Transport: Transatlantic Types

The North Atlantic Ocean has been flown 85 times by 58 airplanes carrying 179 persons. Among others, they included professionals and amateurs, men and women, Jews and gentiles, a photographer, an ambitious socialite, a stenographer, a mechanic, a junkman. To this motley group last week were added two new types—a Broadway crooner and a British mother.

¶ Browsing peacefully in a tiny pasture at Llwyncelyn, near Llandilo. in a desolate part of Carmarthenshire, Wales, last week, three cows had the fright of their lives as a trim blue & silver monoplane suddenly dropped down out of the mist to a bumpy landing beside them. As the cows’ owner ran up, out o? the plane stepped a black-jowled, slick-&-kinky-haired man wearing a very dark shirt, a very light necktie. In a voice which sounded as if he had a hot potato in his mouth he demanded: “Is this Scotland?”

The unshaven flyer was Harry Richman, 41, who has had a certain success singing torch songs while beating himself on the chest. Born Harry Reichman in Cincinnati, Crooner Richman went on the stage in 1907, rose to vaudeville prominence in 1921 as accompanist to Mae West. Same year he started as a radio performer, has since been a steady Broadway revue star, appeared in several cinemas, run a Manhattan night club across the street from his tough brother’s speakeasy. Unmarried and supposedly well-off, he occasionally splurges money in such ways as insuring his voice for $1,000,000. Lately he has made a hobby of aviation, become a pilot himself. Last year he set a world amphibian altitude record, since bettered.

Deciding on a transatlantic flight. Crooner Richman had a special Wright Cyclone engine installed in his smgle-motored $95,000 Vultee monoplane Lady Peace. For a co-pilot he picked Eastern Air Lines’ No. 1 Flyer Henry Tindall (“Dick”‘) Merrill, who has flown 2,000,000 miles without injury, last year made news by flying a plane from the U. S. to Chile to aid the overpublicized search for Explorer Lincoln Ellsworth (TIME, Jan. 27). A slight. 39-year-old bachelor. Pilot Merrill does not smoke or drink but has a weakness for perfume. When flying, he usually has a vial of Surrender or Evening in Paris in his pocket, steals an occasional sniff. Singer Richman paid him a reputed $25,000 to go on the trip to England, announced it would be a round-trip affair with only a few hours’ pause at Croydon. To safeguard themselves in case the Lady Peace plopped into the ocean, Flyers Richman and Merrill stuffed every cranny of her metal wings and tail with 41,000 Ping-Pong balls to give buoyancy in the water, added publicity value to the trip.

Waiting several days for favorable weather, they finally took off from New-York’s Floyd Bennett Field, roared north toward Newfoundland at 200 m.p.h. Taking turns at wheel and radio as they soared across at 10,000 ft., the flyers had no real trouble until over England. There, lost in a fog, they finally came down in Wales with a record crossing of 18 hr. 8 min. Crowing with pleasure. Singer Richman amused himself by handing out $5 bills to the Welsh children who surrounded him. Next day, retanked with gas, the Lady Peace got away in a hazardous takeoff, went on to Croydon. where the flyers were disappointed by the smallness of the crowd, announced they would postpone the return trip for several days. Of utterly no importance or significance to aviation, the flight was of great value to Crooner Richman. Not since his brief engagement to Clara Bow in 1929 had his picture been in the newspapers so often.

¶ Scarcely had Flyers Richman and Merrill landed’ at Croydon when they were told that a lone British woman had just taken off from Abingdon in a single-motored sportplane with an almost suicidal minimum of 260 imperial gal. of gas in an attempt to reverse the Lady Peace exploit by flying non-stop to Floyd Bennett Field. Cocking an eye at the weather report, which indicated increasingly bad storms all the way. Flyer Richman gloomily remarked: “T don’t think she’ll get far with a light plane.”

The lone pilot was 33-year-old Mrs. Beryl (“Flying Mother”) Markham, a tall, wiry blonde with six years flying experience. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in Melton Mowbray, England, she grew up to be an ardent horsewoman, became prominent as a trainer and jockey on the horsefarm to which her family moved in Britain’s Kenya Colony in Africa. In 1927 she married Mansfield Markham, brother of Sir Charles Markham, coal mine owner. They have a 7-year-old son. Gervis. Learning to fly in 1930. Mrs. Markham earned a commercial pilot’s license, flew the Africa-England route three times, ran up some 2,000 solo flying hours. In Africa she developed the unique specialty of spotting big-game from the air for such bigwigs as Alfred Vanderbilt, Winston Guest. Few years ago she separated from her husband, began planning a trans-atlantic flight, for which she got the backing of a Kenya syndicate.

Infinitely more dangerous than the West-East crossing because of prevailing head-winds, the East-West transatlantic flight had never been made by a woman alone, had been made solo only once by a man, Captain James Mollison. For the trip, Mrs. Markham ripped out the seats of the Messenger, her little Percival Vaga Gull monoplane, refused a radio in order to carry more fuel. Impatient to be off, she spurned the advice of most experts to wait for better weather, soared away into the rain. Asked why she was going, she said: “Flying is my job and this Atlantic flight is part of it.”

Since “Flying Mother” Markham had chosen a course far to the north of ship-lanes, had no radio, few people ever expected to hear from her or see her again. While authorities anxiously sat up all night on both sides of the ocean, Son Gervis slept quietly in Sussex. Said his father: “He is too young to know what his mother is doing.” Next day, Son Gervis knew enough to dance with glee as his father told him that his mother had successfully crossed the “big water.” Seeing nothing in a constant fog, bucking 40-mile winds which held her speed down to 120 m.p.h., Mrs. Markham had barely reached North America when her fuel gave out. Circling over Cape Breton Island 24 hours after leaving Abingdon,the exhausted flyer picked out what seemed to be a smooth field. It was really a swamp, and the resultant crash slightly crumpled the light Messenger, gave Mrs. Markham a cut over one eye. Climbing out, she set off in search of a house. On the way she met some fishermen who took her home, gave her tea and scones while she babbled: “I didn’t know whether I was over Lapland or Newfoundland.” Having talked by telephone to her backers, “Flying Mother” Markham was treated by a doctor, ordered to bed. Next day, in a plane sent from the U. S., she went on to Floyd Bennett Field, a reception by a crowd of 5,000 who greeted her with: “Hello, Blondie!”

Published in England meanwhile was the letter she left behind just as she took off. Excerpt: “I notice that I have been frequently captioned in the press as ‘Society Mother.’ ‘Flying Mother,’ ‘Bird Woman,’ etc. The phrase ‘society’ is repugnant to me. . . . In describing my as yet unaccomplished but no doubt amazing exploit, please give me credit for being an ordinary human being without too many of the conventional virtues. I can laugh, love and hate. I am neither an innocent girl from the country nor a city slicker, but an ocean flyer in embryo. If I can dispense with the last two words, I will be more than satisfied.”