Sky Roads of the World

Book excerpt: Amy Johnson bacame world famous as the first woman to fly solo in a historical journey from England to Australia in 1930. She also set records in other flights, including a 1931 flight from England to Japan, a 1932 flight from England to Cape Town and another flight to Cape Town in 1935. She was also the first British trained woman ground engineer, the only woman in the world to do so at that time. Amy Johnson married Scottish aviator Jim Mollison in 1932 with whom she flew non-stop from South Wales to the United States in 1933. They also set a record together flying non-stop to India in 1934. The couple divorced in 1938. During WWII Amy joined the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her flying duties consisted of ferrying aircraft from factory airstrips to RAF bases. It was on one of these flights that she crashed into the Thames estuary and was drowned in 1941. Her body was never recovered and her legend was thus born.