The above extracts were taken from Croydon Airport 1928-1939, published by London Borough of Sutton Libraries and Arts Services, 1980.
Amy Johnson was born on July 1, 1903, in Hull, Yorkshire, and lived there until she went to Sheffield University in 1923 to read for a BA. After graduating, she moved on to work as a secretary to a London solicitor where she also became interested in flying.
Amy began to learn to fly at the London Aeroplane Club in the winter of 1928-29 and her hobby soon became an all-consuming determination, not simply to make a career in aviation, but to succeed in some project which would demonstrate to the world that women could be as competent as men in a hitherto male-dominated field.
Her first flying instructor told her she would never become an aviator. And in fact it did take her 16 hours of dual flying - twice as long as was typical - before she would take her first solo flight. She finally earned her first pilot's licence in July, 1929. Later that year, after demonstrating an unusual interest for a female aviator of that time in the mechanics of flying, she became the first British woman to qualify as a ground engineer.
In early 1930 she determined to challenge - and break - Hinkler's England-Australia record. She won the financial backing of a member of Lord Wakefield, and with only 75 hours of flying time she set off from Croydon in South London on May 5, 1930. Later, Johnson would remark that she had the audacity to undertake the journey because she didn't really know what she was getting herself into. "The prospect did not frighten me, because I was so appallingly ignorant that I never realised in the least what I had taken on."
Though she didn't achieve her goal of breaking the time record to Australia, Amy determined to attempt other long-distance flying feats.
In January 1931 she attempted to fly across Siberia to China, but gave up at the end of the month, crash-landing near Warsaw. In July 1931, she set an England to Japan record in a Puss Moth with Jack Humphreys. In July 1932, she set a record from England to Capetown, solo, in a Puss Moth. In May, 1936, she set a record from England to Capetown, solo, in a Percival Gull, a flight to retrieve her 1932 record.
In 1933, newly-wed to fellow aviator Jim Mollison, the couple undertook a joint flying mission: The two took off from Wales for New York. Ignoring his wife's advice, Mollison refused to refuel in Boston and they ran out of fuel over an airstrip in Connecticut. They overshot the runway trying to land their in the dark and both ended up in hospital.
When American aviator Amelia Earhart heard about the accident she invited them to stay at her house while they recovered.
At the outbreak of World War II the Royal Air Force invited Amy to join the newly-established Air Transport Auxiliary, ferrying aircraft from factories to airfields. Ironically, Johnson would be the first to die though she was one of the most experienced aviators to join the ATA.
In January 1941, one headline read: AMY JOHNSON BALES OUT, MISSING. She had been on a routine mission, flying from Prestwick to Kidlington, at the time of the crash. Eyewitnesses reported seeing her aircraft plummet into the Thames Estuary, way off its designated course. Her body was never found.
MOLLISON, JAMES ALLAN (1905-59)
Born in Scotland Jim Mollison went to Australia in 1928 to become a flying instructor at Adelaide Aero Club. He later joined Ansett and also did stunt flying. When Kingsford Smith and C.W.A. Scott made successive solo records for the flight from England to Australia in 1930, it was inevitable that Jim Mollison would also try. Scott and he did not get on well together, being both ex-RAF and keen boxers. In July 1931 he attempted to beat 9 days, 5 hours of Scott's record in the reverse direction. At his first attempt in June 1931 he had too much fuel on board and he failed to take off at Darwin; but when repairs were done, he made a second attempt. After making an emergency landing in Batavia he lost his goggles over India. Over France he flew, very tired, through fog but had to land on shingles at Pevensey on the English coast. He thus sliced 2 days off the record.
Amy Johnson had flown solo from Croydon to Darwin in May 1930 in a similar D.H. Moth. They met in Capetown, subsequently married and were a famous aviation couple. Becoming competitors for 'solo' records around the world, coupled with their boisterous personalities, led to a separation and divorce. Molllison married again twice but maintained a hectic life until arthritis made him give up and he took a London Pub instead.
Her first day's flying took her to Vienna where she was almost too nauseous to carry on because of fumes escaping from the fuel tanks. From Vienna she flew to Constantinople, then to Aleppo and Baghdad where Jason was damaged on landing. She then headed for the Persian Gulf and to Karachi where she was given a hero's welcome. She continued to Rangoon where she had to have further emergency repairs after her aeroplane ran into a ditch. When these were finished, Jason was put on the back of a local fire engine and taken to a racecourse - a perfect runway.
The flier who captured the imagination of everyone in Britain in the 1930s was "Amy, wonderful Amy" (as she was celebrated in song) the Yorkshire-born girl who took off from Croydon on her famous flight to Darwin, Australia in 1930 - the first woman to make the solo flight.
Amy’s arrival at Croydon (she returned by sea) after the trip to Australia was a very different affair from her departure. A local reporter on the Wallington and Carshalton Times wrote: "Visitors to London have made a special journey to Croydon. Northern dialects mingle with the Cockney accent. And, of course, Croydonians are assembling in their hundreds accompanied by large contingents from Purley, Wallington, Carshalton, Sutton and Cheam…the public enclosure at Plough Lane is filled with thousands of people, all struggling for a good view-point. In Sandy Lane and Foresters Row there are 4,000 cars parked, while the whole length of the Purley Way is filled with humans all cheerfully facing a three-hour wait for their heroine."