1960-04-02 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1960.

The triumphs and heartbreak of the Mollisons

(Continged from Page 8)

But when she got back to Cape Town after a few days up country sho discovered Mollison bad been recalled and had gone oft la her orfatal abip,

She was left behind to travel home slowly and alone.

Back In England they met

again and he proposed.

As he told it afterwords

was an extremely

It

asinine busi-

when

even in a lime feather-brained frivolity was a

voguo.

He said: "Would you like to

get married some time?"

She said:

tried it."

Fie wald: matricu?"

She cliance."

wald:

"Well, I've NEVET

"Shaft ше get

In black

take

11

And so on July 29, 1032, et St George's, Hanover Square, London, they were married.

And The

Blers were two blessed by the milliona who

lolised them.

It was a remoricable occasion. The huge crowds were to be ex- pected. But Amy, dressed all in

and black

carrying no bouquet, Was an astonishing Bight and a sheek to the super- stitious,

Her parents and two sisters had travelled overnight to

allend the wedding, but they entered by a sido door just as the happy couple were leav- ing.

It was explained afterwarde

that Any Johnson had known they were coming.

not

The Mallions and a three- day honeymen in Scotland, then they had to return for the bridegroomI Was BIT OR DEL Atlantic recurd flight.

After he left Amy wandeird worriedly around the Park Lane hotel where they lived, among The business

and the men

tourists, eavesdropping on their table talk about the flight, Then Crom a messenger she got the news he was sofe and the record was broken,

To the Cape

In

That Wal in August. November she set off on a solo flight to the Cupe and back.

On the outward trip she coke the record-held by her husband fur such a short while-by over 10 hours.

She telephoned to the hotel In Park Lane Lo tell the news to her husband. But she was told he was entertaining in a night

club.

She broke the too.

Even on the King's Cup

race they had to quarrel

A DEIDE IN BLACK: Amy and Jim Molilson Leaping St. George's, Hanover-square, London, after their wedding.

There were squalls and currlage collapsed and the Sea- there were quarrels. He was farer spun round. glamorous and made friends wil women easily. He once left a night club in his dinner Jackal to make a record fight,

0

Fle criticise his wife. He mid she was naive, gauche country girl. He neered at her

clothes, and her friends.

In the silence Amy and Jim climbed out They Mollison were both dazed. Their record attempt had lasted 200 yards.

The night before the take-off they sip sliently, strung up with The days of wailing. For the Arst time Any Mollison had made a will,

In the morning-it was enim and

watched tranquil-rey the hundreds of gallons of fuel being put board.

Amy said: "The only draw- hack to this sort of Älghi Is that it doesn't really enlarge Onn 'one's flying experience.

must fly solo and be entirely responsible for the experience to be complete. Bill), we are happy, to be together."

At 3.1 a.m. it was announced that they had crashed.

hod

Jim Mallson, trying to make a landing at Bridgeport, misjudged the airport.

from

Police dragged them the aircraft, and the ambu- lance went Boreaming on way to horpitat. But they were not badly hurt, And

they had achieved their cord.

rew

But they flow together only ence more, and that was in the famour King's Cup Air Race.

Even that started in gloom.

At the last moment she did Amy's father found her in the another thing she had never hangar at Mildenhall. She was She cold that J5m clone before. She made a little crying. Irundio

her persomni refused to let her take their air Dossessions, her gold aretto craft up. She wis going to have case, her money and Jewellery, to fly in the race in an aircraft

she had never handled. and handed them to a friend,

She said. "My luck won't hold out much longer."

"Then the aircraft took of extremely smoothly.

Silence

Father Johnson said: "YOU fly it. You have paid holt its price,"

It was Sunday, Janymy 5. 1941,

She

on

Amy Johrison was flying an R.A.F. trainer aircraft from Prestwick, to Birmingham. had landed at Blackpool Saturday night to spend a few hours with her family. She tolephoned, the parents who had watched from the dim ́bacic- ground while their daughter was feled by the world.

She spoke to her mother, who years ago had been shrieked at in the hull streeta na murderess for letting her daughter tako auch risks.

Then on Sunday morning sho took off.

Before the left she was given a gloomy weather forecast. "All sold. "I'm going right," sho over the top.

At 1045 she was pirborne and had embarked on the one hour Sight with fuel for four and three quarter hours on board.

During the afternoon Amy

Amy Johnson wiped her eyes, nodded her head, and walked Johnson was Oghting her old across to the plane.

enemies for the lant time,

As she climbed aboard: Jim Molson rushed out of the bar And said. "You can't fly it. It's not insured."

course,

Sho Wes calamitously off She should have flown no further south than Birming

In fact, she was over the She flow low Thames Estuary.

ham.

Back in Park Lano Mollison

Mollison was dying, and he small to handle such a heavily explained that Croydon was too Juden aircraft. They were going did not try to lift the machin

It floated off. In into the air. She in her turn did nothing to try again, this time on the 4 seconds they were airborne, coldly for a moment, and then into the Jancary mists to find a

North beach

and after making a slow, smooth Woles,

turn over the beach, they flow out to the Atlantic,

to save him from the drunkard's path he was single-mindedly following.

But there was still hope for the marriage. There was still a

chance that the nervous, strung- up couple, who absorbed the tension of dangerous flying as a drug taker will absorb heroin, world And some stability.

114

at Pendino

in

Near-disaster

On July 3, the Mollisons flew down to Pendine.

Everyono sctlied down to wait.

The first news came from St

Bay. Newfoundland. George's

Amy Johnson looked at him took off.

They started that race odds on favourites. They crashed in India after miscalculating the fuel they heal on board.

Haig

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bearing. She narrowly missed Chater Road, Hong Kong. a church tower and climbed hastily back above the murk

At 3.30 p.m. the navel trawier Haslemere was alone in the grey, clammy estuary.

There was when an unknown aircraft was were public knowledge. Savor Commander W. E. Fletcher, was

reported flying high and fast,

nearly a shocking disaster.

Everyone close to them

solitary policeman over- A thought that the moment had heard some reporters talking circling New

they They were forecasting how long together from I would be before the Mollisons,

the North approrod.

COMID in 1933 when planned to liy

Croydon

Atlantic,

בלטת£ם

brand new nir- They had a

the Seafarer, known craft,

the

Tank. Flying Fuel Extra toks had been tied to

them to Now York, hold 400 gallons, enough to talce

At dawn the Mollisona left their Park Lane hotel and drove down to the airport.

He know his slation had not been informed, and he looked at that crowded holiday beach in horror at the bathers, the aand-castle builders and drowsing paronią,

In his thick uniform he klerted to run through the hot July afternoon until he mw an AA. scout on his motor-cycle. To him he gasped out the story, There was an odd crowd ready and together, the scout and the policeman, standing on his side, to see them off.

car. drove along the beach shouting at the holiday-makers

Debs and their young men, in

evening dress, a few mechanics, a couple of early morning bus drivers, and a horde of sleepy- eyed schoolboya.

With chicken sandwiches and two Bnsks of brandy on board the aircraft taxled to the end of the runway.

and the ice-cream away.

men in run.

It was a desperate task, and was in complete not everyone safely before the black twin- engined aircraft snarled over the sun-scorched besch.

The engines revved up. the The Mollisons didn't bother to akcraft started to roll, to build answer the angry accusations

then record home up speed.

suddenly it that they were Indifferent to started 10 swing. The under- other people's safety.

Three hours later It was Glasgow, Nuva Scotia, in a dense fog, trying to pick up a bearing.

13

At 10.20 pm, the townsfolk of St John, New Brunswick, came out into the streets

the Mollisona they heard

and above them ciroiing floundering still in thick log.

An hour later, news came that they had cleared the fog and were 300 miles from New York.

its

By this time their quarrels

and from different parts of the world they criticised each other.

The final stroke occurred as Jim Mollison was taking off on yet another Transatlantic flight, His wife announced moments beforehand that in future she wished to be known once again as Amy Johnson.

They appeared in the Divorce Court on February 7. 1938. Amy was granted a decrco on the grounds of her, husband's mis- conduct.

For Amy Johnson i was a period of speeding charges, dises, of rumours of new ventures that never took place.

Le had brought them many There were immense crowds Ruccesses and little happiness, at the airpott In New York, The years of divorce were They had waited for hours, and worse. the Seafarer WEE Dow hours overdue

Oght with after headwinds and for.

The reports come in faster and faster that they were nçar- ing their destination. Then there was a pause and then silence..

Amy and Jim wero lost again. Then the war came, Now clouds were the trouble.

Amy Johnson got in touch "Please They flew over Bridgeport for with Lord Vansittart.

Then they find me something dangerous to more than an hour.

York. approached New

She became And do." she begged.

and skiful suddenly they were over Bridge one of those brave

women ferry pilots. port again.

For Jim Mollison it was a kaleidoscope of Mayfair bars..

The commanding officer, LL-

on the tiny bridge when he saw the aircraft and heard engine cut just as the last drop- of fuel was sucked up.

A jettisoned door flow off the

the Black against aircraft. January aky a figure leaped out and a parachute bloomed.

Fletcher knew what he was He knew the perils of doing.

water. Ho had been that by a polar explorer in his youth. Nevertheless he pulled off his Jacket and leaped over the side.

Even when the trawler's launch was quite close he was But clinging to Amy Johnson. when they reached him he was alone and unconscious. He died without speaking.

Any Johnson found. She was left to the sea which she had always feared.

Was never

NEXT WEEK

The woman who flow away to dia

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