Dorothy Rita (Furey) Hewitt (1918 - 2006)

Born 17 Dec 1918 in New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Died 9 Nov 2006 at age 87 in Winchester, Virginia, United States

Biography

Dorothy was born in 1918. Her father was a banana importer who lost everything in the Wall Street crash of 1929.

Education. 1yr Lousiana State University

Mrs Bragg - her husband, Pilot Officer Richard Edward Bragg, was killed 13 May 1943 hen his Halifax JB924 was shot down by a night-fighter near the village of Wijnaldum, North Netherlands, killing 7 of the 8 crew (the 8th became a PoW). Richard and Dorothy had married in Nottinghamshire in June 1942.

Sailed to New York from Greenock in 1943, arriving 28th July, with fellow ATA pilots Virginia Farr, Ann Watson Wood, Grace Stevenson, John Yingst, Lionel Kay and Mary (Zerbel) Hooper. She then returned as supernumerary co-pilot in Mitchell FV967, 15-21 Sep 1943.

m. 1946 David, Earl Beatty RN, son of Admiral Beatty of WWI Jutland fame, and thus became Countess Beatty. He was "a good soldier but a poor politician, a man of short temper and a chronic husband", she said later.

While married to David, Dorothy had a long-standing affair with Anthony Eden, the future Prime Minister of Britain.

m. 1954 Abram Hewitt, a millionaire American horse breeder (d. 1987)

She moved to Lexington, Kentucky, then in 1993 to Paris, Virginia.

She passed away in 2006.

Sources

• Debrett, John, C. F. J. Hankinson, and Arthur G. M. Hesilrige. Debretts peerage, baronetage, knightage, and companionage ...: comprises information concerning persons bearing hereditary or courtesy titles, privy councillors, knights, companions of the various orders, and the collateral branches of all peers and baronets. London: Odhams Press, 1947.
• Profile on afleetingpeace.org - ATA Pilot W71

See also:

• http://www.airtransportaux.com/members/furey-bragg.html