Amy Johnson, CBE

Amy Johnson CBE (1 July 1903 – 5 January 1941) was a pioneering English aviator who was the first female pilot to fly alone from Britain to Australia.

Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s. She flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary and died during a ferry flight.

Amy Johnson was born at 154 St. George's Road in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, the eldest of the four daughters of John William Johnson, a member of the family fish merchants firm of Andrew Johnson, Knudtzon and Company, and Amy Hodge, granddaughter of William Hodge, Mayor of Hull in 1860.

She 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 June 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 that same year, she became the first British woman to obtain a ground engineer's "C" licence.

Marriages Sep 1932

• Johnson Amy Mollison St.Geo.H.Sq. 1a 1213
• Mollison James A Johnson St.Geo.H.Sq. 1a 1213

In 1932, Amy married Scottish pilot Jim Mollison, who had proposed to her during a flight together some eight hours after they had first met. In 1936 Amy resumed her maiden name for the purposes of her career, and in 1938 the marriage was dissolved. In July 1932, Johnson set a solo record for the flight from London to Cape Town, South Africa in Puss Moth G-ACAB, named Desert Cloud, breaking her new husband's record.

Throughout the 1930s, she went on to set many other records including becoming the first pilot to fly from London to Moscow in a day, she set a record time for Britain to Japan with her co-pilot Jack Humphreys and a solo record for the flight between London and Cape Town.

She managed to gather the funds to buy her first aircraft thanks to the support of her father, who remained one of her strongest supporters. Her first plane was a second-hand Gipsy Moth, she named Jason after her father’s fish business trademark.

The aircraft is now on display at the Science Museum.

During the Second World War, Ms Johnson was part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. It was set-up to transport Royal Air Force aircrafts around the country.

During that time, she rose through the ranks as First Officer.

Amy Johnson died in 1941 when her plane crashed in the Thames Estuary. She was 37-years-old.

Her body was never recovered and her death has since remained a mystery. She was the first person from the Air Transport Auxiliary to be killed in active service.

A memorial service for Amy was held at the St Martins in the Fields church in Trafalgar Square on 14 January 1941.

In 1974, Harry Ibbetson's statue of the pilot was unveiled in Kingston Upon Hull, while the University of Sheffield named the building that houses its department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering after her.

In 1942, a film of Johnson's life, They Flew Alone, was made by director-producer Herbert Wilcox, starring Anna Neagle as Johnson, and Robert Newton as Mollison. The movie is known in the United States as Wings and the Woman.

She wrote "Sky Roads of the World" - published in 1929

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1802112/johnson,-amy-v./ CWGC]

• First Officer JOHNSON, AMY V.
• Died 05/01/1941
• Aged 37
• Air Transport Auxiliary
• C B E

Daughter of John William and Amy Johnson, of Beverley, Yorkshire. B.A., A.R.Ae.S., F.R.G.S., F.S.E., M.W.E.S. President's gold medal from Society of Engineers, 1931; Egyptian gold medal for valour, 1930; League of Aviators', Women's Trophy, 1930; Segrave Trophy, 1932; Royal Aero Club's gold medal, 1936.

• Commemorated at RUNNYMEDE MEMORIAL
• Location: Surrey, United Kingdom
• Cemetery/memorial reference: Panel 288.
  

  ---

References

• WIKI
• Publication "Great Women's Lives" - Times Obituaries page 122
• Independent - Amy Johnson's 114th birthday
• IET biography
• This Day in Aviation