Amy Johnson

Uncommon card · No. 92537

Amy Johnson (born 1 July 1903 – disappeared 5 January 1941) was a pioneering British pilot from Kingston upon Hull, England, who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance records during the 1930s. In 1933, Katharine Hepburn's character in the film Christopher Strong was inspired by Johnson. She flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary: she died after bailing out. Because her body was never recovered, the precise cause of her death—drowning, hypothermia or being pulled into a warship's moving propellers, is unknown and has been a subject of discussion since the possibility of friendly fire was raised in 1999.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Andy Dingley (scanner), Public domain