Transcriber’s Notes
Table of Contents added by Transcriber and placed into the Public
Domain.
Misspelled words have been corrected. These are identified by
♦ symbols in the text and are shown immediately below the
paragraph in which they appear.
Details and other notes may be found at the end of this eBook.
[Illustration:
description: Photo full shot of Gordon, Earhart, and Stultz on
a ship
caption: ON THE “PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT”
© _London News Agency_
]
20 HRS. 40 MIN.
OUR FLIGHT IN THE FRIENDSHIP
THE AMERICAN GIRL, FIRST ACROSS THE ATLANTIC BY AIR, TELLS HER STORY
BY
AMELIA EARHART
WITH 61 ILLUSTRATIONS
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK—LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1928
20 HRS. 40 MIN.
Copyright, 1928
by
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
This is a copy of the first edition
[Illustration:
description: Publisher’s name written in cursive
image text: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
]
[Illustration:
description: Publisher’s logo of a sailing ship over a sign
image text: The Knickerbocker Press New York
]
Made in the United States of America
To
DOROTHY BINNEY PUTNAM
UNDER WHOSE ROOFTREE THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
FOREWORD
In re-reading the manuscript of this book I find I didn’t allow myself
to be born. May I apologize for this unconventional oversight as well
as for other more serious ones—and some not so serious?
I myself am disappointed not to have been able to write a “work”—(you
know, Dickens’ Works, Thackeray’s Works), but my dignity wouldn’t stand
the strain. I can only hope, therefore, that some of the fun of flying
the Atlantic has sifted into my pages and that some of the charm and
romance of old ships may be seen to cling similarly to the ships of the
air.
A. E.
INTRODUCTION
By Marion Perkins
_Miss Perkins is Head Worker at Denison House, Boston’s second oldest
settlement, with which Amelia Earhart has been identified for two
years._
A tall, slender, boyish-looking young woman walked into my office in
the early fall of 1926. She wanted a job and a part-time one would do,
for she was giving courses in English under the university extension.
Most of her classes were in factories in Lynn and other industrial
towns near Boston. She had had no real experience in social work but
she wanted to try it, and before I knew it I had engaged her for
half-time work at Denison House. She had poise and charm. I liked her
quiet sense of humor, the frank direct look in her grey eyes.
It was some time before any of us at Denison House knew that Amelia
Earhart had flown. After driving with her in the “Yellow Peril,” her
own Kissel roadster, I knew that she was an expert driver, handling
her car with ease, yes more than that, with an artistic touch. She has
always seemed to me an unusual mixture of the artist and the practical
person.
Her first year at Denison House she had general direction of the
evening school for foreign-born men and women. She did little teaching
herself, but did follow-up work in the homes, so necessary to the
success of such an undertaking. In her report of her year’s work after
we had planned her next year’s program, which did not include the
evening school, she wrote: “I shall try to keep my contact with the
women who have come to class; Mrs. S. and her drunken husband, Mrs.
F.’s struggle to get her husband here, Mrs. Z.’s to get her papers
in the face of odds, all are problems that are hard to relinquish after
a year’s friendship.”
In the spring of 1927, Denison House was giving a country carnival for
the benefit of the house. For such a good cause, Amelia consented to
fly over Boston and drop publicity dodgers. She first said that she
would do this if her name could be kept out of the papers! We had to
use some persuasion to keep her from flying incognito. The first day
of the carnival, the Boston police up and down Boylston and Tremont
Streets were perhaps too amazed to try to arrest a man and woman,
apparently Italian peasants just landed, who drove back and forth in a
queer yellow car, stopping now and then to grind a tune on a battered
hand-organ and to distribute handbills.
The organ grinder was Amelia Earhart.
Youth, keeping a heart, a soul and a body that are wide open to all the
rich opportunities of life—that is part of Amelia’s creed. How many
times I have heard her say that, to her, one of the biggest jobs of
the social worker in a settlement is just that—to give boys and girls
the experiences that will keep them young and that will develop a zest
for life. Last fall, she came to Denison House as a resident and as a
full-time staff worker. She has directed the work of girls from five
to fourteen years and has had general charge of the pre-kindergarten.
Jokingly we have sometimes called Amelia the “official secretary,” for
she is the secretary of the staff, of the Board of Directors (to which
she was elected this year) and to the House Committee of the board. She
has an unusual flair, in a meeting, for the gist of the thought and
expresses herself in writing with accuracy and originality. Last year
and this, Amelia has been a member of an inter-settlement committee
working on child-study records.
She herself made studies of children that show her keen insight
into child life. Here are sentences taken from her record of a
seven-year-old boy. “Ferris is fond of making experiments of various
kinds. How far can the pencil be moved before it falls? How high can
the chairs be piled before spilling? He conceived the idea on a cold
day of ‘warming’ his little sister’s beads on his father’s stove. That
the beads were hot enough to burn the child when she put them on was
not part of the experiment.”
“Where is Miss Earhart now?” “Is she still flying?” “Gee, I hope she
beats that other woman.” These and hundreds of other questions greeted
us on Tyler Street. “Is she coming back soon?” “I couldn’t sleep last
night thinking about her flying.”
The day she told me of the trans-Atlantic project, and swore me
to secrecy, she said, “And I’ll be back for summer school. I have
weighed the values and I want to stay in social work.” Her simplicity,
her honesty, her complete lack of any quality that makes for
sensationalism—this is Amelia Earhart. A few days after the flight
project was under way, a dinner guest at Denison House, who was
learning to fly at the East Boston Airport, told of the big Fokker
monoplane that Byrd was “to fly to the Antarctic”; just a quiet twinkle
across the room to me from Amelia’s eyes, and afterwards an infectious
chuckle as we enjoyed the incident together.
One day last year, after a discussion of L. P. Jacks’ lectures on The
Challenge of Life, she handed me some verses. Here they are, more
appropriate at this time than any words I can write:
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 grey ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold resistless day,
And count it fair.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Foreword 9
Introduction 11
CHAPTER
I.—Toronto Days 29
II.—Early Aviation 43
III.—My Own Plane 59
IV.—I Shift My Base to Boston 82
V.—Preparations 95
VI.—Off for Newfoundland 117
VII.—At Trepassey 147
VIII.—Across 170
IX.—Journey’s End 198
X.—Aviation Invites 212
XI.—Women in Aviation 237
XII.—Problems and Progress 252
XIII.—Retrospect 279
Wilmer Stultz—Pilot 311
Louis Edward Gordon—Flight Mechanic 313
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
On the “President Roosevelt” _Frontispiece_
London News Agency Photo.
Amelia Earhart 35
Underwood and Underwood.
Wilmer Stultz 36
International Newsreel.
Slim Gordon 41
Paramount News Photo.
Mrs. Guest Returning to New York is Met by Commander Byrd
from Whom She Purchased the “Friendship” 42
International Newsreel.
My First Training Ship, 1920 51
A. E., 1928 52
Southampton—Mrs. Guest, Gordon, A. E., Stultz, Mrs. Foster
Welch 57
Keystone Views.
After My First Solo, 1921 58
My Cabbage Patch Landing, California, 1921 63
“I was Fond of Automobiles, Horseback Riding, and Almost
Anything Else that is Active and Carried on in the Open” 64
“Ladies’ Day” 73
Sykes in the _New York Evening Post_.
Brynjulf Strandenaes Paints a Portrait 74
Flyers All—Eielson, Wilkins, Byrd, Chamberlin, Balchen,
Stultz, Earhart, Gordon 83
P. & A. Photos.
Boston, June 9 84
At Boston with Her Mother and Major Woolley, whose Flying
Coat Miss Earhart Wore Across the Atlantic 93
Wide World Photos.
“The Yellow Peril” and Her Driver Back in Boston, before
Denison House 94
International Photos.
Welcomed by the Southampton Crowd 103
Wide World Photos.
At Medford, Massachusetts 104
Ready to Go 113
A Picture of the “Friendship” Over Boston 114
Autographed before the flight started.
Percy Crosby’s Skippy Has His Own Ideas about Flying the
Atlantic 123
The “America” as Photographed through the Open Hatch in the
Bottom of the “Friendship’s” Fuselage 124
On the Step 133
Flying to Boston—Gordon, A. E., Stultz, Mrs. Gordon,
Mrs. Stultz, Mrs. Putnam 134
Stultz in the Cockpit of the “Friendship” Looking Aft
between the Gasoline Tanks 143
P. & A. Photos.
Two Musketeers and—What is a Feminine Musketeer? 144
“X Marks the Spot” 153
Our Home in Trepassey.
Main Street, Trepassey 154
Slim on the Job 163
International Photos.
The Inevitable Winter Woodpile 164
The “Friendship” Off Trepassey 173
B-a-a-a! A Front Lawn at Trepassey 174
Lady Lindy; Lady Luck 183
Rollin Kirby in _The New York World_.
For Nineteen Hours Only a Sea of Clouds 184
Wide World Photos.
The “Friendship” “Bombing” the “America” 193
U. S. Shipping Board.
The Last Page in the Log Book 194
We Didn’t Doubt that Tying to the Buoy was Against
Official Etiquette 203
“We Opened the Door of the Fuselage and Looked Out upon
what we Could See of the British Isles” 204
International Newsreel.
Landing at Burry Port—the Ubiquitous Autograph Seeker 213
Wide World Photos.
The First Step in England. Hubert Scott Payne Helps Me
Ashore 214
International Photos.
In London (Miss Earhart) 223
Topical Press Agency.
“A Big Smile, Please!” 224
Paramount News Photo.
The Bobby Said: “If My Wife Sees This—!” 233
Keystone Views.
Off for Ascot—Mrs. Guest and Her Sons Winston and
Raymond 234
Between Us Girls 243
Weed in _New York Evening World_.
First Look at Burry Port 244
P. & A. Photos.
2500 Feet Up. A. E. and Mrs. Putnam Sign the Guest Book
of Jas. H. Rand’s Trimotored Ford the “Rem-Rand” 253
A. E., Thea Rasche, Ruth Nichols at the
Westchester-Biltmore 254
Goodbye 263
At Toynbee Hall, London 264
Wide World Photos.
Arriving in Boston by Plane, July 9 273
P. & A. Photos.
Lady Heath and Her Historic Avro Avian 274
Rear Platform Stuff 283
Wide World Photos.
With a Model of the “Friendship” Presented by A
Boston Schoolboy 284
The Camera, too, Handed Us Brickbats 293
These are culled from our less (oh, far!) ♦flattering
photographic souvenirs.
♦ “flattering-ing” replaced with “flattering”
Yesterday’s Hero, and Today’s 294
John T. McCutcheon in _The Chicago Tribune_.
From Pittsburgh to Altoona 297
Before the Flight in Boston—A. E. and G. P. P. 298
Two Characteristic Pages from the Trans-Atlantic
Log Book 305–6–7
The difficulty of writing in the dark is exemplified
by the penmanship of the second page.
Boston, 1928 308
20 HRS. 40 MIN.
CHAPTER I
TORONTO DAYS
There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows, one of which rolls.
Because I selected a father who was a railroad man it has been my
fortune to roll.
Of course rolling has left its mark on me. What happened to my
education is typical. Until the eighth grade I stayed the school
year with my grandmother in Atchison, Kansas, and attended a college
preparatory school. With the exception of two grades skipped, one
spent trying a public school and one conducted at home under a
governess-friend, my course was fairly regular—not including time
out for travelling. However, it took six high-schools to see me through
the customary four year course. Would it be surprising, considering
this record, if I should come out with a right round “ain’t” or “he
done it” now and then?
Despite such risks there are advantages in a changing environment.
Meeting new people and new situations becomes an interesting adventure,
and one learns to value fresh experiences as much as old associations.
When the war broke out for the United States I was at Ogontz School,
near Philadelphia. My sister was at St. Margaret’s College in Toronto
and I went to visit her there for the Christmas holidays.
In every life there are places at which the individual, looking back,
can see he was forced to choose one of several paths. These turning
points may be marked by a trivial circumstance or by one of great joy
or sorrow.
In 1918 Canada had been in the war four weary years—years the
United States will never appreciate. Four men on crutches, walking
together on King Street in Toronto that winter, was a sight which
changed the course of existence for me. The realization that war wasn’t
knitting sweaters and selling Liberty Bonds, nor dancing with handsome
uniforms was suddenly evident. Returning to school was impossible, if
there was war work that I could do.
I started training under the Canadian Red Cross and as soon as possible
completed the first-aid work necessary to qualify as a V.A.D. or
nurse’s aide. Those four men on crutches!
My first assignment was to Spadina Military Hospital, a rather small
institution occupying an old college building converted for war use.
Day began at seven and ended at seven, with two hours off in the
afternoon. There were many beds to be made and trays and “nurishment”
to be carried, and backs to be rubbed—some lovely ones!
Most of the men had been through a physical and emotional crisis. Many
were not sick enough to be in bed and not well enough to find real
occupation. Even when jobs were offered many lacked the mental stamina
to take them—or make good at them, if taken. Spiritually they were
tired out. Generally speaking they were a far harder group to care for
than the really sick. For with the latter the improvements noted by the
patient from day to day are cheerful mile posts, while these poor lads
had lost even that means of happiness.
The first day I was in the hospital there was a fire. It was not
serious enough for attendants to do anything but slam windows shut and
stand by to carry out patients. Nearly everyone enjoyed the excitement
except a few of the autumnal nurses and the poor fellows in the
shell-shock ward. They suffered greatly for a few days from the
effects of the unexpected disturbance which was to most of the other
men a welcome break in their colorless existence.
Of course one of the jobs of a V.A.D. was to be a merry sunshine,
not difficult for me whose I.Q. is low enough to insure natural
cheerfulness. Despite our best efforts time often dragged. I wonder if
we might not have accomplished more if we had all been good-looking and
especially, perhaps, if we’d all worn brilliant colors instead of our
grey and white uniforms. It’s a pet theory of mine that color in a drab
world can go a long way in stimulating morale. There’s a suggestion,
here, perhaps, for the management of the next war.
The monotony of the hospital prevailed with its food also. Even after
ten years I am unable to look a jelly-roll in the eye. They were the
diurnal diet in the officers’ mess, just as rice puddings prevailed
in the wards. I have a depressing memory of passing out little rice
puddings in endless procession from the diet kitchen to the
patients. Sometimes they came back untouched but bearing crosses
and the inscription R.I.P. However, those who rated rice pudding
were entitled to ice cream—if they could get it. We K.P.’s often did
the getting for the patients most in need of cheer. Our funds were
immorally collected, the winnings of matching pennies in the kitchen.
The war was the greatest shock that some lives have had to survive.
It so completely changed the direction of my own footsteps that the
details of those days remain indelible in my memory, trivial as they
appear when recorded.
Days of routine slipped by quickly enough into months of nursing. I
hope what we did was helpful. Somebody had to do it. There is so much
that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war.
[Illustration:
description: Photo close medium 3⁄4 view shot studio portrait of
Amelia Earhart with signature below
image text: UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD STUDIOS N.Y.
caption: Amelia M. Earhart
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo close medium 3⁄4 view shot outdoor portrait of
Wilmer Stultz wearing flight gear
caption: WILMER STULTZ
© _International Newsreel_
]
War followed one everywhere. Even entertainments weren’t always merely
fun. Often they meant having tea with a group of women who were
carrying their war work into their homes. I remember, for instance,
hours spent with a power sewing machine making pajamas.
The aviation I touched, too, while approached as an entertainment was
of course steeped with war. Sometimes I was invited to a flying field,
Armour Heights, on the edge of the city. I think there were many planes
there; I know there were many young pilots being trained—some very
young. (As a matter of fact I wasn’t exactly grey with age—twenty,
then.)
But the planes were mature. They were full-sized birds that slid on the
hard-packed snow and rose into the air with an extra roar that echoed
from the evergreens that banked the edge of the field. They were a part
of war, just as much as the drives, the bandages and the soldiers. I
remember well that when the snow blown back by the propellers stung
my face I felt a first urge to fly. I tried to get permission to go
up, but the rules forbade; not even a general’s wife could do
so—apparently the only thing she couldn’t do. I did the next best thing
and came to know some of the men fortunate enough to fly. Among them
were Canadians, Scotch, Irish and even Americans who could not pass our
rigorous tests but were accepted in Canada at that time.
They were terribly young, those air men—young and eager. Aviation
was the romantic branch of the service and inevitably attracted the
romanticists. The dark side did not impress the enlisted men or me. To
us there was humor in the big padded helmets, despite their purpose,
which was to prevent scalp wounds in the crashes that were frequent
in those days. The boys smeared their faces with grease, to prevent
freezing, and that seemed funny, too. The training planes were often
under-powered, but no matter how well that was understood, the pilots
joked about possible unpleasantness.
I have even forgotten the names of the men I knew then. But
the memory of the planes remains clearly, and the sense of the
inevitability of flying. It always seemed to me one of the few
worth-while things that emerged from the misery of war.
I lived through the Armistice. Toronto was forty riots rolled into
one that memorable day. Whistles awakened us. They blew continuously.
Electric cars were stalled in the streets which were deep with trash.
Insane old ladies crawled on top and hooked men’s hats with their
umbrellas. Fresh lads grabbed girls and powdered their faces with
flour. Bands marched without knowing where they were going. There
were speeches that were not heard and food that went untasted. Flags
appeared everywhere, with confetti and streamers.
Those months in Toronto roused my interest in flying, although I
did not realize it at the time. Perhaps it was the glamour of the
environment, the times, or my youth. Aviation had come close to me.
[Illustration:
description: Photo 3⁄4 view closeup of Slim Gordon
caption: SLIM GORDON
© _Paramount News_
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo full shot of Earhart shaking hands with
Mrs. Guest as Commander Byrd looks on
caption: MRS. GUEST RETURNING TO NEW YORK IS MET BY COMMANDER BYRD
FROM WHOM SHE PURCHASED THE “FRIENDSHIP”
© _International Newsreel_
]