Amelia Earhart

by Doris L. Rich

  Mantz was beginning to wonder if Belinn might be right. He was shocked at G. P.’s attempts to cut costs in bargaining, which suggested to Mantz an indifference to Amelia’s safety. G. P. insisted there was only so much money to be spent and at best Purdue would cover no more than two-thirds of the plane’s total cost. Mantz countered with a request that G. P. acknowledge his written list of equipment and that Amelia send him a list of what she wanted. He also asked for her itinerary so that he could write or telephone her, as if he suspected G. P. might not give her his messages.

  Once Mantz went to work on the plane, G. P. turned to his next objective, planning the flight itself so that it would be perceived by the public as unique—another record for Amelia. This was not easy. The Australian, Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, had flown from California to Australia, then on around the world by way of England back to California, crossing the equator twice. Wiley Post flew around the world twice, once with Harold Gatty in 1931 and once alone in 1933. But Kingsford-Smith took a crew of three, while Amelia would take only a navigator and drop him as soon as she had crossed the Pacific to Australia. Post’s solo route was much shorter than the one proposed by Amelia. Although the French and the Germans flew the mail across the South Atlantic and Pan American’s clippers would soon reach Hong Kong, none of them crossed both oceans. No one had flown all the way around the world as close to the equator as Amelia would.

  Once her goal was defined Amelia left the specific arrangements to G. P. He started at the top, with a letter to Amelia’s friend, Eleanor Roosevelt, asking her help with flight permits. On previous flights Amelia had ignored the regulations of the departments of State and Commerce for flights over or into foreign territory. In 1932 she had no permit from Commerce nor any visa for Ireland. In 1935 she reentered the United States from Mexico illegally, making her subject to a five-hundred dollar fine. Mrs. Roosevelt assured G. P. she would be glad to help. Within days Richard Southgate, chief of protocol at the State Department, was assigned to handle the matter.

  G. P. then wrote to the Department of Commerce asking permission for the flight and that the department send on its approval to the Department of State. Setting a tentative route and a starting date for the flight of late February or early March of 1937, he promised that there would be no firearms or motion-picture cameras aboard and gave as the primary purpose of the flight “a thorough field test of a two-motored plane … part of the program [at Purdue] of aeronautical activities conducted by Miss Earhart.” He was told that his letter would be forwarded to the State Department but that Amelia’s transport license had expired and it would have to be renewed. She would also need to obtain an instrument flying rating for such a long overwater flight.

  G. P. also asked Gene Vidal, whose Bureau of Air Commerce handled his request, to act as a go-between with the Navy. The Navy reluctantly provided Pacific weather data a month later, but sent it to Vidal’s office with the admonition that it was not for general distribution and had to be returned by Mrs. Putnam. Undaunted, G. P. wrote to the secretary of the Navy asking that a flying boat be assigned to execute a midair refueling of Amelia’s plane over the Navy base at Midway Island. This would permit her to take off from Honolulu without the danger of a full load of fuel and she could receive enough at Midway to take her either to Tokyo or Manila via Guam, he claimed. He seemed unaware of the danger to Amelia of a flight of more than four thousand miles over water without sleep.

  When the Navy failed to respond, G. P. wrote to Marie Mattingly Meloney, the editor of the Herald Tribune’s Sunday magazine and a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt’s. He told “Missy” Meloney that Adm. W. H. Standley, the Chief of Naval Operations, had his proposal for refueling Amelia’s ship but had not approved it because of “precedent and policy.” Would Meloney see that Standley has word from the “TOP?” Her secretary answered with a note that Meloney would take the matter up with Mrs. Roosevelt. Two months later Meloney wrote, apologizing for the delay. She had been ill, but when she did speak to Mrs. Roosevelt about Amelia’s flight, Eleanor assured her that she loved Amelia and that she would be “delighted to personally take up any problems with Naval Operations or any other government group.” G. P. or Amelia should tell her, she said, exactly how she could help.

  The message came in January, too late for the impatient G. P. The day after Meloney first promised to speak to the president’s wife, G. P. had Amelia write to FDR. He may have drafted the letter himself, one in which Amelia asked Roosevelt to approve her request to practice refueling operations with Navy planes at their San Diego base. On the margin of her letter, the president scrawled, “Do what we can and contact Mr. Putnam.” That brought an instant response from the Navy to the president’s secretary, Missy LeHand. Everything possible would be done for Miss Earhart. By the time G. P. wrote a thank you note to LeHand, Amelia had heard directly from Standley. The Navy would cooperate.

  By then, G. P. had another plan up his sleeve. Amelia could land on a tiny atoll in the Pacific—Howland Island. Howland, with two other islands, Jarvis and Baker, had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Department of Interior in May of 1936. G. P. undoubtedly heard about it from Vidal when the Bureau of Air Commerce was asked to assess the islands as sites for emergency landing fields for commercial aircraft; at least that was the stated purpose of a government anxiously watching Japanese military expansion in the Pacific.

  After considerable interdepartmental squabbling, it was agreed that there would be three landing strips on Howland. The project was approved in late December of 1936 and budgeted for $9,881.* This time the government’s aid was not entirely gratis. G. P. would pay the wages of four workers, the federal government the other eight. He was required to open a joint bank account with Richard B. Black from the Department of the Interior, in charge of the project along with the Air Commerce man, Robert A. Campbell. Except for his cable assenting to the joint account, G. P. was promised that his name would not appear on any further communications concerning Howland. Black said later that he was told confidentially that the scratch-grade runway was to be used by Amelia but there is no firm evidence that the project was initiated especially for her.

  Neither the arrangements for the flight nor his contract with independent producer Emmanuel Cohen of Major Pictures to publicize eight pictures that year prevented G. P. from sending frequent directives on the Electra to Mantz.† When Mantz suggested that the rudder, stabilizer, and wing border be painted red or orange to facilitate locating it if it were forced down, G. P. refused. The colors, he said, would have to be those of Purdue University. He also refused Mantz an opportunity to use the ship in a film. It would remain at Purdue for “political reasons,” G. P. wrote. He needed another ten thousand dollars in addition to money he was trying to raise by selling Amelia’s Vega. He had also made a number of other commitments for the plane, he wrote to Mantz, one with an ad agency and another for the installation of the Bendix radio compass. In November it would have to be taken to Hadley Field in New Jersey for a check on the radio by Bell Laboratories and Western Electric. In other letters G. P. complained to Mantz about material not reaching Bo McKneely, who was supposed to work on the Electra at Purdue. When the plane did get back to Burbank, he said, they would have to lay out a definite program for repairs and overhauling. Mantz, described by one of his charter passengers to Las Vegas as “a small man with a large ego,” was being told how to run his business.

  Publicizing the flight was yet another task assumed by G. P., one that required all of his huckster’s skills. Amelia was thirty-nine years old with a lot of records behind her. The years of postwar escapism were ending and public interest focused less on sports and film stars, explorers and aviators, gangsters and “G-Men,” and more on serious issues—the lingering economic depression, a presidential election, and the nationwide struggle between management and new and powerful labor unions. Abroad, Franco’s rebel troops had taken Madrid, Hitler and Mussolini were rattling sabres in Europe, and Japan was determin
ed to control all of Asia. Timing of any release on Amelia’s flight would be crucial. The story could fizzle out if it peaked too soon.

  When Dr. Elliott announced the purchase of the Electra, he said nothing about a world flight. Taking his cue from G. P., Elliott told reporters the Electra was to be a “flying laboratory,” a term G. P. borrowed from another great public relations man, Jack Maddux, who first used it to describe Lindbergh’s new plane back in 1930. When reporters asked Amelia if she intended to fly around the world, she said she did not. She continued to deny it for the remainder of the year. In April she wrote to Amy that the rumors of the flight were “all applesauce.” She denied it again a month later when Lockheed officials announced it and Mantz confirmed their announcement, and yet again in September when a Department of Commerce official let the persistently reappearing cat out of the bag. G. P. had scheduled the official announcement for February of 1937, a month before her departure. Until then, holding off speculation suited Amelia, who dreaded preflight hype for fear something would go wrong.

  Not since 1928 had G. P. been so totally in control of flight arrangements. Soon after the Friendship flight Amelia had begun to make many of her own decisions—for her cross-country tour in the Avro Avian, the women’s derby, the Detroit speed trials, the autogiro trips, and her second Atlantic flight in 1932. However, after each flight, she had more commitments for lectures, magazine articles, public appearances at special events and, now, counseling at Purdue. She had a house being remodeled and a mother, and by then, a seriously ill mother-in-law to look after. She also wanted to campaign for the Democrats in an election year and somehow, she would have to put in more flight time in the Electra before she took it on the most dangerous flight of her life.

  In the spring of 1936 she decided that her mother needed a rest from what Amelia thought was a life of endless drudgery in the Morrissey household. She booked passage for her on a Red Star ship sailing June 15 for a seven-week tour of England, Scotland, and France. Amy would be accompanied by a young relative, Nancy Balis. To discuss the details, Amelia left the White House where she was again an overnight guest on May 13 to see her mother in Medford. Either the meeting was too brief or Amy was too deaf for Amelia to be certain she understood the arrangements, because two weeks later Amelia wrote an incredibly detailed set of instructions and admonishments to her mother.

  Amy was not to criticize the Roosevelts (like many Republicans she called FDR “that man in the White House”). She was to be careful of reporters if they discovered who she was and to “smile for photographs” because “the serious face in real life looks sour in print, the grinning face, moderately pleasant.” When mentioning things that impressed her to the press, Amy should talk about English things in England and French things in France but not Westminster in Paris, Amelia advised.

  There was also an “order of dressiness” list with instructions on what to pack. She was to keep her kid gloves out of the rain and to wear cloth ones instead and not to pull “from the top” the new hose Amelia had sent her. As for her young escort, Nancy Balis, Amy should not be “reactionary” with her. “Let her be radical,” Amelia wrote. “Youth which isn’t is pretty poor and all her family are sticks.”

  Although Amelia loved Amy, she may not have liked her. Certainly more separated them than the normal generational gap and lack of mutual interests afflicting many mother-daughter relationships. Amy often felt the world had dealt with her cruelly. Amy could be cranky. Amy was deaf. Amy was also stubborn and proud. For nine years, from the moment Amelia began to earn a decent income, she had sent money and gifts to Amy only to see a major portion of both passed on to others. The penniless, young amateur flier with the yellow sports car and unpaid medical bills had become financially responsible, but neither her mother, the wealthy judge’s favorite daughter, nor her sister, the Smith College graduate, had followed her lead. Refusing to admit the reality of her near poverty, Amy gave money to Muriel and to relatives or friends she thought were in need while ignoring needs of her own. Muriel, whose husband failed to give her an adequate household allowance and who often feared that her gas, electric, or telephone services might be cut off, also had unpaid bills from S. S. Pierce’s very elegant and expensive food market.

  If Amelia preached and scolded, she also accepted her family responsibilities. These extended to G. P.’s mother as well. While Amy was in Europe, Frances Putnam was living with Amelia in North Hollywood. She moved there in September of 1935. G. P. remained in New York most of the time and a household staff looked after the ailing Mrs. Putnam when her daughter-in-law was on the road. On June 30, when Frances Putnam died, Amelia was with her but G. P. was still in New York. Reporting the death to her own mother, Amelia wrote, “All the while poor Fannie was getting weaker but not alarmingly so until the last few days. I wired G. P. to stand by, but the end came before he could get here. He arrives tomorrow morning from New York.”

  Three weeks after Mrs. Putnam’s death, the Electra was ready. Amelia took it up for the first time with test pilot Elmer McLeod who did most of the flying. She was delighted with the plane. It was worth the price of eighty-thousand dollars, thirty thousand more than Purdue had given her.‡ It was worth the senseless statements G. P. asked her to make to the press about her “flying laboratory” and the “exhaustive study of human reactions to flying” she was supposed to be planning. Three days after that first flight with McLeod, Amelia took delivery of the Electra in Salt Lake City on her thirty-ninth birthday.

  For the next five weeks she learned as much as she could about the Electra from McLeod and Mantz. McLeod took her on one practice run with landings and takeoffs at Mills Field, Alameda Air Base, and Burbank in a single day. Mantz took her on more but not enough to satisfy him that she knew the aircraft as well as she should. When he continued to press her for more flight time, she decided to enter it in the 1936 Bendix race. The flight from Los Angeles to Floyd Bennett Field in New York for the start of the race would give the plane a “shakedown cruise” and Amelia some practice before crossing the country again in the race back to the West Coast on September 4. Fortunately, Mantz and McKneely went along because the two 550-horsepower engines leaked oil all the way to Kansas City.

  Before leaving California, Amelia told reporters she would fly the race solo, probably to prevent rumors that she could not handle the plane without a man to help her. Once in New York she asked Helen Richey, her friend whose forced resignation Amelia had protested so vigorously a year before, to accompany her. In a race that was disastrous to many of the contestants, Amelia had her share of trouble. Moments after she took off at 2 : 47 in the morning the navigator’s hatch blew open and almost pulled her and Richey out of the cabin. They managed to close it and tie it down with a rag. It was secured when they refueled in Kansas City but soon after leaving there Amelia had trouble with the fuel system. Either it was faulty or she didn’t know enough about it. They came in fifth and last, one and a half hours after the winners, Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes.§

  Amelia stayed in Los Angeles for the remainder of the National Air Races, which her reporter friend Carl Allen of the Herald Tribune thought were a fleecing of the public. Allen cited “too much Hollywood ballyhoo,” primitive sanitary facilities, no food except hot dogs and water at five dollars a glass. When Amelia returned to Burbank, Mantz needed more time to work on the Electra and she needed more flight experience in it, but G. P. had already promised it would be based at Purdue. Amelia flew it there in late September, taking G. P. and McKneely with her.

  For the remainder of the year, while Mantz waited in California for the return of Amelia and the Electra, and while G. P. worked on flight arrangements, Amelia shuttled ceaselessly by car or train from Purdue to the Midwest and the East Coast. In addition to her lectures, her other commitments included campaigning for the Roosevelt administration. A few days after she arrived at Purdue she drove to upstate New York, joining a woman’s “caravan” of speakers in cars that stopped in small towns
to rally Democratic voters. Without a microphone Amelia’s vocal cords began to fail, but when she realized her audience in Mechanicsville could not hear her from an open window of a ground-floor office, she asked for a desk to be brought out onto the sidewalk. She gave her speech standing on top of the desk, a performance that gained her and the campaign nationwide news coverage.

  Two days later she drove to Syracuse for the state Democratic convention to second the nomination of her friend and neighbor in Rye, Caroline O’Day, the incumbent congresswoman-at-large and the only woman candidate. When Amelia made her seconding speech the cheers that followed O’Day’s nomination swelled to a roar of approval. Back on a lecture tour of the Midwest, she followed up with an endorsement of the Roosevelt administration at all twenty-eight of her appearances in October.

  No matter how busy she was, Amelia found time to express her beliefs. Both principled and practical, she endorsed Roosevelt because she thought he had done more for women than any other president. At the same time she continued to support the National Women’s Party, sending a contribution and a message to their national convention in New York: “I am deeply interested in women’s obtaining full equality under the law.… Today women still stand victims of restrictive class legislation and conflicting interpretations of statutes … their rights must be made theirs by definition, that is by Constitutional guarantee.”