Oceania - Amelia Earhart - Last Flight

Beyond Ras el Hadd, which is on the eastern end of Arabia, facing the Gulf of Oman, we cut across to Gwada, which we checked over at five o'clock. Thence we skirted the coast southeastward to Karachi, arriving at 7.05 P.M. I think our elapsed time for the 1,920 miles from Assab to Karachi was 13 hours and 10 minutes. Perhaps we could have done better if my manual mixture-control lever had not jammed. with it misbehaving, I could not regulate the quantity of fuel consumed by the right engine, which gulped gasoline unconscionably. I was afraid I should run out of fuel, so I reduced the speed to economize.

One of the customs I had become used to was being fumigated. Every time the plane landed, attendants with flit guns or more elaborate contraptions flung open the door and began squirting. Having been in a yellow fever district, Fred and I were suspects, warnings of our coming having been sent on ahead. however, a rumor which apparently found some circulation at home, to the effect that we might be quarantined in India for nine days, had no foundation. Our robust healthfulness appeared beyond question once the British medical authorities had at us. The first person to greet us at Karachi was Jacques de Sibour. Perversely I ma introduce him as the husband of Violette, the charming American-born daughter of Gordon Selfridge of London who for years has winged around Europe, Africa and Asia with her pilot-husband. Beyond that, de Sibour was the good fairy of our flight. It was he who gathered together the maps and helpful data, arranged supplies and generally made a journey around the world as easy as such a journey possibly could be.

"Oh, yes.": My interest was mild. Probably a local newspaper. Jacuqes persisted. "From New York. G.P. on the wire." As casual as that! And we almost exactly on the other side of the world.

Here is that telephone conversation* as it occurred later that day after the far-flung business of arranging the "connection" had been worked out.

*It was recorded mechanically in the office of the Herald Tribune in new York. the conversation traveled 8,274 miles. From Karachi to Bombay communication was by land lines, from Bombay to London, and thence to New York, by short-wave radio.

Later thee were other long long-distance conversations, from Calcutta and Bandoeing and Soerabaga, the latter two routed across the Pacific, covering about 12,000 miles. For the last, G.P.P., en route to California by United plane, was picked up at Cheyenne, Wyoming, his back-of-the-world chat being sandwiched into a twenty minute refueling stop there.

The last conversation, with both voices clearly recorded, ended.

G.P.P. --"Is everything about the ship O.K. now?"

A.E. -- "Yes. Good night. Hon."

G.P.P. -- "Good night. . . . I'll be sitting in Oakland waiting for you."

Alluring opportunities to linger along the way cropped up recurrently. at Karachi, for instance, I received an invitation from the maharaja of Jodhphur to land at his private airport three hundred miles southward. the Maharaja's country is noted for its attractions, and he for boundless hospitality. But, alas, that was a digression to be catalogued for another day.

On my first morning in India I had a small adventure riding a camel. I saw one with particularly gay trappings along the airport road, obviously for hire. His master's costume was in keeping. Over very full trousers he wore a shiny black alpaca coat, pleated to the waist at the back. From under this the tail of his shirt protruded. He had on a rather high turban, and hid most of his facial expressions behind a bushy beard. The owner explained that his camel was a naughty one. i wanted to tell him I should be naughty, too, if i had two leather plugs in my nose to which guiding reins were attached, but I could not get that idea across. apparently bits are never used.

Whatever his disposition, my hired steed knelt down and I climbed into the saddle swung between his two humps. It was a startling take-off as we rose. A camel unhinges himself in most extraordinary fashion. As his hind legs unfold you are threatened with a nose-dive forward. Then with a lurch that can unhorse (I mean uncamel) the unwary, the animal's center section, so to speak, hoists into the air. It is reminiscent of the first symptoms of a flat spin. Camels should have shock absorbers.

Later, four of us tried cameling again, visiting a so-called oasis a few miles outside the city. There were many "ships of the desert" careening along the roads loaded far beyond their mammalian Plymsol lines with everything from vegetables to human beings. The latter, like the roving wine merchants in Rome, are often sound asleep. Their stately beasts swing along on their sponge, superciliously confident that men still cannot get on without them in some localities. I visited the post-office to get the "covers" I was carrying canceled. The Director of Post and Telegraph and the postmaster were very courteous and co-operative, permitting me to select the stamp I wished used. Of course, i chose the Karachi airmail type, which, I hoped, would look well on the already decorated envelopes. I was shown behind the scenes at the post-office and watched money orders being made out in rupees - a coin out of books to me. Near by, turbaned postmen sorted mail. Karachi is an important airmail center and will soon become more so as schedules and connections are bettered by air lines around the world.

So far the service in pre-arranged supplies had been unconditionally perfect. here a large box from Pratt & Whitney of Hartford, Connecticut, containing engine "spares" awaited us. Up to Karachi we had encountered no major mechanical troubles. But little thing were hard to get. Differences in size of the threads of screws, for instance, made substitutions impossible. Perhaps aviation will force international agreement in engineering detail as well as in other things. Every time I drove past the airport I noticed signs warning the public to keep away. in contrast to the United States, there seemed to be no parking place for cars. No attempt was made to "sell" aviation to the passing public. Every facility is put at the flyer's disposal, however. Imperial Airways mechanics worked all day checking my plane, and Group Captain Henderson of the royal air Force sent two of his expert instrument men to make whatever adjustments I might need.

Landward from Karachi there is desert. To the north is the thirsty hilly landscape of Kohistan, the limestone spurs of the Kirthir range, breaking down southwards into sandy wastes. Southerly is a monotonous expanse riddled by creeks and mangrove swamps reaching tot he coast, and further south the great Indus River, born one thousand miles north in Afghanistan, flows into the Arabian Sea. The city's population is close to 300,000, its seaport serving a huge hinterland which embraces the whole of Sind, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, the Punjab, and beyond. Karachi airdrome is, I think, the largest that i know. It is the main intermediate point on all the traffic from Europe to India and the east. Imperial Airways flies frequent schedules all the way to Australia, and K.L.M. to the Dutch East Indies. In military aviation it is, I suppose, the most important headquarters in India, strategically located in relation to the mountain country of the Northwest Frontier, with its troublesome tribes.

In our hurried scheme of things, with the problems of our own special transport uppermost, most of or time "ashore" was spent ih and around hangars. More important far than sightseeing was seeing to it that our faithful sky steed was well groomed and fed, its minutes mechanical wants cared for. so the geography of our journey likely will remain most clearly memorized in terms of landing-field environments, of odors of baking metal, gasoline and perspiring, ground crews; of the roar of warning motors and the clatter of metal-working tools. Such impressions competed, perforce, with the lovely sights of the new worlds we glimpsed; the delectable perfumes of flowers, spices and fragrant country side the sounds and songs and music of diverse peoples. . . . Of all those things, external to the task at hand, we clutched what we could.

Those airport interims along the way were jolly with much "ground flying." That's pilot talk. Perched on fuel drums or squatting on concrete aprons in the shade, we listened to tall tales of aviation in far places - over deserts, mountains, jungles - by flying men of the R.A.F., Air France, K.L.M., Pan American, Imperial Airways, Italian military pilots. Stout fellows, all of them, with a rooted love of their craft. Stout spinners of yarns, too, and generously friendly to a female of the species wandering in among them. One of them at once pressed upon me this clipping from the current Karachi paper:

I agreed with him that this item of news from home was amusing, if not necessarily accurate. And I assured him my teeth were originals. Speaking of newspapers, there were interviews. One at Karachi I recall especially because it launched me into detailed description of my plane I'd not thought of.

The person who talked to me like that was a newspaperwoman from Washington - a fine craftsman and individual. that was at Oakland. Then at Karachi, another woman said almost the same things. She wanted to get into the cockpit and sit in my pilot's seat, to see and feel for herself. That I arranged. I told her oldtimers sometimes called the cockpit "the office."

As to that I wasn't convinced. Kitchens can be overpowering. but I was encouraged to feel that non-flyers might be interested in "seeing" my working quarters.

Compared with the single-seated cockpit of my old Vega, the Electra is commodious. The seat of the pilot is at the left, the co-pilot's on the right. On both sides and in front, about shoulder-high as I sat, are windows, with the main instrument board below, and above more instruments.

In all, my "dash" contains perhaps fifty dials and gauges. those most often used are grouped immediately in front of me. The eye-strain of observing instruments on an angle, or comparatively remotely, is a large factor in fatigue, especially at night. At best, a pilot's eyes have almost too much to do. The constant shift of focus from the horizon, or the terrain beneath, to complicated pointers and dials only a couple of feet away, makes for eye-strain. One group of instruments has to do with the engines and is completely duplicated for each motor. Then there is another nest of flight and navigation instruments, aids in establishing, the ship's position in space and its location geographically. In the first are numbered turn and bank, rate of climb, air speed, artificial horizon and similar indicators. In the latter are compasses, directional gyros, the Bendix direction finder and various radio equipment. In the center of the instrument board is the Sperry Gyro Pilot, the automatic device which can relive the human pilot. there are twelve fuel tanks (holding in all 1,150 gallons), six of them in the wings and six in the fuselage, whence complicated plumbing leads to the engines. On long flights there is always a tidy bit of bookkeeping to do, for one should know exactly how much fuel has been used and how much remains.

The receiver for the Western Electric radio is under my seat. the radio's cuplike microphone is hung beside the window at the left. then there is the mechanism of the retractable landing gear and flap control. the flaps are an extension from the lower side of the trailing edges of the wings which act like brakes when landing. Immediately to the right behind me, the door opens to the fuselage. In a cubbyhole there current charts reside, a thermos bottle, sandwiches, odds and ends. On a shelf at the bottom of the window are a flock of pencils and a notebook in which i write now and then. this haphazard authorship progresses best when the Sperry pilot "spells" me. Just above is the hatch opening upwards. usually I exit through it, although one may crawl over the tanks back into the fuselage and use the normal passenger door.

The dimension of my cubbyhole are four feet eight inches high, four feet six inches wide, and four feet six inches fore-and-aft. if you want to set up those measurements in your drawing room or library, it will help visualize the quarters in which a pilot works. Realize, too, that nearly every inch of floor, wall and ceiling is occupied with equipment. there are considerably more than a hundred gadgets in a modern cockpit that the pilot must periodically look at or twiddle.

From Karachi on June 17 we flew 1,390 miles to Calcutta, landing at Dum Dum airdrome shortly after four in the afternoon. Low clouds hung about during the beginning of the flight, but these disappeared as we drew near the Sind Desert. through this great barren stretch rough ridges extended almost at right angles to our course. A southerly wind whipped the sand into the air until the ground disappeared from view in regular "dust bowl" fashion. We flew along until the ridges grew into mountains and poked their dark backs like sharks through a yellow sea. these acted as a barrier to the sand, and the air cleared somewhat, so we could again see what we were flying over - dry river beds, a few roads connecting villages, and then a railroad.

We had been unable to navigate by railroads heretofore, because none wee available, but after reaching central India there we many. there were also rivers and mountains perfectly mapped and easily identified which stand out if the visibility is good. but on the day we chose to fly, heavy haze curtailed the view after the sand had blown away. black eagles came flying out of the sky at 5,000 feet. They soared about us lazily, oblivious of the Electra and giving its pilot some very bad moments. How they managed to miss the plane I do not know. I had never had such an experience, and only hoped the birds along the rest of the route would be more cautious in evading the faster-moving machine.

On the sky road to Allahabad we passed not far from Agra where is the Taj Mahal. Tourist-wise, I suppose it is little short of sacrilege to visit Central India and not see the Taj, about which so many thousands o descriptive words have been placed end to end. It would be like a European sightseer dropping in on buffalo and not viewing Niagara Falls. At all events, Fred and I passed on our way with that dubious distinction. Below stretched the vast plains of Central India, a succession of tessellated squares of vari-colored cultivation. They appeared like tiles of green and brown and gold, each framed with tiny channels brimming with irrigation water, silver or golden threads reflecting the pale sky or glinting sunshine. Allahabad is an ancient city on the Rive Ganges. The surrounding country was whitish in color, and in the haze the trees were black spots. I felt we might be flying over Nebraska after a December snowfall, even though the temperature was ninety degrees at 5,500 feet.

Green mountains piled up beyond Allahabad, and severe rainstorms over them blocked our way. As i tried going between the two, air currents hot us up a thousand feet while I vainly pushed the plane's nose down. sudden rain engulfed us. After that I gave the squalls more distance, though the air was very rough for miles around. As the mountains melted into plains a hundred miles from Calcutta, the low clouds disappeared and visibility improved. We could see blow many towns and railways and a mosaic of gray and green and tan paddy fields. the country is much wetter than Karachi, with tropical vegetation. Approaching the metropolis, factories and jute mills came into view, and many villages. These grew more dense, finally merging into the mighty congestion of the city - white buildings glaring in the sun, interspersed with green patches and gardens, dark ribbon thoroughfares, a fringe of docks, and the harbor with its teeming shipping.

Just before we reached the airdrome, more rain caught up with us. When we landed the plane an through a waterlogged part of the field, throwing up a tremendous cloud of spray which, observers gold me afterwards, completely blotted us from view. soon again there was sunshine, and servicing of plane and personnel commenced promptly on the concrete apron. For Fred and me there was afternoon tea, enjoyed in the shadow of the Electra. Driving from the airport to the home of our host, we saw many rickshas. The streets were very wide and thronged with every kind of conveyance and with myriad white-clad figures. Small shops displayed wares next to tall office buildings. bulls wandered at will on the sidewalks or in the streets, where Shirley Temple was showing in the "Captain January."

Calcutta is the capital of the Province of Bengal, its million and more population making much the largest community we had seen, or would see, on our equatorial route - a strange sprawling city of contracts. Perhaps 10,000 resident Europeans rule its destinies. though the seat of a considerable university, less than half its population can read and write. Men, I am told, outnumber women by two to one, though why that reversal of the usual was unexplained. In my notes I read, "The climate is hot and damp." Had I been illiterate as any Bengal beggar, I would have known the "Calcutta has pleasant cold season from the end of November until March." Because of the Honolulu delay we missed this pleasantness. "The monsoons from June to October are distinguished by heat and humidity." Arriving in mid-June we'd been warned the monsoons might fall upon us momentarily. But we hoped to squeeze through before they struck their stride.

Just what is a "monsoon"? I sought the answer to that question long ago. The books say the name was originally given by the Arabs to seasonal winds which blow approximately six months from the northeast and six months from the southwest. In India the term is especially used for the rain which falls from June to September when the prevailing winds shift to the southwest. the sum total of the situation, monsoonly speaking, was that our course lay southwestward so that monsoon winds were full on our nose, and that no flyer welcomes rains of the density of Indian downpours, especially where there are sudden mountains to slap against and squashy fields to bog down in. So much for "book learning." Practical experience commenced the following morning. during the hours of the night the monsoon went to work, although only mildly. Its full fury was reserved until we were safely - or unsafely - in the skies.

When we reached the airport at dawn nocturnal rains had soaked it. The ground was thoroughly wet, precarious for a take-off. but meteorologists advised that more rain was coming and that likely we could dodge through the intermittent deluges of the day but that if we remained the field might become waterlogged beyond use. that take-off was precarious, perhaps as risky as any we had. The plane clung for what seemed like ages to the heavy sticky soil before the wheels finally lifted, and we cleared with nothing at all to spare the fringe of trees at the airdrome's edge. For a time we flew through gray skies crowded with clouds that lowered at us as we passed over the many mouths of the Ganges and Brahmapurra rivers. Below was an agricultural country, green lush and streaming. The wettest profession in the world is, I thin, that of rice grower. Much of the way from Calcutta to Akyab we flew very low over endless paddies. Small figures trailing in the water looked up as we passed over their heads. some waved hats, others turned back to their work, their every move reflected in a shining flood. Near by their grass houses, ringed by dark green trees, seemed like mushrooms sprouting from luxuriant soil. Now and then water buffalo, resenting the roar of the Electra, would caress clumsily across the soggy fields.

Akyab is a picturesque place from the air. Two pagodas, covered with gold leaf, stand out. Nearby a creek, so-called in a country where the rivers are enormous, winds through the town, hearing many small boats on its surface. Hilly islands covered with dense jungles he scattered about. Many of these are really mountainous, and mud volcanoes, I was told, operate on several. How mud keeps boiling during he monsoon downpour I cannot imagine. i should think such rain would quench even a volcano's fire. The airport is a port of call for most pilots passing this way. It has two runways and a large hangar. imperial Airways and Air France stops regularly, and K.L>M>, the Dutch line, when necessary to refuel or on account of the weather. Speaking of air lines, I have noticed that all K.L.M.'s transports on this side of the world are named after birds, and yesterday, in Calcutta, my Electra shared a hangar with two large four-engined Imperial planes named Artemis and Arethusa - the meting of the Greeks.

We did not intend to stay at Akyab overnight. Instead we hoped to reach Rangoon at least, and started off from Akyab after checking the weather and fueling Once in the air the elements grew progressively hostile. the wind, dead ahead, began to whip furiously. Relentless rain pelted us. The monsoon, I find, lets down more liquid per second that I thought could come out of the skies. Everything was obliterated in the deluge, so savage that is best off patches of paint along the leading edge of my plane's wings. Only a flying submarine could have prospered. It was wetter even than it had been in that deluge of the mid-South Atlantic. The heavens unloosed an almost unbroken wall of water which would have drowned us had our cockpit not been secure. After trying to get through for a couple of hours we give up, forced to retreat to Akyab.

Back-tracking, we headed out to ea, flying just off the surface of the water. We were afraid to come low over land on account of the hills. when it's impossible to see a few hundred yards ahead through the driving moisture the prospect of suddenly encountering hilltops is not a pleasant one. by uncanny powers, Fred Noonan managed to navigate us back to the airport, without being able to see anything but the waves beneath our plane. His comment was, "Two hours and six minutes of going nowhere." For my part, i was glad that our landing gear was retractable, lest it be scraped on trees or waves. I fondly hoped to have less monsoon on the morrow, but the airport attendants shook their heads and said conditions might not improve for three months. So Fred and I determined to look around for a nice boarding house - in case!

The next day, June 19, we started again from Akyab, with the hope of getting through to Bangkok, Siam, monsoons permitting. But they did not permit, so the flight ended at Rangoon, only 400 miles away. this short hop produced even worse weather than that which turned us back on the previous day. then we had tried unsuccessfully to sneak underneath the monsoon. Those tactics again failing, this time we pulled up to 8,000 feet to be sure of missing the mountain ridges, and barged through. After two hours of flying blind in soupy atmosphere we let down and the bright grain plains beside the Irrawaddy River smiled up at us. then we dodged about for fifty miles . . . "hooded clouds, like Friars, telling their heads in drops of rain" curtained the sun from view.

The first night at Rangoon was the sun touching the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. This great structure stands on a considerable eminence and could be seen for miles while the city was still but a shadow on the horizon, its covering of pure gold a burnished beacon for wayfarers of the air. shortly after our landing, rain poured down so heavily that it was hazardous to take off for Bankok, so we decided to stay where we were for a time at least. Fred Noonan and I determined to take one hour off from flying and see something of Rangoon. Mr. Austin C. Brady, the American consul, at whose home we stayed that night, lent his car and, together with R.P. Pollard, acted as guide, pointing out places of interest. He explained that the road on which we drove to town was called "Mandalay" and actually is "the road to Mandalay," a day's motor trip from Rangoon.

Of course Kipling's verse ran through my mind. I suppose it's about the best-known song there is. One shudders to think how many tourists have hammed it on the highways of Rangoon.

"Flying fishes. See? That's what aviators are - ought to be - if they're silly enough to squash around aloft at this season."

Around through the heart of the city we sight-saw. The streets are very colourful, thronged with people of varying hues, dress, habits and language. There are Burmese, Hindus, Moslems, Christians and Chinese. A characteristic they seem to have in common is their love of gay garments. Thee are many rickshas and gharries, which are one-horse vehicles, the inner furnishings of which I could only guess at as most are shuttered. The ricksha runners all wear - at least when it rains - conical coolie hats made of old kerosene tins. i noticed some street cars with compartments for women only. these are reserved especially for Indian women, who are forbidden all male association. However, women in general here seem to have more freedom and education than in most places we have been. Many are in business and they have had a vote for many years. I have seen no fat people. All seem slim and well built. Graceful clothes worn in various styles accentuate their slimness. After sighting the Golden Pagoda from the air I had to examine it from the ground. to enter, one must be unshod, and plod up long flights of steps, worn by numberless feet before. For the first time on the trip Fred Noonan failed me. He would not take off his shoes and socks and go inside with me. He missed the sight of hundreds of Buddhas of all sizes in little stalls, where drums and gongs were sold. Devotees were kneeling on mats and offering flowers before shrines, with sing-song prayers and strange jeweled ornaments.

There really was a woman smoking a "whacking white cheroot," too. these are made of corn husks filled with leaves and some tobacco, and can be bought in a magnum size for weddings to last three days. Rangoon is the capital of Burma, twenty miles in from the sea on a deep broad river of its own name, navigable for nine hundred miles behind it. It is a bustling big place with a population of over 400,000. the backbone of Rangoon's export trade is tea and rice.) A backbone of rice sounds odd.) Moist clouds were our companions as we left Rangoon the next morning, bound for Bangkok, Siam. first, we crossed the upper reaches of the Gulf of Martaban, flying over Moulmein, beside whose pagoda in other days Tommy Atkins left his Burma girl a-setting', looking lazy at the sea. A great range of mountains extends north and south along the western border of Siam, separating it from the long arm of Burma that reaches down into the Malay Peninsula. Through squally weather we climbed to 8,000 feet and more, topping this mountain barrier. On its eastern flanks the clouds broke and there wretched before us a dark green forest splashed with patches of bright color, cheerful even in the eyes of a pilot who recognized in all the limitless view no landing place. The country fell away gradually to the east, the hills flattening out into heavy jungle. then we crossed the Mei Khlaung River, with little villages scattered along its banks, the wide expanses of irrigated land burdened with rice crops.

Bangkok itself lies in a vast plain with mountains in the distant background. The Buddhist temples, with their colored tiled roofs and gilded spires, set off the city's skyline picturesquely, as one sees it from the air. Bangkok was once called "The Venice of the Orient," when the Me Nam River, on which it clusters, was its main street, supplemented with a system of canals. Those watery thoroughfares have largely been replaced long since by dry-shod streets. thee are open-front wooden shops nestling next to modern concrete structures. Business is chiefly in the hands of Chinese, Indians and Europeans. More than eighty per cent of the Siamese people, I was told, are in agriculture, most of the remaining population being more or less directly connected with government service.

After refueling at Bangkok (the airport was one of the best we encountered) we started for Singapore, more than 900 miles away. on a course south toward Alor Star, in the Malay States, across the Gulf of Siam. I felt as if I were dreaming, to be flying over such fabulous waters, with the shores of Siam on the right and Cambodia on the left. As we wound southward along the eastern coast of Malay and then across the peninsula to Alor Star, there looked up from the charts stretched out on my knees marvelous names like Bang Taphang, Lem Tane, Koh Phratnog. The sea, really mauve, melted into a blue sky with companies of little white clouds marching through it. A fairer day could not have been. The monsoon and its perversities were well behind us. Fred Noonan expressed his appreciation. "I thought there was no more weather like this." A country of green mountains opened before us as, following, along one of whose sweet valleys stretching from sea to sea, we slid across the narrow part of the land. We checked over Alor Star airport but did not stop, and headed for Singapore. I chose to hug the western shore, for there were thunderstorms over the mountainous middle way.

Along that day's route I was interested to see charming towns which looked from the air much like those at home. Many had familiar white circles in emergency and regular landing areas, but, unlike those in the United States, few buildings displayed community names on the roofs to help flyers locate exact position. The fields and valleys were upholstered with a deep-piled green jungle in an unbelivaly continuous covering made by separate trees. thee wee gashes in the verdant carpet of the hills and lowlands, where the roads of rubber plantations and tin mines challenged the forest. but the green growth is unconquerable. Given its head, it swallows up man's puny scratchings almost overnight in the hungry way that jungles have.

Then Singapore. The vast city has on an island, the broad expanses of its famous harbor filled, as I saw them from aloft that afternoon, with little water bugs, ships of all kinds from every port. Below us, an aviation miracle of the east, lay the magnificent new nine-million-dollar airport, the peer of any in the world. As a reminder that this was indeed the east, when I shut off the engines music from a near-by Chinese theater floated up to greet us. West is west, and east is certainly east. The barren margins of our isolated western airports could scarcely assimilate such urban frivolities. From the standpoint of military strategy. Singapore is pre-eminent in the Far East. today, les than one hundred years old, it is the tenth seaport city in the world. yesterday it was a jungle, its mangrove swamps shared by savage Malay fishermen, tigers and pythons, today it is the cross-road of trade with Europe, Africa, India, Australia, China and Japan. Tin and rubber are the mainstays of its export.

Though we did not sight them, there were two transport planes that day o the same route which we flew. the Imperial Airways machine left Rangoon first and the K.L.M. Douglas at daybreak. Our Wasp-motored Lockheed left fifteen minutes later. All stopped at Bangkok, then followed different courses to Singapore. We arrived there first, at 5.25 P>M> local time, because e cut straight and did not stop along the way. The next day the same caravan was due to heave at dawn for points south. First to welcome us when we landed were Monnett B. Davis, American consul General, and Mrs. Davis. They had courage enough to take us for the night, even after I explained our disagreeable habit of getting up at three in the morning and falling asleep immediately after dinner.

From Singapore early in the morning, we headed for Java. Our course first lay over the open sea, than along the westerly shores of Sumatra, finally cutting deep across its southeast portion. In the first hour of flying we crossed the equator for the third time in our air voyage and definitely passed "down under' into the nether world of Australasia.

The landscapes of the southern hemisphere wee beautiful to look upon, but from a pilot's standpoint the dense jungles and mangrove swamps fringing the sea were not reassuring as emergency landing places. We passed above countless tiny islands, glowing emeralds in settings of turquoise. then the hazy contours of the mountains of Java rose from the tropic sea and gradually the enchanting loveliness of this island world took form. A thousand tiny islets cluster along the Javanese coast. some are covered with a heavy growth of palms that crowd down to the water's edge. Others are outlined with narrow ribbons of beach, separating the deeper green of their verdure from the exquisite turquoise tones that mark the surrounding shallow water, which in turn merge into darker blue as the wat4ers deepen. The white sails of tiny fishing craft flashed in the sunlight. ... what with all that lovely world to look at, it reuired concentration for a pilot to attend to her knitting, which is to say, her horizon and her instruments.