RETROSPECT
Preparations ... the flight ... England ... our return ... the first
receptions ... photographs, interviews ... New York, Boston, Chicago
... the many invitations not accepted because of lack of time ...
mayors, celebrities, governors ... splendid flyers; Wilkins, Byrd,
Chamberlin, Thea Rasche, Balchen, Ruth Nichols, Reed Landis ...
speeches, lunches, radio microphones . . . acres of clippings (unread)
... editors, promoters ... settlement houses, aldermen’s offices
... gracious hostesses, camera-wise politicians ... private cars,
palatial planes ... and then my book ... hours of writing piled up in
the contented isolation (stoically maintained) of a hospitable
Rye home ... friends, a few parties ... swimming, riding, dancing,
in tantalizing driblets ... brief recesses from work ... Tunney vs.
Heeney, my first fight (a boxer’s career is measured by minutes in the
ring; an aviator’s by hours in the air) ... more writing—much more.
Such is my jumbled retrospect of the seven weeks which have crowded by
since we returned to America.
Finally the little book is done, such as it is. Tomorrow I am free to
fly.
Now, I have checked over, from first to last, this manuscript of mine.
Frankly, I’m far from confident of its air-worthiness, and don’t know
how to rate its literary horse-power or estimate its cruising radius
and climbing ability. Confidentially, it may never even make the
take-off.
If a crash comes, at least there’ll be no fatalities. No one can see
more comedy in the disaster than the author herself. Especially
because even the writing of the book, like so much else of the flight
and its aftermaths, has had its humor—some of it publishable!
I never knew that a “public character” (that, Heaven help me,
apparently is my fate since the flight) could be the target of so much
mail.
“Please send me $150; it will just pay for my divorce which I must
have....” So read one letter, plus details anent the necessity of the
proposed separation. Autographing, I discover, is a national mania.
Requests for photographs, freak suggestions, involved communications
from inventors, pathetic appeals, have been numerous.
Yes, the mail has brought diverse proposals of marriage, and
approximations thereof. Perhaps the widespread publication of my
photograph has kept the quantity down!
Best of all the letters are those from average people about the
country—mostly women—who have found some measure of satisfaction, or
perhaps a vicarious thrill, in the experiment of which I happened
to be a small part. For their congratulations and friendly messages I
find myself always deeply grateful.
A wave of invitations almost engulfed me, and offers of employment,
many of them bewilderingly generous, proved part of the harvest of
notoriety. The psychology of inferring that flying the Atlantic equips
one for an advertising managership or banking, leaves me puzzled.
However, the correspondence of a “goldfish” isn’t all bouquets, by any
means.
Cigarettes have nearly been my downfall. Not subjectively, understand,
for my indulgence is decently limited; the count, I think, shows the
restrained total of three for the current year. It’s not what I did,
but what I said, that caused trouble. I wickedly “endorsed” a certain
cigarette which was carried by the boys on the Friendship. This I
did to benefit three gallant gentlemen,—Commander Byrd, to whose
South Polar Expedition I turned over my own financial proceeds,
and the companions on my flight who benefited only if my name was
used. Among the immediate souvenirs of my viciousness is a copy of
the advertisement, torn from a newspaper and sent to me by an irate
commentator. On the margin she wrote: “I suppose you drink too!”
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide outdoor shot of Friendship waving from
rear platform rail car; a sign saying “The Gilt Edge”
hangs on railing
caption: REAR PLATFORM STUFF
© _Wide World Photos_
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo medium shot of Earhart holding flowers and a
model airplane
caption: WITH A MODEL OF THE FRIENDSHIP PRESENTED BY A BOSTON
SCHOOLBOY
]
It happens that I don’t—it just never seemed worth while. Anyway, the
incident struck some journalistic sparks. Amusing among them is this
from the “New Yorker”:
One of the greatest personal sacrifices of all times, as we look
at it, was the sacrifice Miss Earhart made in endorsing a brand of
cigarettes so she could earn fifteen hundred dollars to contribute to
Commander Byrd’s South Pole flight. She admitted in her letter that
she “made the endorsement deliberately.” Commander Byrd, replying,
said that it seemed to him “an act of astonishing generosity.”
Pioneering must go on, whatever the toll; the waste places must be
conquered. Since, however, the faculty of Reed University, in Oregon,
declares that it is impossible for a person blindfolded to tell one
cigarette from another, it seems to us that the only honorable course
left for Commander Byrd, in order to vindicate science and validate
Miss Earhart’s gift, is to fly to the South Pole blindfolded.
[Illustration:
description: Drawing of airplane in clouds
]
Photographers, too, are innocent (sometimes) instruments of a
critical fate. (I’ve never fathomed why photographers always want
“a-great-big-smile-please”; and prefer their victims waving.) I
did contrive to resist the blandishments of one who would have had
me pictured blowing a kiss to Pittsburgh. But in Chicago, when the
boys and girls of the Hyde Park High School turned out to see their
Atlantic-flying Alumna, the picture men asked me to step forward from
the stage upon a grand piano backed up to its edge, so as to include
the youngsters as well as myself. Picture taken, picture published.
Promptly arrived an acid letter from a friend: “_How_ did you get
on the piano?”
Doubtless she visualized me in scandalizing progress through the west,
leaping from piano to piano.
The school incident reminds me of my peripatetic education. My father
was a railroad claim agent and attorney, his work seldom keeping
him long in one place. As a result I graced the high schools of six
different communities, and happened to be in Chicago when graduation
day rolled around. During the first turmoil after our London arrival,
cablegrams came from at least four communities, each one doing me the
honor of claiming me as its very own. Beyond proclaiming the fact that
I spent more time in Atchison, Kansas, than anywhere else, discretion,
it seems to me, dictates silence as to other comparative allegiances.
A considerable crop of poetry, verse, and rhyme is chargeable to our
flight, some of it far more meritorious than the subject sung.
From the direct-by-mail offering, with which friendly souls seem wont
to deluge those whose names appear in print, I garner the following
excerpts:
The men were anxious, Amelia was too,
Still they never lost hope, just flew and flew.
It took great courage, for a flight like that,
And to the girl Amelia, we take off our hat.
She’s my Amelia, the darling of the air,
She sailed for Europe without a thought or a care,
Just to let the world know that a girl could bring
To the U. S. A. fame and most every other thing.
Two experiences which were privileges, too, of the busy weeks, stand
out oddly in my memory.
Shamelessly I confess my admiration for motorcycle policemen. Though
they have spoken harshly to me on occasion they are so good to look at,
I’ve quite forgiven—most of them. Gallant figures cycle cops, weaving
through traffic, provoking drivers to follow suit—and get a ticket.
In the autocratic days of our post-flight glory we were whirled
about with motorcycle escort, unmindful of traffic lights and speed
ordinances. Of an afternoon I motored to New York’s new Medical Center,
with one of the escorts driving a side-car. On the way back to the
Biltmore I transferred from the limousine to that side-car.... There
wasn’t a speedometer so I don’t know exactly, but I suspect that fifty
m.p.h. doesn’t tell the story.
That was one of the cherished experiences. The second found me in a
locomotive cab of the Pennsylvania Railroad, bedecked in overalls,
goggles and cap. The ride from Pittsburgh to Altoona, round the
Horseshoe Bend, was not so fast as flying, about as noisy, and much
dirtier. Also far more hot. If and when my feminine readers take
up locomotive travel, let them wear heavily soled shoes. Mine were
fairly thin—and the fire box heated the floor below where I sat when
I couldn’t stand and stood when I couldn’t sit. Even the photographs,
incidental to these experiences, did not detract from my
enjoyment. However, some of them clipped subsequently from newspapers,
arrived thoughtfully labelled _bologna_.
There were many editorials in both England and America. Some appraised
the technical accomplishments of the flight generously. But more
interesting than the bouquets were the brickbats, especially when shied
directly at me—as they often were.
As to the part I personally played in the flight I have tried to be
entirely frank always. The credit belongs to the boys, to the ship
and to its backer. I was a passenger. The fact that I happen to be a
small-ship pilot, reasonably experienced in the air, didn’t affect the
situation other than having contributed to my selection.
Said the “New York World”:
Using Newfoundland and Ireland, and possibly the Azores, as fuel
stops, commercial airplaning between the Old World and the
New appears likely to become feasible within the not very distant
future. To have shared with her skilled companions in bringing that
development a step nearer is higher honor for Miss Earhart than the
sporting record of the first air crossing accomplished by a woman.
Not only “honor,” but satisfaction—the joy of a share, however small,
in a great adventure.
When we were in London a clipping from “The Church Times” came to me.
The envelope was addressed in the shaky handwriting of an elderly
person. There was no letter and no signature, but certain sentences in
the article were underlined.
Here is that clipping as it greeted me, the underlined sentences
printed in italics:
_Read Mark Learn_
A young American woman has crossed the Atlantic in an aeroplane
and has arrived safely on the shore of Wales. Within the past
few months three other women have lost their lives in attempting
the same feat, and Miss Earhart is to be congratulated on escaping
their fate. The voyage itself, for nearly all the way through fog,
_is a remarkable achievement made possible by the skill and courage
of the pilot. But his anxiety must have been vastly increased_ by the
fact that he was carrying a woman passenger, and, as the “Evening
Standard” has properly pointed out, _her presence added no more to
the achievement than if the passenger had been a sheep_. [This is
the zoological last straw! After two weeks of mutton at Trepassey
I’m sure the boys could not have endured the proximity of a sheep as
cargo on the Friendship.] Miss Earhart has been acclaimed by Welsh
villagers, congratulated by Mr. Coolidge, lionized in London, and she
is offered large sums of money to appear in the films. For us, it is
all a rather pitiful commentary on “so-called civilization.” Society
cannot profit directly or indirectly from Miss Earhart’s journey.
_She is an international heroine simply and solely because, owing to
good luck and an airman’s efficiency_, she is the first woman
to travel from America to Europe by air. A scientist has died after
many years of agony because of his devotion to the work of healing,
and for him there are only brief paragraphs in the newspapers, while
Miss Earhart has columns. Women suffer constant discomfort and risk
infection from loathsome diseases, working for the unhappy in slums,
in leper colonies, in the fetid tropics, and their names remain
unknown. _Certainly, the sense of values in the modern world is sadly
distorted._
[Illustration:
description: Montage of 3 photos with flight crew in unflattering
poses
caption: THE CAMERA, TOO, HANDED US BRICKBATS—THESE ARE CULLED
FROM OUR LESS (OH, FAR!) FLATTERING PHOTOGRAPHIC SOUVENIRS
]
[Illustration:
description: Drawing with 2 vertical panels. Panel 1 shows waving
man in car pulled by horses. Panel 2 shows waving
woman in motor car.
caption: YESTERDAY’S HERO, AND TODAY’S
John T. McCutcheon in _The Chicago Tribune_
]
For compensation, here is another clipping, a chuckling commentary upon
back-seat driving, of course utterly unfair to my sex:
AS A BACK SEAT DRIVER WOULD HAVE MADE THAT FLIGHT
(_Two Hundred Miles Off Trepassey._)
The Woman: Where are we now?
Pilot: I can’t quite make out.
The Woman: There must be some way of telling.
Pilot: I just don’t seem to recognize anything.
The Woman: Are you sure that place we left was Trepassey?
Pilot: That’s what it was called on the map.
The Woman: Well, maybe the map was wrong. I don’t feel as if we were
headed for Europe. Hadn’t we better stop and make certain?
* * *
(_One Thousand Miles Out._)
The Woman: Are we on the right route now?
Navigator: I’m pretty certain, but I wouldn’t swear to it.
The Woman: I’ll bet we’re miles off going ahead blindly if we’re not
certain!
Pilot: We may be a little off the course.
The Woman: I’ll bet we’re miles off it. I could have told you 600 miles
back we weren’t going the right way. Can’t you straighten things
out by looking at the map?
[Illustration:
description: Photo of Earhart looking out window of a locomotive
caption: FROM PITTSBURGH TO ALTOONA
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo full shot Earhart and Putman standing against
block wall
caption: BEFORE THE FLIGHT IN BOSTON—A. E. AND G. P. P.
]
[Illustration: FROM PITTSBURG TO ALTOONA]
[Illustration: BEFORE THE FLIGHT IN BOSTON—A. E. AND G. P. P.]
Navigator: The map won’t do us any good just now.
The Woman: What’s a map for, then? I’ll bet if I had a map I could tell
where I was.
* * *
(_Twelve Hundred Miles Out._)
The Woman: Why do we have to keep flying in this awful fog? It’s
perfectly terrible!
Pilot: There’s no way of avoiding it.
The Woman: That’s a perfectly silly thing to say. When you sail right
into a fog and stay in it for hours I should think you’d admit you’d
made a mistake and not drive calmly on, pretending it was necessary.
Pilot: We’ve flown way up in the air to get out of it and we’ve flown
close to the ocean to escape it, but it’s no use.
The Woman: I’ll bet if you’d turn a sharp right you’d get out of
it in no time. I told you to take a sharp right five hours ago.
Pilot: We can’t take any sharp right turns and reach Europe, my dear.
The Woman: How do you know without trying?
* * *
(_Fifteen Hundred Miles Out._)
The Woman: Well, I just know we’re lost and it’s all your fault.
Navigator: Please have a heart. Everything’ll come out okay if you have
patience.
The Woman: I’ve had patience for hours, and for all I know may be right
back where I started. If you don’t know exactly where you are why don’t
you STOP AND ASK SOMEBODY?
* * *
(Over South Wales.)
The Woman: Look! It’s land! What place is it?
Pilot: The British Isles.
The Woman: Isn’t it just splendid? Here we are across the Atlantic
in no time just as we had planned. And you boys were so NERVOUS AND
UNCERTAIN ABOUT IT ALL THE WAY OVER!
H. I. Phillips added that to the gaiety of aviation, in the Sun Dial of
the “New York Sun.” By the way, at the N. A. A. luncheon at the Boston
reception I was introduced as the most famous b. s. d. in the world.
One of the largest organizations connected with the Friendship flight
was the I-knew-all-about-it-beforehand-club. Most of them contrived
to get into the papers pretty promptly. Some charter members recorded
that they turned down tempting offers to pilot the ship, actuated by an
exuberant loyalty to Uncle Sam.
Here, in conclusion of this hodge-podge are three more ♦extracts
from the press, random examples of what men do and say.
♦ “extacts” replaced with “extracts”
The first is from the “English Review,” evidence that the world is
far from any universal air-mindedness:
The Latest Atlantic Flight
The Atlantic has been flown again, and no one will grudge Miss Earhart
her triumph. The achievement has, however, produced the usual crop of
inspired paragraphs on the future of aviation, and the usual failure
to face the fact that air transport is the most unreliable and the
most expensive form of transport available. No amount of Atlantic
flights will alter these facts, because they happen, as things are,
to be inherent in the nature of men and things. Absurd parallels are
drawn between people who talk sense about the air today, and people
who preferred stage-coaches to railways. The only parallel would be,
of course, between such people and any who insist today in flying
to Paris by balloon instead of by aeroplane. Everyone wants to see
better, safer and cheaper aeroplanes. If the Air League can offer us a
service which will take us to Paris in half-an-hour for half-a-crown,
I would even guarantee that Neon would be the first season-ticket
holder. But all this has nothing to do with the essential fact that
not a single aeroplane would be flying commercially today without the
Government subsidy, for the simple reason that by comparison with
other forms of transport air transport is uneconomic. To talk vaguely
of the great developments which will occur in the future is no answer,
unless you can show that the defects of air transport are technical
defects which can be overcome by mechanical means. A few of them, of
course, are, but the overwhelming defects are due to the nature of the
air itself. It is very unfortunate, but we fail to see how it can be
helped.
After all, the “Review” may be right; but somehow its viewpoint is
reminiscent of certain comment when the Wrights were experimenting
at Kitty Hawk. Also of the mathematical deductions which proved
beyond doubt that flight in a heavier than air machine was impossible.
[Illustration:
description: Photos of 2 scribbled pages from log book
caption: TWO CHARACTERISTIC PAGES FROM THE TRANS-ATLANTIC LOG
BOOK. THE DIFFICULTY OF WRITING IN THE DARK IS EXEMPLIFIED
BY THE PENMANSHIP OF THE SECOND PAGE
© _International Newsreel_
]
[Illustration:
description: Photo medium profile shot of Earhart wearing flight
gear outside a block building
caption: BOSTON, 1928
]
To balance the pessimism here is an editorial from this morning’s “New
York Times”—current commentary upon characteristic news of the day:
Steamship and Plane
In the world of commerce a gain of fifteen hours in the receipt of
letters from Europe may have important consequences. The experiment of
the French Line was to be only a beginning in speeding Atlantic mails.
It is yet planned to launch planes when steamships are 800 miles from
the port of destination. With a following wind the amphibian plane
piloted by Commander Demougeot flew at the rate of 130 miles an hour
and made the distance of over 400 miles to Quarantine in three hours
and seventeen minutes. In such weather as prevailed it could have been
catapulted from the Ile de France with no more hazard when she
was 800 miles away, or about one-fourth of the distance between Havre
and New York.
Ten years ago the experiment of hurrying mail to shore in a plane from
a surface ship 400 miles out at sea would not have been attempted.
So great has been the improvement in airplane design that what the
Ile de France has done will soon become the regular order. It is not
wildly speculative to think of dispatching a plane after a liner on a
well-traveled route in these days of excellent radio communication. It
would be well to use for that purpose amphibian or seaplanes carrying
fuel enough to take them all the way across the Atlantic if necessary.
It is conceivable that ocean flight between Europe and the United
States will be the sequel to a ship-and-plane system of mail delivery,
the distances covered by the plane becoming longer and longer until
the steamship can be dispensed with altogether.
And last, just an item of news, gleaned from “Time”:
Broker’s Amphibian
Between his summer home on Buzzard’s Bay, Mass., and his brokerage
offices in Manhattan, Richard F. Hoyt commutes at 100 miles an hour.
He uses a Loening amphibian biplane, sits lazily in a cabin finished
in dark brown broadcloth and saddle leather, with built-in lockers
containing pigskin picnic cases. Pilot Robert E. Ellis occupies a
forward cockpit, exposed to the breezes. But occasionally Broker Hoyt
wishes to pilot himself. When this happens he pulls a folding seat out
of the cabin ceiling, reveals a sliding hatch. Broker Hoyt mounts to
the seat, opens the hatch, inserts a removable joystick in a socket
between his feet. Rudder pedals are already installed in front of the
folding seat. He has thus created a rear cockpit, with a full set of
controls. Broker Hoyt becomes Pilot Hoyt.
With such excerpts, from the newspapers and the magazines of every day,
one could go on endlessly, for aviation is woven ever closer into the
warp of the world’s news. Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and
I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.
WILMER STULTZ—Pilot
Born April 11, 1900.
He enlisted in 1917 for duration of the war. Joined the 634th Aero
Squadron at San Antonio, Texas, and later served at Middletown, Pa.
Discharged March, 1919.
On August 4, 1919, married Mildred Potts, of Middletown.
December 2, 1919, Stultz joined the Navy, being stationed at Hampton
Roads, Virginia, until July, 1920. Then he went to Pensacola, Florida,
to the flight school, where he received training with seaplanes, in
the ground school, and in navigation, aerology, meteorology, radio,
etc. Thereafter he returned to Hampton Roads until December 2, 1922,
securing his discharge.
In February, 1923, Stultz took a position with Curtiss Export Company,
being sent to Rio de Janeiro to oversee the setting up of forty F5L and
other types of planes. He also instructed Brazilians in flying.
That autumn he returned to New York, working with the Curtiss Company
at Curtiss Field. Later for the Fokker Company he tested the “Josephine
Ford” used by Commander Byrd.
Among those for whom he flew subsequently were Al Pack, President of
the Hubbard Steel Foundries, for the Gates Flying Circus, and the
Reynolds Airways.
In August Stultz joined Mrs. Grayson, testing her plane “The Dawn.”
From Old Orchard, Maine, in October he made three take-off attempts
with Mrs. Grayson. A flight of about 500 miles was terminated by engine
trouble. Lacking confidence in the “Dawn’s” equipment, he severed his
connection with Mrs. Grayson.
In November, 1927, Stultz took a position with Arrow Airways, Paterson,
N. J., which he left to make flights with Charles Levine to Havana, etc.
Thereafter he became associated with the Friendship flight.
LOUIS EDWARD GORDON—Flight Mechanic
Born March 4, 1901, San Antonio, Texas.
Gordon enlisted in the Army Air Service at Ellington Field, Houston,
Texas, July 15, 1919.
Later he was transferred to the 20th Bombing Squadron and went to Kelly
Field, San Antonio, Texas, where he had six months in the aircraft
motor school. Rejoining his organization in New York, he was assigned
as mechanic to two tri-motored Caproni and one Handley Page plane.
In May, 1921, he was with the Handley Page bombers during operations
against obsolete battleships off the Virginia Capes.
Subsequently Gordon became Chief Mechanic at the proving grounds,
Aberdeen, Maryland. Then until 1926 he served with bombers at Mitchel
Field, where he was throughout the International Air Races. In May,
1926, after seven years and nine days in the service, he received his
honorable discharge as Staff Sergeant.
Gordon next was with the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Air Service,
operating Fokker tri-motors between Philadelphia, Washington, and
Norfolk.
In June, 1927, R. J. Reynolds bought the ships. Gordon was working on a
tri-motor at Monroe, Louisiana, when Stultz, telephoning from New York,
asked him if he would like to join up on the Friendship project. The
next day he met Stultz in Detroit and joined the Friendship.
On July 20, 1928, married Ann Bruce of Brookline, Mass.
Transcriber’s Notes
1. Misspelled words have been corrected. Obsolete and alternative
spellings have been left unchanged (e.g. avigator, avigation).
Spelling and hyphenation have otherwise not been standardised.
Grammar has not been corrected.
2. Punctuation has been silently corrected.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to after the paragraph.
5. Illustrations are indicated by: [Illustration: caption and/or
descriptive text]. They have been moved to be outside of text
paragraphs.
6. “Edit Distance” in Corrections table below refers to the
Levenshtein Distance.
Corrections:
pg(s) Source Correction Edit
Distance
25 flattering-ing flattering 4
140 (not in source) ) 1
271 verbatum verbatim 1
278 barometic barometric 1
302 extacts extracts 1