Daughter of the sky

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.