Women Aviators

by Karen Bush Gibson

  When she died in 1992 at the age of 89, Edna had more than 35,000 flight hours, 127 air race trophies, and recognition by many groups, including the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. She also received the Charles Lindbergh Lifetime Achievement Award and was the first woman to be elected an honorary member of the Order of Daedalians, an organization of military pilots.

  LEARN MORE

  American Women and Flight Since 1940 by Deborah G. Douglas, Amy E. Foster, Alan D. Meyer, and Lucy B. Young (University Press of Kentucky, 2004)

  “Edna Gardner Whyte” on International Women’s Air and Space Museum website, http://iwasm.org/wp-blog/museum-collections/women-in-air-space-history/edna-gardner-whyte/

  Rising Above It: An Autobiography—The Story of a Pioneering Woman Aviator by Edna Gardner Whyte with Ann L. Cooper (Orion Books, 1991)

  KATHERINE CHEUNG

  The First Licensed Asian American Woman Pilot

  IN 1932, A SPIRITED YOUNG woman with a big smile on her face stood next to an airplane, her hand on the propeller. Joy radiated from her face. The 27-year-old woman was a pilot. Although female pilots were still rare in 1932, she wasn’t the only one, nor was she the youngest. This woman had soloed after 12.5 hours of flying lessons. Although that achievement is remarkable, she didn’t hold a record for that either. What made Katherine Sui Fun Cheung extraordinary was that she was the first licensed female Asian American aviator. She raced, performed aerial acrobatics, and participated in air shows.

  Born in Canton, China, in 1904, Katherine Cheung moved to the United States at age 17 to study music, first at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and later at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and the University of Southern California.

  One day, she accompanied her father to Dycer Airport for a driving lesson. But instead of driving, Katherine was mesmerized by the airplanes taking off and landing. She never forgot the sight of those planes.

  Years later, when she was a wife and mother, a cousin who happened to be a pilot took her up in his airplane. The experience was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She immediately signed up for flying lessons with the Chinese Aeronautical Association for five dollars.

  Katherine earned her license in 1932 and became one of about 200 licensed women pilots in the United States. Of that group, she was the only one who was Asian. In her homeland of China, women weren’t allowed to take lessons. She began entering air shows and competitive air events, including the Chatterton Air Race. Katherine particularly enjoyed stunt flying. The snap rolls, inverted flying, and spiral diving thrilled audiences at California county fairs.

  The Chinese American community was so proud of Katherine that, with the help of famous Chinese actress Anna May Wong, they raised $2,000 to buy her a 125-horsepower Fleet biplane. In an air race from Glendale to San Diego, she came in fourth.

  Three years later, in 1935, she earned her international license to fly as a commercial pilot. She was a good pilot who could handle herself in the air. One time, when she was flying back from an aviation competition in Cleveland, her compass broke, but she was still able to find her way home.

  Hazel Ying Lee

  Hazel Ying Lee was another early Chinese American aviator. Born in Portland, Oregon, Hazel took her first flight at the age of 19 in 1932. She joined her city’s Chinese Flying Club to take lessons and earned her pilot’s license the same year. Like Katherine, Hazel also heard about Japan attacking China and decided to volunteer for the Chinese Air Force—but she was rejected. She flew a commercial plane in China for a while, before returning to the United States in 1938. She joined the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). While in training at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, she had to make an emergency landing in a farmer’s field. The farmer believed she was Japanese and held her with his pitchfork until authorities could verify her identity. As a WASP, Hazel ferried pursuit or fighter aircraft from the factories to military airfields. It was while doing her job that she and another plane crashed. Her injuries were so severe that she died within a few days.

  Katherine became a US citizen in 1936. She was also invited to join the Ninety-Nines. She competed against and became friends with Amelia Earhart.

  China first saw airplanes in the sky around 1911, but they were almost always piloted by foreigners. The Chinese people who did have some familiarity with planes had often spent time in the United States, particularly the San Francisco area. Airplanes had to be imported from other countries, as China did not have any airplane-manufacturing facilities. By 1915, China had started its own air force, but it still needed airplanes and pilots.

  The first woman pilot in China was actually Korean-born Kwon Ki-ok. After being jailed for her involvement in demonstrations in her home country, she left for China in 1920. She attended the Air Force Academy in Chongqing and was the only woman in her class. It may have been that the Chinese government wanted to put her against the Korean-born Japanese aviator Park Kyung-won. The two women met in battle only once, in 1938, and Kwon was victorious. She was put to work as a flight instructor at the Air Force Academy until she returned to Korea as a hero.

  When Japan invaded China during World War II, Katherine wanted to return to China and teach volunteers to fly. She wanted to teach women as well as men. Katherine visited Chinese American communities to discuss her plans and raised more than $7,000 for a Ryan ST-A plane that she would use to train volunteer pilots.

  Before Katherine Cheung could reach her goal, tragedy struck. One day, her cousin jumped in the Ryan plane and took off as a prank. However, the plane crashed, killing him. Her father, now very ill, worried about his headstrong daughter and made her promise not to fly anymore.

  Katherine’s promise lasted until his death. She returned to flying briefly, but it wasn’t the same. Losing her friend Amelia Earhart, her cousin, and her father was just too much. Flying had lost its allure. At the age of 38, she quit flying for good and lived most of the rest of her life in Chinatown in San Francisco.

  The China’s Air Force Aviation Museum calls Katherine “China’s Amelia Earhart.” She has also been recognized by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. When she was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame, a Chinese cultural day with a traditional Chinese lion dance was held in her honor. Katherine lived until the age of 98, dying in 2003.

  Today, AirAsia has 17 female pilots. Although this number doesn’t seem like much, it’s a beginning in a profession and location that has long been dominated by males.

  LEARN MORE

  “Katherine Cheung” on Women in Aviation International website, www.wai.org/pioneers/2000pioneers.cfm

  “Katherine Cheung: First Asian American Female Aviator” on Famous Chinese website, www.famouschinese.com/people/Katherine_Cheung

  BERYL MARKHAM

  African Bush Pilot Crosses Atlantic

  A BUZZING SOUND NEAR a village in the African bush grew louder and louder. People looked up to see an airplane. The children jumped up and cheered. The plane came closer, dropping altitude, apparently looking for a place to land. It aimed for a clearing. It looked like a tight fit, but the plane landed effortlessly and taxied for a short distance. The engine stopped, and the propeller slowly wound down. The pilot leapt out of the cockpit and onto the wing, dropping a couple of bags to the ground. A box containing medical supplies was handed to waiting hands more gently. Then the pilot jumped to the ground.

  The goggles came off, followed by the helmet. Wavy brown hair tumbled out, which stopped before reaching the shoulders. The pilot was a woman; her name was Beryl Markham. As Africa’s first bush pilot, she delivered mail, supplies, and passengers wherever they were needed—even to the most remote areas.

  Born in Leicester, England, in 1902, Beryl Clutterbuck moved to British-controlled Kenya with her parents when she was three years old. They weren’t the only British citizens to make the move. East Africa’s soil and climate made it ideal for growing crops such as coffee. Charles Clutterbuck wasn’t especially talented at
farming; however, he did have some success with racehorses. The British colonists enjoyed horse racing, just as they had in England. So Markham bred and trained horses for the Nairobi racetracks and taught his daughter to do the same.

  Beryl’s mother decided that life in Africa wasn’t for her and returned to England. Beryl stayed with her father, playing with the children of the families he hired. Her father provided little supervision, allowing her to grow up fearless, which involved her being attacked by a pet lion or killing deadly mamba snakes. She learned to speak various African languages and hunt wild game with a spear. She also rode horses very well and soon became more accomplished than her father in working with horses.

  Although naturally smart and a quick learner, Beryl hated being stuck in a schoolroom. She spent only two and a half years in formal schooling, learning everything else by doing or reading about it. As a teenager, she enjoyed plane rides with her friend, Denys Finch Hatton.

  When her father’s business failed, he returned to England. Beryl remained in Kenya and used her talent with horses to become a trainer of thoroughbreds. When she was 24, one of her horses won Kenya’s greatest prize in horseracing.

  Beryl met a wealthy Englishman named Mansfield Markham, whom she married in 1927. They moved to England briefly, but when the marriage ended, Beryl moved back to Kenya. Beryl couldn’t stop thinking about airplanes, though. She contacted Tom Campbell Black for instruction in April 1930. After eight hours of lessons, she took to the sky by herself. A month later, she earned her pilot’s license. She flew often and learned everything she could about becoming a pilot.

  Her single-engine, 120-horsepower Avro Avian IV airplane had occasional engine problems, but she still decided to fly it to England less than a year after receiving her license. This flight would have been dangerous even in a good airplane, and Beryl’s plane had no radio or compass.

  After taking off from Nairobi, her first destination was Juba, a town in the Sudan. But a storm and engine problems prevented her from reaching the airport. Day two got her to Malakal on the Nile River. On day three, she was forced to land in the desert and make repairs to the engine herself. Problems continued, including a forced landing in a dust storm outside of Cairo.

  After arranging for the British Royal Air Force to repair her plane’s engine, Beryl was able to make it across the Mediterranean Sea. She wore an inner tube around her neck in case her plane went into the water. She traveled through Europe and finally reached London 23 days later.

  In September 1933, Beryl became the first person in Kenya to receive a “B” license, which allowed her to hire herself out as a commercial pilot. She started as an air scout for safaris and was soon delivering supplies and mail to gold miners. She also flew sick people to hospitals and provided an air-taxi service.

  Beryl heard that big prizes and fame came with setting aviation records and winning races. Although there were races in Africa, the United States and Western Europe seemed to have bigger races and bigger prizes. Beryl returned to Great Britain to decide on her next move.

  Beryl wasn’t the only British woman aviator. During the golden age of aviation, two of the greatest female aviators were British—Lady Mary Heath and Amy Johnson. The world first heard about Lady Mary Heath when she became the first woman to fly from Cape Town in South Africa to London in 1928. It was one of many aviation adventures and records Lady Mary would pursue. Later that year, she worked as a commercial pilot for Royal Dutch Airlines. But she loved competition the most. She was forced to leave aviation after suffering severe injuries from a crash.

  Lady Heath’s chief competitor was her countrywoman Amy Johnson. Dubbed “the British Amelia Earhart” by the media, she was best known as the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. She made this journey in 1930, a year after earning her pilot’s license. During World War II, Amy transported planes as part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. When a twin-engine aircraft she was flying began to have problems, she bailed out and drowned.

  Although Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and others had crossed the Atlantic, they had all been going from west to east with help from the jet stream that travels in the same direction. So far, no one had been successful flying from east to west. Beryl decided she would be the first to fly nonstop from London to New York.

  Beryl borrowed a single-engine, 200-horsepower Percival Vega Gull that could reach a top speed of 163 miles per hour (262 kilometers per hour). Extra gas tanks were added so that she wouldn’t have to stop during the approximately 3,500 miles (5,600 kilometers) between the cities. She took off from Abingdon, England, at 8:00 PM on September 4, 1936, against a strong headwind and stormy weather. After landing, she told the Daily Express newspaper, “It was a great adventure. But I’m so glad it’s over. I really had a terrible time…. I knew I was in for it half an hour after I left. I pulled out my chart of the Atlantic and a gust of wind blew it out of my hand. I saw it floating away down to earth…. I had a rather bad time after that. There was a 30 mile headwind, a helluva lot of low cloud and driving rain.”

  Beryl had no radio on the plane. At different points, people reported spotting her—that is, until she reached the easternmost point of North America, Newfoundland. Then, she just seemed to disappear.

  At that point in the journey, the fuel line to one of her gas tanks froze. This incident caused the engine to fail and the plane to rapidly lose altitude. Just before her plane went down, her fuel line warmed up, and she was able to pull up and avoid crashing into the Atlantic. When she regained her altitude, though, the fuel line froze again, this time causing her to crash into a peat bog in Nova Scotia. She climbed out of the plane, its nose buried in the muck, and greeted two nearby fishermen: “I’m Mrs. Markham. I’ve just flown from England.”

  Approximately 22 hours after her takeoff, a US Coast Guard plane came after her, and she was allowed to copilot it to New York City. She was famous on both sides of the Atlantic. She talked about entering other races but was devastated when her flight instructor and friend, Tom Campbell Black, was killed during an air race to South Africa. It made her lose any desire to fly.

  There was talk of making a movie about Beryl’s famous flight. That didn’t happen, but Beryl, most likely with help from her third husband, Raoul Schumacher, published West with the Night.

  Although fictionalized in parts, the book was an immediate bestseller. The autobiography covers more than her historic flight; it also touches on her life in Africa. In 2005, one of the book’s true stories—about Beryl’s encounter with what she believed was a tame lion—was adapted as a children’s book, The Good Lion.

  In 1952, Beryl returned to Kenya and her first love of raising and training horses. She died from pneumonia in 1986 at the age of 84.

  LEARN MORE

  Straight on Till Morning: The Life of Beryl Markham by Mary S. Lovell (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011)

  West with the Night by Beryl Markham (North Point Press, 1982)

  WILLA BROWN

  Integrating the US Armed Forces

  THE NEWSROOM OF THE Chicago Defender was a noisy place in 1936—filled with the sounds of clacking typewriter keys, ringing telephones, and talking reporters. But all that came to a standstill when a beautiful young woman walked in one day. She looked like a model. Wearing white breeches that disappeared into her boots, she seemed ready to ride a horse.

  The city editor hurried over to her and showed her to his office. He offered her a seat, trying to ignore the eyes of his staff, who were watching them instead of doing their work.

  “I’m Willa Brown. I’m an aviatrix,” she announced. Early women pilots used the gender-specific word “aviatrix” rather than “aviator.” “We’re putting on an air show—all black pilots— at the Harlem Airport [near Chicago]. We’re hoping that we can count on you, the main newspaper for our black community, to support us in publicizing our event.”

  The city editor, Enoch Waters, knew of one other female African American pilot. Bessie Coleman had often been
reported on by the Chicago Defender during her lifetime. The only other African American pilots known of in Chicago were Hubert Fauntleroy Julian, also known as “the Black Eagle,” and John Robinson, who was in Ethiopia at the time.

  Waters would later write an article about the confidence and determination of his visitor in an article titled, WILLA BROWN VISITS THE CHICAGO DEFENDER. She told him that there were about 30 African American aviators, although most were students. Cornelius Coffey was the leader. He held a commercial pilot’s license and certified mechanic’s license and was a certified flight instructor. Willa neglected to add that she was married to Coffey and helped run the school.

  Waters was fascinated and, with a photographer along, attended the air show, which had drawn an audience of 200 to 300. Willa was delighted he was covering the air show and offered to take the city editor up for a ride. He wrote, “She was piloting a Piper Cub, which seemed to me, accustomed as I was to commercial planes, to be a rather frail craft. It was a thrilling experience, and the maneuvers—figure eights, flip-overs and stalls—were exhilarating, though briefly frightening. I wasn’t convinced of her competence until we landed smoothly.”

  Willa Beatrice Brown was born in Glasgow, Kentucky, on January 22, 1906, but later moved to Terre Haute, Indiana, to attend high school and college. At 21, she began teaching business in a high school in Gary, Indiana. She was the youngest high school teacher in the school system. But, dissatisfied with her life, she eventually moved to Chicago to work as a social worker. She also attended Northwestern University, where she earned her master’s degree in business administration.