great American woman flier. She had regained her self-respect; she was
no longer what she considered a “phony heroine.” The eighteen tons
of ticker tape and torn telephone books that had greeted Lindbergh
five years before in New York could now scatter down on her. She had
paid her debt. She was now ready to play the part of a true heroine.
A smooth lyrical grace, the romantic quest of old, and the chivalric
spirit of adventure had now combined in the boyishly slender figure
of--this time--a woman. Like the lone eagle who preceded her, Amelia
acted with ease, modest self-effacement, and exemplary good manners,
becoming a good-will ambassador for America.
On Sunday, May 22, Amelia left Londonderry for London in a plane
provided by Paramount News. Cables and telegrams had already reached
her. “We do congratulate you,” said the Lindberghs. “Your flight is a
splendid success.” Lady Astor wired to her: “Come to us, and I will
lend you a nightgown.” The one message Amelia would never forget was in
the cable from her cleaner, Phil Cooper, in Rye. “Congratulations!” it
said. “I knew you’d do it. I never lost a customer.”
At the airport in London AE was met by Ambassador Mellon. They were
driven through the cheering crowds to sanctuary at the embassy. Not
having brought any clothes other than those she flew in, Amelia was
eager to change out of the jodhpurs and sports shirt into something
feminine. After a long night’s sleep at the embassy, AE, in dress,
coat, shoes, hat, gloves, and purse borrowed from Mrs. Mellon,
went forth to shop at Selfridge’s and to sign her name with a
diamond-pointed pencil on the plate-glass window that served as the
Selfridge autograph album for celebrities.
The British conferred upon her an award that had been given to only
one non-British subject before. Norman Selfridge, who had AE’s Lockheed
Vega on display at his store and who was its official custodian for
the time being, flew Amelia to Brooklands. Here she received the
Certificate of Honorary Membership of the British Guild of Air Pilots
and Navigators.
Luncheons, dinners, receptions, more awards and decorations followed.
Amid all the fanfare Amelia said, “I realize this flight has meant
nothing to aviation.” The remark went unnoticed; the press continued
in notes of triumphant praise--except for one discordant chord sounded
by M. E. Tracey in the New York _World-Telegram_: “Amelia Earhart has
given us a magnificent display of useless courage.... The interest in
such performances is one great weakness of the present age.”
Amelia retained her composure. “If science advances,” she said, “and
aviation progresses, and international good will is promoted because of
my flight, no one will be more delighted than I--or more surprised.”
For millions of people in America, however, Amelia’s solo flight across
the Atlantic was not a display of “useless courage,” nor was it a
“tremendous trifle.” Here was a feminine successor to the long list of
heroes whom Americans had idolized and adored. Amelia took her place
with Lindbergh in aviation, in the glittering gallery that included
Bobby Jones in golf, Babe Ruth in baseball, Bill Tilden in tennis, Jack
Dempsey and Gene Tunney in boxing. In an age of heroes, a heroine was
most welcome.
To help manage the avalanche of invitations that had engulfed her,
Amelia sent for her husband. GP sailed on the _Olympic_; when he
arrived in Cherbourg, Amelia was there to meet him on board the
_Evadne_, the yacht of C. R. Fairey. GP scrambled up the ladder. AE
stood in the doorway, grinning in the morning sun.
“Hi!” she said to her husband, as if he had just come home from work.
Man and wife joined arms and went into breakfast with the others.
She told him about her visit with the Prince of Wales. She had a
private audience with him in his library at St. James’s Palace. He had
pinned a dark pink rose on her blue suit, and escorted her back to her
car. The prince was a pilot, but they would never let him fly solo.
“We just talked shop,” Amelia said. “That is, we did a little ground
flying. I told the prince all about my flight. He was most warm in his
congratulations.”
Of his guest the prince had been quoted as saying: “She is just as
charming as I had expected.”
On they went to Paris. The French people were most excited by her
visit, and the French Senate extended an official reception. Gallic
wit glittered, turning on a pretty compliment from the modest American
flier.
“But after all, m’ssieurs,” Amelia concluded her little speech before
the Senate, “it is far more difficult to make good laws than it is to
fly the Atlantic.”
“Ah, madame,” crackled the president, “when you fly the ocean, what you
do is a danger only to yourself, while the laws we make are a danger to
so many.”
At the American embassy in Paris Amelia was awarded the Cross of Knight
of the Legion of Honor. “Five years ago,” M. Painlevé said at the
ceremony in the drawing room, “I had the pleasure to decorate Colonel
Lindbergh after his remarkable flight. And now I have the honor to
bestow this cross upon the colonel’s charming image.”
Rome followed. The Italian Government invited the couple to a gathering
of fliers who had flown the Atlantic. For the Italians Amelia’s sex
was a problem. A woman simply did not set aviation records; she stayed
home and had babies. Amelia was a kind of curiosity whom they could not
understand.
From Rome they went to Brussels. King Albert and his queen received
them at their summer home in Laehen. Amelia loved the easy affability
of the king and his dainty wife. They lunched, talked about flying,
and took snapshots of one another. For Amelia there was yet another
decoration, the Cross of the Chevalier of the Order of Leopold.
On June 15 they sailed for home. Aboard the _Ile de France_ AE rested
for the ordeal ahead in New York. When she arrived, the city clasped
her to its breast: she was their heroine, and thousands cheered her as
they had Lindbergh.
The climax of all receptions came on June 21, 1932, when AE had the
gold medal of the National Geographic Society presented to her by
President Herbert Hoover. In contrast to the warmth of the royal
reception in Brussels, the atmosphere of the dinner at the White House
was formal and cold.
After dinner they removed to Constitution Hall for the actual ceremony.
The President rose to a respectful silence and made his address.
It is a great pleasure to come here and share in your honoring of
Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam. She has shown a splendid courage and
skill in flying alone across the Atlantic Ocean.... She has been
modest and good-humored.
All these things combine to place her in spirit with the great
pioneering women to whom every generation of Americans has looked
up, with admiration for their firmness of will, their strength of
character, and their cheerful spirit of comradeship in the work of
the world....
Her success has not been won by the selfish pursuit of a purely
personal ambition, but as part of a career generously animated by
a wish to help others to share in the rich opportunities of life,
and by a wish also to enlarge those opportunities by expanding the
powers of women as well as men to their ever-widening limits.
Mrs. Putnam has made all mankind her debtor by her demonstration
of new possibilities of the human spirit and the human will in
overcoming barriers of space and the restrictions of Nature upon
the radius of human activity.
[The President turned to Amelia] The nation is proud that an
American woman should be the first woman in history to fly an
airplane alone across the Atlantic Ocean. As their spokesman [he
moved to Amelia now standing beside him] I take pride and pleasure
in conferring this rarely bestowed medal of the National Geographic
Society upon Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam.
Amelia took her place behind the microphone. She spoke calmly in a low,
well-modulated voice. “I think,” she said, reaffirming the position
she had often taken, “that the appreciation for the deed is out of
proportion to the deed itself.... I shall be happy if my small exploit
has drawn attention to the fact that women, too, are flying.”
Later, at a less formal occasion, Mrs. Hoover added her personal
opinion to what her husband had said in his prepared statement. “I
often think,” the President’s wife said, “that if a girl was to fly
across the Atlantic alone and so, in a sense, represent America before
the world, how nice it is that it was such a person as Miss Earhart.
She is poised, well bred, lovely to look at, and so intelligent and
sincere.”
It was not until the Roosevelts came to Washington, however, that
Amelia became a close friend of the White House. AE gave Eleanor
Roosevelt her first experience in night flying, both women taking to
the air in evening clothes. The first lady of the nation and the first
lady of flight became fast friends. At one time Mrs. Roosevelt decided
to take flying lessons from AE, and even went so far as to get her
student pilot permit. But the President strenuously objected to the
idea of his wife becoming a pilot, and the matter was finally dropped.
After her solo flight, Amelia could count enough awards and decorations
to fill a display cabinet, but she cherished one above all. In tribute
to her accomplishment the Congress of the United States presented her
with the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Not content to rest on her Atlantic laurels, AE now turned to more
challenges, some in the air and some on the ground. The Pacific
Ocean, Mexico and its gulf, the transcontinental speed record: each
in turn presented the unexpected in life that could indeed become the
inevitable.
14. _Solo from Hawaii to California_
On July 24, 1934, Amelia Earhart was thirty-six years old. Mature,
confident, and poised, she spent the summer of that year working in
her flower garden, swimming and boating at Rye beach, entertaining
a wide variety of guests. To all appearances she was calm, radiant,
self-assured; yet within, the unrest of old began again.
On a day, happy yet disconsolate in the bittersweet of autumn, Amelia
walked about the grounds at Rye, under the great oaks and through
the paths. Underfoot the dead leaves crunched and crackled; above,
bare branches hung in the crisp air, the remaining leaves hanging on,
tenacious and unwilling to surrender to the wind, which was relentless
in its sudden swirling gusts.
AE hooked the fur neckpiece closer to her neck, drove her hands deep
into the pockets of her tweed coat, and looked down at the dust that
had gathered on her flat brown walking shoes. She walked up the
flagstone steps to the side door that opened on the patio, then raised
her head and looked up over the tops of the trees. Across the clear
blue of the sky she watched afternoon clouds scud by. Her eyelids
flicked quickly over her gray-blue eyes. With a sudden jerk at the door
handle, she swung inside the house.
Early that evening she showered briskly and put on gold crepe pajamas.
She sat before the fireplace and read the evening paper, waiting for GP
to come home.
It was six thirty when he came through the front door. AE looked up at
him; she had rehearsed all afternoon what she was going to say to him;
it couldn’t wait.
“I want to fly the Pacific,” she said. “Soon.”
GP stood inside the doorway, leaning against the arch. With a
forefinger he pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his nose. “You
mean from San Francisco to Honolulu?” he asked.
“No. The other way. It’s easier to hit a continent than an island.” She
fingered the topaz link at the cuff of her long pajama sleeve.
George put his brief case and hat on the hallway table. “When do you
want to do it?”
“Fairly soon. But only when I’m ready--and the ship.”
It was not long afterward that the Putnams moved to the West Coast, not
so much to be closer to the Pacific Ocean, but so that AE could be near
the center of the aviation industry in California.
By December plane and pilot were ready. Paul Mantz, Amelia’s good
friend and a crack pilot, acted as her technical adviser. He was her
Bernt Balchen on the West Coast. On December 22 AE and her husband and
Paul Mantz and his wife left Los Angeles aboard the S. S. _Lurline_
of the Matson Line, bound for Honolulu. Lashed to the aft tennis deck
of the ship was a new Lockheed Vega. The old one had been sold to
the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia for more than eight thousand
dollars. The new plane, like the old, was painted a vivid red for quick
recognition in the event it should go down on a flight.
When the ship docked five days later, Amelia, as soon as she descended
the gangway, was surrounded by newsmen. “Would she be the first woman
to fly from Hawaii to the mainland?” they asked.
Amelia bent her head to accept the lei placed about her neck by a
pretty native girl. Never one to divulge her plans to the press, AE
replied affably yet distantly: “I thought I would do some flying over
the Hawaiian Islands.”
Not satisfied with that answer, a reporter pressed his point. “If you
fly to the California coast,” he asked, “will Mantz fly with you?”
Amelia grinned, then broke into a rare, broad gap-toothed smile. “If I
fly to the coast,” she replied, “I will not take a cat along.”
For two weeks she waited in Honolulu for the right weather conditions
and for the sign from Paul Mantz that the plane and engine were in top
condition for the Pacific crossing. The Vega had been taken to the
Navy’s Wheeler Field.
Amelia made one public appearance, at the University of Hawaii, where
she spoke on “Flying for Fun.” Before the speech, word of the flight
had leaked out, and there had been criticism of her from the press; a
newspaper had said that her radio equipment was inadequate for the long
flight to California.
The night of January 2 Amelia stood at the podium in Farrington Hall,
telling students and faculty about her fun in flying. In the audience
sat GP, listening attentively. His wife, he thought, had responded
beautifully to his coaching: she had become a first-rate public
speaker. A young man came down the aisle and handed George a note.
GP unfolded it and read: Paul Mantz, at the moment flying above the
islands at 12,000 feet in AE’s plane, had reached radio stations up
and down the mainland, and inland as far as Arizona. The Vega’s radios
could send and receive, GP concluded, not the mere 300 miles leveled at
Amelia in the criticism from the press, but 3,000 miles. GP sent the
note up to his wife.
AE read the note aloud and grinned. She looked up at her audience.
“I realize”--she spoke in a solemn tone--“that I have made a serious
mistake.” The audience bent forward to hear the rest. Amelia’s mouth
curled up in a half-smile. “I was born a mere _woman_,” she said
quickly, “instead of a man.” The audience roared in delight.
While they were in Honolulu the Putnams and Mantzes stayed at the home
of Chris Holmes in Waikiki. Early on the morning of January 11 GP and
Paul Mantz went to Wheeler Field. Amelia stayed behind and ate a slow,
leisurely breakfast, then went outside for a sun bath.
Toward noon a light rain began to fall, and Amelia scurried inside.
By the time George returned for lunch, the rain had developed into a
heavy tropical downpour. AE stood at the window; disgusted with the
sudden change in weather, she watched wanly as the thick raindrops slid
against the panes and outside splashed on the palm leaves and streaked
to the ground. It did not seem that she would take off today.
“I don’t think it looks very good yet,” she said. Then hoping that the
rain might slacken and make it possible for her to get off later, she
added: “Do you mind if I take a nap?”
At 3:30 P.M. GP checked with the Navy weather officer. The forecast
predicted good weather along the projected course of the flight if
Amelia could get off before more bad weather moved in from the west.
George went into the bedroom and awakened his wife. After hearing about
the predicted weather, Amelia decided she would try it. She put on her
brown flying suit and went to the window. The rain had stopped.
At four thirty they drove out to the field to the concrete apron where
the Vega was parked. Paul Mantz and Ernie Tissot, the mechanic, stood
by the plane. They told her everything was ready. AE clambered up to
the wing and down into the narrow cockpit.
She settled her one hundred twenty pounds onto the cushion of the seat,
reached up over her head, and pulled the hatch shut. She started the
engine and let it idle while she checked the dials for fuel and oil
temperature and pressure. The pistons worked smoothly and evenly: she
quickened to their steady rhythm. It was four forty-five.
Amelia signaled to Ernie Tissot standing by the wing. He ran under and
removed the chocks from the wheels. AE waved from the cockpit to GP and
Mantz on the apron.
She moved the throttle forward and taxied to the edge of the field. She
swung the nose around and pointed the plane up between the two rows of
flags that had been planted along either side of the unpaved runway.
The Vega stood ready.
Paul Mantz dashed to the rear of the plane and removed a thick clod of
mud and grass from the tail skid.
Amelia calmly appraised the scene outside. About two hundred people,
it seemed, had gathered to watch her attempted take-off. She could see
that many of them, particularly Wheeler personnel, were armed with
fire extinguishers. The women had handkerchiefs in their hands: Amelia
hoped she wouldn’t have to bring them to tears with a crash. The ground
underfoot was wet and soggy from the rain. The wind sock hung limp; the
prevailing northeast wind had not only failed to prevail, it was dead.
Down the runway she fixed her eyes at a point along the marker flags
where she would chop throttle and jam on the brakes if she could not
lift the plane off the ground. Beyond that point and the end of the
6,000 feet of runway she saw the fields of sugar cane, and diagonally
across from them, into the distance, the mountain peaks cushioned in
low-hanging clouds.
Out of the corner of her eye, to the left and down the field, she
caught a glimpse of three fire engines and an ambulance. With everybody
so pessimistic, she decided, the least she could do was try.
She opened the throttle and held the brakes hard. The plane shook and
vibrated against the prop wash, blasting back against wings, fuselage,
and tail. She released the brakes. The Vega started forward, slow,
sluggish, heavy with the extra fuel tanks.
She could see Ernie Tissot running alongside the wing: his feet
squashing in the mud, a dead cigarette drooping from his lips, his eyes
flashing fear in a dead-white face. “Cheer up, Ernie!” she wanted to
call to him over the noise of the motor. “It will soon be over.”
Paul Mantz stood along the side, next to one of the marker flags. “Get
that tail up,” he shouted. “_Get that tail up!_”
The plane strained against the sucking mud and then began to roll, now
faster, through the mud. Amelia saw the flags flapping in a wind, but
it was just the opposite of what she needed; it was a tail wind. She
felt the tail come up, then the plane getting lighter. Suddenly the
wheels hit a bump. The Vega jumped into the air, then began to settle
toward the ground. Amelia jammed the throttle full forward. The engine
caught the added power, and the plane lifted slowly into the air. AE
grinned. She had made it.
She climbed to 5,000 feet, swung to the right, and headed out to
Honolulu and Diamond Head. She had left behind 2,000 feet of unused
runway.
“If I do not do a good job,” she had written to GP, just in case, “it
will not be because the plane and motor are not excellent, nor because
women cannot fly.”
The letter need not have been written. The women with handkerchiefs at
the ready would not have to use them. Ernie Tissot could scrape the mud
from his shoes, regain his color, and light a fresh cigarette.
Amelia dipped her wings over Honolulu. Below she could see people--they
looked like ants--going home to supper. At 5:00 P.M. she crossed
Makapupu Point, the last of the island outposts. Out under the wing and
to the right the long sloping side of Molokai glittered through a blue
haze. Clouds began to gather.
She climbed to 6,000 feet, well above the clouds; from on top they
looked fluffy, like mashed potatoes, and the dark sea under them like
gravy.
She rolled out her radio antenna and unhooked the hand mike.
“Everything O.K.,” she reported in. She adjusted her earphones, then
turned the dial of the radio beside her to station KGU in Honolulu, and
listened to the music.
The music stopped, and an announcer broke in. “We are interrupting our
musical program with an important news flash,” he said. “Amelia Earhart
has just taken off on an attempted flight to Oakland.”
“_You’re telling me!_” Amelia shouted out loud in the cockpit.
The announcer continued: “Mr. Putnam will try to communicate with his
wife.” GP broke in loud and clear. “AE,” he said, “the noise of your
motor interferes with your broadcast. Will you please try to speak a
little louder so we can hear you?”
Amelia was thrilled to hear his voice; it seemed as if he were sitting
next to her in the plane. She reported in again, louder, and George was
satisfied. It was the first time they had spoken together ground to
plane. The darkness outside had enveloped the Vega.
But above and below and around her the night became a night of stars.
They clustered about her; she felt that she could reach out and pluck
them as they rose from the sea and hung outside the cockpit. She had
never seen such large stars, and now the moon slipped out from behind
the clouds. The contrast of the starlight and the moonlight and the
white clouds against the black sea struck her as no other night scene
had before.
In the thousands of miles of ocean she had flown over before this, she
had seen little of the ocean below. She had sped over clouds, fretted
between layers of them, or plowed through thunderstorms, for hours on
end. And ships she had seen only near land.
Now the night was bright and she reveled in its beauty. She spread her
map on her knee and checked for the positions of ships out of Honolulu,
Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The ships on or near her course had
agreed to keep their searchlights on for her. She looked at her clock:
it was nearing midnight.
Off the right wing and below, against the black sea, shone a pink
light. It had to be a searchlight from a ship. Amelia snapped on her
landing lights, flashing them three times. Then she flicked the toggle
three more times. She turned her radio dial, trying to tune in on
station KFI in Los Angeles. A spattering buckshot of radio code hit her
ears. She realized it was the ship, trying to submit a signal to her.
Then from the ship’s lights came a rapid flicking on and off. They were
answering her earlier signal from her landing lights. She checked her
map again: on course, 900 miles out; the ship was--it had to be--the
_Maliko_, from the Matson Line.
Below, clouds now joined, knitted, and closed over the ocean. Ahead,
the stars grew misty, dim, and distant. There was blackness everywhere,
and dead ahead on course--rain.
Like pins, fine raindrops hit the windshield and spread in long, wet
needles down the glass. Amelia squeaked open the cockpit window and
breathed deeply of the cool wet air. The rain squalls continued for the
next two hours.
Suddenly she realized that she was hungry and thirsty. She reached into
the little cupboard she had prepared in the right wing. There, neatly
stored against hunger, were water, tomato juice, sweet chocolate,
malted-milk tablets, a thermos bottle of hot chocolate, and a picnic
lunch. She decided on the hot chocolate. She unscrewed the top of
the thermos, pulled out the cork stopper, and poured out a cupful.
In short, quick sips, she drank the hot, sweet chocolate liquid. Its
warmth spread through her and she felt good.
She set the empty cup down in the cupboard; then, changing hands on the
stick, she rubbed and kneaded the muscles of her thighs and calves.
They were stiff and tired. She could not look upon her legs for long
without feeling a deep sense of thankfulness, for they invariably
called up the image of those amputees she had seen in Toronto during
the war. The experience had changed the course of her life.
15. _Nurse’s Aide in Toronto_