Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia.
Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance records during the 1930s. In 1933, Katharine Hepburn's character in the film Christopher Strong was inspired by Johnson. She flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary: she died after bailing out. Because her body was never recovered, the precise cause of her death—drowning, hypothermia or being pulled into a warship's moving propellers, is unknown and has been a subject of discussion since the possibility of friendly fire was raised in 1999.
Early life
Born in 1903 in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, Amy Johnson was the daughter of Amy Hodge, granddaughter of William Hodge, a Mayor of Hull, and John William Johnson whose family were fish merchants in the firm of Andrew Johnson, Knudtzon and Company. She was the eldest of three sisters, the next in age being Irene who was a year younger.Johnson was educated at Boulevard Municipal Secondary School, later Kingston High School, and the University of Sheffield, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. She then worked in London as secretary to a solicitor, William Charles Crocker. She was introduced to flying as a hobby, gaining an aviator's certificate, No. 8662, on 28 January 1929, and a pilot's "A" licence, No. 1979, on 6 July 1929, both at the London Aeroplane Club under the tutelage of Captain Valentine Baker. In 1929 she became the first British woman to obtain a ground engineer's "C" licence.
Johnson was a friend and collaborator of Fred Slingsby whose Yorkshire based company, Slingsby Aviation of Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, became the UK's most famous glider manufacturer. Slingsby helped found Yorkshire Gliding Club at Sutton Bank and during the 1930s she was an early member and trainee.
Aviation
Johnson got the money to buy her first aircraft from her father, who was always one of her strongest supporters, and Lord Wakefield. She bought a secondhand de Havilland DH.60 Gipsy Moth G-AAAH and named it Jason after her father's business trade mark.In 1930, Johnson achieved worldwide recognition when she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. Flying Jason, she left Croydon Airport, Surrey, on 5 May and landed at Darwin, Northern Territory on 24 May, a distance of 11,000 miles. Six days after, she damaged her aircraft while landing downwind at Brisbane airport and flew to Sydney with Captain Frank Follett while the aircraft was repaired. Jason was later flown to Mascot, Sydney, by Captain Lester Brain. Jason is now on permanent display in the Flight Gallery of the Science Museum in London.
She was awarded the Harmon Trophy and also the CBE in George V's 1930 Birthday Honours in recognition of this achievement, and was honoured with the No. 1 civil pilot's licence under Australia's 1921 Air Navigation Regulations.
Johnson next bought a de Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth G-AAZV which she named Jason II. In July 1931, she and co-pilot Jack Humphreys became the first people to fly from London to Moscow in one day, completing the journey in approximately 21 hours. From there, they continued across Siberia and on to Tokyo, setting a record time for Britain to Japan.
In 1932, Johnson married Scottish pilot Jim Mollison, who had proposed to her during a flight together eight hours after they had first met. In July 1932, Johnson set a solo record for a flight from London to Cape Town, South Africa, in the Puss Moth G-ACAB Desert Cloud, breaking her new husband's record. De Havilland Co and Castrol Oil featured this flight in advertising campaigns.
In July 1933, Johnson and Mollison attempted to fly the de Havilland DH.84 Dragon I G-ACCV, named Seafarer, nonstop from Pendine Sands, South Wales, heading to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York. They hoped to then fly Seafarer to Baghdad in an attempt to gain the record for a non-stop long-distance flight. Running low on fuel and flying in the dark, the pair made the decision to land short of New York. Spotting the lights of Bridgeport Municipal Airport they circled it five times before crash landing some distance outside the field in a drainage ditch. Both were thrown from the aircraft but suffered only cuts and gashes. After recuperating, the pair were feted by New York society and received a ticker tape parade down Wall Street.
In 1934, the Mollisons set a record time for a flight from Britain to India in a de Havilland DH.88 Comet named Black Magic, as part of the England to Australia MacRobertson Air Race. They were forced to retire from the race at Allahabad because of engine trouble
In September 1934, Johnson, under her married name of Mollison, became the youngest president of the Women's Engineering Society, having been vice-president since 1934. Johnson succeeded Elizabeth M. Kennedy in the role. Johnson was succeeded as president by Edith Mary Douglas. She was active in the society until her death.
On 4 May 1936, Johnson made her last record-breaking flight, starting from Gravesend Airport and regaining her Britain to South Africa record in G-ADZO, a Percival Gull Six. In 1936, she was awarded the Gold Medal of the .
She further honed her gliding skills with the Midland Gliding Club, based in Shropshire, which she joined in October 1937, and remained an active flying member until gliding was suspended following the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1938, Johnson overturned her glider, when landing after a display at Walsall Aerodrome in England, but was not seriously hurt. Following the accident, she told reporters, "I still declare that gliding is the safest form of flying."
She divorced Mollison in 1937 and reverted to her maiden name. Johnson began to explore other ways to make a living through business ventures, journalism and fashion. She modelled clothes for the designer Elsa Schiaparelli and created for her a travelling bag sold under her own name.
In 1939, Johnson found work flying with the Portsmouth, Southsea and Isle of Wight Aviation Company, piloting short flights across the Solent and flying as a target for searchlight batteries and anti-aircraft gunners to practise on.
Second World War
During the Second World War, Johnson's employing company's aircraft were taken over by the Air Ministry in March 1940. She was served a notice of redundancy alongside all other pilots in the company, as all the aircraft were requisitioned for the war effort. She received a week's pay and a further four weeks' pay of £40 as a redundancy package.Two months later, Johnson joined the newly formed Air Transport Auxiliary, which transported Royal Air Force aircraft around the country. She rose to first officer under the command of her friend and fellow pilot Pauline Gower. Her former husband also flew for the ATA throughout the war. Johnson described a typical day in her life in the ATA in a humorous article, published posthumously in 1941, for The Woman Engineer journal.
Death
In a last letter to her friend, Caroline Haslett, on New Year's Day 1941, Johnson wrote: "I hope the gods will watch over you this year, and I wish you the best of luck ". On 5 January 1941, while flying an Airspeed Oxford for the ATA from Prestwick via RAF Squires Gate to RAF Kidlington near Oxford, it is suggested that Johnson ran out of fuel in adverse weather conditions.Five hours after her departure, a convoy of wartime vessels in the Thames Estuary spotted a parachute coming down and saw a person alive in the water calling for help, witnesses describing the voice as female. Conditions were poor: there was a heavy sea and a strong tide, snow was falling and it was intensely cold. Lt Cmdr Walter Fletcher, the Captain of HMS Haslemere, navigated his ship to attempt a rescue. The crew of the vessel threw ropes out to the person but they were unable to reach them and they were lost under the ship. A number of witnesses believed there was a second body in the water.
Fletcher dived in and swam out to what some witnesses described as possibly being a body of someone wearing a flying helmet, rested on it for a few minutes and then let go. When the lifeboat reached him he was unconscious and as a result of the intense cold he died in hospital days later. Johnson's watertight flying bag, her log book and cheque book later washed up, and were recovered near the crash site.
A memorial service was held for Johnson in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields on 14 January 1941. Lt Cmdr Walter Fletcher was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal in May 1941.
Disputed circumstances
In 1999, it was reported that Johnson's death may have been caused by friendly fire. Tom Mitchell, from Crowborough, Sussex, claimed to have shot Johnson's aircraft down when she twice failed to give the correct identification code during the flight. Mitchell explained how the aircraft was sighted and contacted by radio. A request was made for the signal. She gave the wrong one twice. "Sixteen rounds of shells were fired and the plane dived into the Thames Estuary. We all thought it was an enemy plane until the next day when we read the papers and discovered it was Amy. The officers told us never to tell anyone what happened."In 2016, Alec Gill, a historian, claimed that the son of a ship's crew member stated that Johnson had died because she was sucked into the blades of the ship's propellers. The crewman did not observe this to occur, but believes it is true.
As a member of the ATA with no known grave and her body never recovered, Johnson is commemorated, under the name of Amy V. Johnson, by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede.