>
THE JERRIE MOCK STORY
The First Woman to Fly Solo around the World
THE JERRIE MOCK STORY
Nancy Roe Pimm
BIOGRAPHIES FOR YOUNG READERS
Ohio University Press
Athens
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
© 2016 by Ohio University Press
All rights reserved
To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).
Printed in the United States of America
Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1
Frontispiece: In preparation for her flight around the world, Jerrie Mock obtained her passport on January 28, 1964. Susan Reid collection
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pimm, Nancy Roe, author.
Title: The Jerrie Mock story : the first woman to fly solo around the world / Nancy Roe Pimm.
Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2016. | Series: Biographies for young readers | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015040787| ISBN 9780821422151 (hardback) | ISBN 9780821422168 (pb) | ISBN 9780821445587 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Mock, Jerrie, 1925–2014—Juvenile literature. | Women air pilots—United States—Biography—Juvenile literature. | Flights around the world—Juvenile literature. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Biographical / United States. | TRANSPORTATION / Aviation / History.
Classification: LCC TL721.M58 P56 2016 | DDC 629.13092—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn:loc.gov/2015040787
“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”
—from “The Explorer” by Rudyard Kipling, 1898
Contents
Flight 2. Early Years and Chasing Dreams
Flight 7. Egypt and Saudi Arabia
Flight 9. Thailand and the Philippines
Flight 10. Guam, Wake Island, and Hawaii
Flight 12. Supersonic Jets and Record-Breaking Streaks
Jerrie’s Achievements & Awards
Author’s Note
ONE EVENING while watching the local news, a story caught my attention. The news story celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the first woman to fly solo around the world. Jerrie Mock had flown in her eleven-year-old plane from Port Columbus and landed twenty-nine days later at her hometown airport in Columbus, Ohio. The “flying housewife” had a compass, a map, and a system of dots and dashes to circumnavigate the globe. The longest leg of her flight took over seventeen hours, and at one point she had to stay awake for thirty hours. A war was going on. She flew over shark-infested waters. She landed in and took off from foreign countries with many different cultures and beliefs. Incredible, amazing, and brave were words that popped into my mind.
I always thought Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly around the world. And as I started asking around, I found most folks think so. Not many had heard of Jerrie Mock. In 1964, the year Jerrie made history, so many stories were competing for the headlines: The Civil Rights Act had just passed. The Beatles came to America and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. The United
