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Amy Johnson (1 July 1903 – disappeared 5 January 1941), was an English pilot, navigator and aviation mechanic who became the first woman to conduct a solo flight from England to Australia. Along with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set a series of long-distance records, flying from England to Tokyo in 1931, Africa (1932), Cape Town (1934), and from Wales to America in 1933, which additionally earned them the record of being the first married couple to fly across the Atlantic.

Johnson was born in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, and formed an interest in aviation as a teenager. At the age of 16 she experienced flying for the first time when she visited Brough airfield where a pilot was offering people the chance to ride in an Avro 504 for a fee of five shillings. As a young adult, she moved to London and secured work as a legal secretary and spent her spare time watching aircraft in flight at the Stag Lane Aerodrome in Edgware, north London, then home to the London Aeroplane Club (LAC). She became a member of the club and started lessons in September 1928 under the instruction of Valentine Baker and Herbert Travers; after 15 hours and forty-five minutes of tuition, she made her first solo flight on 9 June 1929, in a de Havilland DH.60 Moth. She gained her pilot's licence the following month. Johnson used either track or coastline to navigate, which wasn't an approved method, and she frequently encountered problems.

In addition to her world record attempts, Johnson was appointed as president of the Women's Engineering Society from 1934 to 1937, and became the national leader of the Women's Air Reserve, a role she held at the outbreak of the Second World War. In March 1940 Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), shuttling planes back and forth from Hatfield, near the ATA base at White Waltham, to Prestwick. Her last flight was on 5 January 1941, in an Airspeed Oxford. The weather was adverse and she was warned about the dangers by flying control at Squires Gate, Blackpool. She ignored their advice and she became lost in the thick fog and cloud. She abandoned the plane over the Thames Estuary and plummeted into the water. Her body has never been found.

Early life
Johnson was born on 1 July 1903 at 154 St George's Road, Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire. She was the eldest of four daughters, to John William 'Will' Johnson (1876–1963),  who ran the family's fishing business, and his wife, Amy  Hodge (1886–1958), who was known within the family as 'Ciss'.

The Johnson's fish business experienced much success between 1880 and 1914 which allowed the Johnsons to employ a housemaid, privately educate their children, and finance a change of address on three occasions, the last being to a wealthier area of the district, Pearson Park, in 1910. Although Johnson enjoyed a good relationship with her parents, each had differing views about how she should be raised; in absence of a son, her father treated her as such and encouraged her to participate in more masculine sports and activities; whereas her mother nurtured Johnson's femininity by platting her hair and seeing her in different dresses. Subconsciously, Johnson erred towards her father's preferred upbringing and became known for her tomboyish traits. In her 1938 autobiography Johnson recalled her father compelling her to discard her dolls in favour of train sets.

Between 1907 and 1914 Johnson attended Eversleigh House, a private school in Anlaby Road, Hull. A school report from the summer of 1914 showed her excelling in literature, history and arithmetic, with the headteacher noting Johnson's interest in geography. According to the author and historian, Dr Alec Gill, Johnson was a "highly gifted child [who was] too quick for her plodding teachers [who were] set in their ways of teaching the same topic year after year." She was eager to learn but did so with a sense of fun and rebellion, much to the displeasure of her educators; it was not uncommon for her to be found dancing on the desks when the teachers were not in the room in order to liven up the otherwise strict and subdued classroom atmosphere. Despite Johnson's academic abilities, her teachers found her to be too lively and unruly for private schooling and better suited to mainstream education. Her parents agreed and in 1915 she joined the Boulevard Municipal Secondary School, where she stayed until 1922. Because of an administrative error she joined a class that was made up of children much younger than her, giving her an academic advantage over her classmates; the mix up

Although the school was made up of both male and female pupils, fraternisation between the two was forbidden; Johnson was therefore discreet about her many male friendships. She enjoyed physical exertion, particularly in more masculine sports including football, cricket and hockey. Her enjoyment being within male company influenced her extracurricular activities, which included tree climbing, acrobatics, and "chicken", a game that involved someone cycling as fast as they could towards a brick wall and skidding to a stop before colliding with it.

The frequent house moves initiated a sense of adventure in Johnson; she would travel as far she could on public transport in an attempt to get herself lost so she could find her way back. It was these experiences, according to her biographer Constance Babington Smith, that may've nurtured Johnson's sense of adventure and achievement.

Teenage years
Johnson was 11 when war broke out. Being a fisherman her father was exempt from conscription so the family remained together throughout the conflict. Her experience of growing up during a war was one of excitement; she would purposely sit up at the window each night to catch a glimpse of the Zeppelin while the rest of the family took protection in the cellar. In later life she admitted that the war did not inspire her to become a pilot and that she grew to loathe Zeppelins which she saw as having an "awful power".



After the conflict, the Johnsons moved to 85 Park Avenue, an affluent area known as The Avenues in Kingston upon Hull. By 1919 Johnson, who was always envious of her younger sister, Irene, for her pretty appearance and busy social life, was becoming more withdrawn and reclusive, and her days were spent day-dreaming about travelling the world. On one occasion, during a trip to the cinema, she saw a newsreel item that featured an aircraft which she became captivated by. In later life, she admitted "for some strange reason, that aeroplane appealed to me enormously. It seemed to offer [me] the chance of escape for which I was always looking." After this, she discovered Blackburn Aeroplane & Motor Company in Brough where she would visit on her bicycle to watch from a distance the aeroplanes being assembled.

It was at the Brough airfield that Johnson was introduced to flight. A visit from an Avro 504 and its pilot allowed enthusiasts to experience flying for a fee of five shillings. Johnson and Irene pooled their money together and were flown over Hull, but Johnson's experience was one of disappointment describing the experience as being "a lot of wind, noise, and a smell of burnt oil and escaping petrol." Towards the end of 1919 she neared the end of her education and her parents decided to choose the best direction in which to steer her. For Ciss, homemaking was the obvious choice, but it was a direction in which Johnson was loathed to go; in an act of defiance, she cut off her long hair in an attempt to fit in with the more rebellious fractions of her age group who were sporting short hair styles to symbolise female independence. Her father was furious with the disobedient display and prolonged her time at school by an extra year.

Move to London
Johnson's future was eventually decided upon and her parents enrolled her on to a teaching course at Sheffield University in the summer of 1922. It was around this time that she formed a romantic relationship with Hans Arregger, a multi-lingual employee of the Swiss consulate who was eight years her senior. The relationship was frequently troubled because of Johnson's insecurities around other women and Arregger's lack of emotional commitment. They shared a joint interest in teaching each other languages; Johnson of English, Arregger of French. She graduated from university in the summer of 1925 and worked as a shorthand typist with an accountancy firm in Hull, before taking a post as a secretary for a copywriters, for which she received a wage of 30 shillings a week. She was a failure in both jobs and became depressed with her work and of her failing relationship with Arregger.

By November 1926, to the annoyance of her parents, Johnson moved to London where she contacted several of the capital's advertising agencies looking for work. Her first job was a sales assistant at Peter Jones, in Sloane Square, Chelsea, but she left over a worry with her contract. She was then offered a position as a typist within a lawyer's office which she took up on 11 April 1927. She considered the work to be more interesting compared to her previous typists job in Hull; she was encouraged by her seniors to attend court to learn about the judicial process, given legal conundrums to work on during her weekend leave in order to sharpen her legal understandings, and was asked to assist in drawing up legally binding contracts. Her leisure time was spent visiting the Stag Lane Aerodrome in Edgware, north London, which was home to the London Aeroplane Club (LAC), then just a few aviation hangars and a rickety old shed that doubled as the club house. She spent much of her free time watching the aircraft taking off and landing, and talking to the club's pilots and mechanics.

Flying school
Johnson's relationship with Arregger ended in July 1928 after he secretly married another women. To take her mind off the estrangement, Johnson became a member of the LAC, which was much cheaper compared to her initial choice, the de Havilland School of Flying, thanks largely to a subsidy from the government who wanted to increase the national number of qualified pilots; she had her first lesson on 15 September. In a letter home to her father on 13 October 1928, she described her how happy flying made her. She signed the letter off by admitting that she had "...an immense belief in the future of flying."

On 18 June 1928 Amelia Earhart became the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Because of Earhart's success, female pilots were now being taken seriously; until then, women aviators were either rich, eccentric members of aristocracy, or fame-hungry actresses after publicity. One of Johnson's early instructors was Valentine Baker, a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign and the club's chief flying instructor. Under Baker, Johnson's confidence swelled; he was complimentary towards his students when they displayed particular skill, and encouraged them to undertake daring manoeuvres early on in their tuition, such as a "turn", which Johnson successfully performed in the first week of November, after three-and-a-half weeks of flying experience.

After a short Christmas break, Johnson resumed her lessons with Baker who, on 10 February 1929, taught her how to land. Two months later, he felt confident enough to allow her to fly solo, which was delayed because of bad weather. Her solo flight was stalled further when Baker left for a new job at Heston Aerodrome; he was eventually replaced by Herbert Travers. Travers, a methodical and cautious instructor, frustrated Johnson by making her go through everything she had learnt under Baker, before allowing her out on her own. He considered her to be an impatient student who was overly confident, while she made no secret of how much she loathed him in letters home to her father. She conducted her first solo flight on 9 June 1929, in a Cirrus Moth, after 15 hours and forty-five minutes of tuition. Her flight lasted for five minutes in the skies over North London. The solo flight was the first milestone for Johnson in her flourishing career in aviation. In a letter home to her mother, Johnson expressed a desire to qualify for a private pilot "A" licence, which would allow her to fly passengers, but would require her to undertake a further two hours and fifty-five minutes of solo flying time to qualify.

Working in the hangars
The engineering sheds at Stag Lane were rarely visited by the thrill-seeking pilots as most considered the mechanics to be socially beneath them. The pilots who did visit wanted to understand more than just flying and yearned to learn about the machines and what made them work. Johnson was one of these visitors; the idea of an aviation shed full of working class men servicing aircraft appealed to her as it was much removed from her own privileged, middle class upbringing. She felt that learning about mechanics was a safe option should she fail in her ambitions to become a professional pilot as she could secure work as a mechanic. Alternatively, if she was successful in becoming a pilot, a knowledge in mechanics would therefore be essential. The idea, however, presented an obvious problem to Johnson; the Air Ministry, who were still adapting to the newly formed industry, were yet to issue a Ground Engineer's licence to a woman. Unperturbed, Johnson set about trying to find a way to achieve her goal and struck up a friendship with Stag Lane's chief engineer, Jack Humphries.

Humphries was well-respected by the staff and pilots for his mechanical expertise and management of the airfield. He took flight safety seriously and operated a no-nonsense approach towards his mechanics, while at the same time, maintaining a happy morale-rich working atmosphere. Johnson became a frequent visitor to the sheds which at first was met by suspicion by the mechanics who felt obliged to adjust their otherwise jocular and bawdy behaviour. Humphries was welcoming towards his female visitor and was intrigued by her interest in what was a male-dominated area of aviation. He answered many of her questions and showed her the main working components of an aircraft. He approached Baker who told of Johnson's skilful abilities as a pilot which went some way into reinforcing Humphries' acceptance of her into his shed. She quickly became one of the team and earned the nickname "Johnnie" among the men.

In around the Spring of 1929, Johnson, who felt detached from most of the other pilots at a Stag Lane, formed a close relationship with one of the school's members, the comedian Will Hay. Much of his appeal came from his ownership of a Moth which he kept at Stag Lane. The 15-year age gap, however, caused Humphries some concern, so much so that he offered Johnson an ultimatum; either end her association with Hay, or leave his department. Johnson chose the former and her friendship with Hay faded. Johnson spent a lot of her time in the sheds, either talking to the mechanics or sweeping up and cleaning the planes. Humphries offered Johnson lessons in mechanics in June 1929. Her day in the sheds started at 7am and she would stay until 9am. When her lesson was over, she would travel to her day job as a typist in Central London, before returning to the hanger where she would continue with her training until 10pm.

Johnson spent June flying solo nearly every day and on 6 July she passed a series of tests for her "A" licence; she conducted her first solo cross-country a week later. Keen to start a business repairing and selling Moths in New Zealand, and more importantly, the financial backing of her father to be able to do it, she started training for a "B" licence that would allow her to carry passengers for reward. Her plans were forced into a hiatus on 27 July 1929 when her sister, Irene, was discovered dead from coal gas poisoning at the age of 24. The coroner's verdict was recorded as suicide. Johnson returned to Hull to be with her family and saw them off on holiday, to Ilfracombe, Devon. She returned to London the following month and left her typists job so she could spend more time at Stag Lane.

Under Humphries's tutelage, and with the incentive of becoming the test pilot for Martin's new plane, Johnson took up studies to gain her Ground Engineers Licence (C) which would enable her to inspect an aircraft before flight, although this was limited to certain types of aero-engines, including the Cirrus Marks II and III, the Hermes and the De Havilland Gypsy. Her working day, aside from Mondays and including weekends, started at 8am and finished late into the afternoon. She was given an engine, which she fastidiously worked on as if it were her own. In December 1929, she became the first woman to gain a Ground Engineer’s licence and spent the rest of the summer flying the one hundred hours needed to qualify for the "B" licence.

Preparations for Australia
The death of Johnson's sister in the July prompted her parents to fully support Amy's flying career and she received a weekly allowance of £50 to help pay for lessons, her membership at Stag Lane and a subscription to the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAS), of which she became a companion. Although she had now overcome the financial hurdle to fund her career, she was met with misogynistic opposition from the RAS club secretary, Harold Perrin, who considered it un-womanlike for Johnson to be loitering in the hangars. The row to keep her out of the sheds prompted Humphries to make a threat of resignation, which was not what the management of the airfield wanted, so she was allowed to remain.

Johnson came to know the engineer James Martin in 1929 through her work in the sheds at Stag Lane. His confident personality and ruthless business acumen appealed to her, as did his offer of allowing her to be the test pilot for his businesses first project, the assembly of a prototype aircraft. The plane was to be revolutionary for its time; made of steel rather than wood, it featured side-by-side seating with the engine situated behind the cockpit. It had a low-wing design which would make it easier to control at altitude. Johnson was excited by the idea that her dream of a career in aviation was now within reach. She made frequent visits to the hangar in Denham, Buckinghamshire, where the prototype monoplane was being built. She was also asked to take part in discussions with Baker and Martin surrounding improvements in the craft's design.

On 7 March 1930 she announced her intention to fly solo to Australia, which was largely dismissed as an over-imaginative impossibility. Unperturbed, she estimated the costs of such an adventure which included the purchasing of a plane, fuel and spare parts, and the amount needed for travel expenses, such as the hiring of experts to help with the more complex of mechanical problems that she should encounter on the journey. In the hope of securing funding, she went to see James Fenton, who was the Australian Minister of Trade and Customs, while he was on a visit to London, but he declined and advised her to go safely by sea instead. She was met with an equally dismissive attitude by the High Commissioner, Sir Granville Ryrie, and was thanked for her story of how she became the only female aviation mechanic at Stag Lane, but was declined a reward for it by the newspaper editors in Fleet Street.

During Johnson's quest for funding, the director of civil aviation, Sir Sefton Brancker, along with the aviation industrialist Frederick Handley Page and the play-write George Bernard Shaw, a keen pilot, visited Stag Lane. Brancker gave a speech on the importance of the country's youth choosing a career within the aviation industry rather than using it as a means to fill time as a hobby. Afterwards, she wrote Brancker a letter laying out her ambitions and listing her aeronautical achievements, and requested a loan of between £1000 and £1500. Brancker was impressed and contacted Sir Charles Wakefield, the founder of the Castrol lubricants company, who had previously dismissed Johnson's plans as fanciful. Wakefield agreed with Brancker and offered to supply the fuel for the journey.

Johnson's next job was to plan the route; pioneers before her avoided flying over the Balkans to avoid being shot down or killed by the natives should they have to land in an emergency. Johnson saw no easy route: she was susceptible to torture if she stopped in Iraq and Turkey; at risk of ravenous wild animals in the jungles; prey for sharks in the Timor Sea, and open to dehydration in the desserts. In the end she opted for the quickest route, over the Balkans. During the planning, she decided to publicise the event and sent a short piece to The Sketch, which she had written in October 1929. She also wrote to the editor of the Daily Express when she heard about their plans do a photo shoot on female pilots. The photos also featured in the Sunday Graphic and the Daily Mail, the following month.

Johnson wrote to her parents on 13 November telling them that she hoped in the Spring to be "pushing off on a stunt trip to Australia or something of that sort". Her parents remained fearful that the planned flight to Australia was nothing more than an attempt to commit suicide, aggravated by the grief of Irene's death a few years previously, which they considered Johnson had not fully come to terms with. Years later, Martin disclosed a conversation that he had had with Johnson leading up to the flight to Australia; Johnson planned to kill herself during the feat because of the grief she still felt over Arregger. She considered this to be easy on her parents who would think of it as an accident and not a suicide. On 10 December she received her ground engineer's "A" licence and set about training for her "B" pilots licence which would allow her to convey passengers. To qualify, the rules stipulated that 100 hours of flying time must be achieved, including a 200-mile cross-county trip and a night flight. Amy's first test passenger was Jack Humphries, her mechanics tutor, with her mother volunteering the following Spring.

==

Despite having less than 100 solo flying hours, on 5 May 1930, Johnson boarded her two-year-old Gypsy Moth, "Jason", and set off from Croydon in an attempt to break the England to Australia record of fifteen and a half days, previously set by Bert Hinkler in 1928. Five days later, and two days ahead of Hinkler's time, she was forced to land for two hours in the Karachi desert after meeting bad weather. Once this had passed, she continued with her journey and stopped at Calcutta, Singapore, Rangoon, and Java, of which the latter two she was delayed as a result of damage to the aircraft, fuel shortages, and bad weather. Johnson arrived at Port Darwin, Australia, after nineteen and a half days of flight, to much celebration. An intensely reserved person, Johnson felt awkward with the adulation she received, which was made worse by the sleep deprivation. For her efforts, that year she was was gifted £10,000 by the Daily Mail, congratulated by George V, and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

In 1927 Johnson founded the Women's Engineering Society (WES)

London to Tokyo (1931)
On 26 July 1931 Johnson flew from Tokyo to the Soviet Union in "Jason II"; she arrived in 78 hours and 50 minutes on 6 August.

Crash at Brisbane

Johnson met the Scottish aviator Jim Mollison, after he flew her to Sydney; they married at St George's, Hanover Square, on 29 July 1932.

England to Africa (1932)
Johnson travelled to Lympne, Kent, where, on 14 November 1932, she set off in a Puss Moth for Cape Town. She chose to fly the shorter route, via west Africa, and covered 6200 miles in 4 days, 6 hours, and 54 minutes, beating her husband's record by 10 hours. On 11 December, she made her way back via the Imperial east coast over a seven day period.

Wales to America (1933)
Johnson and Mollison left Pendine Sands in Carmarthenshire, on 22 July 1933, in a weighted down de Havilland Dragon, bound for New York. They encountered difficulties during the 39th hour when they ran out of fuel and were forced to conduct an emergency landing at Bridgeport, Connecticut, which resulted in them flipping the aircraft over into a swamp. They escaped unhurt and although they had failed in their attempt to reach New York, they became the first married couple to fly cross the Atlantic to America from the UK. The damaged aircraft meant that their plan to then fly non-stop from New York to Baghdad was scuppered.

Mildenhall to Melbourne attempt (1934)
By the second half of the 1930s, just 60 women pilots existed among the 2000-or-so amateur aviators in the UK. The under representation encouraged Johnson in her pursuit to achieve other records, alongside Mollison. In late October 1934 they entered the MacRobertson Air Race in "Black Magic", their personally funded, £5,000, twin-engined Comet. The race, from Mildenhall to Melbourne, a distance of 22,000 miles, proved troublesome for Johnson and Mollison and they became lost over India; they also encountered engine trouble and they were forced to land in Allahabad, where they withdrew from the race.

King's Cup Race; third flight to Cape Town (1936–39)
In 1936 she entered the king's cup race in a new British Aircraft Eagle monoplane but was not among the leading finishers. At the same time her 1930 Australian record was beaten by Jean Batten. She made another flight to Cape Town between 4 and 7 May 1936 in a Percival Gull. She arrived in Cape Town in 3 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes (or 6400 miles outbound in 54 hours, 57 minutes), her round trip beating the outbound, homebound, and double-flight records. In 1939 she was the author of Skyroads of the World; nevertheless by this time she was beginning to move out of the limelight.

1935–1939
Johnson served as the Women's Engineering Society president from 1934 to 1937.

War service
In May 1938, as the prospect of war loomed, she was appointed national leader of the Women's Air Reserve and undertook many training flights. However it was not until March 1940 that her friend Pauline Gower asked her to join the select Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). In this role she shuttled planes back and forth from Hatfield, near the ATA base at White Waltham, to Prestwick.

Final flight and death
Her last flight was on 5 January 1941, in an Airspeed Oxford. The weather was adverse and she was warned about the dangers by flying control at Squires Gate, Blackpool. She ignored their advice and she became lost in the thick fog and cloud. She abandoned the plane over the Thames Estuary and plummeted into the water. Her body has never been found. A memorial service for her was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields nine days later.

Personal life
Later she crashed her plane at Brisbane, and James Allan Mollison (1905–1959), another record-breaking aviator, flew her to Sydney; she subsequently married Mollison on 29 July 1932. On her return to England she was met by Lord Thomson, secretary of state for air. Despite her success it is clear that Amy Johnson never acquired solid navigational skills.

n late 1934 Johnson's marriage to Mollison had broken down. An alcoholic, Mollison lived a romantically promiscuous lifestyle and was open among friends about using his marriage to Johnson to further his own flying career. In terms of ambition, Johnson was also fierce and the two would frequently squabble. The crash in Bridgeport initiated the rift and prompted Johnson to seek a divorce. A decree nisi was granted on 7 February 1938 on the grounds of Mollison's adultery.

Wealth at death (£0 in 2024 adjusted for inflation).

Honours
Johnson was the recipient of many honours during her career. In 1930 she received the Egyptian gold medal for valour and the women's trophy of the International League of Aviators. The following year she was awarded a gold medal by the president of the Society of Engineers. In 1933 she won the Segrave trophy and the gold medal of honour of the League of Youth. She was awarded the Royal Aero Club in 1936 and won a scholarship for women in aeronautics from the Women's Engineering Society (WES), of which she was a founder in 1927; her name was posthumously established in February 1941. One of the founders of the WES in 1927 Johnson served as its president from 1934 to 1937.

Legacy
It was rare for a skilled pilot to also be excellent in navigation; the Royal Air Force, at that time, had just fourteen personnel who displayed an equal talent. Johnson used either track or coastline to navigate. It was this method that she used to complete the first record in 1931 and one which she used on all subsequent feats thereafter.

Amy Johnson was a heroine of the romantic age of aviation. Her image was one of a petite, photogenic pilot and mechanic, a pioneer feminist and sportswoman; she had a veneer of success in an age needing stars. With hindsight, however, a more complex figure has been revealed. According to a fellow ATA pilot, Lettice Curtis, Johnson was often insecure and unhappy. More seriously her skills as a mechanic and pilot were hands-on; she was neither a fine pilot nor a sound navigator. Amy Johnson took risks, and in the end this killed her. Nevertheless because of the indomitable record-breaking and the mystery surrounding her death she became and remains, a legendary figure.

Notes and references
Notes

References