Daughter of the sky

by Jr. Paul L. Briand

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For most of the basic scenes and incidents in the story of Amelia Earhart I am indebted to G. P. Putnam’s Sons and to Harcourt, Brace and Company, whose books by Amelia Earhart and George Palmer Putnam provided me with the beginning framework for my biography. From AE’s 20 Hrs., 40 Min., The Fun of It, and Last Flight (arranged by G. P. Putnam), from GP’s Soaring Wings and Wide Margins, I have carefully chosen events, transcribed letters, and quoted conversations. In the conversations and letters I have taken liberties and occasionally changed the word order and inserted synonyms, for it is my belief that GP often made AE sound the way her public expected her to sound. Expressions like “you betja,” “tummy,” and “grand” were not in keeping with my interpretation of Amelia’s character and I did not use them. GP, I believe, invented too freely.

I owe profound gratitude to the following persons, who wrote me letters, showed me photographs, and/or told me anecdotes:

Mary Ahearn, Josephine B. Akiyama, Lois Allen, Bernt Balchen, R. S. Barnaby, Elizabeth B. Brown, Howard Cady, Sidney Carroll, John F. B. Carruthers, Lucy Challiss, Jessie R. Chamberlin, Jacqueline Cochran, Thomas Coulson, Marjorie B. Davis, Anne M. Earhart, Paul Garber, Viola Gentry, Betty Gillies, John Glennon, Lawrence Gould, Clyde E. Holley, Clarence L. Johnson, Teddy Kenyon, Marvin MacFarland, Jan Mason, Ruth Nichols, Blanche Noyes, Charles A. Pearce, Edward S. Pearce, Margaret H. Putnam, Hilton H. Railey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lauretta M. Schimmoler, Ester Schlundt, Casimir R. Sheft, Manila Talley, Mark S. Waggener, Bradford Washburn, Helen Hutson Weber, Edna Gardner Whyte, and Gilbert L. Campbell.

For providing me with their Earhart materials and helping me in my research I offer my deepest thanks to:

The Library, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado; the Staff and the Bibliographical Center, Denver Public Library, Denver, Colorado; the National Air Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, New York, New York; the Libraries, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana; the Honnold Library, Claremont, California; Robert Saudek Associates; and the Ford Foundation. And my special acknowledgment to the finest librarians I have ever known: Lieutenant Colonel George V. Fagan, Shirley Karol-chik, and Donald J. Barrett, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado. For a clean manuscript thanks to my typists, Beverly Bowman and Marie Rossignol.

For his invaluable assistance in working out the many navigation problems of the last flight my sincere thanks to Captain Thomas E. Pearsall, USAF Academy; and for their help in solving other difficult flying problems, my appreciation to Major John R. Galt and Captain Lawrence G. Campbell, also of USAFA.

Finally, for guidance and advice in writing and rewriting the manuscript, from the first stages through the final drafts, I want to thank John E. Williams, Harold M. Priest, Stuart B. James, Harvey Gross, and Major Joseph B. Roberts. And for having had faith in me from the beginning, four years ago, I want to express my profoundest gratitude to Colonel Peter R. Moody, head, Department of English, United States Air Force Academy. My deepest acknowledgment is on the dedication page.

$3.95

DAUGHTER OF THE SKY

The Story of Amelia Earhart

by PAUL L. BRIAND, JR.

The full story of Amelia Earhart’s life—including an explanation of the mystery of her disappearance and death—is told for the first time in this biography. It is a story of her girlhood in Kansas, her college years, her jobs as nurse and social worker, and her first adventures in flying as well as of her later years of achievement and triumph.

It was almost by chance that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Overnight she found herself the most famous girl in the world. That was her decisive hour. She felt she had to prove worthy of her fame, to show the world that she was a great flier by right, not just by luck. What happened is explained by Colonel Railey in his Introduction:

“Genuinely as a tribute to her sex rather than for her own glorification, she accepted the honors that accrued; for the participation of women in aviation, which at all times she strove to encourage and pace, was the obsession which lured her to her death.”

Amelia Earhart went on to spectacular victories, setting up a flying record that is still a marvel of achievement and that puts her in the top rank of America’s hall of fame. A likable and modest woman, Amelia Earhart was a skilled and dedicated air pioneer, a true daughter of the sky, and her life story remains unique.

Jacket design by Larry Lurin

DUELL, SLOAN AND PEARCE
NEW YORK

PAUL L. BRIAND, JR.

Captain Paul L. Briand, Jr., was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1920. He received his primary and secondary education at parochial, private, and public schools in greater Boston, and his higher education at Boston University, the University of New Hampshire (B.A., cum laude, 1948), Columbia University (M.A., 1952), and the University of Denver (Ph.D., 1959).

He began his military career as a naval aviation cadet, transferred to the Army Air Forces where he earned the Air Medal as a combat crew member in Europe during World War II, and was commissioned from college as a Distinguished Military Graduate, Air Force ROTC, into the regular Air Force.

Initially a public-relations officer, Captain Briand became an English instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from 1952–55. Since 1955 he has been an Assistant Professor of English at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, where, “like two eyes joined in sight,” he combines his loves for aviation and literature. He is the co-editor of The Sound of Wings, an anthology of flying literature, published in 1957.

Captain Briand is married to the former Margaret Frances Palladino of New York; they have four children: Paul L. III, Mary Katherine, Anne Marie, and Margaret Mary.

Amelia Earhart after the Atlantic solo, 1932.

Hilton H. Railey, Amelia Earhart, G. P. Putnam, and David Binney Putnam at Rye Beach, New York, after the Atlantic solo, 1932.