In the event of an emergency, Byrd had also chosen an altern_Daughter of the sky

[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

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_,

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.