James Allan Mollison MBE (abt. 1905 - 1959)

Born about 19 Apr 1905 in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Husband of Amy Johnson CBE — married 1932 (to 1938) in London, England, United Kingdom

Husband of Phyllis Louise (Verley) Mollison — married 1938 (to 1942) in London, England, United Kingdom

Husband of Maria Clasina Eva (Brassem) Mollison — married 1949 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom

Died 30 Oct 1959 at about age 54 in London, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Jim Mollison MBE is Notable.

Jim Mollison was a pioneering Scottish aviator, with exploits including the first east to west trans-Atlantic flight in August 1932. He married another flight pioneer, Amy Johnson, and together they made aviation history.

Early Life

James Allan Mollison was born on the 19th of April 1905 in Pollokshields, Glasgow,^[1] the only child of Hector Mollison a consultant engineer, and his wife Thomasina Macnee Addie. ^[2]

His father's alcoholism led to his parents' separation and divorce in 1915.^[2] His mother remarried in Edinburgh in 1918 to Charles Bullmore.^[3] Bullmore was a naval officer and for a while James adopted his stepfather's name.^[2]

Education and Military Career

He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh academies, but was not a good student. He was able to obtain a short-service commission in the Royal Air Force in 1923,^[2] was commissioned at age 18, and was the youngest officer in the Service.^[4] He learned to fly at Duxford near Cambridge and was posted to India in 1925. By September 1926 he returned to England before completing his tour of duty. He was posted then to the Spartan regime of the Electrical and Wireless School at Flowerdown, which appears to be a disciplinary measure. He took the Central Flying School course at RAF Wittering and became an instructor at the training school at Sealand in Wales. He completed five years of service and transferred to the reserve in 1928.^[2]

Flight Career

In 1928, he went to Australia, spending some time as a bathing-beach attendant, then as an instructor at the Australian Aero Club in Adelaide. He became a commercial airline pilot for the short-lived Kingsford Smith's Australian National Airways.^[2] Mollison flew the Melbourne-Sydney route in the pioneer days of mail plane work. On every trip he had to contend with the worst possible weather conditions, in aircraft that were not equipped with blind flying instruments. This was his apprenticeship for the great flights he was to make later.^[4]

Jim Mollison was assisted in his meteoric career of record-breaking flights by Lord Wakefield, a generous philanthropist, with the donation of a Gipsy Moth.^[5] He attempted a flight from Australia to England, but wrecked the heavily loaded aircraft on take off from Darwin on 7 June 1931. Wakefield gave him another Moth, and Mollison took off in it on 29 July 1931 from Wyndam, arriving at Pevensey Bay on 06 August in just over 8 days and 19 hours.^[2]

His next attempt was in November 1931, a solo flight from Britain to the Cape, but the first try was a failure. Trying again in March 1932, he took off from Lympne, Kent, in a Puss Moth and using a dangerous route over the Sahara, flew to the Cape in a remarkable record time of four days, seventeen hours--a flight of 6,000 miles.^[4]

His next flight, arguably the greatest solo flight ever made, was from east to west over the Atlantic. A solo Atlantic crossing had been accomplished by Charles A. Lindberg in May 1927, but from west to east with the help of prevailing winds. De Havilland built Mollison a Puss Moth that he dubbed The Heart's Content. With the fuel load needed for this crossing, the runway length for take off was much increased, so he decided to use the long Velvet Strand at Portmarnock beach in Ireland. On 18 August 1932 he departed that sandspit and arrived at Pennfield Ridge near St. John, New Brunswick with about 10 gallons of fuel remaining in his tank. The journey took 31 hours and 20 minutes, seven hours of which he spent in a Newfoundland fogbank. In 1933 he made one more remarkable flight this time across the South Atlantic from England, in The Heart's Content, to South America. ^[4]

In July 1933, his next attempt was with his new wife and fellow aviation pioneer, Amy Johnson, in a Dragon. This was a much larger aircraft, normally a 10-seater plane, but with the seats removed for petrol tanks to be installed. They dubbed it the Seafarer. After a false start, they left Pendine Sands in South Wales, barely missing a cliff hidden in the mist, and arrived at Bridgeport, Connecticut 40 hours later when they ran out of fuel. Their intended destination was New York, but about 20 minutes short of the preferred landing location they hit a swamp, crashed, and turned two complete somersaults before coming to a halt. Jim was ejected through the windscreen, receiving bad cuts and was left unconscious and head-first in the swamp. Jim and Amy, also badly cut, were taken to a hospital and stitched up. They had failed to reach New York, but the flight of 40 hours was a new record for the North Atlantic crossing. ^[4]

By September 1933 they were back on board. Lord Wakefield delivered another aircraft, which the pair prepared to use for a Canada to Baghdad non-stop flight. The plane was so badly overloaded it could not lift off. In 1934, they made another flight together trying to win a £10,00 prize for a race from England to Melbourne. In a new Comet, they flew to Baghdad, and were ahead of their rivals. On to India, arriving at Allahabad in record time, they were ahead of the pack. But there their race ended as three pistons had been burnt out and the aircraft was grounded.^[4] Mutual recriminations may have done some damage to the marriage.^[2]

It wasn't until October 1936 that Mollison planned another spectacular flight. He bought the Irish Swoop, and renamed it Dorothy.^[4] He made the first flight from New York to London in 17 hours, and in November and December 1936 from England to the Cape in three days and six hours. By this time, interest for record-breaking flights was diminishing, and his sponsorship and prizes declined.^[2]

With the Second World War, Mollison found a renewed purpose and joined the Air Transport Auxiliary. He ferried a vast number of aircraft from America across the Atlantic for the RAF, many of these missions being difficult. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1946 in recognition of these many missions.^[2]

After the war he was employed as a pilot by a Dutch businessman, Meindert Kamphuis, who later died in an air crash. In 1953 Mollison's pilot's licence was revoked for drinking, and by 1956 he was separated from his third wife, Maria. He purchased the Carisbrooke Hotel in Surbiton as a source of income. Jim Mollison died of acute alcoholism in London at The Priory in Roehampton on 30 October 1959, and was cremated at the Woking crematorium in Surrey.^[2]

Marriages and Personal Life

He married another pioneering aviator, Amy Johnson in 1932.^[6] Shortly after his record 1932 flight from Ireland to Canada, he published his story, Death Cometh Soon or Late, ghost written by the journalist William Courtenay.^[2] The press called them "the Flying Sweethearts" and "the Air Lovers," and sponsors helped provide them with a lavish lifestyle. Mollison's fame rose with this alliance, but his heavy drinking and womanizing ruined the marriage in a short time. By 1936 their formal separation was announced.^[2]

In 1937, to make money as interest and sponsorship began to dry up, he published a sensational book, Playboy of the Air, ghost written by Ricketts. In it he boasted of female conquests, and dedicated the book to actress Dorothy Ward. Amy Johnson filed for divorce, which was granted in August 1938. ^[2] Amy resumed her maiden name.^[7] She was killed during WWII while ferrying an aircraft for ATA in 1941.^[8]

Jim married a second time to Phyllis Louis (Verley) Hussey, a wealthy heiress and socialite, on 12 November 1938.^[9] The Verley family had business interests in the West Indies, and she had previously divorced her first husband, Lieutenant-Commander Thomas Andrey Hussey RN. Mollison's continued heavy drinking, however, led to a quick marital separation. ^[2]

In 1941 a film based on some of the flights by Mollison and Amy Johnson was made staring Robert Newton and Anna Neagle called They Flew Alone.^[2]

Jim Mollison married a third time to Maria (Brassem) Kamphuis in 1949.^[10] After the war he was employed as a pilot by a Dutch businessman, Meindert Kamphuis, with whose wife Mollison took up an affair. After Kamphuis died in an air crash, Mollison divorced Phyllis and married Kamphuis' widow, Maria Clasina Eva Kamphuis, on 26 September 1949. In 1953 his pilot's licence was revoked for drinking, and by 1956 he was separated from Maria. He purchased the Carisbrooke Hotel in Surbiton, a London suburb, as a source of income.^[11] He died of acute alcoholism in London at the Priory Hospital in Roehampton on 30 October 1959 at the age of 54.^[12] and was cremated at the Woking crematorium in Surrey.^[2]

Jim Mollison had no chilldren.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Scotland Civil Registration, Birth Index, Kinning Park Registration District (644/14), Entry #386
2. ↑ ^{2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17} Stewart, Oliver, and M. C. Curthoys. "Mollison, James Allan (1905–1959), aviator." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 18 Aug. 2020.
3. ↑ "Statutory registers - Marriages" database, National Records of Scotland, ScotlandsPeople (https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/: accessed 17 Aug 2020), Charles Bullmore and Thomasina Macne Addie Mollison 1918, St Andrew (Edinburgh); citing Parish Number 685/2, Reference Number: 375.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6} "Makers of Air History," Wonders of World Aviation Vol. 12, Part 26, published 30 August 1938.
5. ↑ Viscount Wakefield, G.C.V.O., C.B.E. Nature 147, 141 (1941).
6. ↑ England and Wales Civil Registration, Marriage Index, Sep Qtr 1932, St. George Hanover Square 1a, 1213
7. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Jim Mollison," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (accessed August 17, 2020).
8. ↑ Military Wiki - Jim Mollison
9. ↑ "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (8 October 2014), Phyllis L Verley and null, 1938; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1938, quarter 4, vol. 1A, p. 1207, Westminster St. Margaret, London, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
10. ↑ "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVDH-JB35 : 8 October 2014), Maria C E Kamphuis and null, 1949; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1949, quarter 3, vol. 6A, p. 123, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.
11. ↑ Website: House of Mirelle, Hull. Social History: Husband of Amy Johnson Jim Mollison the Flying Scotsman Commemorated in Surbiton Surrey
12. ↑ England and Wales Civil Registration, Death Index, Dec Qtr 1959, Wandsworth 5d, 776

See also:

• "Makers of Air History," Wonders of World Aviation Vol. 12, Part 26, published 30 August 1938.
• Military Wiki - Jim Mollison
• Video available on YouTube dated 1936.
• Video of crash in 1939 at 8:25 of newsreel
• Wikipedia: James Allan Mollison
• Wikidata: Item Q1679945, en:Wikipedia