannot see why husbands shouldn’t share in the responsibility of
the home. By that I mean something more detailed--and for as long
as it takes them to get used to the idea, perhaps more arduous,
even uncomfortable to the men--than merely keeping a roof over the
collective head and coal in the furnace.”

As for her career and its effect on her marriage, she wrote: “It
seems to me that the effect of having other interests beyond those
exclusively domestic works well. The more one does and sees and
feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be
one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love and
understanding companionship.”

The problem of money was frequently brought up. “For the woman to pay
her own way,” Amelia said, “may add immeasurably to the happiness of
those concerned. The individual independence of dollars and cents tends
to keep a healthy balance of power in the kingdom of the home. If one’s
time is worth more at specialized tasks--writing, flying, interior
decorating, what have you--it is good sense to put in one’s hours at
such work rather than cooking, cleaning, and mending. Assistants more
skilled than myself can be employed to substitute in the housewife
role without robbing a marriage of its essence. It is fortunately no
longer a disgrace to be undomestic, and married women should be able to
seek, as unrestrictedly as men, any gainful occupation their talents
and interests make available. Thus--for me--can joyful luxuries like
low-wing monoplanes be had--as adding to the sum total of contentment.”

And George Palmer Putnam seconded his wife’s views. GP and AE had a
joint bank account and every month each would put part of his earnings
toward those regularly recurring bills such as household, doctor,
clothes, clubs, automobiles, and trips.

Occasionally some wag would call GP “Mr. Earhart.” “Usually,” George
observed, “it was some nitwit who didn’t care whether or not he lived.”
But on one occasion GP called himself exactly that.

The Putnams went out to Hollywood to join other celebrities in making
a film for charity. In the group were Douglas Fairbanks and Mary
Pickford, “America’s Sweethearts,” whom GP and AE had never met. “I,”
said Douglas Fairbanks, introducing himself to Miss Earhart, “am Mister
Pickford.”

“And I,” said GP, picking up the thread and introducing himself to Mary
Pickford, “am Mister Earhart.”

In 1931 GP gave up publishing and went to work for Paramount Pictures
as head of the editorial board. He had sold his interest in G. P.
Putnam’s Sons to a cousin, Palmer C. Putnam.

GP stayed four years at Paramount. Among his successes was _Wings_,
which promoted Clara Bow, Dick Arlen, and Buddy Rogers to stardom.
Playing a bit part in the film was a tall, gangling youth whose name
was Gary Cooper.

There were many delightful days in the seven years of their marriage
for AE and GP. George spent most of his time working for Paramount in
New York. Amelia flew from her cage in the autogiro and advertised
Beech-Nut. The flying advertisement had been one of GP’s money-raising
ideas. He had many of them.

One, however, Amelia could not accept. It was the “Amelia Earhart Hat.”
AE, George, and Hilton Railey were at the Biltmore in New York. GP
crossed the room and from behind his back proudly produced a woman’s
hat. It was made of russet suède and on the silk band around it was
reproduced Amelia’s signature.

Amelia looked at it and turned it in her hands, pensively. Her smile of
amusement narrowed to disappointment. “Of course, GP,” she said firmly,
“this won’t do at all. You’ll have to cancel it.”

“But I can’t!” George cried out. “I’ve already signed the contract.
They’re already made up.”

“Then tell the manufacturer to _unmake_ them. Tell him at once--right
now!” She pointed to a telephone on a small table. “Phone him,” she
commanded.

Angrily glaring at Railey, GP flailed his arms and stomped about the
room. Amelia waited for the fury to subside.

“Since I can’t very well sue the manufacturer, and you _had_ my power
of attorney, then I shall most certainly sue you--unless!” She was
unyielding; she wanted no part in the scheme.

The matter was settled, and no “Amelia Earhart Hats” were put on the
market. Railey, bringing all his powers of persuasion to bear, had
talked the manufacturer into tearing up the contract.

But there were other, more acceptable, ideas from George Putnam.
Amelia became a woman’s fashion designer for a time, and she modeled
her own original creations--the lines simple, classical, functional.
She devised buttons, buckles, and other accessories; they were adapted
from such airplane parts as a hexagonal nut, a wing light, taillight,
parachute buckles, wing bolts, cotter pins, and ball bearings.

She endorsed the Franklin Motor Car; its engine was air cooled like
that of her airplane. And there was Earhart luggage, light, practical,
and designed for air travel.

Because of his many and varied ideas and activities, AE had a pet name
for George--“Simpkin.” The name came from a book Amelia remembered from
childhood, which told the story of the Tailor of Gloucester who lived
with his cat Simpkin. Simpkin believed in keeping mice in reserve by
secreting them under cups; whenever he was bored, he always had a mouse
to liven the day. Amelia discovered early in her marriage that she was
just another one of the many enterprises that her husband managed. One
mouse at a time was not enough for GP; thus his nickname, “Simpkin.”

The marriage of AE and GP produced no children. Nevertheless, it was
a happy one for the most part, although a New York columnist had
reported in 1933 that AE and GP were on the verge of breaking up. Helen
Hutson Weber, who was a house guest in the Rye home, where she was
recuperating from a serious illness, chuckled when she read the item.
For as she did, AE and GP were out on the patio cavorting like two
playful children: George was driving Amelia around in a wheelbarrow,
then dumping her on the ground. AE squealed in delight.

Neither George nor Amelia had to meet the pledge of two years before
and go their separate ways if they found no happiness together.

9. _Solo Across the Atlantic_

Five years to the day after Lindbergh’s famous flight in _The Spirit of
St. Louis_, Amelia Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Like
Lindbergh, Amelia had competitors who had tried the solo flight before
her; but, like his, the luck of “Lady Lindy” held out.

Ruth Nichols, AE’s friendly neighbor and fellow flier from Rye, was on
the way for the transatlantic hop in June, 1931, but as she came in for
a landing in Saint John’s, New Brunswick, her overloaded plane cracked
up, nearly killing her. Although she was still encased in a body cast
from the crash, Ruth Nichols was ready in 1932 to try again. But, just
as she was ready to go, she heard that Amelia had made it.

The two women fliers were the friendliest of rivals, and they were
always neck and neck to be the first woman-to-do in aviation. In 1930,
for example, AE had set the speed record at 181.157 mph; in 1931, Miss
Nichols set a new one at 210.685 mph. They had raced together in the
first Powder Puff Derby, until Ruth crashed in Columbus. Each wanted to
be the first woman to fly around the world: AE failed; Ruth succeeded.

For Amelia the flight alone across the Atlantic came four years after
the _Friendship_ venture. She had gained experience in all kinds of
flying, in all kinds of weather. She had flown coast to coast across
the United States four times: twice in Lady Heath’s Avian and twice
in the autogiro. With her Vega she had made numerous flights; one of
them the Women’s Air Derby in which she placed third in the race from
California to Ohio.

AE purchased another Vega; although secondhand, it was in excellent
flying condition, and as added insurance she had a new Wright Whirlwind
engine installed. After nine crack-ups and emergency landings, most of
them because of engine failure, she felt that the new motor was a wise
investment.

One morning in the winter of 1931, the Putnams sat at breakfast in
their Rye home. Amelia lowered the morning paper and looked out the
dining-room window. The light was clear, hard, and bright. The oak
trees out beyond the patio were stark and bare. The air seemed crisp
and clean, as if snow might begin to swirl at any moment.

Amelia brushed her stiff locks with a quick sweep of the hand and
turned to her husband. “Would you _mind_,” she asked slowly, “if I flew
the Atlantic?”

GP was elated with the idea, finally expressed, for he knew the project
had been growing within her, like a child, for a long time. He could
see, as he looked into his wife’s steady gray-blue eyes, that she had
arrived at that point of self-confidence where only agreement with her
was possible.

“Of course I don’t mind,” he said quickly. “I think it’s an excellent
idea.”

Plans began to take definite shape. To avoid any possibility of advance
notoriety, Amelia chartered her Vega to an old friend, Bernt Balchen,
the famous Arctic explorer and an intrepid flier. He had agreed to act
as her technical adviser. It was well known that Balchen and Lincoln
Ellsworth were planning an Antarctic expedition; everyone could now
infer that AE’s plane was going to be used by the explorers.

As with the earlier _Friendship_ flight, when everybody thought the
Fokker seaplane was being made ready for Byrd, thus giving Stultz and
Gordon the necessary freedom for test-hopping the aircraft, so now
Amelia had hour after hour and day after day for checking out the
new Whirlwind motor, for blind flying entirely by instruments, for
preparing for the variable weather over the North Atlantic.

On a Sunday in April of 1932 the Putnams had asked Bernt Balchen to
drive over to Rye for lunch. After a leisurely meal, AE led the way
down over the stone steps outside to her garden. She walked to the
crocuses, blooming in bright dabs of yellow, purple, and white, and
felt their grasslike leaves. Overhead she noted the elms and oaks
beginning to leaf. Bernt and GP had stopped at the croquet rack. Amelia
joined them. They started to play.

At the middle wicket on the turn for home AE dropped the long handle of
her mallet and walked toward the men. “Bernt,” she said suddenly, “I
wanted to tell you....” Her voice trailed inconclusively.

Bernt and George laid down their mallets. They followed Amelia to a
nearby rock and sat down. AE looked down at Bernt. “I want to fly the
Atlantic, now, by myself,” she said to him. “Am I ready to do it?” she
asked. “Is the ship ready? Will you help me?”

Balchen, a Norwegian of few words, fixed his clear blue eyes on a wire
hoop of the croquet game. His voice still had the trace of a Norseman’s
accent. “Yes,” he said slowly. “You can do it. The ship, when we are
through with it, will be O.K. And, yes, I will help.”

Her questions answered, Amelia returned to the game with renewed vigor
and clouted her opponents’ croquet balls into the bushes.

Toward dusk Bernt returned home. AE, suddenly hungry, went into the
kitchen. She started to make cocoa. Lucy Challiss, her cousin from
Atchison, who had been staying at the house for a few days, came in
with George.

“Can you keep a secret?” Amelia said, grinning, to her cousin.

“Of course,” Lucy answered.

AE went to the table and started slicing a loaf of bread. She reached
out a forefinger, picked up a bread crumb, and placed it on the tip of
her tongue. “I’m going to fly the Atlantic again,” she said. “Alone.”

Incredulous, Lucy stared at Amelia. The cocoa on the stove came to
a quick boil, bubbled, and spilled over the pan onto the floor. GP
sprang for a mop, Lucy for a dishcloth. Laughing, AE reached into the
cupboard for more cocoa.

It was the first time that Amelia had taken into her confidence someone
not directly connected with her flight. Lucy Challiss did not betray
her trust.

Unlike the first flight across the Atlantic in the _Friendship_ plane,
which had three engines, pontoons, and three crewmen, the Vega with its
one engine and fixed wheels would have to go the whole distance with
one pilot. For the next month, therefore, AE sharpened her reactions
in the conditions demanded in blind flying. For hours at a time she
practiced flying by her instruments alone: setting a course to some
distant city, then by following the dial of the gyrocompass and keeping
the Vega straight and level by flying the needle and ball of the turn
and bank indicator, she would compute the time and distance from the
chronometer, and finally look out from the cockpit to see if she had
made her estimated time of arrival at her destination. She would then
turn around and go through the same procedure all the way back to New
Jersey.

If possible, she wanted to be ready for the Atlantic take-off on the
same day as Lindbergh, five years earlier, had left New York. She had
never forgotten the time in Boston when she read about Lindy’s historic
flight and how she had hoped even then before the _Friendship_ venture
that she might, somehow, be the first woman to attempt the same flight.

While she waited at Rye or Teterboro, she often phoned the office of
Doc Kimball at the Weather Bureau office in New York and asked for a
prognosis. The weather conditions that had been forecast for the North
Atlantic were not too encouraging, but she had decided that if there
was the slightest chance to be on her way she would take it.

On the morning of Friday, May 20, AE climbed into her car and started
for New Jersey. She was on her way to see Bernt Balchen at Teterboro
airport. Ground fog, heavy and wet, bubbled on the windshield of the
car; she turned on the wipers. It did not seem to her now that she
would get off this gray day. When she turned onto the George Washington
Bridge she could barely make out the tops of the towers. The Hudson
River below was clouded in mist.

Just before noon at the airport she was summoned to the telephone by
Eddie Gorski, her mechanic. It was GP, calling from the office of Doc
Kimball at the Weather Bureau. “It looks like the break we’ve been
waiting for,” he said. “Doc Kimball says this afternoon is fine to get
to Newfoundland--Saint John’s, anyway.”

Amelia asked for particulars about the weather. A “low,” she learned,
which had threatened the first leg of the flight, had dissipated to the
southeast; and a “high,” which promised good weather, was moving in
beyond Newfoundland.

“O.K.!” she said. “We’ll start.”

In ten minutes she made final arrangements with Bernt Balchen and Eddie
Gorski. They had agreed to fly with her as far as Newfoundland, to make
sure everything was all right before the Atlantic take-off. Amelia
looked at her watch. There was no time for lunch.

Always a fast driver, AE now drove quickly back to Westchester.
Take-off had been set for 3:00 P.M. She had to pick up her clothes and
maps, and then meet GP at the New York end of the George Washington
Bridge. Two o’clock, he had said. She swung into the driveway. She had
driven the last twenty-five miles in fifteen minutes.

She rushed upstairs to her room. In five minutes she had changed into
jodhpurs, plaid sports shirt, and windbreaker. She tied a bright blue
scarf about her neck, then stuffed toilet articles into a small bag.
She stopped at the window that looked out on her garden. The dogwood
trees were in full flower, white and pink in the sun. She turned,
picked up her leather flying suit and the folder of maps, and fled out
of the room and down the stairs.

At 2:55 P.M. AE and GP reached Teterboro. Bernt and Eddie were waiting
by the plane. Eddie and Amelia climbed through the door into the waist.
Bernt crawled up on the wing and descended through the hatch into the
cockpit. Balchen had convinced AE that he should fly the first leg so
that she could conserve her strength for the long solo.

The red high-wing monoplane with gold stripes along the fuselage lifted
off the runway at 3:15 P.M. Amelia looked out the small window in the
door. On the ground below, standing on the edge of the pavement, was
George Putnam, waving. She waved back. For a change, a man would wait,
anxiously, for his woman to come home.

The Vega cruised over the coast of New England to Cape Cod. Behind the
big fuel tank in the cabin Amelia was sleeping, stretched out on the
floor of the fuselage, her leather flying suit under her head. Three
hours and thirty minutes later Bernt Balchen brought the plane into
Saint John, New Brunswick.

Early the next morning they flew to Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. Amelia
found detailed weather reports from GP waiting for her when she
arrived. While Bernt and Eddie made a final check of the aircraft,
she pored over the predictions. The weather outlook was not too good
but held the promise of something better. She decided to leave that
evening. That settled, she found a cot, lay down, and took a nap.

At dinnertime she was awakened. There were more telegrams from GP. Her
decision to leave that night, she learned, had been a good one. The
weather seemed to be clearing on her route. Amelia put on her heavy
flying suit, picked up her maps, and went out to the field.

Bernt had already warmed up the engine. Awkward in her clumsy gear,
Amelia plodded out to the plane. She reached a hand out to Bernt, then
to Eddie. They helped her up the side of the fuselage onto the wing.
She let herself down through the hatchway into the cockpit. She grinned
through the side window and waved.

“Okeh,” said Bernt with characteristic brevity. “So long. Good luck.”

Amelia took command of the plane. She looked over the instrument panel,
her “dashboard,” and checked the engine gauges. Four new instruments
had been installed in the plane to help her find her way: a drift
indicator, an aperiodic and a magnetic compass, and a directional
gyro. She taxied to the end of the only runway. The wind was from the
northeast, nearly perfect for take-off.

At 7:13 P.M. the Vega broke from the ground and rose into the air. It
was May 20, 1932. Amelia headed out to sea, to fly the Atlantic Ocean
for “the fun of it.” A few hours later it would be anything but fun.

Amelia eased back on the stick and climbed to 12,000 feet. She
leveled off. She looked out the narrow windshield to the right. The
sun, beginning to set in the west, sprayed out in a multicolored fan
of gold, yellow, orange, and red. This was beauty, and adventure:
the excitement and romance of flight. She looked quickly across the
instruments, then out the other side of the windshield. The moon, like
a disc of butter in whipped potatoes, sat on the top of a bank of
clouds.

The nose of the plane felt a little heavy against the stick. She
reached down and rolled in a little trim. She then held the wings
straight and level, and trimmed the rudder against the torque of the
propeller. The turn-and-bank indicator responded promptly: needle and
ball aligned in the center of the instrument. The steady rhythm of the
motor was like another heart; and the wings and fuselage were like
extensions of her arms and body and legs. She was one with her plane.

10. _Other Atlantics_

“If you follow the inner desire of your heart,” she had said in a
magazine article, “the incidentals will take care of themselves.” For
four long years she had waited to justify herself to herself. She
wanted to prove that she deserved at least a small fraction of all
the nice things people had been saying about her as a flier. She had
the credit, to spilling and overflowing, for already having flown
this ocean; she now wanted to make the credit good by making a large
deposit, by flying the Atlantic alone.

“Illogical?” She tried to explain with reasons from her heart.
“Perhaps. Most of the things we want are illogical!”

Under the left wing she watched a ship knifing slowly through the water
toward Newfoundland. She reached for the light toggle and blinked her
navigation lights. There was no answer from the ship.

Amelia swallowed. Her mouth was dry. She reached down for a can of
tomato juice, punched a hole through the top with a screw driver, and
inserted a straw. She sipped slowly, letting the juice moisten her
tongue and the inside of her mouth, then she swallowed a mouthful.

“Adventure,” she had always felt, “is worth while in itself.” Even when
she was a little girl in Kansas, playing with her sister Muriel and her
cousin Lucy Challiss, she had often gone to play “bogey” in the barn
in back of the house in Atchison. The three girls would sit in the old
buggy. Amelia would pick up the mildewed whip and crack it over the
heads of the imaginary horses. They would ride wildly over a cobbled
road, the buggy swaying. The horses galloped; the girls were in a hurry
to get to Vienna. A knight in shining armor came riding out of the
woods--toward them.

“Who’s that?” Lucy shrieked.

“Dispatches, Sir Knight!” Amelia shouted at the man on horseback; she
was not afraid. “For the Congress of Vienna of Treves, in favor of the
Holy Grail.” Undaunted, she continued, “Crusade about to start--unless
we get through, the Pagan may prevail!”

The knight put up his lance and let them pass.

“Women can do most of the things men can do,” she had written. “In
anything that requires intelligence, coordination, spirit, coolness,
and will power (and not too heavy muscular strength) women can meet men
on their own ground.”

She grinned as she remembered. She had once climbed upon a delivery
horse, had explored the caves in the cliffs overlooking the Missouri
River, had invented a trap and caught a chicken, had jumped over a
fence that no boy her own age had dared to try, had even popped bottles
off a fence with a rifle. If it was new and if it was different, she
couldn’t wait to try it, especially if some boy dared her.

She had twenty-eight different jobs in her life and she hoped to have
two hundred and twenty-eight more.

The restless urge. Better than any college education was it to
experiment, to meet new people, to find out what made them tick.
Adapt, please, anger, study: these were better than any classroom.
The unexpected by adventure became the inevitable. Even the small
things, if they were an invitation to hop out of the rut, meant just as
much--as flying the Atlantic.

She stamped her feet on the floor of the cockpit. Then quickly she
lifted herself from the seat and tried for a more comfortable sitting
position. The motor purred steadily. The phosphorescence of the numbers
and dials of the instruments was the only light. Outside it was night.
The moon shone over plane and sea.

There had been many “Atlantics” before--things she had wanted very
much to do, against the opposition of tradition, neighborhood opinion,
and so-called “common sense.” There had been the time she left Ogontz
School before graduation to become a nurse in Toronto. Learning to fly
in California had ostracized her among the more conventionally minded
girls. By driving a truck to deliver sand and gravel, to earn money to
fly and buy her own plane, she had become a simple nobody. Such things
were simply not done, not by a girl.

“The girl in brown who walks alone.” Now she was the girl in brown
leather flying suit and helmet, flying alone across the Atlantic Ocean.
She looked at the smooth and worn leather of the arm of her suit, and
grinned as she remembered her first flying jacket, how she had slept in
it so it would have a used look. At first she had been shy about flying.

11. _Flying in California_

California was a wonderful place for flying. In the summer of that
year--it was 1920 and she was an exuberant twenty-two--Amelia had
dragged her reluctant father from his Sunday newspapers and persuaded
him to take her to an air meet at Daugherty Field, out on the far
stretches of Long Beach. By the time they arrived, Mr. Earhart was hot
and uncomfortable. He ran a long finger under his wilted collar, and
mopped the sweat and dust from his face. He could not understand his
daughter Millie’s enthusiasm for airplanes. After you had seen one, he
affirmed, you had seen them all.

Amelia was fascinated at the sight of the old Jennys and Canucks. They
were the same kind of planes she had seen at Armor Heights in Toronto.
A man in uniform with an “official” badge pinned to his coat passed in
front of her. She took her father by the arm. “Dad,” she asked, “please
ask that man how long it takes to learn how to fly.”

Mr. Earhart went to talk to the official; then he returned to his
daughter. “He says it’s different with different people.” Then he
added, “The average time is between five and ten hours.”

Amelia reflected on the report. “Please ask him how much lessons cost.”

Unwillingly Mr. Earhart went to the official again. When he came back
he said, “The answer to that question is one thousand dollars.”

All the way home Amelia thought about the $1,000. It was more money
than she had ever had, and she wondered where she could get such a
large sum. Her father did not seem to share her interest, and she did
not know how her mother would react to the idea of her taking flying
lessons. She would begin her campaign by first asking her father if she
could take just one ride in a plane.

She finally coaxed him into taking her out to Rogers Airport. They ate
a hurried breakfast then took the streetcar to the outskirts of town,
to an open space at Fairfax and Wilshire boulevards which was the
airfield.

A young pilot of about Amelia’s age, noting prospective customers, came
forward and introduced himself. He was Frank Hawks and he would one day
establish numerous records as a famous racing pilot. Amelia told him
she wanted to go up for a ride.

Frank Hawks glanced at the tall, slight build of the girl in the
high-laced shoes. He was unimpressed. If she wanted to go, he told her,
she would have to suffer another passenger in the same seat with her,
and he nodded to his companion standing by the plane. Hawks didn’t
trust frightened females in his airplane. Amelia saw that argument was
pointless and agreed to the conditions.

The pilots helped her into the front cockpit. Hawks climbed into the
rear seat, and his friend squeezed in beside Amelia. A mechanic swung
the propeller and the plane came suddenly to life. AE watched the
whirling blur before her and covered her ears to shut out the deafening
blast. The plane started to roll over the uneven ground to the far end
of the field, then it turned and stopped.

The wings and fuselage shook as the motor clattered wide open.
Amelia screwed up her face to the noise. The plane began to move
down the take-off run, dipping and bumping as it picked up speed.
Then, suddenly, it broke cleanly into the air. As suddenly Amelia was
thrilled: she felt as if she were floating on a cushion of air.

She looked down from 300 feet. Trees and ground were speeding by;
everything was getting smaller as the plane climbed into the sky. The
automobiles on Wilshire Boulevard looked like black bugs, the houses
like toys.

The plane leveled off. “Two thousand feet,” Hawks shouted from the back
seat. Amelia looked over the side of the cockpit. The oil derricks on
the edge of the city were directly below; farther out, the Hollywood
hills and the ocean.

Hawks nosed the plane into a steep glide, then tipped up the wing into
a turn. The wind whistled over the wings and through the struts and
cross wires.

Amelia braced her arm against the instrument panel. She smiled as she
rose slightly from the seat. The stick in front of her angled forward;
she wanted to hold it. When she reached out a hand, the man beside her
shook his head and pushed the hand aside.

She turned quickly left and right in the seat, then tapped her feet on
the floor. How wonderful to climb and turn and dive through the air!
She felt buoyant, light, free--something she had never known before. A
warm wave of exhilaration surged through her.

The plane had landed and the flight was over too soon. AE was on the
ground but her thoughts were still in the sky. She knew now that she
would have to fly again, whatever the cost. As soon as she had left the
ground on that take-off she had known it. She now understood what had
lured the young Canadian pilots into the air.

That evening she had to tell her family about her plans. “I think I’d
like to learn to fly,” she said finally, when the supper dishes were
being cleared from the table.

“You aren’t really serious, are you?” her father said. “I thought you
were just wishing. I can’t afford to let you have instruction.”

Amelia was by no means defeated. She would find other ways of getting
the money. She would get a job and pay for her lessons by herself. She
was now old enough to decide what she wanted to do with her life. Her
father’s decision forced the issue and broke the financial ties she had
grown to depend upon.

Amelia found a job with the Los Angeles telephone company. It paid
little, but sorting mail and running errands provided enough to get
started with her lessons. She worked five days a week, leaving her with
weekends to spend at the flying field. Neta Snook, an early woman flier
and a graduate of the Curtiss Flying School, was her first instructor.

Early one Saturday morning AE rolled out of bed. She was wearing a
leather flying jacket over her pajamas. For the last several nights she
had been sleeping in it to give it a worn look. She didn’t want the
curious to know that she was a novice at flying. She ate her breakfast
quickly; she wanted to be out of the house before seven o’clock.

The ride out to the airport took more than an hour to the end of the
carline, then she had to walk another three miles along the dusty
highway to the field. Amelia wore her riding breeches, her high leather
boots, and her leather jacket; tucked under her arm was her leather
helmet and goggles. Although she had not soloed yet, she felt like a
flier. And to complete the woman-flier portrait, she had been secretly
snipping away at her hair.

Instructor Neta Snook and student Amelia Earhart must have looked
strange to the casual onlooker. What were these two women doing,
dressing like men and climbing into an airplane?

Neither woman cared. Why couldn’t a woman enjoy the pleasures and run
the risks of flight? Snooky did not trouble herself about how she
looked: she was comfortable in a pair of mechanic’s dirty coveralls.
Tall and slender, Amelia, with her hair pushed under her helmet, looked
like a handsome boy. She was not concerned about her appearance; she
was being practical: the field was dusty and the plane was difficult to
climb into. The jodhpurs and jacket, like the gym suits she wore as a
little girl, made good sense.

Amelia was glad that Neta Snook was her first instructor. With a woman
to teach her she felt less self-conscious about taking lessons; any of
the men fliers, who overwhelmed her with their abilities, would have
scared her away, at least in the first difficult stages of learning how
to fly. Her self-confidence was still shaky and insecure.

AE learned slowly but well. At first Neta showed her how to read the
instruments, how to start and rev up the engine, how to check the
magnetoes, follow through on stick, rudders, and throttle as she took
the Canuck off, climbed, made gentle turns to the left and right, and
came in for a landing.

After a few weeks Amelia had learned how to fly a quadrangular
course. This had been difficult at first in the light plane. She had
to fly around a fenced-off field by keeping the right wing, at a
steady altitude of 1,000 feet, exactly in line with the fence. She
would angle in to the line, move swiftly downwind, turn steeply into
the wind and crab along the cross-wind leg, then level out and move
slowly upwind. The fourth leg was the hardest, for it meant a shallow
turn with the wind to stay on course. The maneuver around the field
demanded coordination of up and down and left and right. But Amelia
could see the point of the exercise: if she could successfully work
stick, rudder, and throttle in getting around the field, she would have
learned the basic requirements for a landing pattern.

Then Neta taught her stalls and spins. These had to be mastered soon
if she hoped someday to solo. Again Amelia followed through on the
controls. AE sat in the rear cockpit and studied Neta’s every move with
stick, throttle, and rudder. Neta reduced throttle, pulled up the nose
until the wing stalled; the plane plunged down, then she jammed the
stick forward and added throttle to pull out of the dive. This was a
simple stall, and Amelia soon commanded the necessary skill to recover
the plane.

A spin was more involved; again Neta proved that the Curtiss Flying
School had taught her well. As before she pulled the plane back into
a stall, but now she kicked the right rudder hard, snapping the wing
over. The plane spun to the right, and Amelia, getting dizzier from
each tightening whirl, tried to concentrate on Neta’s recovery. Neta
applied opposite rudder to the direction of the spin, straightening
the wings; then she thrust the stick forward, adding power, and slowly
came back on the stick to bring the nose back onto the horizon. Amelia
thought the maneuver too complicated to master, but after several
attempts with Snooky patiently guiding her through each step, she
finally learned. Her reactions became quick, sure, and accurate.

Having learned how to take off and land, and how to recover from stalls
and spins, Amelia began to radiate with the new sense of power which
these basic skills and accomplishments had given her. She was eager to
get on with her lessons, but there was never enough money to pay for
them. Much of her instruction from Neta had been on credit, and her job
with the telephone company scarcely paid enough to meet all costs. It
became immediately clear to her that she needed a better-paying job.
She found one a few days later in a most unlikely occupation for a
girl--driving a truck for a sand and gravel company.

By this time Amy Earhart realized that her daughter was serious about
flying, and she decided to help. On the condition that Amelia would
spend more time at home, Mrs. Earhart let her have some of the money
she had been saving over the years. Amelia readily agreed to the terms.

To her sorrow, however, when she returned to the field a few weeks
later to tell Neta Snook the good news, AE learned that Neta, herself
desperate for funds, had sold her plane. Disappointed but not
discouraged, Amelia turned to a man to help her through enough lessons
so that she could solo. Fortunately, her choice of a new instructor was
a good one. He was John Montijo, a former Army instructor with hundreds
of hours of experience in the air. And what was more, he was patient
and unexcitable before the most trying stupidities of his students. He
was demanding, but very knowing and skillful in his ability to teach
others.

Amelia learned quickly from him. And she insisted that he teach her
acrobatics before he allowed her to go up alone. She wanted to have
complete mastery of the Kinner Airster biplane. She knew that if she
could stunt the plane, she would then have the necessary confidence to
recover the plane from whatever attitude it might assume.

Under Montijo’s guidance, her reactions to the most unusual conditions
of flight became as trigger fast as they were in the more normal spins
and stalls. She practiced for hours doing slips and split-S’s, loops
and rolls, lazy-eights and Immelmanns.

Amelia had gained such a sure degree of skill from her new instructor
that when her time to solo finally came she had lost all nervousness
and fear. She reversed the usual procedure for the first flight alone.
Most fledglings she had watched took off with a joyful sweep and
circled the field; then--suddenly ground shy--they kept circling until
the tanks ran dry and they had to summon the courage to land. The
necessary judgment for a good landing is one of the first tests of a
good pilot, and AE hoped that hers would be as smooth as John’s always
were.

On the day of her solo Amelia walked out to her plane with the graceful
ease of newly won self-assurance. Her patent-leather jacket gleamed
in the sun; her high leather flying boots, carefully laced over the
tight-fitting breeches, kicked up the dust as she walked; her white
shirt, jauntily opened at the neck, revealed the inevitable feminine
touch. She stepped onto the lower wing of the plane and swung into the
front cockpit. She buckled her helmet and set her goggles over her
eyes. A mechanic spun the wooden propeller and the biplane headed out
to the runway for the take-off. As the plane rolled down the barren
strip, gaining speed for the take-off, Amelia felt the right wing sag
just before the plane should have lifted into the air. Instinctively,
AE chopped the throttle, pulled back the spark-control lever, and
settled the plane onto the ground. Getting out to see what had gone
wrong, Amelia noticed that one of the shock absorbers had collapsed.

After the damage had been repaired, Amelia, taking courage anew,
tried again. She inched the throttle forward, and when the plane had
more than enough flying speed, she eased back on the stick, waiting
an anxious moment for the plane to break from the ground. The shock
absorber held, and the Airster sprang from the end of the runway.
Gently, almost caressingly, Amelia coordinated throttle and stick,
aileron and rudder, in her climbing turns out of take-off. Suddenly,
as she leveled the wings and straightened the nose, she realized an
overwhelming fact: she was alone, gloriously alone. She was in complete
command of the surging power from the engine and it was just at her
fingertips to obey her will and no other.

Her nerve ends had multiplied, for now the power of the engine was her
power and had become part of her own body, and the wings and fuselage
and _empennage_ were extensions of her own limbs. She climbed and
dived and turned, pranking the air in the thrill and exhilaration
of new-found love. The awareness of soaring flight now struck her
consciousness as if for the first time. She was now the master of her
life, her destiny, and perhaps her death. The realization brought a
bitter joy and a livid loneliness, but beyond them lay a new kind of
freedom and a blessed peace.

Buoyant and elated, she swung the plane into the landing pattern.
Feeling too confident, she neglected to lose enough flying speed in her
final approach to the runway, and when she tried to touch the plane
down, it kept bouncing off the ground and back into the air. Finally,
realizing that she had not cut the power, she pulled the throttle all
the way back and held the stick hard against her middle. The engine
sputtered, the wing stalled, and the plane thumped to the ground.

When she had taxied the plane to the parking area, some of the other
pilots came running over to her. “Congratulations!” they shouted. “How
did it feel?” they asked. “Were you scared?”

Amelia felt guilty and somewhat silly, but she certainly had not been
frightened. She was ashamed of her rotten landing, but took some
comfort in what John Montijo had once told her. All landings are good
ones, he said, if you can walk away from them. Amelia was proud that
she had finally soloed; by flying only on weekends, she had taken
months to do what others had done in just a few weeks of constant
instruction. She turned to one of the men standing near her plane and
asked him to take her picture out in front of the Kinner. She posed
like a wistful maiden who is going to announce her engagement in the
society section of the Sunday newspapers. She smiled softly and held
her arms out from her body, her hands angled, her fingers pointed. The
camera clicked.

12. _The Girl and the Machine_

The remembered sound was enough to snap Amelia back from her reverie.
She looked at the chronometer on the instrument panel of her Vega. Time
had passed quickly. She checked the fuel-flow indicator. Everything
normal. It was 11:30 P.M. She glanced at the air-speed indicator: 180
mph. She wondered what ground speed she was making along her track:
that depended on the direction and velocity of the wind. To the right
of the air-speed dial she noticed the dials of the altimeter; suddenly
they started to spin crazily around and around. In her twelve years of
flying this had never happened before. With the altimeter out, she
would have to fly by carefully watching the air-speed needle.

She looked out. The moon slid behind a tall build-up of clouds. Then
more clouds grew and thickened about the plane. The Vega started to
buffet, then to buck like an unbroken horse. Rain pinged and splattered
against the metal wings and fuselage, hit and spread like gravel
against the windshield, and streamed across the width and off the
trailing edges of the wings. Whips of lightning cracked across the nose
of the plane.

Amelia set her jaw hard and flew the plane by the needle and ball. She
hoped the driving downdrafts of the storm were not nosing her too far
down to the water. She could only trust to luck. For an hour she fought
the plane through.

Fleetingly she saw the moon. If she could only pull out on top of the
clouds. She added throttle and applied back pressure to the stick. She
watched her instruments. For thirty minutes the Vega climbed. Amelia
felt the controls getting sluggish. The dial of the rate-of-climb
indicator fell off. The wings were picking up ice. Slush now splattered
on the windshield. Amelia checked the engine rpm’s. Like the altimeter,
the tachometer now began to spin wildly. It had picked up ice from the
freezing outside temperature. The stick and rudder became sloppy and
unresponsive.

Suddenly one wing lurched up high and snapped over. The plane, heavy
with ice, spun out of control down through the clouds to the ocean
below. Amelia quickly jammed opposite rudder, drove the stick all the
way forward, and slowly brought the nose of the plane up out of the
dive. She looked out. The gun-metal waves of the Atlantic rose and fell
less than a hundred feet beneath her. She inhaled deeply against the
pounding of her heart.

Amelia continued to fly near the water, hoping the lower altitude would
melt the ice. Then fog and clouds gathered and spread over the ocean.
Without the altimeter she dared not fly that low, and she climbed again
to what she hoped was a safer altitude: low enough to escape the ice
and high enough to avoid the water.

She would have to depend on her remaining instruments to make it
across. She did not look out of her cockpit again until morning. The
Sperry directional gyrocompass became her savior. She believed in
it and followed it. Setting the gyro every fifteen minutes to a new
heading, she pursued it across the night and through the engulfing
clouds. For Amelia, it was now a grim, dogged, and stubborn refusal to
be overcome. As long as the Wasp engine kept firing, she would fly her
plane. The last hours became the worst of the flight.

Toward dawn the exhaust manifold began to vibrate badly. Then the
stinging odor of gasoline filled the cockpit. The gasoline gauges of
the reserve wing tanks leaked drops of fuel on the floor by her feet.
Her eyes and nostrils smarted from the strong smell. From about her
neck Amelia brought her kerchief to her eyes and wiped away the tears.

Daylight finally dawned. Through the dim light Amelia found herself
between two layers of clouds. Her eyes burned from the ordeal of the
night and she rubbed them briskly with her hand. She fidgeted in her
seat trying to relieve the stiffness and soreness. She rubbed her back
against the back of the seat, and pressed her feet against the rudder
pedals in an effort to stretch her legs. Below, the cloud layer began
to break and clear. Amelia dropped down to examine the whitecaps; from
the spray of the waves she hoped to determine the direction of the
wind. She decided it was from the northwest.

Out on the leading edge of the wings she noticed ice. It had not yet
melted from the heat of the morning sun. She climbed a little higher,
but ran into another cloud bank. Suddenly she broke into the clear; the
clouds were now below her, closely packed in clear white and looking
like fields of snow she had once seen in New England. The upper layer
of clouds began to thin out, and through an opening came the morning
sun, blinding bright against the white snow of the clouds below.

Amelia reached into the pocket of her shirt, under the leather jacket,
and took out a pair of dark glasses. Through the darkness of the
glasses the light was still too bright. She nosed the Vega down through
the lower layer, hoping to find some shade near the water.

Ten hours of the long flight had passed. She reached for the thermos
bottle of hot soup. Pressing the stick firmly between her knees, she
gulped down the hot liquid food. It was her first meal since the
take-off from Harbor Grace. Amelia checked the fuel gauges: 120 gallons
left. Since take-off the Vega had burned 300 gallons.

Amelia looked out across the water for passing ships. None were within
sight. The sunshine and low-hanging clouds persisted. Preferring the
shade, she continued to fly close to the water.

She looked out far ahead. In the distance a thin line of black
stretched across the horizon. Was it landfall or a front of black
clouds? She had been deceived before. Then a dark object moved out
from the black line. It had to be a ship; whether a fishing vessel or
tanker, it was too soon to tell.

The vibration of the exhaust manifold became severe. Amelia saw that
the cracked weld had melted and grown larger from the exhaust flames
during the night. The engine would probably not last much longer. Paris
as a destination, she now decided, was out of the question. She would
have to come down on the first available piece of land.

Gently applying right rudder and stick, she banked into a turn, leveled
off, and held a new compass course of ninety degrees. By flying due
east she intended to hit the tip of the black line on the horizon, the
tip of what she hoped was Ireland.

Doc Kimball in New York had told her she might find bad weather south
of her course during the flight. The fact of last night’s experience
now convinced her she must be south of course, especially if the wind
had been long from the northwest.

The line on the horizon grew in contour. It was definitely a coast
line, and probably Ireland. By maintaining her course she would hit it,
not at the tip as planned, but exactly in the middle.

The coast came into full view below. Amelia screamed in delight;
she had made her landfall. Exultant, she turned and headed down a
long spine of mountains. Crowded against the peaks and knobs were
thunderstorm clouds, growing and spreading up and out.

Knowing that she could not depend on the broken altimeter and realizing
that she did not know the country, Amelia turned north to where the
weather seemed better. She did not want to churn through billowing
clouds whose roots were mountain peaks.

The new course proved a wise one. Ahead she saw a railroad, the blessed
“iron compass” which in any country could bring a pilot home to a city
and perhaps to an airport. Dutifully, Amelia followed the double track.
The worst of the flight, she knew, was over.

Happily she tried to stretch in the narrow seat. She felt like
that Greek traveler Odysseus whom she had read about at school in
Philadelphia--again, she mused, _another_ male hero. He had triumphed
over that sea-god who had tried to drown him--and so had she, over
whatever it was that had knocked out her tachometer and altimeter, and
had tried to drown her in the Atlantic.

Dead ahead on course what appeared to be a large city began to take
shape. Once over it, Amelia circled in wide, swinging loops, looking
for a landing field. There was none. But out beyond the city she saw
grazing pastures, neat, green, and trim. One of them would have to do.

She brought the Vega down low over a pasture dotted with cows. She made
several passes, checking carefully for any obstacles to a landing.
The cattle, frightened by the sound of the plane, scampered in all
directions. She reduced throttle and began her letdown. She brought the
nose up slowly. The meadow sloped upward. The tail skid hit, then the
wheels. The Vega rolled to a quick stop at the top of the slope.

Amelia shut off the switch and locked the brakes. She was weary and
tired but at the same time exhilarated and wide awake.

It was 1:45 P.M. Saturday, May 21. She had flown for fifteen hours and
eighteen minutes.

13. _A Real Heroine_

It was not until after she had climbed up through the hatchway that
Amelia noticed a cottage at the edge of the meadow. Flying over and
making her passes she had not seen it.

A man came running out from the cottage. When he reached the plane,
breathless, Amelia said to him, “I’m from America.”

It took awhile for the farmer to understand: a woman, from America,
flying the Atlantic, all alone? He shook his head in disbelief.

As they walked to his cottage, Amelia learned that she had landed in
Culmore, Ulster, near Londonderry, the city she had circled. There was
no mistaking that she was in Ireland: the accent of the farmer, and
his name, Patrick Gallagher, were sufficient proof. Amelia asked to be
taken to the nearest telephone.

Gallagher commandeered a neighbor’s car and drove her to The Elms, the
home of Mrs. Francis McClure, five miles down the road. Amelia put
through her call.

“I did it!” she said to GP in New York; then she told him about the
altimeter, and the tachometer, and the gas leak, and the broken
manifold.

George Putnam thanked God that she had made it safely.

Amelia then returned with Gallagher to his home. He asked her if she
were tired, if she wanted to sleep.

“I haven’t slept since Friday morning,” she told him. “But I don’t feel
the least bit fatigued.”

She slept until the next day.

Amelia Earhart had become what she was in the eyes of her public--the
great American woman flier. She had regained her self-respect; she was
no longer what she considered a “phony heroine.” The eighteen tons
of ticker tape and torn telephone books that had greeted Lindbergh
five years before in New York could now scatter down on her. She had
paid her debt. She was now ready to play the part of a true heroine.
A smooth lyrical grace, the romantic quest of old, and the chivalric
spirit of adventure had now combined in the boyishly slender figure
of--this time--a woman. Like the lone eagle who preceded her, Amelia
acted with ease, modest self-effacement, and exemplary good manners,
becoming a good-will ambassador for America.

On Sunday, May 22, Amelia left Londonderry for London in a plane
provided by Paramount News. Cables and telegrams had already reached
her. “We do congratulate you,” said the Lindberghs. “Your flight is a
splendid success.” Lady Astor wired to her: “Come to us, and I will
lend you a nightgown.” The one message Amelia would never forget was in
the cable from her cleaner, Phil Cooper, in Rye. “Congratulations!” it
said. “I knew you’d do it. I never lost a customer.”

At the airport in London AE was met by Ambassador Mellon. They were
driven through the cheering crowds to sanctuary at the embassy. Not
having brought any clothes other than those she flew in, Amelia was
eager to change out of the jodhpurs and sports shirt into something
feminine. After a long night’s sleep at the embassy, AE, in dress,
coat, shoes, hat, gloves, and purse borrowed from Mrs. Mellon,
went forth to shop at Selfridge’s and to sign her name with a
diamond-pointed pencil on the plate-glass window that served as the
Selfridge autograph album for celebrities.

The British conferred upon her an award that had been given to only
one non-British subject before. Norman Selfridge, who had AE’s Lockheed
Vega on display at his store and who was its official custodian for
the time being, flew Amelia to Brooklands. Here she received the
Certificate of Honorary Membership of the British Guild of Air Pilots
and Navigators.

Luncheons, dinners, receptions, more awards and decorations followed.
Amid all the fanfare Amelia said, “I realize this flight has meant
nothing to aviation.” The remark went unnoticed; the press continued
in notes of triumphant praise--except for one discordant chord sounded
by M. E. Tracey in the New York _World-Telegram_: “Amelia Earhart has
given us a magnificent display of useless courage.... The interest in
such performances is one great weakness of the present age.”

Amelia retained her composure. “If science advances,” she said, “and
aviation progresses, and international good will is promoted because of
my flight, no one will be more delighted than I--or more surprised.”

For millions of people in America, however, Amelia’s solo flight across
the Atlantic was not a display of “useless courage,” nor was it a
“tremendous trifle.” Here was a feminine successor to the long list of
heroes whom Americans had idolized and adored. Amelia took her place
with Lindbergh in aviation, in the glittering gallery that included
Bobby Jones in golf, Babe Ruth in baseball, Bill Tilden in tennis, Jack
Dempsey and Gene Tunney in boxing. In an age of heroes, a heroine was
most welcome.

To help manage the avalanche of invitations that had engulfed her,
Amelia sent for her husband. GP sailed on the _Olympic_; when he
arrived in Cherbourg, Amelia was there to meet him on board the
_Evadne_, the yacht of C. R. Fairey. GP scrambled up the ladder. AE
stood in the doorway, grinning in the morning sun.

“Hi!” she said to her husband, as if he had just come home from work.
Man and wife joined arms and went into breakfast with the others.

She told him about her visit with the Prince of Wales. She had a
private audience with him in his library at St. James’s Palace. He had
pinned a dark pink rose on her blue suit, and escorted her back to her
car. The prince was a pilot, but they would never let him fly solo.

“We just talked shop,” Amelia said. “That is, we did a little ground
flying. I told the prince all about my flight. He was most warm in his
congratulations.”

Of his guest the prince had been quoted as saying: “She is just as
charming as I had expected.”

On they went to Paris. The French people were most excited by her
visit, and the French Senate extended an official reception. Gallic
wit glittered, turning on a pretty compliment from the modest American
flier.

“But after all, m’ssieurs,” Amelia concluded her little speech before
the Senate, “it is far more difficult to make good laws than it is to
fly the Atlantic.”

“Ah, madame,” crackled the president, “when you fly the ocean, what you
do is a danger only to yourself, while the laws we make are a danger to
so many.”

At the American embassy in Paris Amelia was awarded the Cross of Knight
of the Legion of Honor. “Five years ago,” M. Painlevé said at the
ceremony in the drawing room, “I had the pleasure to decorate Colonel
Lindbergh after his remarkable flight. And now I have the honor to
bestow this cross upon the colonel’s charming image.”

Rome followed. The Italian Government invited the couple to a gathering
of fliers who had flown the Atlantic. For the Italians Amelia’s sex
was a problem. A woman simply did not set aviation records; she stayed
home and had babies. Amelia was a kind of curiosity whom they could not
understand.

From Rome they went to Brussels. King Albert and his queen received
them at their summer home in Laehen. Amelia loved the easy affability
of the king and his dainty wife. They lunched, talked about flying,
and took snapshots of one another. For Amelia there was yet another
decoration, the Cross of the Chevalier of the Order of Leopold.

On June 15 they sailed for home. Aboard the _Ile de France_ AE rested
for the ordeal ahead in New York. When she arrived, the city clasped
her to its breast: she was their heroine, and thousands cheered her as
they had Lindbergh.

The climax of all receptions came on June 21, 1932, when AE had the
gold medal of the National Geographic Society presented to her by
President Herbert Hoover. In contrast to the warmth of the royal
reception in Brussels, the atmosphere of the dinner at the White House
was formal and cold.

After dinner they removed to Constitution Hall for the actual ceremony.
The President rose to a respectful silence and made his address.

It is a great pleasure to come here and share in your honoring of
Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam. She has shown a splendid courage and
skill in flying alone across the Atlantic Ocean.... She has been
modest and good-humored.

All these things combine to place her in spirit with the great
pioneering women to whom every generation of Americans has looked
up, with admiration for their firmness of will, their strength of
character, and their cheerful spirit of comradeship in the work of
the world....

Her success has not been won by the selfish pursuit of a purely
personal ambition, but as part of a career generously animated by
a wish to help others to share in the rich opportunities of life,
and by a wish also to enlarge those opportunities by expanding the
powers of women as well as men to their ever-widening limits.

Mrs. Putnam has made all mankind her debtor by her demonstration
of new possibilities of the human spirit and the human will in
overcoming barriers of space and the restrictions of Nature upon
the radius of human activity.

[The President turned to Amelia] The nation is proud that an
American woman should be the first woman in history to fly an
airplane alone across the Atlantic Ocean. As their spokesman [he
moved to Amelia now standing beside him] I take pride and pleasure
in conferring this rarely bestowed medal of the National Geographic
Society upon Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam.

Amelia took her place behind the microphone. She spoke calmly in a low,
well-modulated voice. “I think,” she said, reaffirming the position
she had often taken, “that the appreciation for the deed is out of
proportion to the deed itself.... I shall be happy if my small exploit
has drawn attention to the fact that women, too, are flying.”

Later, at a less formal occasion, Mrs. Hoover added her personal
opinion to what her husband had said in his prepared statement. “I
often think,” the President’s wife said, “that if a girl was to fly
across the Atlantic alone and so, in a sense, represent America before
the world, how nice it is that it was such a person as Miss Earhart.
She is poised, well bred, lovely to look at, and so intelligent and
sincere.”

It was not until the Roosevelts came to Washington, however, that
Amelia became a close friend of the White House. AE gave Eleanor
Roosevelt her first experience in night flying, both women taking to
the air in evening clothes. The first lady of the nation and the first
lady of flight became fast friends. At one time Mrs. Roosevelt decided
to take flying lessons from AE, and even went so far as to get her
student pilot permit. But the President strenuously objected to the
idea of his wife becoming a pilot, and the matter was finally dropped.

After her solo flight, Amelia could count enough awards and decorations
to fill a display cabinet, but she cherished one above all. In tribute
to her accomplishment the Congress of the United States presented her
with the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Not content to rest on her Atlantic laurels, AE now turned to more
challenges, some in the air and some on the ground. The Pacific
Ocean, Mexico and its gulf, the transcontinental speed record: each
in turn presented the unexpected in life that could indeed become the
inevitable.

14. _Solo from Hawaii to California_

On July 24, 1934, Amelia Earhart was thirty-six years old. Mature,
confident, and poised, she spent the summer of that year working in
her flower garden, swimming and boating at Rye beach, entertaining
a wide variety of guests. To all appearances she was calm, radiant,
self-assured; yet within, the unrest of old began again.

On a day, happy yet disconsolate in the bittersweet of autumn, Amelia
walked about the grounds at Rye, under the great oaks and through
the paths. Underfoot the dead leaves crunched and crackled; above,
bare branches hung in the crisp air, the remaining leaves hanging on,
tenacious and unwilling to surrender to the wind, which was relentless
in its sudden swirling gusts.

AE hooked the fur neckpiece closer to her neck, drove her hands deep
into the pockets of her tweed coat, and looked down at the dust that
had gathered on her flat brown walking shoes. She walked up the
flagstone steps to the side door that opened on the patio, then raised
her head and looked up over the tops of the trees. Across the clear
blue of the sky she watched afternoon clouds scud by. Her eyelids
flicked quickly over her gray-blue eyes. With a sudden jerk at the door
handle, she swung inside the house.

Early that evening she showered briskly and put on gold crepe pajamas.
She sat before the fireplace and read the evening paper, waiting for GP
to come home.

It was six thirty when he came through the front door. AE looked up at
him; she had rehearsed all afternoon what she was going to say to him;
it couldn’t wait.

“I want to fly the Pacific,” she said. “Soon.”

GP stood inside the doorway, leaning against the arch. With a
forefinger he pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his nose. “You
mean from San Francisco to Honolulu?” he asked.

“No. The other way. It’s easier to hit a continent than an island.” She
fingered the topaz link at the cuff of her long pajama sleeve.

George put his brief case and hat on the hallway table. “When do you
want to do it?”

“Fairly soon. But only when I’m ready--and the ship.”

It was not long afterward that the Putnams moved to the West Coast, not
so much to be closer to the Pacific Ocean, but so that AE could be near
the center of the aviation industry in California.

By December plane and pilot were ready. Paul Mantz, Amelia’s good
friend and a crack pilot, acted as her technical adviser. He was her
Bernt Balchen on the West Coast. On December 22 AE and her husband and
Paul Mantz and his wife left Los Angeles aboard the S. S. _Lurline_
of the Matson Line, bound for Honolulu. Lashed to the aft tennis deck
of the ship was a new Lockheed Vega. The old one had been sold to
the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia for more than eight thousand
dollars. The new plane, like the old, was painted a vivid red for quick
recognition in the event it should go down on a flight.

When the ship docked five days later, Amelia, as soon as she descended
the gangway, was surrounded by newsmen. “Would she be the first woman
to fly from Hawaii to the mainland?” they asked.

Amelia bent her head to accept the lei placed about her neck by a
pretty native girl. Never one to divulge her plans to the press, AE
replied affably yet distantly: “I thought I would do some flying over
the Hawaiian Islands.”

Not satisfied with that answer, a reporter pressed his point. “If you
fly to the California coast,” he asked, “will Mantz fly with you?”

Amelia grinned, then broke into a rare, broad gap-toothed smile. “If I
fly to the coast,” she replied, “I will not take a cat along.”

For two weeks she waited in Honolulu for the right weather conditions
and for the sign from Paul Mantz that the plane and engine were in top
condition for the Pacific crossing. The Vega had been taken to the
Navy’s Wheeler Field.

Amelia made one public appearance, at the University of Hawaii, where
she spoke on “Flying for Fun.” Before the speech, word of the flight
had leaked out, and there had been criticism of her from the press; a
newspaper had said that her radio equipment was inadequate for the long
flight to California.

The night of January 2 Amelia stood at the podium in Farrington Hall,
telling students and faculty about her fun in flying. In the audience
sat GP, listening attentively. His wife, he thought, had responded
beautifully to his coaching: she had become a first-rate public
speaker. A young man came down the aisle and handed George a note.
GP unfolded it and read: Paul Mantz, at the moment flying above the
islands at 12,000 feet in AE’s plane, had reached radio stations up
and down the mainland, and inland as far as Arizona. The Vega’s radios
could send and receive, GP concluded, not the mere 300 miles leveled at
Amelia in the criticism from the press, but 3,000 miles. GP sent the
note up to his wife.

AE read the note aloud and grinned. She looked up at her audience.
“I realize”--she spoke in a solemn tone--“that I have made a serious
mistake.” The audience bent forward to hear the rest. Amelia’s mouth
curled up in a half-smile. “I was born a mere _woman_,” she said
quickly, “instead of a man.” The audience roared in delight.

While they were in Honolulu the Putnams and Mantzes stayed at the home
of Chris Holmes in Waikiki. Early on the morning of January 11 GP and
Paul Mantz went to Wheeler Field. Amelia stayed behind and ate a slow,
leisurely breakfast, then went outside for a sun bath.

Toward noon a light rain began to fall, and Amelia scurried inside.
By the time George returned for lunch, the rain had developed into a
heavy tropical downpour. AE stood at the window; disgusted with the
sudden change in weather, she watched wanly as the thick raindrops slid
against the panes and outside splashed on the palm leaves and streaked
to the ground. It did not seem that she would take off today.

“I don’t think it looks very good yet,” she said. Then hoping that the
rain might slacken and make it possible for her to get off later, she
added: “Do you mind if I take a nap?”

At 3:30 P.M. GP checked with the Navy weather officer. The forecast
predicted good weather along the projected course of the flight if
Amelia could get off before more bad weather moved in from the west.

George went into the bedroom and awakened his wife. After hearing about
the predicted weather, Amelia decided she would try it. She put on her
brown flying suit and went to the window. The rain had stopped.

At four thirty they drove out to the field to the concrete apron where
the Vega was parked. Paul Mantz and Ernie Tissot, the mechanic, stood
by the plane. They told her everything was ready. AE clambered up to
the wing and down into the narrow cockpit.

She settled her one hundred twenty pounds onto the cushion of the seat,
reached up over her head, and pulled the hatch shut. She started the
engine and let it idle while she checked the dials for fuel and oil
temperature and pressure. The pistons worked smoothly and evenly: she
quickened to their steady rhythm. It was four forty-five.

Amelia signaled to Ernie Tissot standing by the wing. He ran under and
removed the chocks from the wheels. AE waved from the cockpit to GP and
Mantz on the apron.

She moved the throttle forward and taxied to the edge of the field. She
swung the nose around and pointed the plane up between the two rows of
flags that had been planted along either side of the unpaved runway.
The Vega stood ready.

Paul Mantz dashed to the rear of the plane and removed a thick clod of
mud and grass from the tail skid.

Amelia calmly appraised the scene outside. About two hundred people,
it seemed, had gathered to watch her attempted take-off. She could see
that many of them, particularly Wheeler personnel, were armed with
fire extinguishers. The women had handkerchiefs in their hands: Amelia
hoped she wouldn’t have to bring them to tears with a crash. The ground
underfoot was wet and soggy from the rain. The wind sock hung limp; the
prevailing northeast wind had not only failed to prevail, it was dead.

Down the runway she fixed her eyes at a point along the marker flags
where she would chop throttle and jam on the brakes if she could not
lift the plane off the ground. Beyond that point and the end of the
6,000 feet of runway she saw the fields of sugar cane, and diagonally
across from them, into the distance, the mountain peaks cushioned in
low-hanging clouds.

Out of the corner of her eye, to the left and down the field, she
caught a glimpse of three fire engines and an ambulance. With everybody
so pessimistic, she decided, the least she could do was try.

She opened the throttle and held the brakes hard. The plane shook and
vibrated against the prop wash, blasting back against wings, fuselage,
and tail. She released the brakes. The Vega started forward, slow,
sluggish, heavy with the extra fuel tanks.

She could see Ernie Tissot running alongside the wing: his feet
squashing in the mud, a dead cigarette drooping from his lips, his eyes
flashing fear in a dead-white face. “Cheer up, Ernie!” she wanted to
call to him over the noise of the motor. “It will soon be over.”

Paul Mantz stood along the side, next to one of the marker flags. “Get
that tail up,” he shouted. “_Get that tail up!_”

The plane strained against the sucking mud and then began to roll, now
faster, through the mud. Amelia saw the flags flapping in a wind, but
it was just the opposite of what she needed; it was a tail wind. She
felt the tail come up, then the plane getting lighter. Suddenly the
wheels hit a bump. The Vega jumped into the air, then began to settle
toward the ground. Amelia jammed the throttle full forward. The engine
caught the added power, and the plane lifted slowly into the air. AE
grinned. She had made it.

She climbed to 5,000 feet, swung to the right, and headed out to
Honolulu and Diamond Head. She had left behind 2,000 feet of unused
runway.

“If I do not do a good job,” she had written to GP, just in case, “it
will not be because the plane and motor are not excellent, nor because
women cannot fly.”

The letter need not have been written. The women with handkerchiefs at
the ready would not have to use them. Ernie Tissot could scrape the mud
from his shoes, regain his color, and light a fresh cigarette.

Amelia dipped her wings over Honolulu. Below she could see people--they
looked like ants--going home to supper. At 5:00 P.M. she crossed
Makapupu Point, the last of the island outposts. Out under the wing and
to the right the long sloping side of Molokai glittered through a blue
haze. Clouds began to gather.

She climbed to 6,000 feet, well above the clouds; from on top they
looked fluffy, like mashed potatoes, and the dark sea under them like
gravy.

She rolled out her radio antenna and unhooked the hand mike.
“Everything O.K.,” she reported in. She adjusted her earphones, then
turned the dial of the radio beside her to station KGU in Honolulu, and
listened to the music.

The music stopped, and an announcer broke in. “We are interrupting our
musical program with an important news flash,” he said. “Amelia Earhart
has just taken off on an attempted flight to Oakland.”

“_You’re telling me!_” Amelia shouted out loud in the cockpit.

The announcer continued: “Mr. Putnam will try to communicate with his
wife.” GP broke in loud and clear. “AE,” he said, “the noise of your
motor interferes with your broadcast. Will you please try to speak a
little louder so we can hear you?”

Amelia was thrilled to hear his voice; it seemed as if he were sitting
next to her in the plane. She reported in again, louder, and George was
satisfied. It was the first time they had spoken together ground to
plane. The darkness outside had enveloped the Vega.

But above and below and around her the night became a night of stars.
They clustered about her; she felt that she could reach out and pluck
them as they rose from the sea and hung outside the cockpit. She had
never seen such large stars, and now the moon slipped out from behind
the clouds. The contrast of the starlight and the moonlight and the
white clouds against the black sea struck her as no other night scene
had before.

In the thousands of miles of ocean she had flown over before this, she
had seen little of the ocean below. She had sped over clouds, fretted
between layers of them, or plowed through thunderstorms, for hours on
end. And ships she had seen only near land.

Now the night was bright and she reveled in its beauty. She spread her
map on her knee and checked for the positions of ships out of Honolulu,
Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The ships on or near her course had
agreed to keep their searchlights on for her. She looked at her clock:
it was nearing midnight.

Off the right wing and below, against the black sea, shone a pink
light. It had to be a searchlight from a ship. Amelia snapped on her
landing lights, flashing them three times. Then she flicked the toggle
three more times. She turned her radio dial, trying to tune in on
station KFI in Los Angeles. A spattering buckshot of radio code hit her
ears. She realized it was the ship, trying to submit a signal to her.
Then from the ship’s lights came a rapid flicking on and off. They were
answering her earlier signal from her landing lights. She checked her
map again: on course, 900 miles out; the ship was--it had to be--the
_Maliko_, from the Matson Line.

Below, clouds now joined, knitted, and closed over the ocean. Ahead,
the stars grew misty, dim, and distant. There was blackness everywhere,
and dead ahead on course--rain.

Like pins, fine raindrops hit the windshield and spread in long, wet
needles down the glass. Amelia squeaked open the cockpit window and
breathed deeply of the cool wet air. The rain squalls continued for the
next two hours.

Suddenly she realized that she was hungry and thirsty. She reached into
the little cupboard she had prepared in the right wing. There, neatly
stored against hunger, were water, tomato juice, sweet chocolate,
malted-milk tablets, a thermos bottle of hot chocolate, and a picnic
lunch. She decided on the hot chocolate. She unscrewed the top of
the thermos, pulled out the cork stopper, and poured out a cupful.
In short, quick sips, she drank the hot, sweet chocolate liquid. Its
warmth spread through her and she felt good.

She set the empty cup down in the cupboard; then, changing hands on the
stick, she rubbed and kneaded the muscles of her thighs and calves.
They were stiff and tired. She could not look upon her legs for long
without feeling a deep sense of thankfulness, for they invariably
called up the image of those amputees she had seen in Toronto during
the war. The experience had changed the course of her life.

15. _Nurse’s Aide in Toronto_

She had been nineteen at the time. It was in 1917, during the Christmas
vacation of her senior year at Ogontz, the Philadelphia finishing
school, when Amelia and her mother went to visit sister Muriel, who was
attending St. Margaret’s in Toronto.

On one blustering morning, a few days before Christmas, Amelia went
shopping. She pulled the collar of her long, warm coat close to her
neck and buried her chin in the fur against the cold. She bent into the
icy wind whipping in from Lake Ontario and slowly pressed her way down
the street. Late shoppers bustled in and out of the stores and up and
down the sidewalk.

Toward her came four one-legged soldiers with crutches, thumping and
swinging up the pavement, and grimly pressing their shoulders against
the wooden supports. The sight of one of the veterans in particular
greatly disturbed Amelia. He was younger than the others and he caught
her eye as they went by. He had smiled at her with difficulty and
in his face was the look of incredulous bewilderment, as if he had
suffered his loss too soon to realize what had happened to him. Amelia
tried not to stare at his empty khaki pants leg which had been folded
and pinned to his hip. She forced a smile in return for his, and then
looked the other way as her eyes welled up with tears.

For her, war had been simply a matter of parades and brass bands and
men in uniform. She had been unaware that Canada had been at war for
four years. Like so many other Americans, especially women, she really
didn’t know what war was like. The crippled soldiers made her feel
guilty and ashamed. She decided she must do something to help.

That night she had a long talk with her mother. “I want to stay in
Toronto,” she told her, “and help in the hospitals. It’s useless for me
to go back to school.”

Mrs. Earhart tried to dissuade her daughter. “But you’re graduating
this year, Melia,” the mother said. “You should graduate from school
before you do anything.”

“I don’t care,” she answered. “I want to help. A diploma doesn’t mean
anything; but what you do does. I’m old enough to know what I want to
do, and I want to do something useful in this world.”

The mother had met this stubbornness before, when as a child Amelia
had wanted such things as a flat-bellied sled, a football, a baseball
bat. Mrs. Earhart relented: her daughter was of an age to make her own
decisions, even if they did seem somewhat impulsive. She would have to
learn for herself, now, and discover the consequences of her own acts.

Amelia started training under the Canadian Red Cross and soon qualified
as a nurse’s aide. Her first assignment was to Spadina Military
Hospital, a converted college building. With characteristic energy in
meeting a new challenge, she scrubbed floors, made beds, and carried
trays of food. She worked from seven in the morning until seven at
night, with two hours off in the afternoon.

“Sister,” the patients would call to the slender girl in the white coif
and the white starched uniform, “please rub my back.” Sister Earhart
would rub backs--some of them lovely ones, she frankly admitted.
“Sister, please bring some ice cream today instead of rice pudding.”
Sister Amelia, remembering the rice puddings that came back untouched,
bearing little crosses with the epitaph _R.I.P._, matched pennies with
the help in the kitchen. With her winnings she bought ice cream for her
patients.

Although Amelia found much satisfaction in her work as a nurse’s aide,
there was another activity that attracted her as no other had. At first
she had looked simply out of curiosity, but now she would go out to the
edge of the city to Armor Heights whenever she had time off. She had
become fascinated by the training planes and the way they took off and
landed. She had seen and talked with some of the young beginning pilots
at the hospital; they had crashed their planes through some mishap or
other, and some of them had barely escaped death. Yet they were of
unqualified good humor: they laughed and joked with one another about
their accidents, and spoke gruesomely yet smilingly about an ambulance
as a “meat wagon.” They were blasé and devil-may-care, and such an
attitude toward life and death, so kindred to her own, intrigued her.

She wanted to know more about these young men and their business of
flying. Despite their surface merriment, she wondered what it was that
made them fly, even in the face of death. Certainly they realized
the danger involved; if so, she reasoned to herself, there must be
something beyond the danger that somehow lured the pilots into the air.
She would have to find out for herself what it was.

Soon she ventured closer to the airport and the operations shack
where she could watch the young men. They were Canadian, Scotch,
Irish, American. She talked with some of those she had seen at the
hospital either as patients or as visitors. She loved to watch their
descriptions of various maneuvers; “hangar flying,” they called it.
They simulated with their hands the best way to execute a loop, or
a barrel roll, or a lazy-eight. Their enthusiasm fired her with an
irrepressible urge to go up.

She begged one after another of the pilots for a ride to see what
it was like. Just a take-off and a landing, and she was willing to
pay. “Sorry,” they would say. “Regulations absolutely forbid giving
civilians any rides.” Certainly not a woman. “Even the general’s wife
couldn’t go up,” one of them said. “And she can do just about anything
she wants.”

The pilots laughed at the expense of the general’s wife. Amelia,
turning away in disappointment, kicked her toe into the packed snow. A
plane with skis turned off the ramp and taxied out to the field; the
blast from its propeller flung back a sheet of snow that stung Amelia
full in the face. She raised her arm against further lashing, and
walked away toward the side of a building.

Here, she thought, was a challenge she would like to meet. She watched
the pilots put on their big padded helmets and adjust their goggles.
The men smeared grease on their faces to prevent freezing in the biting
cold of the Canadian sky. Someday she would get her chance to fly in an
airplane, and maybe fly one herself. She wanted to be the master of one
of those planes and make it obey her will like a horse, a winged horse,
and send it roaring through the sky. Amelia was a lone and disconsolate
figure as she nurtured her private dreams and left the eager pilots
and their planes to their man’s world of flight. She headed back to the
city and to woman’s work at the hospital.

AE was still working as a nurse’s aide at the time of the Armistice on
November 11, 1918, and at the time of the great Toronto Exposition a
few months later.

Amelia and a friend joined the crowds that pressed through the
fairgrounds to see the displays and exhibits. AE wanted especially to
see a highly advertised added attraction: a demonstration of stunt
flying by one of the returned aces of the war.

As the time drew near for the air acrobatics, the two companions
settled themselves in the middle of a clearing. Suddenly they heard the
plane. Shading their eyes against the afternoon sun, they looked up.

The plane was black against the sky, then red as it turned and the
wings and fuselage caught the sun. The little plane twisted and
turned and rolled; then it looped and spun down to the right. As the
plane swooped down close to the ground, the crowd broke and ran like
frightened deer.

The friend grabbed Amelia’s arm; she wanted to get out of the field,
fast. Amelia stood her ground. The companion fled for safety.

Nose down and motor roaring, the plane hurtled headlong in a steep dive
toward the lone girl in the middle of the clearing.

Amelia gripped her hips, spread her feet and planted them defiantly on
the ground. No plane and pilot were going to scare her. She had seen
them pull out of dives many times before. Certainly this pilot was no
fool, and he seemed to have the plane fully under control.

The plane, a bare 200 feet from the ground, roared out of its dive,
wings and struts shaking, and climbed in a tight half-loop back into
the sky; now on its back, the plane kicked over in a half roll, then
sped away, a disappearing speck on the horizon.

Amelia hadn’t moved an inch. And because she had faced it in that
moment of danger, the plane had said something to her--something
thrilling and buoyant and exhilarating. There was now no question that
someday she, too, would fly. And it didn’t matter if she was a woman.
Someday she would get her chance.

16. _Back Home Again_

Amelia shook her head and rubbed her eyes. After staring at her
instruments and following them during the night, she looked forward to
the dawn. She had missed it on the Atlantic solo because of the clouds.
There was still time, she knew, before light could crack through the
darkness of the eastern horizon. Like a window with the panes painted
black, it was closed shut.

She felt warm and cozy in the small cockpit. She yawned. Easily she
held the stick between her legs and thighs, then reached her arms high
and stretched, working her long fingers open and shut. She took the
stick again with her right hand, brought her feet up from the rudders,
then pressing her heels on the floor, she sat up and down in quick,
short jumps.

Resettled on the cushion of the seat, she scanned her instruments,
then looked out. To the right, a thin line of light lay on the dark
horizon. She looked up through the hatch: the stars were gone. Slowly,
well to the right of course, the top arc of the sun appeared. Amelia
was puzzled: she should be flying into the sun. She wondered if she
weren’t heading for Alaska. She quickly checked her maps and charts,
then the compass before her on the left. Everything was as it should
be. Obviously, then, the sun was wrong and she was right.

From the compartment in the left wing, where she kept her small tools,
an extra flashlight, spare batteries, and other odds and ends, she took
out her sunglasses and hooked them behind her ears. She wanted to be
ready for the full brilliance of the morning sun.

Through the dark glasses she saw below her a solid overcast of clouds.
They looked like the stiffly-beaten whites of eggs, and they made her
think of breakfast. She reached into the cupboard in the right wing and
pulled out a hard-boiled egg from the picnic lunch.

While she nibbled on the egg, she looked at one of the three
chronometers she had set in Honolulu, the one for indicating lapsed
time. She had been flying for fifteen hours, and according to her time
and distance figures, she should be somewhere near San Francisco--if
there had been no head winds during the night. Below, the ocean was
blanketed in overcast.

The fog over the water began to break up. Through one of the holes she
hoped to see signs of land, but she saw only water, blue in the morning
sun, ruffled, and flecked with white. Then through another larger hole,
she caught sight of a ship; from 8,000 feet it looked like a toy boat.
Down through the opening Amelia plunged, and pulled out at 200 feet to
investigate. She circled the ship several times, and discovered it was
the _President Pierce_. The wake from the ship, which stretched for a
mile, was exactly on her compass course. AE followed the foam as if it
were a beam.

She tried to make radio contact with the ship, but was unsuccessful.
She then tried radio station KPO in San Francisco and this time
established contact. She asked for the position of _President Pierce_
and was told that the ship was 300 miles out from San Francisco. Amelia
checked her map and grinned: that was exactly where the ship was
supposed to be. Settling back in her seat, AE cruised at 1,500 feet and
made straight for the coast.

She strained her eyes for sight of land. The clouds overhead played
tricks on her: their shadows on the water looked exactly like islands.
Amelia now wondered if real land would look like cloud shadows.

She climbed to 1,800 feet. Dead ahead on course she saw an undulating
outline of what she hoped were the coastal hills of northern
California. As she approached, they were unmistakable. She looked up
for the tops, then noticed a valley between them. She added throttle
and nosed over the hills. Squinting ahead as far as she could see, she
saw at last the familiar notch of land and water that could only be San
Francisco Bay. Directly below, San Mateo rolled into view.

In the next six minutes she crossed over the bay, then sighted Oakland,
and finally the airport. She had made it back home. Elated with her
victory, she felt a new tide of energy surge within her, flooding out
the ache and soreness of tired muscles. As she had done so many times
before at Oakland, she made her approach and landed.

As she started to taxi from the end of the runway, she noticed great
crowds waiting at the ramp. Then the barriers broke and thousands of
people ran toward her plane. Amelia chopped the throttle, cut the
engine switch, and locked her brakes. She opened the hatch and stood on
the seat, and as she shook her mop of hair from out of her helmet, a
deafening roar assailed her ears.

Amelia climbed down from the Vega and dropped to the ground. Her knees
felt weak; her face, as if it were drained. “I feel swell,” she said,
stroking her hair with a quick sweep of the hand. She held a stray lock
between her fingers. “I always look this way,” she explained. “I’m a
little tired--you will have to excuse me.” She was driven away in a
waiting car.

17. _Solo from California to Mexico_

For the next few weeks after the Pacific flight Amelia rested at her
home near Toluca Lake and luxuriated in the warm California sun. She
spread a blanket on the wide lawn and took sun baths. She stretched her
long, straight legs over the soft wool of the blanket, closed her eyes
against the glare of the sun; then, as if she were preparing maps and
charts for a long flight, she surveyed her past accomplishments and her
future plans.

The _Friendship_ flight and its sudden catapulting to fame of an
unknown social worker. The year before that when she had read in the
Boston newspapers about Charles Lindbergh and his sensational solo
conquest of the Atlantic: how she had thrilled to his victory. The
“Lady Lindy” tag the press had given her because she looked like him:
how it made for difficulty in trying to be herself and making her
own flights. The Atlantic solo: she had to do it to deserve the fame
that the _Friendship_ flight had heaped upon her. The hop from Hawaii
was free and clear: it involved no debt that had to be paid. And so
would the rest of her flying be. Women could fly as well as men; she
had proved it and would prove it. Then when she reached forty, that
fortieth year which followed July 24 in 1937, she would quit--give
up long-distance flying and retire to short jaunts for pleasure.
Each thought had unfolded before her scrutiny, like new stretches of
countryside beneath the wing of her Vega. Amelia turned over on the
blanket and tanned her back. She was not yet thirty-seven.

Not for long after the Pacific flight, therefore, did she stay on the
ground or remain confined in her attractive California cage. The year
1935 became one for record-making and record-breaking. On April 19 she
flew 1,700 miles from Burbank, California, to Mexico City; then on May
8, from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey. The first flight she made
because of an invitation from the president of Mexico; the second,
because Wiley Post told her not to do it.

One day when AE and Wiley Post were discussing flying in general,
Amelia told the veteran pilot about her plans to fly from Mexico to New
York. He asked her what route she intended to take. She told him she
would go as the crow flies--in as straight a line as possible.

Wiley Post strode across the room to a globe on the table. He turned it
until he found Mexico, then measured the distance to New York between
his thumb and little finger. He raised his head.

“You are cutting across the Gulf then?” he asked. The white patch over
his eye caught the light from the window.

“Yes, sir!” Amelia answered. There was no doubt in her voice.

“That’s about seven hundred miles,” he said. “Almost half an
Atlantic.” He looked at her directly, his large round face serious and
questioning. “How much time do you lose if you go around by the shore?”

“About an hour. Maybe a little more.” She fingered the long string of
pearls about her neck. Her voice was low and soft.

“Amelia, don’t do it,” Wiley Post said. “It’s too dangerous.”

AE was incredulous. Did Wiley Post, who had braved every hazard in
flying, think such a simple flight as this one was too dangerous? She
could not wait to be on her way.

It was not the first or the last time that she disregarded professional
advice.

Shortly before midnight on the nineteenth of April she soared into the
California moonlight, heading south and east. The light from the full
moon was soft; it gently gilded the rolling hills and marked as with
a large diffused flashlight the course to the Gulf of California. In
the moisture of the night air the Wasp motor purred: the rhythm of the
pistons was smooth and even.

The moonlight, which had been a guide, now played tricks on the earth
below. A white haze had moved in from the coast and covered the shore
line and the stretches of desert. In the light it was difficult to
tell the one from the other. Amelia strained her eyes, looking for
telltale signs to help her navigate. Now she caught the light on the
rolling breakers, then a black shadow on the scalloped sand, but the
short glimpses were not enough for pilotage.

She scanned the instrument panel. Her eyes stopped short at the dials
on the lower right. The hand of the oil-temperature gauge pointed
beyond the red quadrant. The engine was burning hot. Amelia reduced
throttle, then readjusted the propeller at another setting. Neither
helped. The Wasp continued to overheat.

She pulled out her flashlight, flicked it on, and checked her maps.
According to time and distance, Mazatlán, on the Mexican coast, should
be directly below. Gently she applied left stick and rudder, leveled
her wings, and headed east. Mexico City should be 600 miles away. She
stared directly before her and slightly to the left at her compass: it
had rolled into the new heading.

Left and right under her wings the mountains of Central Mexico sloped
upward into high tables. She found the towns of Tepic and Guadalajara.
She hoped she would not wander from her course: unknown winds had a way
of keeping a plane from making its track.

The Vega, cruising at 10,000 feet and at an indicated air speed of
150 mph, sped over the mountains and plains. Amelia caught sight of a
railroad below. A railroad? It should not be there. She wondered where
she might be.

She had estimated her time of arrival at one o’clock, Mexican time. The
chronometer for total elapsed time clicked past the hour for arriving
over Mexico City. She looked down, trying to find something on the
ground to correspond to the markings on her map. She flicked off the
flashlight. She was lost.

As if in insult an insect flew into her left eye. Amelia tried to
dislodge it by rubbing the closed eyelid with her finger; the rubbing
made the eye sore, and it started to burn and cry. She flickered her
eyelid, trying to keep the eye open so that she could see. It was no
use. Suddenly she decided to make an emergency landing.

Amelia thought of Wiley Post, who could make a landing easily with one
eye. He had learned to get along without depth perception in judging
distances and lining up objects on the ground. Would that she had his
ability now.

She circled, looking for a likely place; then she spotted what seemed
to be a pasture. She swung down low and swept by in quick inspection.
Unlike the time in Ireland when Gallagher’s cows fled in all directions
at the sound of the plane, now the goats and cattle were placidly
indifferent to the roaring plane, and the Irish green grass and
shamrock were replaced by cactus and prickly pear.

Amelia fixed her good right eye on a patch of the pasture, swung a
wing up in a steep turn, and eased the plane into the final approach.
Reducing the throttle, she brought the stick back slowly, held the nose
up, and dropped the tail skid then the wheels onto the ground. The
plane clattered to a stop.

Cowboys and villagers sprang up as if out of nowhere and rushed to the
plane. They were not at all surprised at seeing a woman pilot, at this
time of the night, at such an unlikely place.

The vaqueros could not speak English and Amelia could not speak
Spanish. Smiles and gesticulations served as the common tongue. One
of the cowboys showed Amelia on her map where she was. He pointed to
Nopala, then pointed down to the ground; a bright white smile broke
across his dark skin. Amelia nodded, then noticed on the map that
Mexico City was only about fifty miles away.

As she looked about around the plane, she could now see that what she
had thought was a pasture was in fact the bed of a dry lake. Happily
she noted as she walked up and down that the bed was flat and without
obstructions for take-off. She hoped that the engine had now cooled
down sufficiently so that she could make it to the capital city.

By waving her arms she tried to explain to the villagers that she
wanted a path cleared down the dry lake so that she could once more get
into the air. She climbed into the plane, then taxied down to the edge
of the hard, sandy bed. She looked out to see if the way ahead were
clear: two cowboys had placed themselves in the middle of the take-off
run, directly in front of the plane. Amelia set the brakes and climbed
out of the cockpit.

With much pointing and gesticulating, she finally convinced them that
everybody--including cattle, goats, and children--was safest far over
to the sides.

She walked back to the Vega. She took a corner of the kerchief about
her neck and wiped her left eye dry; the insect had been watered and
flushed out.

The Lockheed roared off the dry lake bed. In less than thirty minutes
AE had found the military field at Mexico City and rolled her plane to
a stop.

The days that followed were for Amelia what she called “Fun in Mexico”:
meeting, seeing, doing in endless activity. She met President Lázaro
Cárdenas, she saw the floating flower gardens of Xochimilco, she
watched a game of _jai alai_ and a _charro_ fiesta. She attended a
concert given in her honor.

A few days after the concert she was given a costume like the one worn
by the cowboy musicians who had entertained her. She promptly put it on
and wore it to a horse show; then posed in it, her face cracked wide in
a full smile.

She loved the color of the costume because it was her favorite blue.
There was fine silver embroidery at the collar, sleeves, and waist, and
along the seams of the trousers. To top the ensemble, she wore on her
head a large high-crowned sombrero with a curled-up brim gaily trimmed
in entwining leaves and flowers. It became one of her treasured gifts.

The women of Mexico, particularly, interested Amelia. As she went about
from place to place, she noted the few sheltered women of the higher
classes; the many, bent and worn from the hard labor of the peon; then
again the few self-supporting of the middle classes in the city. She
would have liked to know more of their strivings and ambitions; she
had seen enough, however, to know that reforms were needed in the new
order.

“I, for one,” she wrote of the experience, “hope for the day when women
will know no restrictions because of sex but will be individuals free
to live their lives as men are free--irrespective of the continent or
country where they happen to live.”

As in the past, GP had joined AE and guided her through all the
festivities. As her manager he had become indispensable to her,
particularly where only a man could get certain things done. She was
free to live her own life as men are free, but there were times when GP
with his bulldozing energy was the only man for the job. Without his
help she would not have been able to take off from Mexico.

18. _Solo from Mexico to New Jersey_

Mexico City was 8,000 feet above sea level. To fly non-stop to Newark,
New Jersey, Amelia would need a full load of gasoline; with a full
load, she would not be able to take off from the short runway of the
military field. George Putnam resolved the dilemma.

Nearby there was the dry bed of Lake Texcoco; if the obstructions were
cleared, there would be plenty of room to get three tons of aircraft
and fuel into the air. She had landed and taken off under similar
conditions at Nopala when she had lost her way; why not now? Amelia
looked over the mud-caked flats and agreed it could be done.

GP took over. He organized and supervised the work of Mexican soldiers
in getting the dry bed ready for the Vega’s landing and take-off. He
pitched in with the men as they leveled hillocks and filled ditches,
until they had prepared three miles of makeshift runway. The job done,
George then flew to New York to gather weather data from Doc Kimball,
in order to advise his wife as to the exact weather conditions she
would encounter in her record hop.

The Vega had been flown into the dry bed while AE waited from her
husband for the signal to go. Weather permitting was always a condition
imposed on any flight. For eight days she waited in Mexico City for the
weather to become favorable.

It was not until after midnight on May 8 that GP phoned from New York.
“Good visibility,” he said, summarizing Doc Kimball’s analysis, “but
the winds are not very favorable.”

At one o’clock that same morning Amelia decided to go. She sent word
to the men at Texcoco to fill the Vega’s tanks with 470 gallons of
gasoline; then she went back to bed for a few hours’ sleep. At four
o’clock she awoke, had breakfast, and drove out to the lake bed.

As at Wheeler Field in Honolulu, the pathway for the take-off run had
been staked out with flags. Amelia walked to her Lockheed. By the light
of automobiles which had been parked with headlights on she could see
empty gasoline drums that had been rolled off to the side; and perched
on a ladder, a mechanic who was giving the Wasp motor a final check.

AE climbed into the cockpit. She was handed some provisions through the
hatch. Earlier she had ordered one hard-boiled egg and one sandwich,
but into the cupboard in the right wing she now placed much more. There
was enough food for many days of sustained flying: six hard-boiled
eggs, three of them already shelled; four sandwiches, with thick slices
of meat; three cans of tomato juice; one thermos bottle of hot cocoa
and another of water. The way she was cared for, the accident of sex
was sometimes a happy one!

She started the engine and let it idle for a few moments. Then she
opened the throttle wide and checked the rpm’s and magnetoes. She
watched the fuel and oil pressure, the fuel and oil temperature. She
brought the throttle back. Everything set.

At 6:06 A.M. the Vega roared down the runway and blasted into the air.
AE had used only one mile of the three she thought she would need for
the take-off from the dry lake bed. She smiled as she climbed to 8,000
feet. Again the plane had behaved beautifully. If there was one name
she truly loved besides Earhart and Putnam, it was Lockheed. During the
take-off run she had forced the Vega to stay on the mud flats until it
developed a speed well over a hundred miles an hour; then it flew into
the air by itself.

Amelia watched the altimeter until it indicated 10 on the dial, then
she leveled off. She skimmed over the mountains surrounding the valley
in which Mexico City lay. Together valley and mountains formed a large
saucer and rim. Behind her Popocatepetl and Ixracihuatl mountains
loomed; they seemed mighty, proud, majestic with their white-peaked
crowns of snow. The rising sun flung its warmth over the dappled earth.

To Amelia, the tomboy of Kansas whom the magic of flight had
transformed into an air adventurer astride Pegasus, the land below was
a veritable fairyland of beauty. Like Alice through the looking glass
she thrilled to each new sight. Like a taller Gulliver she looked down
from 10,000 feet and strode on swift, unseen legs through a Lilliputian
world of small green fields, narrow dirt roads, tiny adobe huts, bull
rings that could be covered with a hand. They were the playthings of a
child.

She crossed the divide. Thick clouds formed and stretched out over the
Gulf. Briefly they parted and through them she saw a cluster of oil
tanks. She checked her map and estimated that she was over Tampico.
Applying right stick and rudder, she turned, leveled her wings, and
took up a northeast heading. Straight ahead, across the Gulf of Mexico
and 700 miles away, should be New Orleans.

Over the water, she remembered the warning of Wiley Post: “Amelia,
don’t do it; it’s too dangerous.” She grinned and shook her head. Why,
everything was fine! She scanned the instrument panel, listened to the
steady purr of the motor. Fine indeed. She reached into the cupboard
and unwrapped one of the peeled hard-boiled eggs. She ate the egg
quickly; then she took out one of the thick sandwiches and the thermos
bottle of water.

She munched, sipped, and mused. Wiley Post was right in a way. It would
be safer to make long over-water flights in a bigger and better plane.
Two engines would be ideal. Why, with a multimotored plane a pilot
could fly anywhere. She rolled the paper wrapper from the sandwich into
a tight little ball. She squeezed it hard in her hand, then popped it
into the compartment in the left wing. Why, with a two-engined plane
a pilot could fly--around the world! She settled back in her seat
and pressed her shoulders against the bulkhead behind her. One day,
perhaps. One more good, long flight. It would be the last. Then she
could sit back, relax, and really write a good book about flying. The
others, the articles and the books, had been done too hastily. She
could do better.

Ahead she saw a ragged peninsula jutting out into the water; short,
stubby fingers of land, then the long index finger. At the base of the
notch formed by the thumb and index, a city. It must be New Orleans.
She radioed in on the New Orleans frequency. She had made it; her dead
reckoning had been right on the nose.

From New Orleans to Newark she could be in radio contact all the way.
She reported in to Mobile, Montgomery, Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond.
She felt like a country telephone operator listening in on party lines,
the conversations were so numerous and frequent on the way across the
country. She looked out and watched the darkness cover the earth. She
snapped on her navigation lights.

Successively, each of the cities as she looked down at the lights was a
treasure of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds. A thousand and one
nights’ treasure that had been tipped over, spilled out, and spread
over the black land. She thrilled to the sparkle and glitter.

At 9:05 P.M. she passed over Washington, D.C., and reported her
position. Into her earphones came the voice of Eugene Vidal, her old
friend from the Ludington Line. He came in loud and clear. “You’ve
done enough,” he said. “You’d better land at Hoover Airport.” He was
calling from his office at the Bureau of Air Commerce.

Amelia grinned. “No thanks,” she answered him. “Going through to New
York.” Then she added, “Cheerio.”

It was a beautiful night for flying, too beautiful to land. Clusters
of bright green and silver stars against the black of the night were
better than emeralds and diamonds at Tiffany’s.

Amelia checked the gasoline gauges for the left- and right-wing tanks
and for the big extra tank in the passenger compartment. She studied
the fuel-flow meter. Everything normal. The Wasp purred in steady,
rhythmic beats. She pulled out the thermos of hot chocolate. She gulped
a mouthful; the warmth from the sweet liquid spread through her.

People had often offered her coffee or tea, and on other occasions
liquor and cigarettes. She didn’t believe in stimulants of any kind;
she didn’t need them. Once, someone had asked her why she didn’t smoke.
He had undoubtedly seen her endorsement of a cigarette after the
_Friendship_ flight.

Amelia smiled as she remembered. To overcome any thoughts of
prudishness he might have of her she had thereupon taken two
cigarettes, lit them, and puffed them into clouds of smoke. “There,”
she had said, after they had burned down and she put them out in an ash
tray, “I have smoked.” She never smoked again, not even in jest. But
there was nothing to prevent her if she wanted to. That point had to be
made clear.

She looked out from the cockpit and ran her eyes from wing tip to wing
tip. It was a lovely night: the new moon, the stars that could be
scooped into the palm of her hand, the clean, fresh air that whistled
through the opened windshield. Space unlimited. She looked at the
tachometer: the needle was steady at 1,750 rpm’s; then at the indicated
air speed: unwavering at 150 mph. Homeward bound. Everything fine.

Waiting for her at Newark were GP and thousands of other people
who had heard about the flight and driven out to the airport. With
George were Paul Collins, AE’s other good friend from the Ludington
Line; Doc Kimball, the famous New York weatherman; and Dr. Eduardo
Villasenor, consul general for Mexico. From the southwest they saw a
single-motored, high-winged plane. It was AE, and she was ahead of
schedule.

Paul Collins, a veteran of more than a million miles in the air,
watched the plane come in. The red and green passing lights slid down
and up in a turn, then rolled out and headed down for a landing.
Thinking of the long flight that was being finished, apparently without
effort, Paul shook his head. There was admiration in his voice. “That’s
a flier!” he exclaimed.

Doc Kimball was proud that AE was one of “his fliers.” “Such people are
good for us all,” he said, just after the plane touched down on the
runway.

Amelia taxied the plane to the parking ramp. She saw a huge crowd of
people straining at the ropes that held them in. The crowd broke and
ran for the plane. AE cut the switch. The throng, now wildly shouting,
had eddied up and completely surrounded the plane. Amelia opened the
hatch. A loud roar of welcome acclaimed her.

GP, lost in the sea of faces, looked up at his wife who could not pick
him out. She looked like a little girl in the heavy flying clothes. Her
face was streaked with grime; her eyes were taut and strained.

Two policemen pushed through the crowd to the side of the plane. Amelia
jumped down to them. One policeman grabbed her right arm; the other her
left leg. They started to move in opposite directions. Amelia screamed.
The policemen reunited at the girl and plowed through the mob to the
police car.

19. _Purdue University_

“You are all a lost generation,” Gertrude Stein had said to Ernest
Hemingway about him and the group of disillusioned postwar expatriates
who lived in Paris. Hemingway had quoted her in _The Sun Also Rises_,
published in 1926. The phrase “lost generation” became a touchstone
of the times; in the early thirties it still persisted, but now
included in one wide sweep all who were the young, the troublesome, the
enigmatic.

In 1934 the New York _Herald Tribune_ held its annual conference; the
topic: “Women and the Changing World.” Amelia Earhart was a guest
speaker. In the audience was Dr. Edward C. Elliott, president of Purdue
University. Up on the platform Mrs. William Brown Meloney rose to
introduce the famous woman flier.

“I present to you,” Mrs. Meloney said, turning to AE, “evidence against
a ‘lost generation.’ For I remind you that no generation which could
produce Amelia Earhart can be called a lost generation. She has set a
pace for those of her age and time. She has never been content to rest
on her laurels. She has worked, and is working, and will continue to
work hard to further the science to which she has dedicated her life.”

Amelia, thirty-six years old and born in the same year as Ernest
Hemingway, sat uneasily as she listened to the introduction. She had
been asked to discuss youth. Although she did not consider herself a
member of the younger generation, she certainly did not consider it
lost. She got up from her chair and walked to the speaker’s stand. Her
voice was low and confident. The speech was short and to the point.

“It is true,” she said, after making the usual introductory
salutations, “that there are no more geographical frontiers to push
back, no new lands flowing with milk and honey this side of the moon to
promise surcease from man-made ills. But there are economic, political,
scientific, and artistic frontiers of the most exciting sort awaiting
faith and the spirit of adventure to discover them.”

She brushed her hair back with a quick sweep of the hand. “Probably
no field,” she continued, now with more animation, “offers greater
lure for young people--explorers--than aviation. It has the color
and movement of flying to kindle the imagination, and its growing
importance as an industry is tempting to those who plan serious
careers in transportation, for aviation is simply the newest form of
transportation--the climax of the human pageant of human progress from
oxcart to airplane....”

She listed some of the problems in aviation that had to be solved, and
admitted that there were no easy solutions. “For,” she then explained,
“the economic structure we have built up is all too often a barrier
between the world’s work and the workers. If the younger generation
finds the hurdle too absurdly high, I hope it will not hesitate to tear
it down and substitute a social order in which the desire to work and
earn carries with it the opportunity to do so.”

She narrowed to a conclusion. “The ancients, such as I am,” she said,
as she drove home a burning conviction, “should be listening to young
ideas, rather than pointing up opportunities in a world”--she paused
for a quick breath--“which has the elders decidedly on the run.”

President Elliott of Purdue nodded in agreement. Such a woman, he
decided, who believed in young people, belonged on a college faculty.

A few days later Dr. Elliott joined the Putnams for dinner at GP’s
favorite restaurant in New York, the Coffee House Club. GP and AE sat
with their guest at a little table on the second floor. The room was
cozy. The men talked.

Amelia glanced at the familiar surroundings, and was glad that her
husband had taken her to such a place. As if clearing the area before
making a turn in the Vega, she directed her eyes across the books and
paintings along the wall, the piano in front of the little stage, the
Fish drawings and Chappell cartoons along the other wall.

George looked at his wife. She seemed particularly lovely to him that
evening. Her long bangs, neatly combed over the high forehead; the
clear blue-gray eyes, forever hiding a mystery; the sensuous lips and
the wide mouth; the strong jaw; the long, lovely hands: on such a night
as this he could propose to her all over again.

After dinner they walked casually out of the room toward a couch
against the far wall. Dr. Elliott pulled up a chair; AE and GP sat on
the couch. Amelia leaned to one side, held her skirt, and tucked her
feet up and under her.

President Elliott looked at the bulletin board above the couch, then at
the slight figure of Amelia. He caught her eye, then told her how much
he had enjoyed her speech at the _Tribune_ conference. Young people,
he explained, were his business and he could never find enough of the
professionally trained to motivate and inspire his students.

“Amelia,” he said, smiling, “we would like to have you at Purdue.”

AE thought a moment. “I’d like that,” she said, knowing nevertheless
that she had no degrees to qualify for such an assignment. “But what do
you think I could do?”

Dr. Elliott’s eyes brightened and crinkled at the corners. “We have
about six thousand students. Eight hundred of them are girls. We don’t
think the girls are keeping abreast of the opportunities of the day
nearly as well as they might be.”

Amelia warmed to the possibilities. “And I...?” She began a question.

“You could supply the spark they need,” he answered. “Something from
outside the classroom.”

For two hours they continued to discuss the idea. By the time President
Elliott had been taken to Grand Central for a midnight train, the
project had assumed a definite shape. For one month during the academic
year Amelia would deliver lectures, act as a counselor to the girls,
and advise the department of aeronautics. AE liked the challenge.
Purdue at the time was the only university in the country that had its
own airport.

On June 2, 1935, after the Pacific and Mexico flights, President
Elliott formally appointed Amelia Earhart to the faculty of Purdue
University. “Miss Earhart,” he announced, “represents better than any
other young woman of this generation the spirit and courageous skill of
what may be called the new pioneering. At no point in our educational
system is there greater need for pioneering and constructive planning
than in education for women. The university believes Amelia Earhart
will help us to see and to attack successfully many unsolved problems.”

Amelia was heartened by the announcement. Not satisfied with the record
flights of the spring, she now tested the high-speed capabilities of
her plane. In July she set the transcontinental speed record for women,
by flying from Los Angeles to Newark in seventeen hours, seventeen
minutes, and thirty seconds.

In November, AE was the “flying professor” of the Lafayette, Indiana,
campus. With the students, male and female, she was easy, casual.
Dressed in slacks at a conference, she would swing her legs up on a
desk or table and chat. She invariably preferred an atmosphere of
informality.

She lived in one of the women’s dormitories at Purdue, and kept her
door open for any of the girls who wanted to drop in for a visit. In
the dining hall she had a different group sit at her table for every
meal.

Amelia soon declared herself as the empiricist and pragmatist which
she was. Learn by doing and have fun at it had guided her every step
through life. At one of her first lectures she explained why she came
to Purdue. It was her kind of school--a technical school where all
instruction had its practical side. Education, she felt, had failed to
discover individual aptitude soon enough. If a child’s bent could be
determined early, much study and work in the wrong direction could be
avoided.

“We have watched the colleges,” she said, “produce countless graduates
who could only demand jobs for which, notwithstanding the adequacy of
their formal education, they might be totally unprepared or unfitted,
and in which they were often even just plain not interested.

“It’s a fundamental problem, and I can imagine that reform may
involve the entire reconstruction of our educational system. Because
Johnnie liked to play with tin soldiers, his mother has jumped to the
conclusion, since the year one, that he wanted to be a soldier! So
she packed him off to military school--which he hated--though maybe
she never found it out--all because what really interested him about
tin soldiers was that they were made of lead, and lead is metal, and
you heat metal and melt it and make it into lots of things--steel for
skyscrapers, decorative ironwork, leading for stained-glass windows....”

Although she would have liked to, AE soon discovered that it would be
impossible to interview all 800 women students. She therefore sent out
a questionnaire to them. In answer to one question she learned that
92 per cent of the coeds wanted to go into useful employment after
graduation.

She would assemble the girls in large groups and talk to them.

“After all,” she said to them, drawing from her own experience, “times
are changing and women need the critical stimulus of competition
outside the home. A girl must nowadays believe completely in herself
as an individual. She must realize at the outset that a woman must do
the same job better than a man to get as much credit for it. She must
be aware of the various discriminations, both legal and traditional,
against women in the business world.

“I cannot tell you that you will be able to bounce right out of
college into your life work. I believe, under existing conditions,
that it is almost impossible to do. But I believe also that it doesn’t
greatly matter, for the business world will draw out one’s aptitudes.

“Probably no sure way has yet been discovered for women--or men
either--to know before they reach the age of sixty-five if they have
done right by their lives; and even then I believe they can’t be
exactly sure that something else they could have chosen would not have
made their lives richer.

“Probably people of outstanding talent--like Lily Pons, for
instance--couldn’t do anything but follow their natural bent. Such
people must know they’re in the right profession. The rest of us, I
fear, can never know for certain until we can take a backward look in
old age, for we must have a background of experience against which to
make comparisons. So our vocational starts are somewhat conditioned.
But not fatally, surely. Of course if men and women are very unhappy in
their work, they are entitled to a pretty good opinion that they are in
the wrong work. Yet if they are happy in it--I don’t believe it means,
necessarily, that they couldn’t be happier.

“And so I’m inclined to say that, if you want to try a certain job, try
it. Then if you find something on the morrow that looks better, make a
change. And if you should find that you are the first women to feel an
urge in that direction--what does it matter? Feel it and act on it just
the same. It may turn out to be fun. And to me fun is the indispensable
part of work.”

Aptitude, trial and error, practicality, fun: such were the tenets
of her proclaimed philosophy for living. For the girl who initially
had accidentally become a heroine of flight, then had to prove it to
herself, and for the rest of her life to the world who acclaimed her,
it was the only possible philosophy.

Although she forgot to mention it, there was in her life, in addition
to the necessity of fun for work, much work in her fun. And despite
the fact that her practical self would never admit it, she was also
a romantic and a visionary. Like the skylark and the nightingale of
Shelley and Keats, she was a blithe spirit and a light-winged dryad,
who soared on the wind and pranked the starlight sky. Without her
dreams she could not live in the wide-awake world.

Like Henry David Thoreau, the famed mystic of Walden Pond, she could
say:

I hear beyond the range of sound,
I see beyond the range of sight,
New earth and skies and seas around.

There was fitful restlessness in the way Amelia had skipped from job
to job and interest to interest on the ground, the ground in which her
soaring ambition could never take root. It was only in the air that she
found the repose and the leisure to probe the depths of her own soul,
to come to a sustaining knowledge of herself.

Dr. Elliott was pleased with her work. So was the Purdue Research
Foundation, which set up an Amelia Earhart Fund for the purchase of a
plane that she could use experimentally at her own discretion.

AE, despite a deep interest in the engineering and mechanical aspects
of flight, wanted to study the human elements involved--“the effects of
flying on people.” She had named herself as the first guinea pig.

Early in 1936 enough funds were declared available for her to make her
choice of airplanes. Amelia picked a new twin-engined ten-passenger
Lockheed Electra transport plane. It was what she had wanted for a long
time: a bigger, safer airplane.

Amelia now announced to GP that she planned to fly around the world at
the equator. It was something no man had done, not even Lindbergh.

Like the matador of many victories who pits his ability against the
bull by getting closer and closer to the horns and making more and more
difficult passes, or the mountain climber who has proven himself the
victor over the tallest peaks and has yet to climb Everest, so Amelia,
who had triumphed over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and the North
American continent, now would set out to conquer the one remaining
adversary to her skill and courage--the world.

PART THREE

_THE LAST FLIGHT_

1. _Crack-up in Hawaii_

Ironically, Amelia Earhart’s flight around the world was her last long
flight. “I have a feeling,” she had said to Carl Allen of the New York
_Herald Tribune_, “that there is just one more good flight left in my
system, and I hope this is it. Anyway, when I have finished this job, I
mean to give up major long-distance flights.”

Her plan was to girdle the earth at the equator on an east-to-west
flight. The time of departure was set for March, 1937.

For Amelia, the flight was the greatest challenge of her life. No one
had done what she planned to do. There had been other flights around
the world, but none had been attempted at the equator. Wiley Post, AE’s
good friend, had flown around the world twice in his Vega, the _Winnie
May_, once in 1931 with Harold Gatty, then again by himself in 1933.

In 1935 Wiley Post tried again, this time with Will Rogers as his
passenger. The plane, a half-breed of Lockheed Orion and Sirius with
floats attached, was dangerously nose heavy. “You’ll be in trouble,”
the engineers told him at Lockheed, where they refused to put on
the floats, “if there’s just a slight power loss on take-off.” Post
was stubborn and insistent. He found another company to attach the
pontoons. At Point Barrow, Alaska, in August, the engine stuttered on
take-off. The plane nosed in and crashed, and two of the most famous
men of their time were killed.

Wiley Post’s flights had been made well north of the equator, at a
distance only two thirds the length of the equator.

There had also been some remarkable distance flights by others. In 1933
the Lindberghs made a 29,000-mile air-route survey of Europe, Africa,
and South America. Laura Ingalls in 1934 had flown solo from New York
to South America and return, a distance of 16,897 miles. Also in 1934
the Pacific was flown in a first west-east flight, from Australia to
California, by Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and Captain P. G. Taylor.

By girdling the globe, Amelia could achieve not only the record for
distance, but also fly around the world. She would like to do it alone.
It would be fun to be the first to fly the equator.

AE made her plans, the most elaborate and time consuming of her career.
The details that had to be worked out, she found, were formidable. But
she began simply, almost casually, to map out the 27,000 miles of the
flight.

One day early in the winter of 1936 she walked across the living room
in her home at Rye. She picked up the globe from the long table behind
the sofa. She turned the globe to the Pacific, placed her thumb on
Oakland, and spanned her hand to Honolulu; then from Honolulu her long,
slender fingers reached easily to two little islands just above the
equator. In another stretch of the hand she reached New Guinea. Seven
thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean were easy to cross by a span of
the hand, but those two little islands, Howland and Baker, were mere
specks on the globe.

She looked closely at Howland, and wondered if she could find it flying
alone after nearly 2,000 miles out from Hawaii. She swept her hand
quickly over her hair and grinned. This was the most exact kind of
flying. She would need the best of navigation equipment. She would need
a navigator to make it.

When GP came home she told him of her need for a navigator; not for the
whole flight, but just for the long over-water legs across the Pacific.
George picked up the phone. He always knew whom to call.

GP first telephoned Bradford Washburn, a young Harvard professor
who had done some distinguished ground navigation and exploration.
Washburn agreed to come to New York for an interview.

AE was sprawled on the living-room floor with her maps when the young
professor came into the house. She liked his cut: he was slim, wiry,
handsome. She liked the set of his jaw and the look of his clear eyes.
She got up from the floor, smiled, and reached out a hand in welcome.

Pilot and prospective navigator sat on the floor and discussed the
problems involved. Amelia traced the itinerary she had marked on the
map, mentioning, as she moved her finger, the distances between points.

Bradford Washburn examined the first two proposed legs of the flight.
He was familiar with the Electra and felt it could easily make the
distance from California to Hawaii. The long stretch over the vast
Pacific to the tiny dot that was Howland Island: that was an immediate
difficulty to overcome.

“How far did you say it was to Howland?” he asked.

“Roughly, about 2,000 miles,” Amelia said.

“Your 50-watt radio isn’t strong enough for that kind of flying. On
such a long leg as that one you’ll be out of range of any ground
stations.” Washburn looked intently at Amelia. “If you’re off just one
degree on your heading, you’ll miss that little island completely.”

Amelia had no intention of being one degree off course. The best
navigator available could hit the island right on the nose.

“What kind of radio signals will there be at Howland to home in on?”
The professor pursued the point.

“None,” Amelia answered.

For Bradford Washburn the interview was over. The project was out of
the question. He did not want to look for a needle in a haystack,
especially if the haystack were the Pacific Ocean--and certainly not
without a strong magnet to find the needle.

Bradford Washburn was convinced that Amelia had rather not have a
navigator, that she had decided on one only as an irritable necessity.
Her self-confidence, her belief in her own flying abilities, was for
him towering and magnificent to behold; but he wanted no part of it.

“One must take chances,” AE had often said before, and she repeated the
same words in the hope of hitting Howland Island.

That she was devil-may-care was perhaps attributable to what seem to
have been premonitions, foreshadowings which she blatantly ignored. AE
and GP had spent an afternoon examining gyroscopes at the Sperry plant
in Brooklyn. On the way home Amelia had stopped the car at a red light
on Flatbush Avenue. In the blue dusk of that winter’s day she noticed
off to the side an old man step off the curb and start to shuffle
across the street. “It’s hard to get old,” the old man muttered as he
crossed, “so hard.” Amelia heard every word.

The light changed. Amelia slammed the clutch to the floor and shifted
the car into gear. Her lips were closed tight, her eyes intent on the
moving traffic. At the next corner she turned into a side street, drove
around the block, and swung back up the street to where the old man had
stepped off the curb. She looked up and down the opposite sidewalk. The
old man had disappeared in the crowd.

That night, before going to bed, Amelia turned to George. Her eyes were
level and serious. “It _is_ hard to be old,” she said. “So hard.” She
walked to the mirror and sat at her dressing table. She looked hard at
her own reflection. “I’m afraid I’ll hate it. Hate to grow old.”

GP said nothing; he waited for his wife to finish.

Amelia turned and faced her husband again. “I think probably, GP,” she
spoke slowly and deliberately, “that I’ll not live to be old.”

On the twenty-second of July, 1936, Amelia went out to Burbank,
California, to inspect the new Lockheed for the first time. The
all-metal plane glistened as it was rolled out of the hangar into the
sun. AE examined the plane closely: she walked the 55-foot span of the
wings, climbed into the cockpit, worked the controls, and started the
engines.

Lockheed, in keeping with its previous stellar designations for its
aircraft, had christened the low-winged, twin-engined monoplane the
Electra, after the “lost” star of the Pleiades.

Amelia, dressed in a mechanic’s white coveralls and inspecting her new
plane, paid no attention to any designations, stellar, mythological, or
psychological. She promptly dubbed the plane “the flying laboratory.”
That was practical and to the point, for that was what the plane in
fact was.

She loved the navigation equipment which had been installed in the
passenger compartment. She climbed in to look it over. The fuselage had
been cleared of passenger seats. Directly behind the cockpit two large
tanks had been bolted in place; they could hold 1,000 gallons of fuel.
That would give the plane an added range up to 4,000 miles. Behind the
tanks was a complete navigation room.

She walked to the wide chart table set up against the bulkhead and
under the far window. Through the round glass in the table she read the
master aperiodic compass placed directly below. Mounted at each window
was a pelorus, for taking bearings from any land mass. She set her
eye to the tube of the one at the window over the table. The special
flat plane of the window allowed for no distortions, especially for
the readings from the bubble sextant. She noted next to the table a
temperature gauge, an air-speed indicator, and three chronometers; and
above the table and to the left side of the window an altimeter.

The arrangement for the use of the drift indicator was brilliantly
simple. On the cabin door a special latch had been installed to keep
the door open about four inches. Down through the opening in the door
she swung the drift indicator. By looking through the instrument at
smoke bombs during the day or flares at night, a navigator could
determine the direction and velocity of the wind. Amelia was satisfied:
her laboratory was adequate to the task from the navigation point of
view.

The communications equipment, however, was at once delightfully modern
and frustratingly primitive. Pilot and navigator had voice radio; but
only the navigator had telegraphic key. Both could transmit and receive
with ground stations, but not with each other. For intercommunications
the navigator would have to use a cut-down bamboo fishing pole, with an
office clip nailed to the end of it, to send messages written on cards
up to the pilot; if he wanted to talk to the pilot, or if he wanted to
dial the radio behind the pilot to a new frequency, he would have to
crawl along the catwalk over the two big tanks between the cockpit and
the passenger compartment.

The radio had a power of only 50 watts. Amelia was not satisfied, and
she tried to borrow a better, more powerful, system. The radio was the
weakest link in the laboratory chain.

For weeks she flew the Electra up and down the California coast,
working out the “bugs.” In August she went to New York to enter the
Bendix Trophy race. The coast-to-coast speed flight, she felt, would be
an excellent “shakedown” for the plane.

Other women joined in for the race and gathered at Floyd Bennett Field.
Louise Thaden, Blanche Noyes, Jacqueline Cochran, Laura Ingalls, Martie
Bowman, Mrs. Benny Howard: all were stiff competitors. Helen Rickey had
agreed to be AE’s copilot.

During the race trouble developed in the Electra’s fuel lines, and
Amelia had to drop out much against her will. But two women did win the
race: Louise Thaden with Blanche Noyes as her copilot.

Preparations moved along for the world flight. Clarence S. Williams
of Los Angeles was engaged to get ready maps and charts. He laid out
compass courses, the distances between points, the exact times at which
to change headings: he prepared sectional after sectional for the many
legs of the flight. His work was invaluable.

Paul Mantz was technical adviser, as he had been for the
Hawaii-California flight. He supervised the mechanical readiness of the
plane, and took it up on many test flights.

GP managed the far-flung problems, and they were many, of stopping
places and alternates for the caching of fuel, oil, spare parts. Red
tape of international length had to be cut and unsnarled. Innumerable
credentials were needed: permissions to land from foreign governments,
passports, visas, certificates of health and character, negative
police records, medical papers. George made all the official advance
arrangements. Before he was finished, he had spotted fuel and oil at
thirty different locations along the route, and had collected several
thick folders of papers for his wife.

Amelia made more and more notes on her charts as new information poured
in. Airports, alternates, emergency landing fields, winds aloft,
weather, terrain, altitudes: each had to be entered at the proper
place. She took the maps and carefully marked the stop-off points, then
drew lines to a double row for entering the exact amount of gas and oil
that would be available along the way.

In preparing for previous flights she had revealed her plans only to
closest friends, but this time Amelia did not shroud her activities
in secrecy. The press received broad clues, and then were blamed,
half-jokingly, as the cause of it all. Late in 1936 AE said to
reporters in Los Angeles, “I’m nearly sold on the idea of flying around
the world because I’d like to do it; but I’m a busy person this year. I
have a lot of other things to do. Next year? Well, one never knows.”

On February 11, 1937, Amelia had flown to New York from California.
Newsmen had surrounded her at the Hotel Barclay; they wanted a
confirmation or denial of all the rumors they had heard about her
plans for a world flight. With AE was the man who had agreed to be
her navigator. He was Captain Harry Manning, her old friend from the
_Friendship_ days, on whose ship, the _President Roosevelt_, she had
returned home.

Amelia smoothed at the hips the dark-blue wool dress she had changed
into. The press rarely saw her in “feminine” clothes. “Well,” she said,
“I am going to try to fly around the globe.” She toyed with the bright
scarf about her neck. “The flight will be as near to the equator as I
can make it, east to west, about 27,000 miles.”

The press moved in. Reporters fired questions at her, photographers
shot pictures at close range, newsreel men turned on their bright
lights and rolled their cameras. Somewhat flustered by the sudden
excitement she had caused, Amelia laughed. “You know,” she said to
them, “I feel you men have pushed me into this. You are the ones who
have kept saying that I was going to fly around the world, until
finally you’ve compelled me to think seriously about doing it.”

Carl Allen, her friend from the New York _Herald Tribune_, would have
none of it. “Oh, come now,” he protested, “nobody has pushed you into
it. You know you’ve been wanting to do it all the time.”

Captain Manning, stolid and silent beside AE, smiled uneasily. Amelia
quickly relinquished her ground. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I guess
I didn’t get away with that, did I?”

“What are you going for?” one reporter abruptly asked.

AE thought for a moment. The question was one she had heard many times
before. “Well,” she answered, “I’ve seen the North Atlantic. And I’ve
seen the Pacific, too, of course; at least a part of it. But”--she
hesitated--“well, just say I want to fly around the globe. And I think
a round-the-world flight just now should be at the equator.”

She turned to the quiet man beside her. She looked at his thick,
curly black locks. “Captain Manning is going with me part way,” she
explained, “because I don’t believe the pilot on such a flight can
navigate, too.”

Interview over, reporters broke for the nearest telephone. The world
heard and waited.

Amelia dived again into the myriad details of preparation. She was
still dissatisfied with the radio equipment. She realized that a
50-watt transmitter and receiver could reach only about five hundred
miles under normal conditions. On the Hawaii-California flight the Vega
radio had reached up to 2,000 miles, but only because of skipping--a
radio phenomenon in which radio waves bounce up and down from the
ionosphere and move forward for incredibly long distances.

But skipping was something that could not be depended upon. Some of
the ground stations would be much farther than 500 miles apart. The
distance between Hawaii and Howland was 1,940 miles; between Howland
and New Guinea, 2,556 miles. The other navigation equipment was good,
and worked well in test after test. How to strengthen the weakest link?

The problem continued to plague her while she gained more and more
experience flying the Electra during most of the year 1936. Often
she flew cross-country until she attained that assured feeling of
confidence that came when the plane became an extension of her own body
and limbs.

It was during the late morning of one of these flights, with Jacqueline
Cochran acting as copilot, that Amelia landed at Wright Field in Ohio.
The women pilots were met by Manila Talley, AE’s friend from Denison
House days, whose husband was stationed at the field. The three of them
climbed into Manila’s car and drove to the Officers’ Club at adjoining
Patterson Field for lunch. Mrs. Talley noticed that AE seemed somewhat
distraught.

When they sat down to lunch Amelia told her companions how she had
hoped to borrow desperately needed radio equipment. She had been unable
to get better radios from the manufacturers. They told her they had
lost all they could afford on flights that didn’t make it. And, she
was reminded flatly by them, regulations absolutely forbade lending
government equipment.

Mrs. Talley and Miss Cochran tried to dissuade Amelia from making the
flight with inferior equipment.

AE was adamant. “I have to meet my obligations,” she said. “We’ve sold
letter covers to pay for the flight. I have to carry them.” She had
earned $10,000 by selling and carrying letter covers for the Pacific
flight. And for the world flight, Gimbel’s in New York had sold to
collectors 10,000 covers, which had realized some $25,000 to meet
expenses.

Amelia straightened her back against the chair and popped her crumpled
napkin onto the table. “I will simply have to make do,” she said with a
stamp of finality, “with what equipment I have.”

Other equally important matters occupied her days and nights. One at
a time problems had to be faced, solutions had to be worked out. The
preparations were the part of the iceberg that didn’t show.

Paul Mantz wrung out the Electra in shakedown flights and final tests.
GP surveyed the extra-long runway at Oakland, waited for the final
word about the emergency field being completed at Howland Island, and
coordinated final arrangements with the Department of Commerce, Pan
American Airways, and the Coast Guard.

For two weeks Amelia pored over weather maps, waiting for the one which
would let her go: it didn’t have to be completely satisfactory, only
acceptable.

There was plenty of help for the flight to Honolulu. Paul Mantz would
be her copilot, and helping Captain Manning in the navigation room
would be Fred Noonan. They were a right good crew.

Captain Harry Manning, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner for
heroic daring in having rescued thirty-two men from the sinking
steamship _Florida_, had taken leave of absence from his ship to be
the navigator. Paul Mantz, expert pilot, movie stunt flier, aviation
instructor, owner of a flying service, dependable technical adviser,
was as familiar with the Lockheed as AE herself. Fred J. Noonan, a
veteran of twenty-two years of ocean travel before he joined Pan
American Airways, transport pilot, instructor in aerial navigation, had
pioneered routes for PAA flights across the Pacific.

The plan was to drop Mantz off in Honolulu, where he could join his
fiancée; to leave Noonan at Howland, where he could take the Coast
Guard cutter back to Hawaii; and finally to drop Manning at Brisbane,
Australia. From that point on Amelia hoped to continue solo for the
rest of the way around the world.

On March 17, 1937, Amelia and her plane were ready. The Electra waited
in the Navy hangar at Oakland. There was Gaelic festivity in the air:
it was St. Patrick’s Day. In deference to Fred Noonan, AE pinned
shamrocks on the men and herself. But the weather was not favorable; it
drizzled, on and off, all day.

Amelia went to the window of the Navy office and looked out. Time and
again she had waited at windows before, watching and waiting for the
weather to clear. She drove her hands into her brown slacks, then
adjusted the collar of her plaid wool shirt, then twisted the brown
linen scarf about her neck. She turned up the collar of her brown
leather flying jacket. Crow’s-feet gathered at the corners of her eyes
as she squinted at the wet grayness outside.

Several showers passed over the field. Shortly after 3:00 P.M. she
watched the low scud beginning to clear, and heartened as a thin strip
of blue appeared in the higher overcast. The crew was alerted. It was
time to go.

Paul Mantz started the engines, taxied the plane out of the Navy
hangar, and stopped on the apron. Manning and Noonan ran out and
climbed into the passenger compartment. To avoid reporters and
well-wishers, Amelia sneaked into a Navy automobile and was driven out
to the plane. GP drove out with her. Quickly she was hustled up onto
the wing and into the cockpit. GP bent in and wished his wife a final
farewell.

For five minutes AE and Mantz revved up the engines, checking the
rpm’s and magnetoes of first one and then the other, then both of the
powerful Wasps.

The Electra taxied to the east end of the field, to the 7,000-foot
runway. On alternate sides of the take-off strip, cardboard placards
had been staked out every 150 feet. Small puddles of water splotched
the runway. Throttles were advanced and the props blasted back. The
take-off roll was short: the five-ton Lockheed eased into the air after
2,000 feet. It was 4:37 P.M.

The flight to Honolulu proceeded without incident. At 5:40 A.M. the
next morning, 2,410 miles, fifteen hours, and forty-seven minutes after
Oakland, the Electra touched down at Wheeler Field.

Despite the long flight just completed, Amelia, teeming with energy and
anxious to be on her way, wanted to take off for Howland without delay.
But the weatherman dampened her zest.

Bad storms, she discovered, had started to move in from the southwest.
Resigned, Amelia went to the home of a friend and slept. There was no
point in worrying about the weather. “Weather permitting” had always
qualified her every flight plan.

Paul Mantz, meanwhile, moved the plane to Luke Field, for the use of
the longer runway there. Although the Electra would not use the full
fuel capacity of 1,151 gallons to get to Howland, the weight of 900
gallons was still considerable. At Luke, a Pratt and Whitney mechanic
made a thorough final inspection of the two Wasp engines. There was no
time to spare: AE had sent word that she wanted to take off at dawn on
the following day.

Amelia rose early that morning of March 19. Light began to break over
the hills of Pearl Harbor as she drove out to the field. Expecting her,
Paul Mantz had warmed up the engines; and Captain Manning and Fred
Noonan had taken their places in the navigation room.

Amelia climbed into the cockpit. Before her lay the 3,000 feet of
runway. The concrete shone in the morning light, and here and there
gleamed patches of water. AE signaled; the mechanics pulled the chocks
away from the wheels.

She lowered the flaps, held the wheel firmly, then slowly inched the
throttle forward. The 1,100 Wasp-stung horses fought to go. The Electra
started to roll. Halfway down the runway one wing dipped.

Amelia applied opposite aileron. The plane pulled to the right. AE
yanked the left throttle all the way back. The nose swung from right to
left, but the wing would not lift. She watched helplessly as the wing
tip hit the runway and scraped the concrete in a shower of sparks.
Then the right landing gear collapsed, the plane careened, then swung
around uncontrollably in a swift ground loop. Amelia chopped the
other throttle, cut the switches, and climbed out of the cockpit. On
the ground she met Manning and Noonan jumping out from the passenger
compartment door. They had not been scratched.

The $80,000 Electra lay like a broken bird upon the pavement. The right
wheel had been sheared off; the right wing was battered and crumpled.
Amelia was sick at heart as she looked at her damaged plane. “Something
must have gone wrong,” she said in an attempt to say something.

“Of course, now you will give up the trip?” someone asked.

Amelia shook her head. “I think not,” she said. “If it’s possible, I’ll
try again.” Her voice trailed off. “Repairs. Costs.”

Grave and silent she left the runway. Later she regained her composure
and called GP in Oakland. He was relieved to hear that she was safe.
“They crashed; the ship’s in flames,” a reporter had told him. The
sparks had been mistaken for fire.

A few hours later a newsman came up to Amelia. He tried to be
understanding. “Tough luck,” he said. “Anyway, you’re fortunate to be
alive. By the way, I understand your husband will be greatly relieved,
because now you can’t go on with the flight.”

AE showed him the telegram she had just received from GP. “So long as
you and the boys are O.K.” it said, “the rest doesn’t matter. After
all, it’s just one of those things. Whether you want to call it a day
or keep going later is equally jake with me.”

The reporters now pressed her for a statement. “Nothing has happened,”
she announced, “to change my attitude toward the original project. I
feel better than ever about the ship, and I am more eager than ever to
fly again.”

Amelia turned and walked to the window of the operations building.
She looked up. High above the center of the field a black bird swung
through the air in lazy widening circles.

2. _New Route, New Preparations_

“Hamlet would have been a bad aviator,” Amelia once said. “He worried
too much. The time to worry,” she added, “is three months before
a flight. Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risks
involved. If it is, stop worrying. To worry is to add another hazard.
It retards reactions, makes one unfit.”

Contrary to her injunction, AE, like the melancholy Dane, worried, but
only for two months before she reattempted the world flight. In May the
Electra would be repaired and ready again.

After the accident at Luke Field, messages offering encouragement
poured in from everywhere. Loyal friends helped her to pick up the
pieces and start again.

The brush with death she had taken as a fatalist. “Someday,” she told
GP, “I will get bumped off. There’s so much to do, so much fun here;
I don’t want to go. But when I do go, I’d like to go in my plane.
Quickly.”

The old plans, most of them, would now have to be scrapped. Routes and
weather conditions would have to be restudied. Where rains had been in
March, there were now none; where winds had once proven favorable, they
would now prove adverse; where monsoons had been predicted, there would
now be dust storms.

For a world flight beginning in late May, the advantage seemed to lay
in flying west to east. To beat the bad weather predicted for the
first legs of the route, she would have to be through the Caribbean
and Africa by the middle of June. If she left from Miami, the flight
to Florida could serve as a final shakedown for the Electra. Amelia
decided on a west-east route.

The reversal of flight plans brought on countless difficulties and
greatly added expense. Fuel, oil, spare parts, mechanics would now
have to be relocated. Typical was the change involved in one engine
overhaul. A mechanic had been dispatched from London to Karachi; he
would now have to be reassigned elsewhere.

Having taken the warning of Bradford Washburn about radio facilities on
the ground, AE had made arrangements with the Coast Guard to have one
of its cutters stationed at Howland Island, so that the Electra could
home in on the ship’s radio signals. All this had to be worked out
again, and GP contacted Richard Black of the Department of the Interior
to rearrange the necessary coordination.

Credentials had to be re-examined and reacquired. New approval for
plane and pilot was secured from the Bureau of Aeronautics. Charts were
replotted for the new routes, and hours had to be spent at Lockheed
consulting with the engineers and the mechanics.

In blessed relief from the pressure of the many details, AE would slip
out to Indio, in the California desert, to visit her flying friend,
Jacqueline Cochran. Miss Cochran and her husband Floyd Odlum had
greatly helped in the financing of the world flight. At the desert
retreat Amelia could rest and bathe in the sun, swim in the pool, or
ride horseback.

On one such visit AE and Miss Cochran discussed, as they had before
on other occasions, the experiments going on at Duke University in
extrasensory perception. Amelia was extremely interested in the
subject, as Miss Cochran had indicated her own ability at ESP.

Curiously, the two women pilots had heard that night on the radio about
a passenger plane that had been lost somewhere in the mountains between
Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Amelia asked Jacqueline if she could
locate the plane. Her friend gave the location of the plane and other
specific details of roads and mountain peaks in the area where the
plane had gone down. AE called Paul Mantz, who verified the details
on an aerial map. Excited, Amelia sped back through the night to Los
Angeles, and took off early the next morning. She searched the area
for three days and verified the names and locations in Miss Cochran’s
descriptions; but she could not find any trace of the plane. That
spring, however, when the snows had melted, the wreckage of the plane
was found just two miles from where Jacqueline Cochran had said it was.

At other times subsequently Miss Cochran demonstrated again her
extraordinary extrasensory powers. At AE’s request, she located another
missing airliner, crashed and pointing downward from a mountain peak.
The plane was found at the exact location.

Before one of her flights with GP in the Electra, Amelia asked her
friend to record the details of the flight. Miss Cochran gave exact
dates, times, and locations near Blackwell, Oklahoma, where AE had
landed to remain overnight.

As a result of these experiences, the two friends decided that in the
event AE should go down and get lost on the world flight, Jacqueline
would tell the rescuers where to look for Amelia and her plane. That
she failed when Amelia went down in the Pacific is one of the deepest
sorrows of Jacqueline Cochran’s life. Yet many of Miss Cochran’s
perceptions about the disappearance were correct.

Upon returning from Indio to plunge again into her preparations,
Amelia immediately concerned herself with finding a new navigator.
Captain Harry Manning’s leave of absence had expired and he had to
return to the command of his ship. AE turned to Fred Noonan, Manning’s
co-navigator for the Honolulu-Howland leg of the aborted east-west
flight. Noonan agreed to sign on.

There had been some anxiety from some quarters as to whether Fred
Noonan was capable of the expert, high-speed celestial navigation
needed on the long over-water legs of the world flight. Jacqueline
Cochran, in particular, was most anxious, and convinced Amelia that she
should take Noonan far out over the Pacific, fly him around in circles
until he was disoriented, then make him take her back to Los Angeles.
AE obliged. Noonan gave her the course back. The Electra hit the
California coast halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Apparently, Amelia was undisturbed by the navigation error, even in
view of the irrefutable and just-demonstrated fact that a mistake of
one degree on the compass could, on a long flight, take her miles off
her course. That she still engaged Noonan, knowing as she did that
tiny Howland Island was just two miles long and only three-quarters of
a mile wide, a mere fifteen feet above sea level, and more than 2,550
miles from Lae, New Guinea, is testimony to an unshakable confidence in
her own ability.

On May 19, two months to the day after the crack-up on Luke Field, the
Electra, repaired and gleaming, was rolled out of the Lockheed hangar.
Two days later it was flown up to Oakland where the letter covers were
quietly and secretly placed on board again, then flown back to Burbank.

Amelia had made no public announcement about the reversed direction of
the flight. To all appearances, therefore, when she, Fred Noonan, her
mechanic “Bo” McKneely, and her husband George Putnam took off the next
day for Miami, the trip was just another routine flight.

Actually, it was the final shakedown flight. If it proceeded without
mechanical difficulties, Amelia decided, she and Fred would continue
around the world from Miami; if not, she could bring the plane back to
Burbank for further adjustments.

Late that afternoon they landed in Tucson, Arizona. The summer heat of
the desert rose from the concrete ramp in wave after stifling wave.
Discharging her passengers, AE taxied to the refueling pit. After
having her tanks topped, she restarted the Wasps. The left engine
stuttered, caught, then backfired, and finally exploded into a burst
of flames. Amelia cut the switches and hit the left fire-extinguisher
button. The men on the ground sprayed the burning engine with foam. The
fire suffocated and died.

AE climbed out of the Electra to examine the damage. Wisps of smoke
rose from the Wasp. The acrid smell of burned rubber filled her
nostrils. The engine and prop were black with dirt and grime, the
cowling caked gray-white with bubbled foam. The heat from motor and
ramp cloyed the air.

Early the next morning, when Amelia and her three men returned to the
ramp, the engine had been repaired and the plane thoroughly washed. Out
of the west, winds charged with sand began to swirl and sweep over the
field. Amelia wanted to be on her way. “Let’s see if we can get up and
over it,” she said.

They took off and climbed to 8,000 feet. All the way to El Paso, on the
western edge of Texas, the sandstorm below, like a golden turbulent
sea, billowed and eddied. On they pushed across Texas. That night they
were in New Orleans. The next day, after crossing the Gulf of Mexico to
Tampa, they turned southeast to Miami. At Miami the final decision had
to be made.

Now began a week of final preparations. The Electra, Amelia decided,
would not have to be returned to Burbank; the Pan American mechanics in
Miami, she happily discovered, had all the skill needed to make a last
tune-up on the plane.

While the men worked on the Electra, Amelia was ostensibly calm,
patient, unhurried. She would sit on a service stand to watch an
adjustment being made on one of the engines, sprawl on the tarmac to
help with a bothersome strut, or join the mechanics for lunch at the
“greasy spoon” restaurant across the street. The men, noticing her
ready smile and easy ways, admired her as a pilot who knew her plane
and as a woman who knew what she was about.

Fred Noonan renewed his old acquaintances among the Pan American
personnel. “Poor old Fred,” they had said about him initially, “flying
around the world with a woman pilot.” But growing to know Amelia as she
calmly went about her tasks, they finally conceded to Fred that he had
the pick of women fliers for his pilot.

Their acceptance of AE on an equal footing with the men of aviation
reflected Fred Noonan’s personal views. “Amelia is a grand person
for such a trip,” he wrote to his wife. “She is the only woman flier
I would care to make such an expedition with. Because in addition to
being a fine companion and pilot, she can take hardships as well as a
man--and work like one.”

For Amelia there was criticism from the press that she was just another
“stunt flier,” despite her statements to the contrary that she was
conducting an experiment on the human level. The press was partially
right.

“When I have finished this job,” she said in confidence to Carl Allen,
“I mean to give up long-distance ‘stunt’ flying.” Then a smile creased
her face. “I’m getting old,” she added. “I want to make way for the
younger generation before I’m feeble, too.”

There were serious conversations with GP at the hotel where they were
staying. He was anxious about her safety on such a long trip. Life held
out so much else for her, he asked her if she could not give up the
idea.

“Please don’t be concerned,” she said. Her voice was low and soft. She
parted the bangs of her dry mop of hair. “It just seems that I must try
this flight.” She walked to the window and watched the waves in the
distance breaking on the shore. She turned slowly. “I’ve weighed it all
carefully. With it behind me, life will be fuller and richer. I can be
content. Afterward, it will be fun to grow old.”

George Putnam knew from the look in his wife’s eyes that her mind was
made up irrevocably. Such was the woman he had married. She had to
prove to herself, and to the world, that women could do as men could do.

Amelia made the final inspection of her aircraft. She was concerned
about all the weight the plane had to carry and looked for ways to
lighten the load. After she checked again each item of equipment, she
finally decided to remove the 250-foot trailing wire antenna from the
plane. It was too bulky and it was too much trouble to reel out and
reel in while she was trying to fly the plane. One had to take chances.

3. _Miami to Africa_

Shortly after five o’clock in the morning of June 1, 1937, AE and Fred
climbed into the Lockheed Electra to begin their flight around the
world at the equator. Amelia started the engines. The dials of the
engine instruments--rpm’s, oil pressure, fuel pressure--swung into
place; then she noticed that the needle for the left cylinder-head
pressure failed to respond. AE shut down the motors. The left Wasp
would have to be checked.

Bo McKneely scurried up a ladder, removed the cowling, and quickly
spotted the trouble. It was a broken lead to the thermocouple--a
thermometer coupled to one of the cylinders. AE and Noonan rejoined GP
and his son David on the ramp, while McKneely resoldered the lead. The
sun edged over the gray line on the horizon.

As Bo McKneely replaced the engine cowling, AE and Fred remounted the
wing on either side and again climbed into the cockpit. GP, climbing
up after Amelia, leaned in to bid his wife good-by. It was their last
farewell.

Amelia slid the hatch shut, started the engines, and signaled for the
chocks to be pulled from the wheels. She taxied to the southeast corner
of the field and turned into the take-off runway. At 5:56 A.M. the
Electra broke from the ground, bound for California by the longest way
possible. The last flight was on.

The Lockheed climbed slowly to cruising altitude, then swung southeast
to the course for Puerto Rico, the first stop. Amelia, settling back in
her seat, looked out under the left wing. The blue waters of the Gulf
Stream shaded into the green off the coast; against the light ocean
floor, fish flitted darkly.

Shortly after six o’clock she tuned in on Miami’s WQAM to find out what
weather conditions were ahead on course. She heard, in addition, a
breath-taking account of her own take-off. Such a dramatic rendering,
Amelia reflected, would awaken any man. She turned to Fred in the right
seat. They laughed aloud.

The sea was misty against the rising sun, and clouds swiftly scudded by
under the wings. Then she saw the great reef that was the Bahama Banks
loom into view, followed by the bright green tapestry of Andros Island.
Fred had crawled over the catwalk back to the navigation room.

Amelia locked in the Sperry automatic pilot, then from a brief case
took out her logbook--a secretary’s dictation pad. She jotted down
fleeting impressions: “... little rocks and reefs just poke their heads
above the water. So few lighthouses in this mess ... trees in black
silhouette against the burnished sun path.... The shadows of clouds
(white clouds in the blue sky) are like giant flowers, dark on the
green sea ... curtains of rain clouds aloft....”

Layers of cumulus clouds built up and sandwiched the Electra between
them. Amelia nosed down to 1,000 feet and caught the sun again off to
the left. Fred Noonan had estimated the time of arrival at San Juan as
1:10 P.M.

Shortly after twelve o’clock Fred sent up a card clipped to the end of
the fishing pole. Amelia read: she was too far south of course. She
swung the plane into a corrected heading. Through the haze she could
not distinguish between sea and sky. She looked at the indicated air
speed: the needle pointed at 150 mph. She was nursing the engines for
the long trip.

Through the mist the island of Puerto Rico came into view. Amelia
followed the coast line to San Juan. As the Electra closed in on the
city, she spotted the airport and began her letdown for a landing.
She lowered flaps and gear and eased into a long glide into the wind.
Anchored off the near end of the runway was a four-masted schooner.
Amelia skipped over the masts and rounded out in a three-point
touchdown.

After she had taxied to the parking ramp, she suddenly realized that
she had forgotten to eat any of the sandwiches placed on board the
plane. Breakfast had been pre-dawn and 1,000 miles ago. She was hungry;
and from the abrupt release of tensions, tired.

Friends waiting at the airport came to the rescue: Mrs. Thomas
Rodenbaugh with food and Clara Livingston with rest. At the Livingston
plantation, twenty miles from town, Amelia turned in at eight o’clock.
The sound of the surf outside the window, “charm’d magic casements,
opening on the foam / of perilous seas,” surged over her and drowned
her in a deep sleep.

For the 3,000-mile stretch, south and east down the coast of South
America to Natal, there were only four satisfactory airports; between
them, the grim alternatives of ocean or jungle. The first stop was to
be Paramaribo, 1,000 miles away.

At four the next morning Amelia bounded out of bed, determined to make
a dawn take-off. But occasion conspired against her. Repair work on
the take-off runway would necessitate a shorter run to get airborne;
to get airborne, she would have to reduce the fuel load; to reduce the
fuel load, she would have to forego Paramaribo. She would have to push
through to another, closer stop.

“_Push through_,” she wrote. “Were always pushing through, hurrying on
our long way, trying to get to some other place instead of enjoying the
place we’d already got to.”

As she had skipped from place to place as a little girl, and from job
to job and interest to interest as a young woman, so now she skimmed
over the world to touch and go. “Sometime,” she said, realizing that
her schedule prevented long visits, “I hope to stay somewhere as long
as I like.”

By the time the Electra was ready for take-off the sun was in full view
above the horizon. The leg would have to be a short one; strong head
winds had been predicted. Once in the air Amelia watched the green
mountains of Puerto Rico change to white clouds and blue sea. From
8,000 feet the little clouds looked like white scrambled eggs. Far
into the distance, and dead ahead on course, the hazy outline of the
land mass of Venezuela came slowly into focus.

South America, the second of five continents to be flown over, was a
complex of densely timbered mountains, valleys of open plains, and
thickly tangled jungle. Amelia, looking at her first jungle, shuddered
at the thought of the Electra having to make a forced landing--“the
getting away would be worse than the getting down.”

Fortunately, Fred had flown the region many times before. He would get
them through. Such were the advantages of flying the Pan American route
with a former Pan American navigator.

A dirty red-brown river snaked through a mountain pass. Amelia followed
it inland to a town of red roofs and black oil tanks. It was Caripito.
The airport offered a long, paved runway. AE eased the Electra down.

They lunched at the hangar and stayed overnight at the home of Henry E.
Linam, general manager of Standard Oil for Venezuela.

The next morning--it was June 3--mountainous rain clouds hemmed in the
town. Determined to get on, Amelia plowed through them, then skirted
around them back to the coast. She climbed through showers to 8,000
feet and broke into the sunlight. The gray, dank world lay below.

AE pulled out her log and scribbled her sensations of the moment: “The
sun illumines mystic caves,” she scribbled on the pad, “or shows giant
cloud creatures mocking with lumpy paws the tiny man-made bird among
them.”

Over sea, jungle, and shore line Amelia played tag with the clouds.
From well out to sea she recognized off the right wing a muddy river
spilling into a wide dirty fan; together they formed the Nickerie River
and delta that separated British from Dutch Guiana. She turned inland
toward the coast; and rather than follow the coast in true Pan American
fashion, she now cut across Jungles. A strong head wind was reducing
her ground speed: she advanced the throttle to make a true air speed of
148 mph.

Another river cut across the course line. It was a curling thread of
silver with green beads of islands. Amelia spread the sectional map
across her knees. It should be the Surinam River, she concluded as she
ran her finger along the blue line on the map. Paramaribo must be 12
miles in from its mouth; and the airport, another 25 miles farther.
Alongside the river on the map a cross-hatched line indicated a
railroad. Instructions from Fred were to follow it; like Casey Jones,
Amelia did.

On either side of the railroad track were jungle and now and again rice
fields and mud huts. From the clothes swinging from the lines behind
the huts AE tried to determine the direction of the wind, but she was
too busy following the course of the river to get an accurate reading.
Expecting to find a small hacked-out clearing for a landing field, she
was delighted to find one of the best airport facilities she had ever
seen. Paramaribo had gone aviation-modern! A wind sock marked the wind
direction; strips of white cloth indicated the best landing strip;
smoke from a bonfire, set ablaze when her plane came into view, showed
the wind velocity. How thorough are the Dutch, Amelia thought, as she
began her letdown.

Amelia and Fred were hot and tired when they climbed out of the
Electra. Coffee, orange juice, and sandwiches were quickly provided.
Refreshed, they went to the Palace Hotel, one of Fred’s old Pan
American stopping-off places.

At the hotel pilot and navigator discussed possible delays from rain
and mud at the field. Amelia was eager to get on; Fred, calm and
stoical.

“It’s all a matter of comparison,” he said to her. “We’re impatient
about a day’s delay. That’s because that lost day’s flying might see
us across a continent or an ocean. But a swell way to learn patience,”
he assured her, recalling one incident in some twenty years of
sailing the seven seas, “is to try a tour of sailing-ship voyaging.
Back in 1910”--he stretched his long, slender body across a chair and
footstool--“I was on the bark _Compton_ which was then the largest
square-rigged ship under the English flag.”

Fred’s eyes crinkled at the corners into crow’s-feet as he smiled about
what he was going to say. “We were weather-bound for 152 days on a
voyage from the state of Washington, on the Pacific coast, to Ireland.
After nearly half a year on one vessel on one trip you become pretty
philosophical about the calendar.”

Amelia’s concerns about delay were somewhat alleviated by Fred’s
story, and, as she discovered the next morning when the day broke
clear, unfounded. Ceiling and visibility were unlimited, except for a
diaphanous mist that clung to the Surinam River. Happily they took off,
bound for Fortaleza in Brazil, to fly over 960 miles of jungle and 370
miles of ocean.

They had left Paramaribo too early to receive any weather reports; as a
result, what the weather would be like on course was strictly a matter
of wait and see. Amelia hoped she would not have to turn back: of all
possibilities, this would be the most exasperating.

The first of four projected crossings of the equator lay ahead.
Unbeknown to Amelia, Fred had planned appropriate ceremonies for the
occasion. He had set aside a thermos bottle full of cold water, and at
the right time he was going to crawl across the catwalk and pour the
water over her unsuspecting head. But Fred became so occupied with his
navigation that the Electra had winged across the zero line of latitude
before he could play his role of baptismal King Neptune. When Amelia
learned his plan she laughed in victory, but shuddered to think of the
next three crossings.

The broad banks of a long river wound through the jungle. It reminded
Amelia of the Mississippi, which she had flown over many times. This
South American cousin could only be the Amazon. Under the right wing
yellow and brown currents stretched out and in to the lower delta.
Like so many toothpicks, thousands of uprooted and broken tree trunks
flowed, gathered, and spread over the moving stream. The shadow of the
Electra skimmed over the surface.

Bragança, São Luís, Camocim: Amelia checked off on the map each city
as she passed over it. According to Fred’s dead reckoning--determining
position by speed in a given direction for a definite elapsed time--she
should soon be in sight of Fortaleza. He had given her ten hours to
make it.

She watched the preset chronometer on the instrument panel, and waited
for the steady jerks of the dial to click to the designated hour. She
then looked out to see if she could recognize any telltale signs below.
Just west of what she determined to be Cape Mucuripe she saw a light
brown strip of sand that formed an arc between the mountains and the
seacoast. She checked the map. It had to be her destination. Fortaleza
was the only city on such a topographical boomerang. Fred had hit it on
the nose!

The airport was excellent; and when Pan American put all their
facilities at her disposal, Amelia decided to ready the plane there
for the South Atlantic hop to Africa, rather than at Natal, her actual
point of departure.

The Electra underwent a complete inspection: oil change, greasing,
instrument check, engine overhaul, scrubdown and washing. Amelia and
Fred, after a week of traveling, felt for themselves a similar need
for cleaning and overhaul. AE’s one-suitcase wardrobe contained few
duplicates. There was much laundry to be done.

They stayed at the Excelsior Hotel. Amelia’s room looked out over
red-tiled roofs to the sea. She sat in the cool breeze from the open
window, pulled the chair up closer to the desk, and addressed a letter
to GP. She chuckled as she wrote:

“The hotel people naïvely put F.N. and me in the same room. They were
surprised when we both countermanded the arrangements!... For a female
to be traveling as I do evidently is a matter of puzzlement to her
sheltered sisters hereabout, not to mention the males. I’m stared at in
the streets. I feel they think, ‘Oh, well, she’s American and they’re
all crazy.’”

The city of Fortaleza for Amelia was a remarkable study in contrasts.
As she explored and shopped, she stopped to notice the carts and
donkeys that clogged the streets along with busses, streetcars, and
automobiles; the women carrying loads on their heads, as they walked
past up-to-date shops; old decrepit buildings standing next to the most
modern examples of architecture; and down along the shore primitive
catamaran fishing vessels setting sail, while airplanes roared overhead.

The next day, while the mechanics continued to work on the plane,
Amelia and Fred set things in order. They repacked gear, sent used
maps, gifts, and souvenirs back home, and washed the cloth covers for
the engines and propellers.

That night AE lay on her bed and tried to relax from the day’s
work, the weeks of flying, the hours of anxiety, the months of
tense preparation that had gone into the flight. Her leg jumped as
muscle tensions eased. On the tile roofs outside rain began to fall
and splatter. It became a tropical downpour, sudden, heavy, and
unremitting--like the ones she had known in Honolulu. She feared the
Fortaleza airport might turn into a sea of mud. Luckily, the hop to
Natal was short, and the fuel load would be light. The Electra should
be able to get off. Amelia turned her head into her pillow and fell off
to sleep. There was no need to worry. Even in blackest times sleep was
a gift she cherished.

At four fifty the next morning they were off for Natal; fortunately the
field had drained beautifully, and the runway was more than adequate
for take-off. Natal was only two hours away, and they hoped to get an
early start across the South Atlantic. Off the left wing and far out to
sea rain squalls chased black clouds. Amelia set the automatic pilot
and pulled out her log.

She wrote, then crossed out what she had written, then started to write
again. This did not seem to be a day for composition:

Par One

==Last night was not long enough for two tired fliers.==

==Despite going to bed immediately after==

==Fr== Fred Noonan and I rolled out of bed at three

forty-five after an incredi

It shines on the engine cowls and into the cockpit

Have cover for radios

Get clock I can see at night

Check props

Amelia put down her pencil and looked out to watch the progress of the
black squall line out at sea. It was moving closer. She would have to
race it in.

Down along the edge of the coast and on a tip of land the Natal airport
was unmistakable. The long intersecting runways were a sure landmark.
Amelia nosed the plane down and dived for the field. The rain squall
was right behind her.

The Electra was just rolling to a stop and turning into the taxiway
when it hit. Long whips of rain lashed the wings and cracked along the
fuselage. AE stopped; she could not see out ahead from the cockpit far
enough to taxi any farther: the rain relentlessly hit, spread, and
streamed down the windshield.

From the hangar along the parking ramp mechanics noticed the
difficulty. They rushed out to the Lockheed and pushed the plane up to
the ramp and into the hangar. Once inside, Amelia felt guiltily dry
as she watched the rain gather in small puddles about the feet of the
mechanics. They were soaked to the skin.

To cross the South Atlantic from Natal, AE deferred to the experience
of the French. She checked with the crew of the next plane scheduled
to leave on the flight across. They told her they preferred to leave
very early in the morning, because the worst weather could be expected
during the first 800 miles. Amelia decided to leave very early in the
morning--soon after midnight. If weather prevented then, they would
leave the next afternoon and fly all night to make an African landfall
in the morning.

At three fifteen on the morning of June 7 the Electra stood ready for
the take-off. Amelia fretted: the only runway marked by lights in the
black night could not be used because of a strong cross wind. For an
upwind take-off the run would have to be made across a grass field.
Flashlights in hand, Amelia and Fred walked in the grass, looking for
obstructions and for any landmarks that could serve as guides.

The Electra came through splendidly; as it had so often before, it
sprang easily into the air.

In the blackness of the night, inside the cockpit the instrument
panel glowed. A glimpse at the bright dials pointing at the correct
numbers cheered Amelia. She flew by the instruments she believed in,
had learned to believe in from experience. On such a night it was the
only way. And it was up to Fred in the navigation room to pass up the
right headings to fly by. This was her third crossing of the Atlantic,
she reflected happily; Africa, her third continent to be spanned, and
her second leap over the equator. She hoped Fred was again too busy to
think about dousing her with water.

For the first half of the 1,900 miles across the ocean the Electra
bucked head winds averaging 20 miles in velocity. AE set the throttles
ahead just far enough to average a ground speed of 150 mph. The dial of
the indicated air speed inched forward to 170. She wanted to nurse the
engines, whatever the wind and weather, for the long, hard pull around
the world.

Ahead she noticed jagged mountains of clouds building up with towering
peaks, and below them dark downward-streaking geysers of rain. There
was no way around them. She would have to plow through.

The rain was hard and heavy. Mixed with oil from the propellers, it
spattered and smeared brown and black against the windshield. Amelia
could feel the weight of the rain on the wings against the pressure of
the wheel in her hands. The Electra buffeted and surged in alternating
downdrafts and updrafts. Then, as suddenly as the thunderstorm had hit,
she was through it.

At six forty-five she crossed the equator and reported her position to
Natal radio. At six fifty the left engine, then the right, started to
miss, then to catch again. Too much oil, Amelia guessed. She looked out
to the left and saw a plane streaking across the sky. It was an Air
France plane. She would have liked to talk with it, but she knew it had
only telegraphic key, and she in the cockpit only voice telephone. The
Electra’s key for transmitting code was back in the navigation room
with Fred; and even if she shouted back at him, he could not hear her
over the noise of the engines. With all its modern devices, the “flying
laboratory” lacked an intercom between pilot and navigator.

Locking in the auto pilot, she placed the stenographer’s pad on her
knee. She scrawled hastily: “Gas fumes in plane from fueling made me
sick again this morning after starting. Stomach getting weak, I guess.”
Then she added later: “Have tried getting something on radio. No go.
Rain, static. Have never seen such rain. Props a blur in it.” Fred had
crawled up from in back to sit in the right seat. “Fred dozes,” she
observed. “I never seem to get sleepy flying. Often tired but seldom
sleepy.”

Fred stirred, woke up, and looked about. He got up from the seat and
crawled back to the navigation room to see if he could get a fix. The
haze was too thick. He studied his other instruments, then made an
estimate. He jotted on a card:

3:36 change to 36°
Estimate 79 miles to
Dakar from 3:36 P.M.

then sent it up ahead to Amelia. She read it, shook her head, then
added at the bottom in pencil:

What put us north?

Amelia disregarded the advice of her navigator. Although Fred’s
directions indicated a turn to the right, she turned left: it seemed
better to her.

Forty-five minutes later she found herself over St. Louis. She was
north instead of south, and 163 miles off course to Dakar! She decided
to let down and make a landing. It was too late to turn around and go
back.

To hit a continent, such a refusal to follow directions was of no grave
consequence; to hit an island, however, it could prove fatal.

The flight across the South Atlantic, Amelia was careful to note,
took thirteen hours and twelve minutes. That was one hour and sixteen
minutes less than it had taken for the solo hop across the North
Atlantic.

4. _Africa to India_

Far from the customary skies was Africa and its smells. To Amelia’s
sensitive nostrils the aromas of South America had been the lush and
pleasant ones of fruit, fish, meat; in Dakar, as in St. Louis, the odor
was the strong one of people.

The big bare feet of the natives she found extraordinary. She walked
through the teeming streets, her eyes focused to the riot of color, her
ears tuned to the comic opera of sound. Splashes of bright yellow, red,
and green marked the native garments. The women wore Mother Hubbards
and slung their babies on their backs or held them at their breasts.
Amelia went over to one of the market stalls and bought a large bag of
freshly roasted peanuts, her only West African export.

At Dakar, the Electra was scrubbed and washed, oiled and greased; the
engines were given a forty-hour check, and a faulty fuel-flow meter was
repaired.

The flight so far had been over the charted Pan American route to Natal
and the Air France course to Dakar. Ahead, however, inland across
Africa, lay regions rarely, if ever, flown over. Exactly what course
they would fly, pilot and navigator were undecided. But they would
have to leave soon, for tornadoes to the south and sandstorms to the
north had been predicted. They would have to find a way somewhere in
between.

The schedule for crossing Africa was a strenuous one. It meant flying
the distance of 4,350 miles in at least four separate legs--a daily
flight, in comparison, from New York to St. Louis. Where neither pilot
nor aircraft was replaced, or replaceable, and this fact coupled with
the thousands of miles that lay behind and ahead for the same pilot and
plane, the flight became an ordeal of endurance and courage.

Amelia carefully studied the situation: the navigation aids were only
two--contact and celestial. She could fly contact by following her
map and identifying landmarks with the corresponding symbols on the
sectional; but the African maps were pitifully inadequate, even when
supplemented with pilot reports at each stop on the way. There were no
radio beams to home in on, nor were there any lights at the landing
fields they planned to stop at for refueling. For Fred, although he
could, if it were clear, make position fixes from the sun and the
stars, navigating over Africa was more difficult than finding his way
over any ocean.

“Our flights over the desert,” Fred wrote to his bride of one month,
“were more difficult than over water. That was because the maps of the
country are very inaccurate and consequently extremely misleading. In
fact, at points no dependence at all could be placed on them. Also
recognizable landmarks are few and far between, one part of the desert
being as much like another as two peas in a pod. However, we were
lucky in always reaching our objectives. In all the distance I don’t
think we wandered off the course for half an hour, although there were
times when I wouldn’t have bet a nickel on the accuracy of our assumed
position.”

Despite the difficulties Amelia blithely set out. They would push
through somehow: there were, after all, countless places for an
emergency landing if anything went wrong or if they lost their way.

On the morning of June 10 they took off just before six o’clock. The
course was due east over the Senegal and Niger to the Sudan. Some 1,140
miles, seventeen hours, and fifty minutes later they sighted the upper
reaches of the Niger River and landed at Gao. There the ubiquitous
gasoline drums marked “Amelia Earhart” awaited them like squat silent
sentinels. The months of planning in spotting the fuel were reaping
their rewards. George, to Amelia’s soaring satisfaction, had done his
job well. The rest was up to her.

The next leg was 1,000 miles long. The following morning, again before
dawn, they left Gao for Fort-Lamy, flying over the Niger River for 170
miles then crossing endless stretches of barren desert land to Zinder.
Then below lay spread out the broad valley of the Yobe River with its
long brown tendrils and sprawling swamps. Now in the shifting pattern
of land and water, for as far as her eyes could see, Amelia watched
Lake Chad come into full view. She ran her eye over the shining surface
but was unable to find any shore lines. Islands in the great lake had
in outline the shapes of fantastic creatures out of storyland, with
large fat paws and broad flattened heads.

As a little girl in Atchison, Amelia would climb into the old buggy in
the barn with her sister Muriel and her cousins, the Challisses, and
lead expeditions to imaginary lands. The map of Africa had been her
favorite. Names such as Timbuktu, Senegal, Khartoum had stirred her
dreams.

For Amelia in the cockpit of her own plane, the world of her childhood
imagination was coming to life. Yet she missed seeing Timbuktu. If she
had known about it beforehand, she could have visited the fabled town,
for it lay but 400 miles up the Niger River from Gao. But the pressure
of having to meet her schedule prevented the side trip. Someday, Amelia
kept telling herself, she would return and make a leisurely trip, when
she had time really to see and do.

Cranes, maribou storks, blue herons abounded about Lake Chad, as did
many other birds she could not identify. She watched the shadow of
the Electra, like a strange black flying fish, glide over the surface
of the water. Once across the shore and over jungle, she looked for
the elephants and crocodiles which had meant Africa to her ever since
she had been a little girl in bloomers, but she could see none. Yet
through the haze that now began to rise from the hot land like steam
from a kettle she caught now and again the sight of a hippopotamus. The
cockpit became hot and stuffy, and Amelia opened the windshield for a
breath of outside air.

According to the pattern of early take-offs and landings for the
African hops, it was just before noon when they approached Fort-Lamy
for a stopover. The sun was high; its rays direct and glaring. As she
came in on a long glide for the touchdown, Amelia held the throttles
more forward than was usual: she needed a faster landing speed to
compensate for the thin, hot air with its weak lifting power on the
wings. Thick beads of sweat bubbled, broke, and ran down her face and
neck. Her eyes smarted from the sting of the salt and she tried to
blink the drops of sweat away. Her hands were wet and slippery on the
wheel and throttles, and quickly she brought back one hand then the
other to rub it dry against the leg of her trousers.

The Electra rolled swiftly over the ground. Gently Amelia touched the
brakes until her plane came to a stop. Hoping for cooler air, she
slid back the cockpit hatch. The inside of the plane was like an oven
turned up to broil, but the hot outside air only added more heat to
it. Quickly she taxied the plane and parked it. The bright metal wings
sizzled in the sun; AE climbed out of the cockpit, skipped on tiptoe
over the hot metal, and jumped to the ground. Fred swung open the door
of the fuselage and climbed out. Pilot and navigator looked at each
other: they were soaking wet, each separately chafing at the neck and
waist from collar and belt. Amelia removed the kerchief from about her
neck and wiped her face dry. She looked at the Electra: it sagged at
one wing. The oleo strut of the left landing gear had just collapsed.

The landing gear was not repaired until 1:30 P.M. the next day.
Because the heat was well over 100° AE and Fred decided to make that
day’s hop a short one. They flew to El Fasher, only a few hours away.
Fortunately, there was a strong tail wind, but Amelia felt as if she
were riding a bucking bronco. The heat from the hot, dry sands below
rose in strong convection currents that buffeted and pitched the
Electra like a ship in a rolling sea. Fred felt as if he were back to
his days of sailing ships. They were both happy to get to El Fasher,
but not for long. When they crawled out of the plane, men with guns
were waiting for them--disinfecting guns. As a health measure, pilot,
navigator, and plane had to be thoroughly sprayed. Amelia and Fred
submitted and squirmed.

One day at El Fasher was enough. Although the next day was Sunday, it
was not a day for rest or prayer. The thirteenth of June, like any
other day on the schedule, was marked for a flight, this one into the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to Khartoum.

The land flown over was for Amelia the bleakest and most desolate in
all of Africa. There were no rivers, no native villages, not even one
identifying contour line on the map. As far as Amelia could stretch her
hand over the course line there was blank space beneath.

Unable to fly by contact, she locked in the auto pilot and studied the
romantic-sounding names on the map. Qala-en Hahl, Umm Shinayshin, Abu
Seid, Idd el Bashir, Fazi, Marabia Abu Fas: as she pronounced them,
each in turn rolled from her lips and tongue in twisted vowels and
consonants. What wonderful sticklers they would make for crossword
puzzles!

As they approached Khartoum, Amelia was struck by the orderly way in
which the city was laid out. She learned later that Kitchener had used
the Union Jack for the blueprint. The city was situated on the banks of
the Nile, 1,350 miles south of Cairo and several hundred miles west of
the Red Sea. They remained in Khartoum for only two hours, time enough
to refuel but not time enough for any sight-seeing.

From Khartoum they set out for Massaua, in Italy’s Eritrea. From
above AE noticed an occasional grouping of colorfully striped tents;
they marked stopping places along the endless camel trails across the
desert. The blowing wind wrinkled and scalloped the waste of land.

Two hundred miles out the Electra bisected the Atbara River. Across
the river sandy plains gently rose to foothills, the foothills to lush
green mountains. As it approached the foothills, the plane hit bumpy,
contrary air currents. The flow of air coursing down the slopes of
the mountains tangled with the strong convection currents rising from
the ground. Amelia fought to hold her plane steady, but it pitched
and tossed. She added throttle and climbed to 10,000 feet, but the
buffeting continued. To the left and about 3,000 feet below her wing
she caught sight of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea; to the right, a
range of peaks that towered to 14,000 feet. She weaved in and out and
across to the other side. The eastern slopes came suddenly; sharp and
abrupt, they angled quickly down into a broad, flat, sweeping valley.
For the next 30 miles the land continued flat all the way to the Red
Sea.

As she had found the Blue Nile and the White Nile to be neither blue
nor white, but green, so now Amelia discovered the Red Sea not to be
red, but blue. She was gradually seeing the world, or at least its
rivers, in its true colors. She lowered flaps and landing gear and
began her letdown.

Standing at the end of a bay formed by two coral islands and the
mainland was Massaua. Late-afternoon shadows lengthened over the port.
Mounds of salt about the town, like sand dunes she had seen at Cape
Cod, glittered in the slanting rays of the sun. Two small clipper
ships, some freighters, and countless other smaller craft rode the tide
in the harbor.

After she had landed, Amelia soon discovered why Massaua was one of
the world’s great exporters of salt. The blistering sun, causing
temperatures often in excess of 120°, could evaporate hundreds of
gallons of salt water in pans set out along the shore and leave thick
layers of salt.

Amelia had forgotten to eat, as she had done so often before during
these daily flights. She was starved for food; she felt “as hollow as a
bamboo horse,” she said to one of the Italian officers who had greeted
her when she arrived. The officer did not know how to translate the
remark for his bewildered colleagues, but he understood her meaning,
laughed, and nodded. Food had been prepared for them.

To prepare for the long flight across Arabia--it was a distance equal
to the one she had flown over the South Atlantic--Amelia now flew the
Electra 335 miles south and east down the coast of Eritrea to Assab,
where the runways were longer and where a large number of gasoline
drums had been stored for her.

The next morning, and well before daybreak from across the Red Sea in
Arabia, they left Assab. It was June 15. Their destination, Karachi,
India, lay 1,920 miles away. The flight would have to be non-stop, as
the Arabian authorities had forbidden the Electra to land in their
country; in fact, they had even refused the right to fly over their
country. And, Amelia reflected, from what little she saw of it, their
country was as forbidding as their refusals.

One hour and fifteen minutes after take-off they had passed over the
southern entry to the Red Sea and had reached the English possession
of Aden. From Aden, Amelia snaked a course along the southern Arabian
coast. Flying at an altitude of 8,000 feet, she could see the blue of
the Arabian Sea and the abomination of desolation which was the shore.
Beyond the coastal mountains stretched the bare and endless sands of
the desert. Of all places to make an emergency landing, Amelia thought,
this was the worst. She reached into the cubbyhole to the right and
behind her, and pulled out her Arabian credentials. “To Whom It May
Concern” they began. Amelia hoped they would never have to concern
anyone, because among other things the credentials begged for clemency
for the fliers in the event they went down. AE wondered what would
happen if she and Fred encountered the wrong nomadic tribe.

Amelia glanced at her instruments, then her eye stopped at the fuel
gauges. The left engine seemed to be using too much gasoline. She
reached for the mixture-control lever to lean out the fuel. The lever
would not move; it was jammed. AE quickly analyzed the possibilities of
a forced landing: neither the Arabian Sea nor desert was inviting, nor
did she want to try to make it back to Assab; they would have to try to
push through to Karachi. She eased back on both throttles.

Ahead was the Gulf of Oman, and across the gulf, Gwadar. At Gwadar she
looked at the chronometer; it was five o’clock. Karachi was only two
hours away. She hoped that by flying at a lower rpm she might make it.

The fuel supply lasted. When they reached Karachi, the chronometer for
elapsed time since take-off had clicked off thirteen hours and ten
minutes. It had been one of their longest flights. Weary, AE walked
away from the plane.

“There’s a phone call for you,” someone said to her.

“Oh, yes,” Amelia answered flatly. Probably some newspaperman, she
thought.

“It’s from New York. Mr. Putnam is on the wire.”

AE rushed inside to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

“How do you feel?” GP asked from 8,000 miles away.

“Fine. A little tired, perhaps.” The connection was good.

“How’s the ship?”

“Everything seems O.K. There’s been a little trouble with the fuel-flow
meter and analyzer, but I think they’ll cure that here.”

“How’s Fred?”

“Fine....”

“Having a good time?” George asked.

“Oh, yes,” AE answered. “It’s been very worth while. We’ll do it again,
together, some time.”

“O.K. with me. Anything else?”

“Well, I’ll cable tomorrow an estimate of when we should get to
Howland. Good-by.... See you in Oakland.”

Amelia hung up the telephone and walked away slowly. GP was a most
considerate and understanding husband, and when their friends had their
little jokes about George’s role as the “forgotten husband,” he was
always good-humored. After the Atlantic flight, she remembered, her
Unknown Husband was decorated. Friends and well-wishers had gathered
in her hotel suite in New York. The rooms were crowded with floral
bouquets of congratulations.

A woman friend of AE’s went from bouquet to bouquet untying ribbons of
various colors, and from them she fashioned a rosette. She walked over
to George, who was sitting in one of the easy chairs.

“Stand up, husband!” the woman said. The husband obliged. She fastened
the decoration to the lapel of GP’s coat. “For distinguished service in
self-effacement beyond the line of marital duty, I hereby bestow upon
you the ‘Order of the Forgotten Husband.’”

A flash of laughter cracked across the room. GP smiled uneasily, then
laughed with the others.

“And,” added AE from the side line of spectators, “for having a sense
of humor, too.”

Then, later, he organized other forgotten husbands of women fliers into
the Forty-Nine Point Five Club. The women had formed an international
organization of licensed women pilots and called themselves the
Ninety-Nines. AE was the first president of the group. Not to be
outdone, GP proposed a new trophy from the 49.5’s. It was an endurance
prize to be awarded to the first wife who stayed home the longest. The
trophy: a cut-glass baby bottle with crossed silver safety pins. The
award was never made. There was no one who qualified.

Amelia kicked up the dust at Karachi as she remembered the telephone
conversation with GP. Certainly she had never qualified for the trophy,
but she would give it an honest try if she ever got home from this long
trip. There was another continent to fly over, and another after that;
not to mention the Pacific Ocean, which was more than equal to both of
them put together.

For the present, however, the chance to ride a camel could not be
foregone. Amelia and Fred rose to the occasion--literally. The way
the camel swung up from the ground, nose-diving forward then lurching
backward, Amelia, ensconced between the humps, felt as if she were
going into a flat spin.

“Better wear your parachute,” Fred called over to her.

After the ride, or rather the swing aloft from extended rubber pads,
AE went to the post office to have the “covers” canceled for her
subscribing philatelists back home.

Out at the airport, the largest AE had ever seen, mechanics from
Imperial Airways worked around the clock getting the Electra back into
top-flight condition. Two instrument specialists on loan from the Royal
Air Force repaired the troublesome fuel-flow indicator and the jammed
mixture-control lever.

5. _India to Australia_

Two days later, on June 17, the Electra was pronounced ready; and on
that same day they left Karachi for Calcutta, 1,390 miles directly
across India to its eastern border.

Shortly after take-off low clouds formed and sped by beneath the wings
but were soon outrun. The waves of sand of the Sind Desert now whipped
into little whirlpools; then, driven by a strong wind from the south,
they became a sandstorm of unabated fury. Amelia climbed higher in
escape.

Ahead there was no storm, and she could see ridges that grew from
the ground rising to foothills and then to mountains. They were like
“sharks poking their backs through a yellow sea.”

Over Central India aids to contact flying became a surfeit of plenty:
well-mapped railroads, rivers, and mountains were easily identified. By
such landmarks her way was made easy.

But it was not so in the air. Large black eagles dived out of the sky
toward the Electra. They soared and swung and spun about the plane,
giving Amelia many moments of fretful anxiety. If they flew into the
propellers, they would be chopped into bird-and-feather burger which
could choke off the Wasp engines. That she missed them was a miracle of
purblind fate and wide-eyed flying.

Below, the mountains had descended into plains. Mosaics in neat squares
of brown, green, and gold were laid out as if on a vast floor, the
squares joined by silver-and-gold inlay that reflected the sky and the
sun.

In the distance the Ganges River sparkled, and beside it the city of
Allahabad stood out against the white brightness of the encircling
countryside. Beyond the city mountains green with luxuriant growth rose
sharply into towering magnificence. Rainstorms engulfed the peaks.
Amelia plowed through.

Air currents from off the mountains lifted the Electra an added 1,000
feet into the air. AE jammed the control column forward, trying to hold
down the nose of the plane. Sheets of rain smashed down on wings and
fuselage and lashed back from the props against the cockpit windows.

Once over the tops, the mountains quickly became plains that would
continue for the next hundred miles all the way to Calcutta. Low clouds
now scudded by and the weather cleared, revealing a quilted patchwork
of gray, green, and tan rice fields.

More towns and an increasing number of railroads indicated that a big
city was at hand. AE watched factories and mills and many villages grow
thicker as she approached the heart of the city.

Harbor, docks, many intersecting streets, and countless white buildings
bright in the sun: these were Calcutta. As she reached Dum Dum airport,
another squall line moved in and broke across the Electra just as
Amelia began her letdown for a landing. Rolling down the runway the
plane sent up sheets of spray. Then as suddenly as it had begun, the
rain stopped, and the sun shone as before. It was 4:00 P.M.

Four hours later Amelia was sound asleep. The long, hard flight had
exhausted her; her eyes, tired and sore from the constant strain of
watching ground, wings, and instruments, had closed as if from an
involuntary reflex action.

Because of the Honolulu crack-up and the consequent change in plans
that turned the flight to a west-to-east crossing at the equator, the
monsoon season, which they had hoped earlier to escape, was now upon
them. For India, it meant that the winds, beginning in June, would
sweep in from the Indian Ocean in the southwest, carrying with them
rains heavy, violent, and destructive. For the Electra, it meant cross
winds and downpours, for its course lay directly in the path of the
monsoon. For Amelia, it meant one of the supreme tests of her skill,
courage, and endurance.

During that night of June 17 the monsoons began. When Amelia and Fred
reached the airport in the morning, the ground was wet and soggy. A
take-off would be risky at best; but the forecast was for more rain,
which would make a take-off impossible. Amelia decided to chance the
risky.

She revved up the engines. Slowly, as she added throttle, the Electra
began to roll and gain speed. Tail up and at full power, the plane
sloshed through the mud and strained to become airborne. The end of
the runway loomed ahead; in a desperate move, AE pulled back sharply
on the control column. The Electra broke from the mud, then began to
settle, but finally held. Amelia pulled up the gear; the wheels, still
spinning and slinging mud, rose into the wells. As the plane rose in a
steep climb, the underside of the wings and fuselage just cleared the
treetops at the edge of the field. The Lockheed had done it again.

Difficult and dangerous as it was, the take-off was but the beginning.
The worst was yet to come. The sky was a dull metallic gray, and in it
leaden clouds heavy with rain crowded about the plane. AE felt that
they were grim harbingers.

Through occasional holes in the clouds Amelia saw scattered chunks
of land that looked like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They marked the
mouths of the Ganges. From the hot land, steam rose as if from a giant
cauldron. In a constantly moving pageant, rice fields dotted with
workers, grass houses, and green trees sped by.

The weather clearing ahead, Amelia recognized the two unmistakable
landmarks of Akyab: two golden pagodas and many volcanic islands.
Beyond the city was the airfield with two runways and one hangar. She
wanted to refuel and push on to Rangoon that same day, but the monsoon
proved a superior foe.

At Akyab, while the Electra was being refueled, AE checked the weather
reports for the way ahead. They were dire and discouraging. Amelia
decided she would have to try to get through somehow.

No sooner had she leveled off from her climb out of take-off, and
turned into her course heading, than a head wind, full of rain, hit
the Electra squarely on the nose. It was the heaviest rain Amelia had
ever seen. Sheet after sheet, thick and concentrated like shovelfuls of
gravel, flung back from the props and slapped against the windshield.
The Electra heaved and churned through wave after wave, through wall
after wall of water. Amelia could not see out from the cockpit and had
to fall back completely upon her instruments.

For two hours she pitted herself and her plane against the storm,
trying to break through the monsoon. Finally exhausted, her legs and
arms heavy as lead from fighting stick and rudders, she relented, and
retreated from the encounter. Reluctantly, she turned out to sea, nosed
down to the tops of the waves, and headed back to Akyab.

For her navigator Amelia had nothing but praise. “By uncanny powers,”
she wrote later, “Fred Noonan managed to navigate us back to the
airport, without being able to see anything but the waves beneath the
plane.”

When they returned to Akyab, the weatherman at the airport told them
that the weather would probably not improve for three months. Amelia
wondered if she and Fred would not have to set up light housekeeping
and wait things out. She talked things over with him. They decided that
they would try again.

The next day, the nineteenth, they set out, hoping this time to reach
Bangkok in Siam. Amelia, quickly realizing that yesterday’s tactics of
trying to fly under the monsoon would not work again, now climbed to
8,000 feet, hoping to top the mountains and somehow plow through. She
was determined to make it.

She set her eyes on her instruments and flew her plane blind. Through
the tossing and pitching of the plane and the pounding of the rain she
brought the Electra through. She worked her legs constantly, trying to
hold the rudders. Hands gripped to the wheel, her arms pressed forward
then pulled back on the control column; the plane now rolled left,
now right. Her legs and arms began to ache and then to stiffen as she
fought to keep the nose up, the wings straight and level.

The instruments were her only guide, her only hope. She flew the
little yellow plane on the artificial horizon before her, and held the
pointer on the compass heading by flying the needle and ball of the
turn and bank indicator. Never far from her right hand were the engine
throttles, set evenly forward and registering 150 mph in the white
quadrant of the air-speed indicator. Out of the corner of her eye she
kept constant check on the altimeter and the rate of climb. Again for
two hours she worked and sweated and fought.

She broke out into the clear, the victor. Below her were plains,
brilliant in the morning sun. She pressed back in her seat and heaved a
heavy sigh. It was a blessed relief to see the earth again. Through the
plains meandered the Irrawaddy River.

Clouds appeared again; and Amelia, carefully choosing the openings
of light among them, skillfully skirted her plane this way and that
between them for the next 50 miles.

Far in the distance, about twenty miles in from the sea and near a wide
river, she saw a great golden pagoda pointing brightly above the dark
shadows of a city. It was the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, AE quickly determined
from her map, and that meant Rangoon. She grinned happily: she was dead
on course.

They landed to refuel and with the intention of leaving immediately for
Bangkok. But the Electra had not rolled to a stop when a heavy downpour
engulfed the airport, making a take-off out of the question.

Amelia and Fred made the best of the delay by sight-seeing. The first
tour was a short motor trip on the road from Rangoon to Mandalay. The
fliers, in a sudden release from their tensions, could not restrain
themselves from singing snatches of Kipling’s “The Road to Mandalay,”
although they shuddered to think of the number of tourists who must
have done exactly the same thing on the same road.

After finishing the line--“Where the flying fishes play”--Amelia turned
to Fred.

“That’s it,” she said to him.

“What is?” Fred asked.

“_Flying_ fishes,” she answered. “See?” Amelia explained: “That’s what
aviators are--ought to be--if they’re silly enough to squash around
aloft at this season.”

Fred agreed. He had never known at sea storms like those of the last
two days.

They then went to see the golden Shwe Dagon Pagoda, the same that had
guided them into the city from the air. Fred refused to go inside, but
Amelia kicked off her shoes, climbed the long flight of steps to the
top entrance, and entered to see the many Buddhas and to watch the
white-robed men at their priestly tasks.

On the morning of June 20 they were off for Bangkok. They crossed the
upper half of the Gulf of Martaban to Moulmein, then flew across the
north-south range of mountains that marked the dividing line between
Burma and Siam. From the height of 8,000 feet Amelia looked out beyond
the right wing and back to Rangoon: like the prow of a ship, the city
divided the waters of the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea, creating
the wide Bay of Bengal on the right side and the smaller Gulf of
Martaban on the left.

Since take-off, clouds had begun to form. What had been gentle
sheep-backed formations far into the west now grew and changed into
forbidding anvil-shaped thunderheads; in the east, flanking the range
of mountains, clouds broke and scattered, baring to Amelia’s view green
foothills that gradually sloped and diminished into broad, thickly
snarled jungle. As she looked at the heavy undergrowth, Amelia hoped
she would never have to pancake the Electra anywhere below.

They cut across the Mae Klong River. In the distance were plains backed
up by mountains. Slowly a ragged outline on the horizon became the
sharp needle points of Buddhist temples and the peaked roofs of tiled
buildings. It was the city of Bangkok. Through the city AE could see
from above how the Mae Nam River continued its tortuous course from the
mountains in the north to the Gulf of Siam in the south.

Hoping to make Singapore before nightfall, they landed at Bangkok only
to refuel and be on their way again.

Back in the air, Amelia stretched the sectional map across her knees
and studied the way ahead. Singapore lay on an island to which pointed
the long 900-mile finger of the Malay Peninsula. To reach it, she would
have to cut across the Gulf of Siam, then proceed on a course east of
the Malay coast, and finally head directly south.

She looked out from the cockpit. The day was clear and the visibility
unlimited. She found it hard to believe that she was flying over the
fabled world she had so often set out for, riding the old buggy in
the Atchison barn, or lying on the floor in the parlor looking at one
of Grandfather Otis’s big geography books. She loved the sound of the
names, Siam and Cambodia, and she picked out others at random from the
map--Bang Saphan, Lem Tane, Koh Phratnog. Yet there were two of them
below: Siam to the right, Cambodia to the left.

Nevertheless, Amelia shook her head, as she had failed to see
Timbuktu, so had she missed seeing the famous Taj Mahal in Negra, which
had not been far off the Karachi-Allahabad leg. It, too, would have to
wait for another time. Now, there was too little time and too much to
see.

She now followed a valley across the mountains, then swung down the
western coast from Alor Star in Malay. The clouds over the peaks were
beginning to grow: cumulus into cumulo-nimbus, cumulo-nimbus into great
thunderheads.

A deep green jungle unfolded below, with an occasional scar that marked
the cut of a road across the undulating hills and flatlands.

After six hours of flying Amelia sighted Singapore. Letting down from
altitude, she passed over countless ships in the great sprawling
harbor, then continued over the vast city to the airport. At 5:25 P.M.
the Electra touched down.

Amelia and Fred had dinner with the American consul general and his
wife. After dinner the fliers begged to be excused, and turned in. At
3:00 A.M. they were up and on their way back to the airport, eager to
get on to their next stop, Java, which lay on the other side of a third
crossing of the equator. It was the morning of June 22.

The Electra soared into the air. Over the sea along the coast of
Sumatra, then across the southeast point of the island, Amelia guided
her plane into the world down under of the Southern Hemisphere.

In quick succession she noted the jungle and swamp of a long chain
of islands; then sudden and abrupt, the volcanic mountains of Java,
imperious and proud, which rose out of the mist to dominate the
surrounding sea below them. Like suckling pigs, tiny islands lay along
the mother shore for their nourishment.

Amelia landed at Bandung and taxied the plane to the hangar. According
to plan, the Electra was scheduled for a complete going over. The plane
in the hands of the mechanics, Amelia and Fred decided to get a closer
look down into one of the volcanoes they had flown over.

In a borrowed car they drove up the mountain to the rim of the crater
at 6,500 feet. For the first time on the long trip they felt a chill
and put on their flying jackets. The sulphur fumes from the volcano
were strong and sickening; they reminded Amelia of the strong gas fumes
in refueling that sometimes made her ill. Nevertheless, she could not
restrain herself from looking down into the crater. It was pointless to
drive to the top and not see what she had come to see. She bent over
the rim and looked down: a pool of bright green water glittered softly
hundreds of feet below.

At 3:45 the next morning, the twenty-fourth of June, Amelia and
Fred climbed into the Electra. They hoped to fly this day non-stop
to Australia. AE started the engines. She watched the instruments
closely as the needles moved up in response; then, as in Miami when
they first started out for the world flight, one of the important
engine instruments failed. Something had gone wrong; but without the
instrument operating correctly there was no point in proceeding.

It was not until two o’clock that afternoon that they heard they could
now move out. Because of the late start, they decided to fly only as
far as Surabaya, 350 miles away. On the way, what had been failure
of engine instrument for Amelia now became failure of navigation
instruments for Fred Noonan. He could not get his most important
long-range instruments to function properly. Reaching Surabaya, they
turned around and flew back to Bandung. To go on without aids for the
difficult navigation that lay ahead, especially over water, would make
the rest of the world flight extremely dangerous.

Before they left Surabaya to retrace their steps, AE was called to the
telephone. It was GP, calling from Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his United
plane was refueling before continuing on to California. George had
heard from Amelia that there had been some difficulty with the plane.

“Is everything about the ship O.K. now?” he asked.

Amelia, refusing to worry her husband concerning something he could do
nothing about, held back the truth.

“Yes,” she said abruptly; then softly added: “Good night, hon.”

“Good night,” GP answered. “I’ll be sitting in Oakland waiting for you.”

When the Electra landed in Bandung, Dutch technicians were hastily
called to work on the faulty navigation instruments. While they worked,
Amelia and Fred went sight-seeing in the close-by city of Batavia.

Pilot and navigator had made an agreement not to do any shopping;
they did not want to add any weight to the plane. Six pounds, they
reminded each other, equaled one gallon of fuel. But Amelia broke the
pact to buy a knife. She purchased it--a handmade sheath knife at a
metalworker’s shop--for her friend John Oliver La Gorce of the National
Geographic Society; she wanted him to add it to his extensive knife
collection. She jammed the knife under her belt. She wanted to carry it
all the way to Washington, D.C., and make an official presentation of
it to her friend.

It took two days to repair the Electra. On Sunday morning, June 27,
Amelia and Fred left Bandung, hoping again to reach Australia. But what
had been the conspiracy of instruments now became the conspiracy of
time. For every fifteen degrees of longitude crossed, they would lose
one hour; and the day would grow shorter the longer and farther they
flew east.

For this reason they had to land, after only five hours of flying, at
Koepang, on the island of Timor. The flight from Java to Timor had been
for Amelia an experience in extremes, as the lush tropics became arid
wastes--and rich abundance, monastic sparsity.

Except for a fuel shed at Koepang there were no other storage
facilities. Amelia and Fred pulled out the cloth covers from the back
of the fuselage and covered the props and engines. Then with the help
of some of the natives they turned the Electra into the wind and staked
it down to the ground.

The next morning, again before dawn, they climbed wearily into the
plane. The Electra rolled down the grass runway and jumped into the
air from the steep cliffs of the island. Over the Timor Sea the head
winds were strong, and it was not until three and a half hours later
that Amelia sighted the bright emerald sea on the northern coast of
Australia. They landed at Port Darwin.

Again, as it had happened before in arriving at a new country, Amelia
and Fred had to be fumigated. For the last time they stoically
submitted to the spray guns.

At Port Darwin they unloaded their parachutes and sent them home.
Over the Pacific a parachute would be of no use whatever. Gracefully
declining all invitations, Amelia and Fred parted for their separate
rooms to turn in early for much-needed rest. The next stop was Lae, New
Guinea, only a few hours away from Australia, but an eternity away from
home.

6. _New Guinea to Howland Island_

The flight from Port Darwin to Lae, on June 30, was a flight of seven
hours and forty-three minutes of the same day. The flight from Lae to
Howland Island, however, was a flight into yesterday. For Howland lay
one day earlier across the international date line. By the flight to
the other side of the 180° of longitude there was one day to be gained;
but to get to the great divide, there were two hours to be lost. And
two lives.

In March, before she had cracked up in the earlier try for Howland
from Hawaii, AE had written: “It is much better not to let fatigue of
any kind creep into the early part of any expedition, for it cannot be
eliminated later.”

Now she was weary and tired from a fatigue that could not be
eliminated. Twenty-two thousand miles of flying in only forty days had
taken its unremitting toll upon her and Fred.

Amelia wanted to be home by the Fourth of July and before her
thirty-ninth birthday on the twenty-fourth. She considered the
7,000 miles that lay before her and wrote in her logbook: “Whether
everything to be done can be done within this time limit remains to be
seen.” And before she left Lae to begin the longest leg of the world
flight--the 2,556 miles to Howland, she hastily scribbled: “I shall be
glad when we have the hazards of its navigation behind us.”

AE hoped that the old difficulties with the navigation instruments
that they had had at Surabaya would not return now to plague them on
the long over-water flight. For on the leg to Howland the aids to
navigation were limited.

The vast Pacific ruled out immediately the case for pilotage: except
for islands few and far between there were no landmarks she could
follow. The small size of Howland, for all practical purposes,
discouraged the time and distance plotting of dead reckoning. There
remained celestial navigation, with radio as an aid. For Amelia to be
able to hit her target, the weather would have to be clear enough for
Fred to be able to take his fixes from the stars at night and from the
sun during the day. Once over the ocean and more than 500 miles out she
would no longer be able to contact Lae by radio.

To get a radio bearing from Howland, she would have to fly all night
and never waver from her course until early the next morning. Then she
could home in on signals from the Coast Guard Cutter _Itasca_, which
lay anchored off Howland. With the Electra’s loop antenna and the
ability to receive from a strong sending station, she felt that her
chances were good.

Nevertheless, Amelia wished now that she had not ordered the 250-foot
trailing wire antenna to be removed from her plane before they left
Miami. Gladly on the long over-water leg that faced her would she go
through the trouble of reeling out and reeling in: if she had the long
antenna she would be able to contact and to receive from the _Itasca_
from distances much farther out than the loop antenna permitted.

And, as if in fateful conspiracy, Amelia did not know that there was
yet another aid to get to Howland. She did not know because no one had
told her. A high-frequency direction finder had been obtained from
the Navy and installed on the island of Howland; but neither Commander
W. K. Thompson of the _Itasca_ nor Richard B. Black, the field
representative of the Department of the Interior, had advised AE that
the direction finder had been set up to help her.

This lack of foresight and coordination was but the beginning of a
chain of incidents that linked finally to tragedy. Fred Noonan, in
trying to set his chronometers, found that he could not calibrate them
correctly because of radio difficulties on the Electra’s 50-watt set.
With his chronometers reading slow or fast, he knew he would not be
able to obtain accurate celestial fixes. An error of fifteen seconds
on the precision instruments would mean a mistake of one mile in his
position computations, and an error of one minute a mistake of four
miles.

Such position errors, taken into account in giving AE headings to fly
by, might add to the difficulties of the navigation. For a mistake of
one degree in following the compass could take them one mile off course
for every sixty miles flown, more than forty miles off course for the
Howland leg.

Despite these serious problems, Amelia set out to find in the 7,000
miles of the Pacific Ocean the small speck of land that was Howland
Island.

On July 1 the Electra stood poised several thousand feet from the
edge of the cliff that marked the end of the runway. The plane was
fully loaded with 1,150 gallons of gasoline, enough to fly under ideal
conditions the full range of 4,000 miles. A contrary wind, however,
which blew across rather than down the runway, coupled with an ominous
black squall line, conspired to keep the Electra earth-bound for the
day.

Amelia and Fred repacked the plane, discarding every scrap that was
not absolutely needed. AE kept the bare essentials needed for travel;
and Fred, a small tin case which he had picked up in Africa and which,
Amelia was careful to note, “still rattles, so it cannot be packed very
full.”

Restless and disappointed with the day’s delay, pilot and navigator
did more sight-seeing on the island, but with half a heart. They could
not wait to be off and homeward bound.

At ten o’clock the next morning--the second of July on Lae but the
first on Howland--the Electra roared down the 3,000 feet of runway. In
the cockpit Amelia watched the tachometer and the air-speed indicator:
the rpm dial moved forward, and the air-speed needle crossed the red
quadrant into the green, then across the green into the white. The
plane broke cleanly into the air 150 feet short of the edge of the
cliff that dropped to the sea. Amelia pulled up the gear and climbed to
8,000 feet, the cruising altitude.

She spread across her knees the sectional map prepared by Clarence S.
Williams. As usual, all the information was there. She noted the course
directions: a magnetic compass heading of 73°, later to change to 72°,
then to 71°.

If the Wasp engines would continue to purr, and if the navigation could
be correct, or not too far wrong, she would make it. She would be happy
when it was over. After 22,000 miles, thirty stops, nineteen countries,
five continents, and three crossings of the equator, and looking after
100 dials, gauges, and gadgets, and bucking wind, rain, thunderstorms,
and monsoons, she had become tired from strain and weary from the work,
not the pleasure, of flying.

The head winds were strong. A few hours out from New Britain and the
Solomon Islands, directly on course, Amelia radioed her position to
Lae. It was 5:20 P.M. Friday. They were, she said, at 4.33 South
Latitude and 159.6 East Longitude, 795 miles out from New Guinea, and
proceeding on course. Now, she hoped, if she could home in on the
_Itasca_ in the morning, getting home by way of Hawaii would be an easy
matter.

On the _Itasca_ preparations had been made and carried out with
Swiss-watch precision. Commander Thompson had set up his watches--two
men on the ship and one on the shore--and waited. The prearranged
radio frequencies were checked, the higher short wave and the lower
long wave. The limits of the Electra’s direction finder--the loop
antenna--were listed as 200 to 1,500 and 2,400 to 4,800 kilocycles.

Giving her call signals, KHAQQ, Amelia would report in on radio at
quarter past and quarter to each hour, as was her custom when possible
during the entire world flight. Her frequencies for transmitting were
6,210 kilocycles by day and 3,105 kilocycles by night. For telegraphic
code by key, Fred would use 500 kilocycles, the standard frequency used
by ships at sea.

On the hour and the half-hour the _Itasca_ would broadcast weather
reports and forecasts, and homing signals, on 3,105 kilocycles by voice
and 7,500 kilocycles by key.

At 6:30 P.M., Howland time, the first of July, the San Francisco
division of the Coast Guard notified the _Itasca_ that the Electra was
airborne. To make doubly sure that the ship’s radios were operating
correctly, the _Itasca_ tested signal strength with San Francisco,
then tried to contact the Electra. It was too early to establish
communication with the plane.

Listening at two receivers and a loud-speaker, in addition to officer
and enlisted members of the crew, were correspondents from the
Associated Press and the United Press, and the Interior Department’s
Richard Black, whom GP had asked to be his representative and the
coordinator for the flight. The _Itasca_ was standing by and ready.

12:04 A.M. The _Itasca_ transmitted by voice on 3,105 and by key on
7,500, trying to make contact; then keyed the homing signal, · --, the
dit dah of the letter A.

12:15 A.M. KHAQQ was not heard.

12:30 A.M. The ship sent out the weather, repeating twice each part
of the report: wind direction east, force 11 miles, partly cloudy,
visibility 20 miles, calm swell, direction east.

Checking against possible radio receiver difficulty, the _Itasca_ asked
Samoa if the cutter _Ontario_ had heard the Electra; the ship’s answer
was that it had not.

12:45 A.M. KHAQQ was not heard.

1:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent the weather on 7,500 kilocycles by key and
on 3,105 kilocycles by voice. The code was sent at a slowed-down ten
words per minute.

1:15 A.M. The _Itasca_ had not heard AE’s signals. The ship felt that
there was no cause for alarm, for the Electra was still about 1,000
miles out.

1:25 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Have not heard your signals yet; please
observe schedules with key; go ahead, am listening on 3,105 now.”

This transmission was not answered by Amelia.

1:45 A.M. KHAQQ not heard.

1:55 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent the weather on 7,500 kilocycles by key and
on 3,105 by voice.

2:15 A.M. KHAQQ not heard on 3,105 kilocycles.

2:45 A.M. Electra heard on 3,105, but the message was not completely
understood because of the static. AE’s voice, identified by Carey of AP
and Hanzlick of UP, was a low monotone. “Cloudy and overcast,” she had
reported; they were her only intelligible words.

The _Itasca_, having heard Amelia, however indistinctly, now tried to
establish communications with her. The attempt was unsuccessful. Again
checking its own signals, the cutter now broadcast to stations in the
vicinity; its messages were heard throughout the Pacific area.

3:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ reported the weather by key on 7,500 and by
voice on 3,105; wind direction east 8 miles per hour; clear, calm;
ceiling unlimited. Then by key the ship sent out the homing signal, the
dit dah of the letter A.

3:15 A.M. The Electra was not heard.

3:30 A.M. _Itasca_ weather report: Wind direction east, force 8 miles
per hour; clear visibility, 20 miles; calm swell, direction east;
ceiling unlimited.

Then by voice on 3,105: “What is your position? When do you expect
to reach Howland? _Itasca_ has heard your phone, go ahead on key.
Acknowledge this broadcast next schedule.”

3:45 A.M. AE reported in by voice: “_Itasca_ from Earhart.... _Itasca_
from Earhart.... Overcast.... Will listen on hour and half-hour on
3,105.... Will listen on hour and half on 3,105.”

4:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ again gave the weather, then asked: “What is
your position? When do you expect to arrive Howland? We are receiving
your signals; please acknowledge this message on your next schedule.”

4:15 A.M. AE not heard on 3,105.

4:55 A.M. The _Itasca_ heard AE. But her message was garbled and
unintelligible.

5:15 A.M. KHAQQ not heard on 3,105.

5:30 A.M. The ship sent the weather by key and voice; then by key on
7,500 kilocycles, a long line of dit dah’s.

5:45 A.M. AE not heard.

6:15 A.M. Amelia called in. She wanted a bearing on 3,105 kilocycles,
on the hour. She would whistle into her microphone, she said, so that
the Electra could get a bearing. She was about two hundred miles out,
she figured.

6:20 A.M. Commander Thompson called the watch on Howland Island and
told him to get a bearing with his direction finder on 3,105. AE’s
whistle went out; the attempt was a failure.

6:45 A.M. Amelia’s voice broke in; it was clear and strong. “Please
take a bearing on us,” she pleaded, “and report in half-hour. I will
make noise in microphone. About one hundred miles out.”

Her voice was on the air too briefly to allow sufficient time for the
Howland direction finder to take a bearing from it.

7:00 A.M. For the next fifteen minutes the _Itasca_ sent out the homing
signal, both on 3,105 and 7,500 kilocycles.

7:18 A.M. The _Itasca_ broadcast to AE by voice: “Cannot take bearing
on 3,105 very good [sic]. Please send on 500, or do you wish to take
bearing on us? Go ahead, please.”

There was no answer from Amelia.

7:19 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”

The message was not answered.

7:25 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Please go ahead on 3,105.”

There was no answer.

7:26 _A.M._ KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”

Again there was no answer from Amelia. The ship again sent out the A
homing signal.

7:30 _A.M._ KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Please acknowledge our signals on
key. Please.”

Again the request was unanswered.

7:42 _A.M._ Amelia broke in loud and clear. Her voice was high and
frantic. “We must be on you,” she said. “But cannot see you. But gas
is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at
altitude 1,000 feet.”

7:43 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Received your message, signal strength
5. Go ahead.”

Again the ship sent out the homing signal on 3,105 and then on 500
kilocycles.

7:49 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Your message O.K. Please acknowledge
with phone on 3,105.”

7:58 A.M. Amelia called in again. She obviously had not heard the
_Itasca_, for she failed to acknowledge the ship’s message. “KHAQQ
calling _Itasca_,” she reported in; again her voice was loud and clear.
“We are circling, but cannot hear you. Go ahead on 7,500 either now or
on schedule time of half-hour.”

8:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent out a long series of A’s on 7,500
kilocycles.

In response to the ship’s message, Amelia broke in: “We are receiving
your signals, but are unable to get a minimum [for a bearing]. Please
take a bearing on us and answer with voice on 3,105.”

The _Itasca_ probably could have taken an accurate bearing on her if
she had counted numbers rather than whistled. The whistling sound was
too much like static to be distinguished from it.

At 10:00 A.M. July 2, when Amelia had taken off from Lae, it was 12:00
noon, July 1, on Howland, two hours later but one day earlier. At 8:00
A.M. the next day, Howland time, she had been in the air for twenty
hours of elapsed time. If after adding throttle to compensate for head
winds she had averaged a ground speed of 142 mph over the distance of
2,556 miles, she should have been over Howland at the end of eighteen
hours. If she had averaged only 128 mph because of head winds, after
twenty hours she should have been well over the target island.

8:33 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Will you please come in and answer on
3,105. We are transmitting constantly on 7,500 kilocycles. We do not
hear you on 3,105. Please answer on 3,105. Go ahead.”

The message was not acknowledged.

One minute later the _Itasca_ continued: “Answer on 3,105 kilocycles
with phone. How are signals coming in? Go ahead.”

8:45 A.M. Amelia broke in on 3,105 kilocycles. Her voice was loud and
clear, but broken and frenzied. “We are in a line of position 157-337,”
she said hastily. “Will repeat this message on 6,210 kilocycles. Wait,
listening on 6,210 kilocycles. We are running north and south.”

Anxiety drew taut across the radio room of the _Itasca_ as everyone
strained to hear the repeated message on 6,210. Nothing was heard by
anybody.

8:47 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “We heard you O.K. on 3,105 kilocycles.
Please stay on 3,105. Do not hear you on 6,210. Maintain QSO on 3,105.”

The same message was sent by key on 7,500 kilocycles.

The _Itasca_ again heard nothing on 3,105 or 6,210.

8:49 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”

8:54 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Your signals O.K. on 3,105. Go ahead
with position on 3,105 or 500 kilocycles.”

The ship listened for AE’s answer on 3,105, 6,210, and 500 kilocycles.

The message was not acknowledged.

“We are running north and south,” at 8:45 A.M. had been Amelia
Earhart’s last words.

Until ten o’clock on that morning of July 1 the Itasca continued to
call. The operators transmitted on 3,105 and 7,500, and listened on
3,105, 6,210, and 500, and also on 500 of the direction finder.

Nothing more was heard from the Electra.

The decision of the _Itasca_’s crew was obvious and unanimous: Amelia
Earhart was having radio receiver trouble.

Questions abounded. How account for her last report: “We are in a line
of position 157-337”? What was the geographical point of reference for
the line of position? Did she get a bearing from Howland? Where was she
when she made the report?

The answers lay partially in several alternatives: the Electra’s loop
antenna, or radio; the stars before dawn, or the early-morning sun.

The loop antenna, one of the plane’s direction finders, had a
low-frequency limit of 200–1,500 kilocycles and a high-frequency
limit of 2,400–4,800 kilocycles; therefore, it could not receive
the _Itasca_’s homing signal from 7,500 kilocycles, but it could
receive the one from 500 kilocycles. If the line of position 157-337
were determined from 500 kilocycles, then the all-important point of
reference from which it was drawn had to be understood as Howland or
the _Itasca_.

Obviously, AE knew her line of position, but she did not know where
she was north or south on the line. This fact accounts for her “We are
running north and south.” If she had known her exact position, she
would not have conducted the search pattern for the island, nor would
she have asked the _Itasca_ to take bearings on her.

Curiously, the only transmission she seems to have received on radio
was the telegraphed A on 7,500 kilocycles, but she did not receive that
signal long enough to get the aural-null, a minimum of sound for a
bearing.

If neither the line of position nor the bearing could come from the
loop antenna or the radio, there were still the aids of celestial
navigation.

For navigator Fred Noonan, veteran of eighteen previous Pacific air
crossings, it should have been relatively easy to determine position,
if his navigation instruments were operating correctly and if the
weather were clear enough to take fixes from the stars or the sun.

Before dawn on July 3 he could have taken a fix from the stars. But an
error in his chronometer of a mere four seconds would lead to a mistake
of one mile in the longitude of his determined position. If the sextant
were in error, however, the mistakes could have canceled out by the
taking of three observations. Yet it would seem that Noonan could not
shoot the stars, for as early as 2:45 A.M. AE reported the weather as
“cloudy and overcast,” and at 3:45 A.M. as still “overcast.” If that
bad weather continued until dawn, Fred Noonan could not use celestial
navigation regardless of instruments.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, if he saw the sun after dawn, he
could have shot a sun line. But if 157-337 were a sun line, it was
worthless without a geographical point of reference, because the line
could be drawn anywhere on the globe. No point of reference was given
by AE in her last report.

Thus the question persisted: Where was she?

7. _The Disappearance and the Search_

Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan and their plane were lost somewhere
over a possible area of 450,000 square miles in the South Pacific. The
United States Navy was determined to find them.

In Washington Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William D. Leahy
acted quickly and ordered ships and planes to take up the search for
the missing fliers. In addition to the _Itasca_, an aircraft carrier
and its full complement of planes, a battleship, four destroyers, a
minesweeper, and a seaplane were pressed into service. Together these
ships and planes would search for sixteen days an area of more than
250,000 square miles.

Commander Thompson of the _Itasca_ made some quick decisions after
Amelia failed to arrive at Howland. If she had flown to the south, she
should have seen Baker Island, just 38 miles south of Howland. The area
to start looking for her, he concluded, was in the northwest quadrant
indicated by the 337° of her last position report of 157-337.

Also, he was far from abandoning hope. Although Amelia was having radio
trouble, there was every belief that Fred Noonan could make a fix and
yet find Howland. Radio transmissions, therefore, continued around the
clock at the same frequencies, of 3,105, 6,210, and 500 kilocycles.

If Amelia were leaning out her fuel at the rate of 50 gallons per hour,
at the end of twenty-one hours, at 9:00 A.M. on the morning of July 2,
she would have enough fuel left for two more hours of flying time, for
she had had 1,150 gallons of gasoline aboard the aircraft. If, on the
other hand, AE were using fuel at just under 45 gallons per hour, she
could have flown for a total of twenty-six hours--until 12:00 noon, Lae
time, but 2:00 P.M. Howland time. In other words, just as her tanks
were going dry, her chronometer for elapsed time would have indicated
approximately twelve o’clock. The Navy reasoned, presumably from AE’s
point of view in the cockpit, that she could stay aloft trying to find
some island somewhere until about noon.

If she were slightly north and west of Howland, and realized the fact,
she would have tried for the Gilbert Islands; or, if she were even
more north and west, she would have attempted the Marshall or Caroline
Islands; if extremely north and west, the Mariana Islands. The last
possibility was most unlikely.

“If they are down,” George Putnam wired from San Francisco, “they
can stay afloat indefinitely. Their empty tanks will give them
buoyancy. Besides, they have all the emergency equipment they’ll
need--everything.”

That the Navy was unable to find the two fliers defies understanding if
all the conclusions and predications were correct.

At 10:15 A.M. the _Itasca_ steamed north, and a Navy seaplane took off
from Honolulu bound for Howland, to help in the search.

At twelve o’clock Amelia was reported as definitely not having reached
Howland. Her time had just about run out. She was most probably down;
somewhere close by, everyone hoped, either riding the wing of the
floating Electra, or paddling away from it in the emergency rubber
raft. Holding to the first assumption, the _Itasca_ listened for AE’s
SOS on 3,105 and 500, because it was believed that the plane’s radio
supply was by battery and that the antenna could be used from on top of
the wing. The _Itasca_ pressed the search and kept calling the Electra
continuously.

Because only portions of Amelia’s transmissions had been received
during the night, and those garbled amid static, the Navy concluded
that the Electra had been flying through or above thunderstorms.

After her last report to Lae, at 5:20 P.M. on July 2, something had
happened to put her off course. After sunset at 5:55 P.M. and during
the night until sunrise at 6:12 A.M. the next morning, she had somehow
become lost.

The navigation procedures of Fred Noonan tend to confirm this last
view. It was his practice, according to those who knew him, to follow
course and to correct it by taking infrequent fixes during the night;
then, just before dawn, he would correct course for destination by
determining a line of position near the end of the estimated run. This
procedure would allow a flight of about three hundred miles during the
morning without a good fix.

If the compasses had tumbled during the night and if the chronometers
were badly out of calibration, then there were navigation errors
aplenty--especially where Amelia depended on a faulty radio to make her
landfall at Howland.

The seaplane out of Honolulu had to turn back to base because of bad
weather. During the initial part of its 1,800-mile flight to Howland,
however, it constantly received transmissions from the _Itasca_.
Obviously, there was nothing wrong with the ship’s radios.

[Illustration: (map)]

The Lockheed engineers were contacted to find out whether the Electra’s
radio could operate if the plane were floating. Their answer was the
first heavy note of discouragement. The Electra’s radio definitely
could not operate if it were on the water, they wired, because it
needed the right engine for power. But, they added, the plane could
float from the buoyancy provided by the empty tanks for a maximum
period of nine hours. It was now hoped, for radio purposes, that the
Electra had made an emergency landing on land.

The _Itasca_ searched an area of 9,500 square miles without success. In
addition to constant transmission on 3,105 and 500, during the day it
set up a smoke screen, and during the night it played its searchlight
against the sky. These measures were in vain.

On July 7 the battleship _Colorado_ and the minesweeper _Swan_ joined
forces with the cutter _Itasca_. The _Colorado_ with its planes
went south and east through the Phoenix Islands, exploring the 157°
reciprocal of 337° represented in AE’s last reported line of position.
The _Swan_ and the _Itasca_ turned north and then west to the Gilbert
Islands.

On July 9 the aircraft carrier _Lexington_, with 63 planes, accompanied
by the four destroyers _Perkins_, _Cushing_, _Lamson_, and _Drayton_,
sailed from Hawaii. They arrived in the Howland area on the thirteenth
to lend their support to the search. For the next five days the
_Lexington_’s planes logged 1,591 hours looking north and west for the
missing fliers. The planes covered an area of 151,556 square miles
without turning up a trace of the Electra or its pilot and navigator.

Each ship was required to send out the same broadcast:

“We are using every possible means to establish contact with you.
If you hear this broadcast, please come in on 3,105 kilocycles. Use
key if possible, otherwise, voice transmission. If you hear this
broadcast, turn carrier [a steady key transmission] for one minute
so we can tune you in, then turn carrier on and off four times,
then listen for our acknowledgment.”

All attempts by the ships and planes were in vain. After exploring an
area of 161,000 square miles, nothing was found of the Electra, the
life raft, Amelia Earhart, or Fred Noonan.

Newspapers and radio stations across the country told the story of
the disappearance and the search. Americans could not believe that
Amelia Earhart was missing, and would not believe that she was dead.
Everything about the story was too sudden, too tragic.

False signals and false reports now began to give spark to a despairing
hope. On one of the ships two lookouts and an officer of the deck had
seen a distinct green flare on the northern horizon. It was known that
AE’s rubber raft had emergency flares. The _Itasca_ steamed north and
east to investigate; at the same time it asked AE on the radio if she
were sending up flares, and if she were, to send up another one. A few
seconds later another green light appeared at a bearing of 75°. It was
seen by twenty-five witnesses.

The _Itasca_ now checked with other ships in the area to find out if
they had seen the flares. The replies were all in the negative; the
signals, they cautioned, were probably heat lightning.

Howland Island then reported flares to the northeast. The men on the
island immediately set flame to three drums of gasoline, hoping that
the fire would serve as an unmistakable beacon. The Swan reported more
lights but thought that they were meteors.

Because of the position, appearance, and timing of the lights, the
_Itasca_ seriously thought that they were flares; but because of the
other dissenting reports, it was now decided that the lights were
merely a meteoric shower.

There were all kinds of radio reports. Amateur and professional radio
operators from Honolulu; from up and down the west coast of Los
Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle; from across the Rocky Mountains
in Cheyenne; and from as far inland as Cincinnati, now reported hearing
SOS signals from Amelia Earhart.

If Amelia had landed on an island or reef, and were using her radio, it
was possible that her signals had skip-waved back and forth and forward
between ionosphere and ocean across thousands of miles. Yet, if there
were SOS signals, they were not heard in the Pacific by the official
radio operators on any of the assigned Navy and Coast Guard ships,
or on any of the shore stations from the Gilbert Islands through the
Hawaiian Islands to San Francisco Radio on the West Coast.

In exploring the Gilbert Islands, the _Itasca_ sent a party ashore to
Tarawa, to confer with the senior British administrator of the islands.
He had been informed of the Earhart search, and was surprised that
neither the station at Tarawa nor the one at Beru had been notified
about the flight before it began from Lae. Both stations, although they
heard no Electra transmissions, could have helped, for Amelia’s course
had lain just 20 miles south of Arorae, the most southern island of the
Gilbert group.

The concentration of the search to the northwest had been based on
a very careful analysis of the evidence. The weather conditions at
the end of the flight were a clear blue sky to the south and east of
Howland but heavy cloud banks about fifty miles north and west of
Howland.

The _Itasca_ had laid a heavy smoke screen for two hours on the morning
of July 2; it would have been visible to AE, flying at an altitude of
1,000 feet, for more than forty miles from the south and east, but only
twenty miles from the north and west.

Evidently, judging from her reports, Amelia had been flying earlier
during the night at a high altitude and above a thick overcast of
clouds. Her signal strength, if direct and not the result of skip
waves, indicated a maximum distance of 250 miles from Howland and not
nearer to the island than 30 miles. Such was the conclusion of the
_Itasca_.

All available land areas were searched and hundreds of thousands of
miles of sea area. On July 19, 1937, the Navy released the _Itasca_
from any further search; the cutter’s mission was completed.

Back in California George Palmer Putnam had called on Jacqueline
Cochran. He remembered Amelia’s having told him about her friend’s
strange and marvelous powers at extrasensory perception. He was very
excited when he came into Miss Cochran’s Los Angeles apartment. He
begged her to help him locate Amelia.

Miss Cochran told GP where the plane had gone down: that it had ditched
in the ocean, that Fred Noonan had fractured his skull against the
bulkhead, that Amelia was alive, and that the plane was floating on the
water. She named the _Itasca_ as a ship that was in the area although
she had never heard the name before; and she named a Japanese fishing
vessel in the same location. She told GP to get ships and planes into
the area immediately to begin the search.

For two days Jacqueline Cochran followed the course of the drifting
Electra. Ships and planes searched the area of her insight, but to no
avail. Miss Cochran was racked with disappointment. If her ability were
worth anything, she reasoned, it should have been able to locate and
save her friend. Giving up, Jacqueline Cochran went to the cathedral in
Los Angeles and lit candles for the repose of Amelia’s soul. She never
tried her powers at ESP again.

Amelia had unquestionably disappeared. At best, her attitude toward
her radio plans for the flight was casual; at worst, a combination of
poor coordination, faulty radio receiver, and imperfect navigation
instruments, had sent plane, pilot, and navigator to a watery grave.

The search over, rumors now began to abound and multiply about what had
_really_ happened to Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan.

Each would cause Noonan’s wife and Amelia’s husband and mother untold
hours of anguish and false hope.

8. _The Fog of Rumors_

The first great rumor, which had gained widespread acceptance, was that
Amelia and Fred were prisoners of the Japanese. They had flown over
islands in the Japanese mandate which were being illegally fortified,
the plane had been shot down by anti-aircraft guns, the pilot and
navigator had been taken and held as spies.

This Japanese-prisoner story still persists after more than twenty
years, largely because of a movie released in the early forties, while
World War II was at its highest pitch and anti-Japanese feeling at
white heat. The film, _Flight for Freedom_, starring Rosalind Russell
and Fred MacMurray, told the story of a famous American woman flier,
“Tonie Carter,” who had been asked by the United States Navy to “get
lost” in the South Pacific (actually, to remain in hiding at Howland
Island), so that Navy planes could take photographs of illegal Japanese
fortifications while “looking” for her.

In the movie, Tonie Carter’s navigator was an old beau, “Randy
Britton,” to whom she had once been engaged. This gave rise to another
rumor: Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were in love, and decided to find
a lonely Pacific island where they could live out their idyllic love
“happily ever after.” Incensed by the broad allusions of the film,
George Palmer Putnam filed suit. The movie company settled out of court.

The scenario writers for _Flight for Freedom_ were not alone, however,
in their belief. Aboard the U.S.S. _Colorado_ while it was conducting
its search for the missing fliers were Dr. M. L. Brittain of Georgia
Tech, and other university presidents, who were guests of the
battleship on a Pacific cruise.

There was the possibility, Dr. Brittain later suggested, that Amelia
was a prisoner of the Japanese, even as late as 1944, and that one day
soon she would be liberated by the advancing United States Marines.

“We got the definite feeling,” Dr. Brittain was quoted as saying, “that
Miss Earhart had some sort of understanding with government officials
that the last part of her voyage around the world would be over some
Japanese islands, probably the Marshalls.”

Amelia’s mother, Amy Otis Earhart, has long maintained that her
daughter was on a secret government mission and that she was captured
by the Japanese. This is Mrs. Earhart’s belief although she has no
official basis for it.

The Navy Department at the end of World War II was compelled to make a
final official announcement about AE’s disappearance. Amelia Earhart
had not been sent on a naval cloak-and-dagger operation. Her plane had
not been shot out of the skies by Japanese gunfire. She had not been
captured, held as a prisoner, or shot as a spy.

Nevertheless, despite official and unofficial beliefs and statements to
the contrary, rumors still flourished.

There was the story of the Japanese fishing boat. After United
States forces had invaded the Marshall Islands--north and west of
Howland--Lieutenants Eugene T. Bogan and James Toole were quoted as
saying that this story was told to them by a missionary-trained native
named Elieu:

“Ajima, a jap trader, said three and a half years ago that an
American woman pilot came down between Jaluit and Ailinglapalap
Atolls [southeastern Marshall Islands] and was picked up by a
Japanese fishing-boat crew. She was taken to Japan.”

In July of 1944, during the invasion of Saipan, in the Mariana
Islands--far north and west of Howland Island--the Marines found in an
abandoned Japanese barracks a photograph album filled with snapshots
of Amelia Earhart in her flying clothes. It is known that AE carried
a camera with her on the world flight but not that she was carrying a
photograph album filled with pictures of herself.

Dr. Brittain, the same who had been on the searching _Colorado_, was
queried in 1944 about the Saipan pictures. He felt that there was a
definite connection between the album and the disappearance of the
Earhart plane.

Of all the pieces of “evidence” in the stories about the disappearance,
the most extraordinary was a piece of wood. It was a fragment of a
fence post, with several nail holes in it and with one end badly
charred. The piece of wood was found in July, 1942, by Robert D.
Weishaupt while he was on beach duty with the Coast Artillery at
Baranof Island, Alaska. Weishaupt noticed the burned piece of fence
post as it washed in and out from the shore. It looked as if it had
some writing on it. He waded in and picked it out of the water.

On one side was printed:

TO MY HUSBAND--I HAVE
CRASHED 250 MLLS FROM HAWAII--N.W.
OUR MOTOR WENT INTO FLAMES--SHARKS
ABOUT ME.

A.E.

and on the other side, simply:

MRS. A.E.

Whoever wrote on the piece of wood and set it adrift on the water
perpetrated a cruel hoax. It is extremely unlikely that AE could have
crashed 250 miles northwest of Hawaii; the Electra did not have enough
fuel to fly another 2,000 miles beyond Howland. And if Amelia had
written such a desperate message, on wood suddenly provided in the
middle of the Pacific, she would have addressed the message, not “TO MY
HUSBAND,” but, rather, to GPP, her husband’s well-known initials; and
she would have signed her initials on the reverse side, not “Mrs. A.E.”
but AE, because she was not Mrs. Amelia Earhart.

For the rest of his life George Palmer Putnam was a man haunted and
hunted by people who claimed that they had mystic powers and that they
could put him in contact with his wife.

Eighteen months after her disappearance Amelia was declared legally
dead, and GP married again. He went to live in the mountains away from
the crowds, and during the war he joined the Air Force.

9. _The Light of Fact: A Mystery Solved?_

Two additional events, however, separate in time and both involving
Amelia Earhart--but heretofore never interrelated--do fit together into
a logical and revealing pattern. All the pieces of the puzzle are not
available, but there are enough of them to form a discernible picture.

At the end of World War II Jacqueline Cochran, then head of the WASPS,
the famous organization of women ferry pilots, was asked by General Hap
Arnold to go to Tokyo and investigate the role that Japanese women had
played in aviation during the war. While she was in Imperial Air Force
Headquarters Miss Cochran noticed that there were numerous files on
American aviation notables--and many files on Amelia Earhart.

These documents since that time have mysteriously disappeared. They
are not in the official custody of the United States Government, or
any of its departments, services, or agencies; nor do they seem to be
in the possession of the Japanese Government. (All captured documents,
those of historical importance having been copied on microfilm, have
been returned to Tokyo. No AE files were discovered among the captured
materials.) Nevertheless, these files seem to indicate that the
Japanese had more than a normal interest in Amelia Earhart, because of
another event that happened, curiously, again in the Marianas. This new
evidence has never before been made public.

At the end of the war on the island of Saipan a Navy dentist worked
with his assistant, a native girl named Josephine Blanco. It was 1946.
Dr. Casimir R. Sheft, now practicing in New Jersey, was taking a break
between appointments and talking with a fellow dentist. During the
conversation Dr. Sheft casually mentioned the disappearance of Amelia
Earhart and speculated about whether the famous flier could have ended
her flight in the Marianas, and possibly near Saipan, for he had
read somewhere that the Marines had found AE’s flight log during the
invasion (actually, it had been the photograph album). Suddenly his
dental assistant, Josephine, broke in: She had seen an American woman
flier many years ago--nine or ten--on Saipan, when she was a little
girl. The American woman wore khaki clothes and had her hair cut like a
man....

Josephine Blanco, now Mrs. Maximo Akiyama, and living in California
with her husband and their young son, was witness to an incident which
is as incredible as it is enlightening.

In the summer of 1937 Josephine was riding her bicycle toward Tanapag
Harbor. She was taking her Japanese brother-in-law, J. Y. Matsumoto,
his lunch, and was hurrying along because it was nearly twelve o’clock.

That summer she had just finished Japanese grammar school, where she
had gone for the last five years, ever since she was seven years old.
In March she had celebrated her eleventh birthday, and now she could
begin Catholic school. She was looking forward to studying with the
Spanish missionary sisters. Father Tadzio had hoped that someday
Josephine, too, like some of the other Chamorro native girls in the
Marianas, would answer God’s call and become a native sister.

Josephine had a special pass to the Japanese military area near the
harbor. Not even Japanese civilians were admitted to the area unless
they carried the proper credentials. The young girl rode up to the
gate, stopped her bicycle, and presented her pass. The guard allowed
her into the restricted area.

On the way to meet her brother-in-law, Josephine heard an airplane
flying overhead. She looked up and saw a silver two-engined plane. The
plane seemed to be in trouble, for it came down low, headed out into
the harbor, and belly-landed on the water.

It was not until she met her brother-in-law that Josephine discovered
who it was that had crash-landed in the harbor.

“The American woman,” everyone was saying, greatly excited. “Come and
see the American woman.” Josephine and her brother-in-law joined the
knot of people who gathered to watch.

She saw the American woman standing next to a tall man wearing a
short-sleeved sports shirt, and was surprised because the woman was not
dressed as a woman usually dressed. Instead of a dress, the American
woman wore a man’s shirt and trousers; and instead of long hair, she
wore her hair cut short, like a man. The faces of the man and woman
were white and drawn, as if they were sick.

The American woman who looked like a man and the tall man with her were
led away by the Japanese soldiers. The fliers were taken to a clearing
in the woods. Shots rang out. The soldiers returned alone.

Mrs. Akiyama has affirmed, after identifying a photograph of Amelia
Earhart and Fred Noonan taken on the world flight, that the couple was
unquestionably the same man and woman she and her brother-in-law had
seen on Saipan: the clothes were different, but the woman’s haircut was
unmistakable.

Josephine Blanco’s story, which is basically the same one she told Dr.
Sheft in Saipan, is most probably true. It is extremely unlikely this
native girl could have invented her story. If she had, then for what
purpose? If for profit or gain, she had, for more than ten years after
the American invasion, the opportunity to capitalize on her sensational
news.

As an eleven-year-old girl, Josephine of course had no idea of the
significance of what she had seen other than it was indeed an American
woman she had seen. Dr. Sheft has never doubted her story, and for many
years he has hoped that a thorough reexamination of the facts would be
made. They were.

Amelia Earhart could have ended her flight around the world at Saipan.
If she were indeed headed for Howland Island, however, she somehow made
an error of about 100° in reading her compass.

It means that all during the night of July 2, beginning after sundown
at 5:55 P.M., Fred Noonan was not able to get a fix from the stars to
determine his position. And if, after fourteen hours out from Lae, he
looked down and saw a chain of islands, he would have determined that
he was on course and over the Gilbert Islands; but if AE had turned
north while he was napping, and he had still awakened in time to see
islands, they would have been, not the Gilberts as he might have
thought, but the Caroline Islands--exactly the same distance away but
in the wrong direction.

By somehow departing from her course, and making the tremendous error
of steering north and west instead of east--as she had done once before
on the world flight, when she had turned north to St. Louis instead of
south to Dakar, overriding Fred’s directions, after the flight across
the South Atlantic--AE would have found herself after twenty hours
of flying time somewhere along the chain of islands that marks the
Marianas.

Her last report, at 8:45 A.M., gave her line of position as 157-337.
The Navy’s search satisfied judgments that the line was not a radio
line, for the areas northwest and southeast from Howland were
thoroughly investigated. One hundred fifty-seven-337, therefore, was
undoubtedly a sun line.

Near Howland, at position 01° 00’ North Latitude and 177° 20’ West
Longitude, on July 3, 1937, the bearing of the sun was 66° from the
north point at 7:00 A.M., Howland time. The sun line, therefore, would
have been 156-336.

Near Saipan, at position 13° 00’ North Latitude and 153° 00’ East
Longitude, at 5:00 A.M., Saipan time, the sun was 64° from the north
point. A sun line there would have been 154-334.

If Noonan had thought he was close to Howland when he shot his last
sun line, his geographical point of reference--used for computing and
plotting his observation--would obviously have been close to Howland.
If he had actually been close to Saipan, however, the relative position
of the sun would still have been almost the same: 64° from the north
point near Saipan, as opposed to 66° from the north point near Howland.
But his observation, when computed and plotted on his chart, would have
shown him to be the same number of miles from his geographical point of
reference.

An experienced navigator with trust in his abilities such as Noonan
would have tended to believe that either his observations or his
computations were somehow wrong. He would not have thought, at least
immediately, that he was some 2,600 miles off course. If AE had been
pressing him for a position to radio to the _Itasca_, he might have, in
agonies of doubt, merely given her the line of position, which he could
be sure of, but _not_ the geographical point of reference, because
he could now no longer determine that point with certainty. This
possibility would explain the irregularity of Amelia having transmitted
the line of position without the necessary point of reference.

On the basis of these determinations, therefore, there is strong
support for believing in Josephine Blanco’s story.

The Navy gave Amelia until about noon before she would go down. It was
at noontime that Josephine saw the two-motored plane ditch in Tanapag
Harbor.

The Navy’s final conclusion was that Amelia had ended her flight
somewhere north and west. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were seen by
two eyewitnesses north and west of Howland on Saipan. At that time of
the year the American woman and her tall male companion could have been
none other than AE and Fred Noonan.

In 1937 on Saipan, according to Maximo and Josephine Akiyama, the
Japanese military did not hesitate to kill anyone, Japanese civilian
or Chamorro native, whom they suspected of spying on their illegal
fortifications.

Japanese officialdom maintaining an enigmatic silence (the Japanese
Embassy in Washington knows nothing of the Earhart case, nor does Dr.
John Young of Georgetown University, who examined captured Japanese
documents for the American Government) concerning the disappearance of
the two fliers, it may be idle to speculate upon the final fate of Fred
Noonan and Amelia Earhart. The evidence, however, justifies at least
one tenable conclusion.

When Josephine Blanco saw the twin-engined silver plane, Amelia and
Fred had been flying for twenty-six consecutive hours and for 4,000
futile miles. The sight of the island that was Saipan must have cheered
the fliers with renewed hope for safety and for life itself.

When they survived the crash landing in Tanapag Harbor only to be taken
into custody as spies, their joy must have turned to inexplicable
bitterness: they had been saved not for life, but for death before a
Japanese firing squad.

For Amelia, who once had said to her husband, “I don’t want to go; but
when I do, I’d like to go in my plane--quickly,” the last word of her
wish must have struck her now with sudden and ironic force.

Yet, as she had so often before, Amelia Earhart must have met this
challenge with stubborn self-control and resolute courage. For here at
last was her unmistakable, but irrefutable, fate.

_RECORD FLIGHTS_

_AWARDS AND DECORATIONS_

_BIBLIOGRAPHY_

_A NOTE ABOUT SOURCES_

_ACKNOWLEDGMENTS_

_RECORD FLIGHTS_

1928, June 17: The first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a
passenger; with Wilmer Stultz pilot and Lou Gordon mechanic; in
the pontoon-equipped Fokker trimotor airplane; from Trepassey,
Newfoundland, to Burryport, Wales; time: 20 hours and 40
minutes.

1929, August 24: Third place in the first Women’s Air Derby Race;
from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio.

1930, July 6: Women’s speed record; three-kilometer course; at 181.18
mph.

1931, April 8: World’s altitude record for autogiros; at 18,451 feet;
in Pitcairn autogiro.

1932, May 20–21: First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic; from
Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Londonderry, Ireland; time: 14
hours and 56 minutes.

1932, August 24–25: Women’s non-stop transcontinental speed record;
from Los Angeles, California, to Newark, New Jersey; 2,447.8
miles; time: 19 hours and 5 minutes.

1933, July 7–8: Broke her own transcontinental speed record of
the year before; in her Lockheed Vega; from Los Angeles,
California, to Newark, New Jersey; time: 17 hours, 7 minutes,
and 30 seconds.

1935, January 11–12: First to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii, to
Oakland, California; in her Lockheed Vega; 2,408 miles; time:
18 hours and 16 minutes.

1935, April 19–20: First to fly solo from Los Angeles, California, to
Mexico City, Mexico; in her Lockheed Vega; time: 13 hours and
23 minutes.

1935, May 8: Solo flight from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey;
time: 14 hours and 19 minutes.

1937, March 17–18: Flight from Oakland, California, to Honolulu,
Hawaii; in Lockheed Electra.

1937, July 3: Record flight around the world at the equator; with
navigator Fred J. Noonan; in Lockheed Electra; covered a
distance of 22,000 miles, until strange disappearance over the
Pacific somewhere between Lae, New Guinea, and Howland Island.

_AWARDS AND DECORATIONS_

City of Chicago: medal presented by Mayor Cermak, 1932.

City of New York: medal of valor presented by Mayor Walker, 1928.

City of New York: mayor’s committee medal; presented by Mayor Walker,
1932.

City of Toledo: medal presented 1928.

Atlantic City: key.

City of Philadelphia: medal presented by mayor, 1928.

City of Pittsburgh: key.

Mexico: Order of the Aztec Eagle; medal with blue center and crest;
gold ribbon and lapel pin.

French Legion of Honor; with lapel pin.

Belgium Order of Leopold; with lapel pin.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts: medal presented, 1928.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts: medal presented, 1932.

Aero Club Royal de Belgique: medal presented, 1932.

Aero Club de France: medal presented, 1932.

Women’s Roosevelt Memorial Association: medallion presented, 1933.

Le Lyceum Société des Femmes de France of New York: medallion
presented, 1928.

Le Comité France-Amérique: medallion presented, 1932.

Distinguished Flying Cross: medal presented by the Congress of the
United States, 1932.

Columbia Broadcasting System: medallion presented, 1932.

Mexico: Union de Mujeres-Americanas: medal presented, 1935.

American Society of Mechanical Engineers: medal presented, 1929.

American National Geographic Society Award: medal presented by
President Hoover, 1932.

United States Flyers Association: member.

Poor Richard Club, Philadelphia: member.

Ciudad de Mexico: medal presented, 1935.

Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica: medal presented, 1935.

Society of Women Geographers: medal presented, 1932.

Chicago Aircraft Show, 1928.

International Civil Aeronautics Conference, 1928.

Brooklyn Rotary Club.

National Air Races: 1926.

International Shrine of the Birdmen: Mission Inn, California.

Badge with picture of Amelia Earhart, Lou Gordon, and Wilmer Stultz.

Two medals with picture of Amelia Earhart on the converse side and a
seaplane on the reverse side.

Kansas Commonwealth Club.

Atlantic City: freedom of the city.

Boy Scouts of America; Medford, Massachusetts, Council: medal
presented, 1928.

City of Toledo: key.

City of Buffalo: key.

Lafayette Flying Corps: medal.

Breakfast Club, Glendale, California: medal presented, 1928.

Lindbergh medal: presented in 1928.

Medal presented by Amelia Cardenas to Amelia Earhart: 1935.

City of Medford, Massachusetts: medal presented, 1928.

Harmon Trophy: presented in 1937; shared jointly with Jean Batten of
Australia.

N.B. These awards and decorations, in addition to many other
memorabilia, can be seen on display at the National Air Museum,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The display was made possible
by: Purdue University, the Amelia Earhart Post of the American Legion
at Los Angeles, California, Amy Otis Earhart, Amelia’s mother, and AE’s
friends.

_BIBLIOGRAPHY_

Only major works are listed and they have been subdivided into books
and periodicals. The unsigned articles from magazines are listed
alphabetically according to title.

A. BOOKS

ALLEN, FREDERICK LEWIS. _Only Yesterday._ New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1931.

BALCHEN, BERNT. _Come North with Me._ New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958.

BYRD, RICHARD. _Skyward._ New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.

COCHRAN, JACQUELINE. _The Stars at Noon._ Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1954.

DE LEEUW, ADELE LOUISE. _Story of Amelia Earhart._ New York: Grosset,
1955.

EARHART, AMELIA. _20 Hrs., 40 Min. Our Flight in the_ Friendship. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.

----. _The Fun of It._ New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932.

----. _Last Flight._ Arranged by George Palmer Putnam. New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1937.

FORD, COREY. _Coconut Oil._ New York: Brewer, Warren and Putnam, 1931.

GARST, DORIS SHANNON. _Amelia Earhart: Heroine of the Skies._ New
York: Julian Messner, 1947.

HOWE, JAMES MOORE. _Amelia Earhart: Kansas Girl._ New York: Bobbs,
Merrill, 1950.

LINDBERGH, CHARLES A. _The Spirit of St. Louis._ New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1953.

NICHOLS, RUTH. _Wings for Life._ Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
Company, 1958.

PUTNAM, GEORGE PALMER. _Soaring Wings: A Biography of Amelia
Earhart._ New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939.

----. _Wide Margins: A Publisher’s Autobiography._ New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1942.

RAILEY, HILTON H. _Touch’d with Madness._ New York: Carrick and
Evans, Inc., 1938.

B. PERIODICALS

BOYKIN, E. M. “Amelia Earhart at Home,” _Better Homes and Gardens_,
15:46–47, February, 1937.

DRAKE, F. and K. DRAKE. “First Lady of the Air,” _Reader’s Digest_,
58:55–59, May, 1951.

EARHART, AMELIA. “Try Flying Yourself,” _Cosmopolitan_, 85:32–35,
November, 1928.

----. “Vagabonding by Air,” _Cosmopolitan_, 85:28–31, December, 1928.

----. “How Fanny Hurst Could Learn to Fly,” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:56–57,
January, 1929.

----. “Is It Safe for You to Fly?” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:90–92,
February, 1929.

----. “Shall You Let Your Daughter Fly?” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:88–91,
March, 1929.

----. “Clouds,” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:86–87, April, 1929.

----. “Man Who Tells the Fliers: ‘Go!’” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:78–79,
May, 1929.

----. “Why Are Women Afraid to Fly?” _Cosmopolitan_, 87:70–72, July,
1929.

----. “Fly America First,” _Cosmopolitan_, 87:80–82, October, 1929.

----. “On the Floor of the Sea,” _Cosmopolitan_, 87:45–46, November,
1929.

----. “Aviation Moves Forward,” _Country Life_, 59:39, January, 1931.

----. “Flying the Atlantic,” _American Magazine_, 114:15–17, August,
1932.

EARHART, AMELIA. “My Flight from Hawaii,” _National Geographic
Magazine_, 67:593–609, May, 1935.

ELLIOTT, LAWRENCE. “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight,” _Reader’s Digest_,
36:110–116, July, 1957.

MAYBIE, JANET. “Miss Earhart Sleeps as Her Shipmates Gossip,”
_Bookman_, 68:256, October, 1928.

----. “Amelia Earhart’s New Flight: Expedition into the Realm of
Academics,” _Christian Science Monitor Magazine_, April 29, 1936.

MCINTYRE, O. O. “I Want You to Meet a Real American Girl,”
_Cosmopolitan_, 85:21, November, 1928.

MCMULLEN, F. D. “First Women’s Air Derby,” _Woman’s Journal_,
14:10–11, October, 1929.

PERKINS, MARION. “Who Is Amelia Earhart?” _Survey_, 60:393, July 1,
1928.

PITMAN, JACK. “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight,” _Coronet_, 39:122–125,
February, 1956.

PUTNAM, GEORGE PALMER. “Forgotten Husband,” _Pictorial Review_,
34:12–13, December, 1932.

----. “Flyer’s Husband,” _Forum_, 93:330–332, June, 1935.

----. “Lady with Wings: The Life Story of My Wife Amelia Earhart,”
_Liberty_, Vol. 16, Nos. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16; March 11, 18,
25; April 1, 8, 15, 22, 1939.

C. UNSIGNED ARTICLES

“Air-Hearted,” _Commonweal_, 16:116, June, 1932.

“Amelia Earhart: How Long a Mystery?” _The American Weekly_,
September 10, 1941.

“Amelia Earhart’s Record Flight from Hawaii to California,” _Literary
Digest_, 119:8, January 19, 1935.

“Appreciation,” _Commonweal_, 26:336, July 30, 1937.

“Collector’s Stamps to Pay for Round-world Trip,” _Newsweek_, 9:33,
February 20, 1937.

“Earhart Wrecks Ship After Setting an Ocean Record,” _Newsweek_,
9:27, March 27, 1937.

“First Woman to Fly 2,408 Miles Over the Pacific,” _Newsweek_, 5:20,
January 19, 1935.

“Good-will Emissary Again Achieves the Unusual,” _Newsweek_, 5:34,
May 18, 1935.

“Lady After Our Own Heart,” _Nation_, 135:202, September 7, 1932.

“Lost Earhart,” _Time_, 30:50–51, July 12, 1937.

“Mourning Becomes Electra,” _Time_, 29:36, March 29, 1937.

“Mrs. Putnam’s Four Wreaths of Laurel,” _Literary Digest_, 113:5,
June 4, 1932.

“One in a Million,” _Time_, 30:45–46, July 19, 1937.

“Philatelists Fly into Rage Over Flyer’s Stamp Corner,” _Newsweek_,
5:15, May 11, 1935.

“Search Abandoned,” _Time_, 30:36, July 26, 1937.

“Society’s Special Medal Awarded to Amelia Earhart,” _National
Geographic Magazine_, 62:358–367, September, 1932.

“Sticky Business,” _Nation_, 140:118, January 30, 1935.

“Stultz, Gordon, and Miss Earhart Cross the Atlantic in Pontooned
Fokker Aircraft,” _Aviation_, 24:1847, June 25, 1928.

“Thoroughbred,” _Scholastic_, 26:23, February 2, 1935.

“Warships and Planes Sweep Pacific for Lost Flyers,” _Newsweek_,
10:25, July 17, 1937.

“Woman Hops the Atlantic,” _Literary Digest_, 97:8–9, June 30, 1928.

_A NOTE ABOUT SOURCES_

In addition to the books and articles listed above there are also
countless newspaper accounts about the exploits of Amelia Earhart,
which are too numerous to be cited separately. Among the primary
sources are the files of the Boston _Herald_, the Boston _Traveller_,
the New York _Times_, and the New York _Herald Tribune_, both in the
original editions on file at The Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences
in New York and on microfilm. They began in 1928 with AE’s _Friendship_
Flight, then to 1932 and 1935, and finally through the tragic year of
1937.

The basic story of AE’s life can be found in her books and articles and
in George Putnam’s writings. GP had a keener eye for detail than AE:
where Amelia needs to be rewritten, George elicits admiration for his
skill; but this is true only for “ground operations.” In the air--for
the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of flying--Amelia is the
master, although she is sometimes vague and often inconsistent. I am
indebted to GP for the ground story and to AE for the air story.

For most of the facts of the last flight--and many readers would wonder
how I came upon them, I found them in AE’s logs, which she sent home
with her other gear before the take-off from Lae, New Guinea. Some
of the logs are now at Purdue University; these and others GP used
for AE’s book _Last Flight_, which he arranged for publication. The
communications between AE and the _Itasca_ came from the cutter’s radio
log, which Commander W. K. Thompson included in his official report,
dated July 19, 1937. Some of the details of the Navy’s search were
obtained from the deposition of the _Lexington_’s commanding officer,
Captain Leigh Noyes, dated October 4, 1938, and from the affidavit of
Richard D. Black, dated November 22, 1938. These three documents are
in the possession of Clyde E. Holley, AE’s former attorney, in Los
Angeles, California.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For most of the basic scenes and incidents in the story of Amelia
Earhart I am indebted to G. P. Putnam’s Sons and to Harcourt, Brace
and Company, whose books by Amelia Earhart and George Palmer Putnam
provided me with the beginning framework for my biography. From AE’s
_20 Hrs., 40 Min._, _The Fun of It_, and _Last Flight_ (arranged by
G. P. Putnam), from GP’s _Soaring Wings_ and _Wide Margins_, I have
carefully chosen events, transcribed letters, and quoted conversations.
In the conversations and letters I have taken liberties and
occasionally changed the word order and inserted synonyms, for it is my
belief that GP often made AE sound the way her public expected her to
sound. Expressions like “you betja,” “tummy,” and “grand” were not in
keeping with my interpretation of Amelia’s character and I did not use
them. GP, I believe, invented too freely.

I owe profound gratitude to the following persons, who wrote me
letters, showed me photographs, and/or told me anecdotes:

Mary Ahearn, Josephine B. Akiyama, Lois Allen, Bernt Balchen, R. S.
Barnaby, Elizabeth B. Brown, Howard Cady, Sidney Carroll, John F. B.
Carruthers, Lucy Challiss, Jessie R. Chamberlin, Jacqueline Cochran,
Thomas Coulson, Marjorie B. Davis, Anne M. Earhart, Paul Garber, Viola
Gentry, Betty Gillies, John Glennon, Lawrence Gould, Clyde E. Holley,
Clarence L. Johnson, Teddy Kenyon, Marvin MacFarland, Jan Mason, Ruth
Nichols, Blanche Noyes, Charles A. Pearce, Edward S. Pearce, Margaret
H. Putnam, Hilton H. Railey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lauretta M. Schimmoler,
Ester Schlundt, Casimir R. Sheft, Manila Talley, Mark S. Waggener,
Bradford Washburn, Helen Hutson Weber, Edna Gardner Whyte, and Gilbert
L. Campbell.

For providing me with their Earhart materials and helping me in my
research I offer my deepest thanks to:

The Library, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado; the Staff and
the Bibliographical Center, Denver Public Library, Denver, Colorado;
the National Air Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.;
the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Institute
of Aeronautical Sciences, New York, New York; the Libraries, Purdue
University, Lafayette, Indiana; the Honnold Library, Claremont,
California; Robert Saudek Associates; and the Ford Foundation. And my
special acknowledgment to the finest librarians I have ever known:
Lieutenant Colonel George V. Fagan, Shirley Karol-chik, and Donald
J. Barrett, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado. For a clean
manuscript thanks to my typists, Beverly Bowman and Marie Rossignol.

For his invaluable assistance in working out the many navigation
problems of the last flight my sincere thanks to Captain Thomas E.
Pearsall, USAF Academy; and for their help in solving other difficult
flying problems, my appreciation to Major John R. Galt and Captain
Lawrence G. Campbell, also of USAFA.

Finally, for guidance and advice in writing and rewriting the
manuscript, from the first stages through the final drafts, I want
to thank John E. Williams, Harold M. Priest, Stuart B. James, Harvey
Gross, and Major Joseph B. Roberts. And for having had faith in me
from the beginning, four years ago, I want to express my profoundest
gratitude to Colonel Peter R. Moody, head, Department of English,
United States Air Force Academy. My deepest acknowledgment is on the
dedication page.

$3.95

_DAUGHTER OF THE SKY_

The Story of Amelia Earhart

by PAUL L. BRIAND, JR.

The full story of Amelia Earhart’s life--including an explanation of
the mystery of her disappearance and death--is told for the first time
in this biography. It is a story of her girlhood in Kansas, her college
years, her jobs as nurse and social worker, and her first adventures in
flying as well as of her later years of achievement and triumph.

It was almost by chance that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to
fly across the Atlantic. Overnight she found herself the most famous
girl in the world. That was her decisive hour. She felt she had to
prove worthy of her fame, to show the world that she was a great flier
by right, not just by luck. What happened is explained by Colonel
Railey in his Introduction:

“Genuinely as a tribute to her sex rather than for her own
glorification, she accepted the honors that accrued; for the
participation of women in aviation, which at all times she strove
to encourage and pace, was the obsession which lured her to her
death.”

Amelia Earhart went on to spectacular victories, setting up a flying
record that is still a marvel of achievement and that puts her in the
top rank of America’s hall of fame. A likable and modest woman, Amelia
Earhart was a skilled and dedicated air pioneer, a true daughter of the
sky, and her life story remains unique.

_Jacket design by Larry Lurin_

DUELL, SLOAN AND PEARCE
NEW YORK

[Illustration: PAUL L. BRIAND, JR.]

CAPTAIN PAUL L. BRIAND, JR., was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in
1920. He received his primary and secondary education at parochial,
private, and public schools in greater Boston, and his higher education
at Boston University, the University of New Hampshire (B.A., _cum
laude_, 1948), Columbia University (M.A., 1952), and the University of
Denver (Ph.D., 1959).

He began his military career as a naval aviation cadet, transferred
to the Army Air Forces where he earned the Air Medal as a combat crew
member in Europe during World War II, and was commissioned from college
as a Distinguished Military Graduate, Air Force ROTC, into the regular
Air Force.

Initially a public-relations officer, Captain Briand became an English
instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New
York, from 1952–55. Since 1955 he has been an Assistant Professor of
English at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, where,
“like two eyes joined in sight,” he combines his loves for aviation and
literature. He is the co-editor of _The Sound of Wings_, an anthology
of flying literature, published in 1957.

Captain Briand is married to the former Margaret Frances Palladino of
New York; they have four children: Paul L. III, Mary Katherine, Anne
Marie, and Margaret Mary.

[Illustration: Amelia Earhart after the Atlantic solo, 1932.]

[Illustration: Hilton H. Railey, Amelia Earhart, G. P. Putnam, and
David Binney Putnam at Rye Beach, New York, after the Atlantic solo,
1932.]

[Illustration: (dustjacket)]

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.

Page 168: == signs indicate crossed-out text.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Daughter of the sky : The story of Amelia Earhart" ***

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