Amelia Earhart Read online

  Author Vincent Loomis wrote that Earhart’s friends were convinced Putnam was not in love with Amelia nor she with him. The arrangement, says Loomis, “was one that cemented their future partnership in aviation. She wanted to fly; he wanted to promote her as the best flyer in the world.” Putnam’s greatest skill was as a promoter, and with Earhart he saw a huge payoff. Putnam was also regarded by many as a master manipulator, and in truth he was proved to be such when he assumed responsibility for Earhart’s career.

  The fact is, despite all of the publicity and exposure, Amelia Earhart was an average pilot, no better or worse than a handful of other female aviatrices during that period. In head-to-head flying competitions, Earhart rarely won and at times placed last. Earhart, however, had several things going for her relative to her climb toward celebrity: she was attractive, she had a sense of style (women began to dress like her), she was an excellent writer, she had poise and charm, she was fearless, and most of all, she was married to an experienced and polished publicist. The public Amelia Earhart, in the end, was a product of marketing and publicity.

  Shortly after her marriage, Earhart was introduced to a new kind of aircraft—the autogyro, a forerunner to the helicopter. The manufacturer of the autogyro employed Earhart to demonstrate the new invention. Following a relatively short instruction period, Earhart took off in the autogyro and climbed to 18,415 feet, a record height. Numerous headlines were generated by Putnam and filed across the country and the world relative to this accomplishment. Between May 29 and June 6, 1931, Earhart flew an autogyro from Newark, New Jersey, to Oakland, California, becoming the first woman to do so. Press releases followed.

  So busy was Earhart that she was rarely seen with Putnam. Little time passed before she was once again in the nation’s headlines, this time with new plans to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in her Lockheed Vega. Prior to the flight, Earhart steeped herself in learning how to pilot via instruments. Heretofore, Earhart flew using only maps and by sophisticated guesswork, the so-called seat-of-the-pants flying technique.

  On May 20, 1932, Earhart took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. Thirteen hours and thirty minutes later, she landed at Londonderry in Northern Ireland, the first woman to have flown solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Following her amazing performance was an extended tour of Europe, where she was feted almost daily. She was received by royalty and by the pope. During the tour, she was joined by Putnam. At one point, Earhart and Putnam found themselves in the company of Archbishop Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, and a priest named James Francis Kelley. Though no one could have known at the time, Father Kelley would reappear thirteen years later to play an important role in Amelia Earhart’s life.

  When Earhart and her husband returned to New York, she was lauded as the “first lady of the air.” One newspaper proclaimed her the best-known woman in the world. Parades followed, and soon she was inundated with more invitations for public appearances. Life was busy for Amelia Earhart.

  A short time following her Newfoundland-to-Ireland flight, Earhart received a telegram of congratulations from Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, at the time, was the governor of New York. George Putnam soon resigned from Brewer and Warren and was shortly thereafter named the head of the editorial board for Paramount, the motion picture company. He maintained offices in New York and Hollywood in order to keep up with his new enterprises. When time permitted, Earhart would often join him at the studios. In August 1932, she flew the Lockheed to Los Angeles. On the return trip, she left Los Angeles on August 24 and flew nonstop to Newark, New Jersey, in nine hours and five minutes. The distance of 2,447 miles without refueling was a new women’s record.

  Late in 1932, Earhart and husband Putnam were invited to dine with Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt at their Hyde Park estate. The four soon became close friends. Earhart and Putnam were invited to Roosevelt’s inauguration following his election to the presidency.

  Little did Earhart realize that Roosevelt and his staff would soon impress upon her the need for her participation in a mission vital to the nation’s welfare. During the 1930s, according to author David K. Bowman, Roosevelt often asked “wealthy and well-connected friends and amateurs to accept intelligence assignments while on their travels.” During the impending war with Japan, the United States was in desperate need of intelligence.

  • 6 •Hawaii to California

  By the end of 1932, Amelia Earhart was thirty-five years of age with a long list of impressive accomplishments. She continued to tour the country lecturing to sold-out venues. Though the Ludington Line went out of business, a short time later the principals Earhart, Collins, and Vidal, along with an investor named Sam Solomon, developed yet another airline. It was initially named National Airways but soon came to be called Boston-Maine Airways. Earhart was named vice president. During the incorporation, Vidal was named director of the Bureau of Air Commerce in Washington, D.C. In time, Boston-Maine Airways grew to be part of the Delta Air Lines system.

  As president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored a number of new airports and airways facilities. He also saw the need for a more sophisticated radiotelegraph communications and navigation system. In addition, Roosevelt was also instrumental in establishing strategically placed airports and landing strips, along with communications facilities, throughout much of the world where the United States had interests.

  In 1933, a cadre of Hawaiian businessmen sponsored a flight from Hawaii to the West Coast of the United States, offering a prize of $10,000. Earhart professed interest. It would be another challenge, another payday, and another opportunity to remain in the public eye.

  In 1934, Earhart hired Paul Mantz as her technical adviser. His job was to prepare her Vega for the flight from Hawaii to California. Mantz came with a hefty set of credentials: he owned United Air Services, he had an excellent pilot rating in the army (though he had been discharged for not following orders), and he was a stunt pilot for motion pictures. Like Earhart, Mantz owned and flew a Lockheed Vega.

  Recent flying regulations required any aircraft crossing oceans to have a radio transmitter powerful enough to maintain continuous communication. For the Vega, Earhart required a two-channel, 3,105-kilocycle radio for airway and nighttime communications and 6,210 kilocycles for long-range daytime transmissions. The 6,210-kilocycle transmitter had a longer range. Such systems required an effective antenna. For the Vega, Mantz installed a state-of-the-art trailing wire antenna that could be reeled in and out much like a fishing line.

  During the Christmas holidays of 1934, Earhart, along with Mantz and his wife, took a liner to Hawaii. Her Vega was strapped to the tennis deck of the ship and offloaded onto a barge for transportation to Fleet Air Base in Pearl Harbor. From here it was flown to Wheeler Field for a final checkup before undertaking the transpacific flight.

  At 4:44 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time on January 11, 1935, Earhart took off from Wheeler Field. One hour later, she reeled out the trailing wire antenna and broadcast her first message on 3,105 kilocycles. Putnam was listening to the transmission in Honolulu and responded that her signal had less volume than it should have and was difficult to understand. Throughout the flight, Earhart transmitted on both 3,105 and 6,210 kilocycles with mixed results but was by and large pleased with the system. Radio communication difficulties were to plague Earhart in the future.

  Eighteen hours and seventeen minutes later, Earhart landed at Oakland. A crowd estimated to number five thousand was there to welcome her. At the time, Earhart was the only woman to have flown across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii and the only pilot to accomplish it solo. Once again, she made the front pages. The flight, Earhart knew, would guarantee her a positive image and an enduring position in aviation. With encouragement from Putnam, she was beginning to entertain the notion of one of the greatest adventures ever—an around-the-world flight.

  More flights followed, more praises heaped upon her. Putnam set about the ta
sk of raising money to purchase a newer and better aircraft, one that could make an around-the-world voyage.

  In the meantime, Putnam’s cousin, Palmer, was forced to declare bankruptcy, one of the results being that he still owed G. P. $75,000 that would never be paid. Though still employed by Paramount Pictures, G. P.’s paycheck was insufficient for him to maintain the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. Furthermore, it certainly would not fund a new airplane for Earhart.

  In 1935, after renting out the house in Rye, New York, Putnam and Earhart moved into a small house in Toluca Lake, California, a suburb of North Hollywood. Amelia decided to enter her Vega in the National Air Races in Cleveland to be held in August. She came in fifth place and won $500. After returning to California, Earhart went into business with Mantz setting up a flight school. G. P. would handle the publicity. Earhart and Mantz were described as a “solid team” and were rarely seen apart.

  Trouble was not long in coming. In September, Myrtle Mantz sued her husband for divorce, naming Earhart as the other woman responsible for the breakup. Before the year was out, Mantz and Putnam grew at odds with each other over the way the latter conducted business.

  In November, Earhart and Putnam attended a dinner hosted by the president of Purdue University. At the time, Earhart was serving as a parttime counselor for women at the school. During the event, Earhart and Putnam were introduced to a number of the university’s benefactors, including the wealthy industrialist David Ross. Putnam explained the need for a new airplane suitable for an around-the-world journey but stated that the aircraft could also serve as a flying laboratory for Purdue’s aviation research orientation. Eighty thousand dollars was raised, and within weeks a new twin-engine Lockheed Electra was delivered.

  Earhart lost no time in contacting Harry Manning. Earhart first met Manning after her trip across the Atlantic with Stultz and Gordon. Manning was the captain of the SS Roosevelt, which carried the crew back to the United States. Later, Manning would be awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing the crew of a freighter during a severe Atlantic storm. Manning was also a pilot and was regarded by some as a competent course plotter. Earhart invited Manning to accompany her on the around-the-world flight as her navigator.

  Flights around the world had been made previously. In 1924, a U.S. Army Air Service plane made the trip in 175 days. In 1932, a man named Wolfgang von Gronau made it in 110 days in a seaplane. Wiley Post, flying solo in 1933, did it in seven days and eighteen hours. None of these flights, however, crossed the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, never had a woman attempted such a feat. In 1936, when time permitted, Earhart and Manning would meet in New York to discuss details of her trip.

  One year earlier, Pan American Airways captain Edwin Musick and navigator Fred Noonan surveyed the Pacific Ocean in order to determine the practicality of transoceanic flights. A major problem involved with such an undertaking was the scarcity and incompatibility of communications systems. The two men would eventually make recommendations to facilitate travel across the wide Pacific. Fred Noonan would soon assume a consequential role in Earhart’s future.

  • 7 •Flight around the World: Preparation

  Both Amelia Earhart and G. P. Putnam were riding the high-profile publicity and financial wave of Earhart’s accomplishments and popularity during the late 1920s and early 1930s. As a result of the efforts of Putnam, Earhart had her name attached to lines of luggage, suits, pajamas, sports outfits, and stationery.

  Putnam worked almost full time keeping Earhart’s name and photograph in the nation’s and the world’s newspapers. Now, he realized, was the time for the greatest accomplishment ever for a woman pilot—an around-the-world flight. Though there were a number of skilled and credentialed female pilots in the United States, they had neither the charisma of Amelia Earhart nor the publicity machine in the form of the skilled G. P. Putnam backing them. It was time.

  Most of Earhart’s aerial activities and accomplishments were widely publicized, but her flying disasters were kept out of the newspapers as much as Putnam could manage it. Once, when taking off at the Abilene, Texas, airport, Earhart crashed her plane. Later, a letter of reprimand was sent to her from the Department of Commerce. At least one newspaper report described Earhart as having been careless and using bad judgment.

  On September 17, 1931, Earhart wrecked the Pitcairn autogyro while attempting a landing at Detroit. Earhart was aware that among many flyers—male and female alike—there was not much regard for her ability as a pilot. According to most observers, her flying skills were at best average. Louise Thaden noted that Earhart “was able to follow a manual to the letter, but her flying instincts were not well honed.” In order to bolster her image and reputation, Earhart knew she needed to make a significant flying achievement.

  Earhart’s new airplane was a Lockheed Electra 10E, registration number NR16020. Built to certain specifications, however, this Electra had larger Pratt and Whitney engines, larger fuel tanks, and no cabin windows. Earhart hired Ruckins “Bo” McNeely as a full-time mechanic. McNeely had six years of experience as an overhaul mechanic with Pratt and Whitney. Earhart tested the Electra for the first time on July 21, 1936, and deemed it suitable. Three days later she took possession of it. It was her thirty-ninth birthday.

  For further testing and to gain more experience with the new craft, Earhart entered the 1936 New York to Los Angeles Bendix Air Race. With copilot Helen Richey, she finished last in a field of five and received $500 in prize money. Earhart consoled herself about the loss by insisting that the thirty hours of flying time in the new Electra was worth the effort.

  For the next several weeks, Earhart studied maps and charts and made preliminary plans for an around-the-world flight. The details for such an undertaking were massive, including licensing in the different countries, passports, visas, landing rights, overflying rights, maintenance, communications, weather, fuel availability, insurance, lodging, finances, and more. Added to this mound of details was the fact that Earhart wanted to fly across the Pacific Ocean. Previous around-the-world flights bypassed this huge body of water by navigating close to the coasts of Canada, Alaska, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. For Earhart, it would be necessary to stop at one or more locations in the ocean for refueling and maintenance.

  In anticipation of the need for future commercial air routes, the Bureau of Air Commerce had established small colonies on some remote Pacific Islands and constructed airfields. In 1936, this responsibility was turned over to the Department of the Interior. One of the locations selected was Howland Island, some 1,900 miles southwest of the Hawaiian Islands. Howland Island was to figure prominently in Earhart’s future.

  Earhart soon realized she needed assistance with the immense logistics of the flight. She turned to her friend, Eleanor Roosevelt. With the help of the First Lady and her husband, a rather odd decision had been arrived at: the Department of State and the U.S. Navy assumed the responsibilities for most of the arrangements for the around-the-world civilian flight, an adventure that many referred to as a “stunt.”

  Manning determined that telegraphy would be an utmost necessity for the flight. In order to communicate with coastal stations and ships at sea and for direction finding, it would be essential to transmit on the international standard distress and calling frequency of 500 kilocycles. Celestial navigation would be helpful, but in order to locate a tiny speck such as Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean would, according to Manning, require more sophisticated instruments.

  In November, Earhart went to New York to discuss her communication needs with a representative of the Western Electric Company. Arrangements for transmitting and receiving on 500 kilocycles were made, but such transmissions would require a 250-foot trailing wire antenna. A Bendix radio receiver was installed in the Electra. It was a prototype and had, in fact, just been manufactured but never field-tested. The receiver would accommodate 200 kilocycles through 10,000 kilocycles.

  On Februa
ry 12, 1937, Earhart publicly announced her plans for the around-the-world flight. With Putnam’s help, the announcement was carried in newspapers in dozens of countries. With her at the announcement was Harry Manning, whom she introduced as her navigator. On February 17, Earhart, Putnam, Manning, and McNeely set out in the Electra from the Newark airport and headed west. Her first stop was Cleveland, Ohio, and on the following morning they would fly to Burbank, California. Manning was the navigator. At one point, Manning provided a position report to Earhart indicating that they were in Kansas. In truth, however, they were in Oklahoma several miles south of the Kansas border. Putnam began manifesting concerns about Manning’s ability to navigate.

  In March, Pan American Airways agreed to assist Earhart with her flight. In the meantime, Manning attempted to familiarize himself with the Bendix receiver and experienced difficulties at the outset. When Earhart tried the equipment, it likewise frustrated her. Putnam continued to harbor suspicions related to Manning’s navigational abilities and confessed this to Earhart. It was suggested that they allow Manning to navigate them on a flight from Burbank to San Francisco, swing out some distance over the ocean for the return flight, and see whether he could route them back to the point of origin. Employing the newly installed direction-finding apparatus as well as celestial navigation, Manning was off by twenty miles by the time they approached Burbank on the return leg of the trip. Putnam determined that it would be necessary to obtain either a more sophisticated radio direction finder or a more competent navigator.