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33 - Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart by Paul L. Briand, Jr. · Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty three of Daughter of the Sky The Story
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  Speaker 1: of Amelia Earhart by Paulbrion Junior. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Part three the last flight five
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: India to Australia. Two days later, on June seventeenth, the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: elector was pronounced ready, and on that same day they
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  Speaker 1: left Karachi for Calcutta, one thousand, three hundred ninety miles
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  Speaker 1: directly across India to its eastern border. Shortly after takeoff,
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  Speaker 1: low clouds formed and sped by beneath the wings, but
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  Speaker 1: were soon outrun. The waves of sand of the sinnded desert,
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  Speaker 1: now whipped into little whirlpools. Then driven by a strong
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  Speaker 1: wind from the south, they became a sand storm of
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  Speaker 1: unabated fury. Amelia climbed higher in escape. Ahead, there was
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  Speaker 1: no storm, and she could see ridges that grew from
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  Speaker 1: the ground, rising to foothills and then to mountains. They
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  Speaker 1: were like sharks poking their backs through a yellow sea.
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  Speaker 1: Over central India, aids to contact flying became a surfeit
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  Speaker 1: of plenty. Well mapped railroads, rivers and mountains were easily
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  Speaker 1: identified by such landmarks. Her way was made easy, but
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  Speaker 1: it was not so in the air. Large black eagles
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  Speaker 1: dived out of the sky toward the Electra. They soared
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  Speaker 1: and swung and spun about the plain, giving a Melia
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  Speaker 1: many moments of fretful anxiety. If they flew into the propellers,
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  Speaker 1: they would be chopped into bird and feather burgher, which
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  Speaker 1: could choke off the wasp bengins. That she missed them
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  Speaker 1: was a miracle of pure blind fate and wide eyed
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  Speaker 1: Flying below, the mountains had descended into plains mosaics in
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  Speaker 1: neat squares of brown, green, and gold were laid out
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  Speaker 1: as if on a vast floor, The squares joined by
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  Speaker 1: silver and gold inlay that reflected the sky in the sun.
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  Speaker 1: In the distance, the Ganges River sparkled, and beside us
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  Speaker 1: the city of Allahabad stood out against the white brightness
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  Speaker 1: of the encircling countryside. Beyond the city, mountains, green with
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  Speaker 1: luxuriant growth, rose sharply into towering magnificence. Rain Storms engulfed
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  Speaker 1: the peaks. Amelia plowed through air currents from off the
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  Speaker 1: mountains lifted the electra and added one thousand feet into
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  Speaker 1: the air. Ae jammed the control column forward, trying to
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  Speaker 1: hold down the nose of the plain sheets of rain
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  Speaker 1: smashed down on the wings and fuselage and lashed back
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  Speaker 1: from the props against the cockpit windows. Once over the tops,
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  Speaker 1: the mountains quickly became plains that would continue for the
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  Speaker 1: next hundred miles all the way to Calcutta. Low clouds
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  Speaker 1: now scudded by and the weather cleared, revealing a quilted
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  Speaker 1: patchwork of gray, green and tan rice fields. More towns,
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  Speaker 1: and an increasing number of railroads indicated that a big
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  Speaker 1: city was at hand. A e watched factories and mills
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  Speaker 1: and many villages grow thicker as she approached the heart
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  Speaker 1: of the city, harbor docks, many intersecting streets, and countless
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  Speaker 1: white buildings bright in the sun. These were Calcutta. As
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  Speaker 1: she reached Dum Dum Airport, another squall line moved in
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  Speaker 1: and broke across the electra just as Amelia began her
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  Speaker 1: let down for a landing. Rolling down the runway, the
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  Speaker 1: plane sent up sheets of spray. Then, as suddenly as
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  Speaker 1: it had begun, the rain stopped and the sun shone
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  Speaker 1: as before. It was four o'clock p m. Four hours later.
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  Speaker 1: Amelia was sound asleep. The long, hard flight had exhausted her,
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  Speaker 1: Her eyes tired and sore from the constant strain of
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  Speaker 1: watching ground wings and instruments had closed as if from
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  Speaker 1: an involuntary reflex action. Because of the Honolulu crack up
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  Speaker 1: and the consequent change in plans that turned the flight
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  Speaker 1: to east to west, crossing at the equator, the monsoon season,
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  Speaker 1: which they had hoped earlier to escape, was now upon them.
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  Speaker 1: For India, it meant that the winds beginning in June
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  Speaker 1: would sweep in from the Indian Ocean in the southwest,
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  Speaker 1: carrying with them rains heavy, violent, and destructive. For the Electra,
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  Speaker 1: it meant crosswinds and downpours for its course lay directly
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  Speaker 1: in the path of the monsoon. For Amelia, it meant
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  Speaker 1: one of the supreme tests of her skill, courage, and endurance.
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  Speaker 1: During that night of June seventeenth, the monsoons began. When
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  Speaker 1: Amelia and Fred reached the airport in the morning, the
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  Speaker 1: ground was wet and soggy. A takeoff would be risky
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  Speaker 1: at best, but the forecast was for more rain, which
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  Speaker 1: would make a take off impossible. Amelia decided to chance
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  Speaker 1: the risky She refed up the engines slowly. As she
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  Speaker 1: added throttle, the Electra began to roll and gained speed.
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  Speaker 1: Tail up and at full power, the plane sloshed through
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  Speaker 1: the mud and strained to become airborne. The end of
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  Speaker 1: the runway loomed ahead. In a desperate move, Ae pulled
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  Speaker 1: back sharply on the control column. The electra broke from
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  Speaker 1: the mud, then began to settle, but finally held. Amelia
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  Speaker 1: pulled up the gear, the wheels, still spinning and slinging,
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  Speaker 1: mud rose into the wells. As the plane rose in
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  Speaker 1: a steep climb, the underside of the wings and fuselage
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  Speaker 1: just cleared the tree tops at the edge of the field.
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  Speaker 1: The lockeed had done it again. Difficult and dangerous as
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  Speaker 1: it was, the take off was but the beginning. The
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  Speaker 1: worst was yet to come. The sky was a dull,
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  Speaker 1: metallic gray, and in it leaden clouds heavy with rain.
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  Speaker 1: Crowded about the plane, a e felt that they were
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: grim harbingers. Through occasional holes in the clouds, a Melia
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  Speaker 1: saw scattered chunks of land that looked like pieces of
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  Speaker 1: a jigsaw puzzle. They marked the mouths of the Ganges.
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  Speaker 1: From the hot land, steam rose as if from a
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  Speaker 1: giant cauldron in a constantly moving pageant rice fields dotted
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  Speaker 1: with workers, grass houses and green trees. Sped by the
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  Speaker 1: weather clearing ahead, Amelia recognized the two unmistakable landmarks of Akyab,
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  Speaker 1: two golden pagodas and many volcanic islands. Beyond the city
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  Speaker 1: was the air field with two runways and one hangar.
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  Speaker 1: She wanted to refuel and push on to Rangoon that
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  Speaker 1: same day, but the monsoon proved a superior foe at Akyab.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: While the Elector was being refueled, Ae checked the weather
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  Speaker 1: reports for the way ahead. They were dire and discouraging.
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  Speaker 1: Amelia decided she would have to try to get through somehow.
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  Speaker 1: No sooner had she leveled off from her climb out
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  Speaker 1: of takeoff and turned into her coarse heading, then a
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  Speaker 1: head wind full of rain hit the Electra squarely on
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  Speaker 1: the nose. It was the heaviest rain Amelia had ever seen.
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  Speaker 1: Sheet after sheet, thick and concentrated like shovelfuls of gravel,
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  Speaker 1: flung back from the props and slapped against the windshield.
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  Speaker 1: The Electra heaved and churned through wave after wave, through
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  Speaker 1: wall after wall of water. Amelia could not see out
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  Speaker 1: from the cockpit and had to fall back completely upon
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  Speaker 1: her instruments. For two hours She pitted herself and her
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  Speaker 1: plane against the storm, trying to break through the monsoon.
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  Speaker 1: Finally exhausted her legs and arms heavy as lead from
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  Speaker 1: fighting stick and rudders, she relented and retreated from the encounter. Reluctantly,
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  Speaker 1: She turned out to sea, nose down to the tops
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  Speaker 1: of the waves, and headed back to Achiab. For her navigator,
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  Speaker 1: Amelia had nothing but praise by uncanny powers, she wrote later,
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  Speaker 1: Fred Noonan managed to navigate us back to the airport
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  Speaker 1: without being able to see anything but the waves beneath
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  Speaker 1: the plane. When they returned to Akyab, the weather man
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  Speaker 1: at the airport told them that the weather would probably
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  Speaker 1: not improve for three months. Amelia wondered if she and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Fred would not have to set up light housekeeping and
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: wait things out. She talked things over with him. They
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  Speaker 1: decided that they would try again. The next day, the nineteenth,
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  Speaker 1: they set out, hoping this time to reach Bangkok in Siam. Amelia,
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  Speaker 1: quickly realizing that yesterday's tactics of trying to fly under
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  Speaker 1: the monsoon would not work again, now climbed to eight
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  Speaker 1: thousand feet, hoping to top the mountains and somehow plow through.
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  Speaker 1: She was determined to make it. She set her eyes
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  Speaker 1: on her instruments and flew her plane blind through the
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  Speaker 1: tossing and pitching of the plane and the pounding of
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  Speaker 1: the rain she brought the electra through. She worked her
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: legs constantly trying to hold the rudders, hands gripped to
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  Speaker 1: the wheel, her arms pressed forward, then pulled back on
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  Speaker 1: the control column. The plane now rolled left, now right.
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  Speaker 1: Her arms and legs began to ache and then to
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  Speaker 1: stiffen as she fought to keep the nose up, the
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  Speaker 1: wings straight and level. The instruments were her only guide,
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  Speaker 1: her only hope. She flew the little yellow plane on
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  Speaker 1: the artificial horizon before her, and held the pointer on
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  Speaker 1: the compass heading by flying the needle and ball of
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  Speaker 1: the turnimbank indicator. Never far from her right hand were
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  Speaker 1: the engine throttles set evenly forward and registering one hundred
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  Speaker 1: fifty miles per hour in the white quadrant of the
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  Speaker 1: air speed indicator. Out of the corner of her eye,
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  Speaker 1: she kept constant check on the altimeter and the rate
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  Speaker 1: of climb. Again. For two hours, she worked and sweated
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  Speaker 1: and fought. She broke out into the clear the Victor.
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  Speaker 1: Below her were planes brilliant in the morning sun. She
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  Speaker 1: pressed back in her seat and heaved a heavy sigh.
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  Speaker 1: It was a blessed relief to see the earth again.
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  Speaker 1: Through the plains meandered the Irrawady River, clouds appeared again,
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  Speaker 1: and Amelia, carefully choosing the openings of light among them,
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  Speaker 1: skillfully skirted her plane this way and that between them
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  Speaker 1: for the next fifty miles. Far in the distance, about
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  Speaker 1: twenty miles in from the sea and near a wide river,
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  Speaker 1: she saw a great golden pagoda pointing brightly above the
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  Speaker 1: dark shadows of a city. It was the Shwe Dagon pagoda,
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  Speaker 1: Ae quickly determined from her map, and that meant Rangoon.
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  Speaker 1: She grinned happily she was dead on course. They landed
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  Speaker 1: to refuel and with the intention of leaving immediately for Bangkok,
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  Speaker 1: but the elector had not rolled to a stop when
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  Speaker 1: a heavy downpour engulfed the airport, making it take off
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  Speaker 1: out of the question. Amelia and Fred made the best
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  Speaker 1: of the delay by sight seeing. The first tour was
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  Speaker 1: a short motor trip on the road from Rangoon to Mandalay.
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  Speaker 1: The flyers, in a sudden release from their tensions, could
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  Speaker 1: not restrain themselves from singing snatches of Kipling's The Road
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  Speaker 1: to Mandalay, although they shuddered to think of the number
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  Speaker 1: of tourists who must have done exactly the same thing
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  Speaker 1: on the same road. After finishing the line where the
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  Speaker 1: flying fishes play, Amelia turned to Fred. That's it, she
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  Speaker 1: said to him. What is Fred asked flying fishes? She answered, see.
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  Speaker 1: Amelia explained, that's what aviators are ought to be, if
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  Speaker 1: they're silly enough to squash around aloft at this season.
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  Speaker 1: Fred agreed he had never known at sea storms like
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  Speaker 1: those of the last two days. They then went to
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  Speaker 1: see the golden Schwedagon Pagoda, the same that had guided
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: them into the city from the air. Fred refused to
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  Speaker 1: go inside, but Amilia kicked off her shoes, climbed the
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  Speaker 1: long flight of steps to the top entrance, and entered
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  Speaker 1: to see the many Buddhas and to watch the white
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  Speaker 1: robed men at their priestly tasks. On the morning of
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  Speaker 1: June twentieth, they were off for Bangkok. They crossed the
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  Speaker 1: upper half of the Gulf of Martaban to Moulmaine, then
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: flew across the north south range of mountains that marked
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the dividing line between Burma and Siam. From the height
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  Speaker 1: of eight thousand feet, Amelia looked out beyond the right
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  Speaker 1: wing and back to Rangoon like the prow of a ship.
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  Speaker 1: The city divided the waters of the Indian Ocean and
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  Speaker 1: the Andaman Sea, creating the wide Bay of Bengal on
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  Speaker 1: the right side and the smaller Gulf of Martaban on
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  Speaker 1: the left. Since take off, clouds had begun to form.
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  Speaker 1: What had been gentle, sheep backed formations far into the
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  Speaker 1: west now grew and changed into forbidding anvil shaped thunderheads.
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  Speaker 1: In the east, flanking the range of mountains, clouds broke
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  Speaker 1: and scattered, bearing to Amelia's view green foothills that gradually
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: sloped and diminished into broad, thickly snarled jungle. As she
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  Speaker 1: looked at the heavy undergrowth, Amelia hoped she would never
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  Speaker 1: have to pancake the electra anywhere. Below they cut across
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the Maeklong River. In the distance were plains backed up
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  Speaker 1: by mountains. Slowly, a ragged outline on the horizon became
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  Speaker 1: the sharp needle points of Buddhist temples and the peaked
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  Speaker 1: roofs of tiled buildings. It was the city of Bangkok.
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  Speaker 1: Through the city, Ae could see from above how the
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  Speaker 1: Menam River continued its tortuous course from the mountains in
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  Speaker 1: the north to the Gulf of Siam in the south.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Hoping to make Singapore before nightfall, they landed at Bangkok,
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  Speaker 1: only to refuel and be on their way again. Back
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: in the air, Amelia stretched the sectional map across her
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: knees and studied the way ahead. Singapore lay on an island,
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  Speaker 1: to which pointed the long nine hundred mile finger of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the Malay Peninsula. To reach it, she would have to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: cut across the Gulf of Siam, then proceed on a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: course east of the Malay coast, and finally head directly south.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: She looked out from the cockpit. The day was clear
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  Speaker 1: and the visibility unlimited. She found it hard to believe
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  Speaker 1: that she was flying over the fabled world she had
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: so often set out for writing the old Buggy in
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  Speaker 1: the Atchison barn, or lying on the floor in the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: parlor looking at one of Grandfather Otis's big geography books.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: She loved the sound of the names Siam and Cambodia,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and she picked out others at random from the map
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  Speaker 1: bang Safan, lem Taine, co Fratnag. Yet there were two
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  Speaker 1: of them below Siam to the right, Cambodia to the left. Nevertheless,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Amelia shook her head as she had failed to see Timbuctoo.
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  Speaker 1: So has she mis seen the famous taj Ma Hall
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in Negras, which had not been far off the Karachi
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  Speaker 1: Allahabad leg It too, would have to wait for another time.
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  Speaker 1: Now there was too little time and too much to see.
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  Speaker 1: She now followed a valley across the mountains, then swung
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: down from the western coast from Alor Star in Malay.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: The clouds over the peaks were beginning to grow, cumulus
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: into cumulo nimbus, cumulonimbus into great thunder heads. A deep
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: green jungle unfolded below, with an occasional scar that marked
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the cut of a road across the undulating hills and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: flat lands. After six hours of flying, Amelia sighted Singapore.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Letting down from altitude, She passed over countless ships in
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the great sprawling harbor, then continued over the vast city
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  Speaker 1: to the airport. At five twenty five p m. The
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Electra touched down. Amelia and Fred had dinner with the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: American consul general and his wife. After dinner, the flyers
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: begged to be excused and turned in. At three o'clock
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  Speaker 1: a m. They were up and on their way back
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  Speaker 1: to the airport, eager to get on to their next stop, Java,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: which lay on the other side of a third crossing
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: of the Equator. It was the morning of June twenty second.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: The Electra soared into the air over the sea along
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: the coast of Sumatra, then across the southeast point of
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the island. Amelia guided her plane into the world, down
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: under of the southern hemisphere in a quick succession. She
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: noted the jungle and swamp of a long chain of islands,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: then sudden and abrupt, the volcanic mountains of Java, imperious
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: and proud, which rose out of the mist to dominate
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the surrounding sea below them like suckling pigs. Tiny islands
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: lay along the Mother's shore for their nourishment. Amelia landed
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  Speaker 1: at Bandung and taxied the plane to the hangar. According
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to plan, the Elector was scheduled for a complete going over,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the plane in the hands of the mechanics. Amelia and
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Fred decided to get a closer look down into one
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of the volcanoes they had flown over. In a borrowed car,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: they drove up the mountain to the rim of the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: crater at sixty five hundred feet. For the first time
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: on the long trip, they felt a chill and put
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: on their flying jackets. The sulfur fumes from the volcano
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: were strong and sickening. They reminded Amelia of the strong
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: gas fumes in refuelling that sometimes made her ill. Nevertheless,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: she could not restrain herself from looking down into the crater.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: It was pointless to drive to the top and not
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: see what she had come to see. She bent over
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the rim and looked down. A pool of bright green
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: water glittered softly hundreds of feet below. At three forty
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: five the next morning, the twenty fourth of June, Amelia
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: and Fred climbed into the Electra they hoped to fly
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: this day NonStop to Australia. Ae started the engines. She
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: watched the instruments closely as the needles moved up in response. Then,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: as in Miami when they first started out for the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: world flight, one of the important engine instruments failed. Something
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: had gone wrong, but without the instrument operating correctly, there
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: was no point in proceeding. It was not until two
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: o'clock that afternoon that they heard they could now move out.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Because of the late start, they decided to fly only
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: as far as Surabaya, three hundred fifty miles away. On
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the way, what had been failure of engine instrument for
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Amelia now became failure of navigation instruments for fred Noonan.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: He could not get his most important long range instruments
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: to function properly. Reaching sir Abayah, they turned around and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: flew back to Bandung to go on without aids for
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: the difficult navigation that lay ahead, especially over water, would
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: make the rest of the world flight extremely dangerous. Before
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: they left Surabayah to retrace their steps, a e was
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: called to the telephone. It was g P, calling from Cheyenne, Wyoming,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: where his United plane was refueling before continuing on to California.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: George had heard from Amelia that there had been some
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: difficulty with the plane. Is everything about the ship ok now,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: he asked Amelia, refusing to worry her husband concerning something
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: he could do nothing about, held back the truth. Yes,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: she said abruptly, then softly added good night, hon good night.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: G P answered, I'll be sitting in Oakland waiting for you.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: When the Elector landed in Bandung, Dutch technicians were hastily
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: called to work work on the faulty navigation instruments. While
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: they worked, Amelia and Fred went sightseeing in the close
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: by city of Batavia. Pilot and navigator had made an
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: agreement not to do any shopping. They did not want
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: to add any weight to the plane. Six pounds, they
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: reminded each other, equalled one gallon of fuel. But Amelia
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: broke the pact to buy a knife. She purchased it
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a handmade sheath knife at a metal worker's shop, for
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: her friend, John Oliver le Gourse of the National Geographic Society.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: She wanted him to add it to his extensive knife collection.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: She jammed the knife under her belt. She wanted to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: carry it all the way to Washington, d C. And
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: make an official presentation of it to her friend. It
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: took two days to repair the electra. On Sunday morning,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: June twenty seventh, Amelia and Fred left ban Dung, hoping
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: again to reach Australia. But what had been the con
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: conspiracy of instruments now became the conspiracy of time. For
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: every fifteen degrees of longitude crossed, they would lose one hour,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and the day would grow shorter the longer and farther
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: they flew east. For this reason, they had to land
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: after only five hours of flying at Kopang on the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: island of Timor. The flight from Java to Timor had
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: been for Amelia and experience in extremes as the lush
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: tropics became arid wastes and rich abundance monastic sparsity. Except
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: for a fuel shed at Copang, there were no other
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: storage facilities. Amelia and Fred pulled out the cloth covers
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: from the back of the fuselage and covered the props
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and engines. Then, with the help of some of the natives,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: they turned the Electra into the wind and staked it
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: down to the ground. The next morning, again before dawn,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: they climbed wearily into the plain. The Elector, rolled down
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the grass runway and jumped into the air from the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: steep cliffs of the island over the Timor Sea. The
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: head winds were strong and it was not until three
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and a half hours later that Amelia sighted the bright
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Emerald Sea on the northern coast of Australia. They landed
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: at Port Darwin, again, as it had happened before in
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: arriving at a new country Amelia and Fred had to
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: be fumigated for the last time. They stoically submitted to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the spray guns. At Port Darwin, they unloaded their parachutes
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and sent them home Over the Pacific, a parachute would
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: be of no use whatever. Gracefully declining all invitations, Amelia
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and Fred parted for their separate rooms to turn in
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: early for much needed rest. The next stop was Lay
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: New Guinea, only a few hours away from Australia, but
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: an eternity away from home. End of Section thirty three
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: two