Amy Johnson - Herne Bay - Kent - UK - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

Along Herne Bay (Kent) promenade is a statue to the British aviator Amy Johnson, CBE (1 July 1903 – 5 January 1941)

The following text is taken from both Wikipedia and the Amy Johnson project.

Amy was the eldest of four sisters and grew up in Hull, where her father ran a fish export and import business. She studied at Sheffield University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. She then worked as a typist for a firm of solicitors until, at a loose end one Sunday afternoon, she boarded a bus that took her to Stag Lane Aerodrome in North London. She was immediately captivated by the primitive biplanes she watched taking off and landing. Soon she started to spend all her spare time at the aerodrome.

Amy gained a ground engineer’s “C” licence and, with the financial help of her father, took flying lessons. In 1929 she was awarded her pilot’s licence. Few people paid much attention when Amy announced that she was going to try to break Bert Hinkler’s 16-day record for flying 11,000 miles (18,000 km) solo from London to Australia.

Amy left Croydon Airport on 5 May, 1930 in a second-hand Gipsy Moth called Jason. In India she surprised an army garrison by landing on a parade ground and, when she reached Burma (modern-day Myanmar), she faced her biggest challenge: the monsoon. Although the monsoon robbed her of her chance to beat Hinkler’s record, Amy landed in Australia on Saturday, 24 May to tumultuous crowds.

In 1940 Amy joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, an organisation set up to ferry planes around the country for the Royal Air Force. On Sunday 5 January 1941 she left Blackpool in an Airspeed Oxford, which she had been ordered to deliver to RAF Kidlington, near Oxford.

At about 3.30pm a convoy of ships was approaching Knock John Buoy on Tizard Bank, off Herne Bay when a seaman spotted an aeroplane and then a parachute floating down through the snow. Several sailors then reported seeing two bodies in the water. One was described as fresh-faced and wearing a helmet. This figure called out for help in a high-pitched voice as it drifted dangerously close to the ship’s propellers. Speculation about what exactly happened that afternoon and why she was so far off course has ranged from rumours that she was on a secret mission to the more mundane theory that she got lost and simply ran out of fuel.

And so to the Statue..

A life-size bronze statue of Amy Johnson was commissioned by the Amy Johnson Project to mark the 75th anniversary of her tragic and untimely death on 5 January 1941. The bronze, which is sited on the promenade in Herne Bay, was unveiled by HRH Prince Michael of Kent and modern day aviatrix, Tracey Curtis-Taylor, on Saturday 17 September 2016. This bronze statue has no plinth and is free standing at ground level.

Amy Johnson was just 37 years old when she died and the tragedy was made more poignant by the mysterious circumstances surrounding the crash. The RAF Accident Record Card names Herne Bay as the location where Amy Johnson’s final flight came to an end. Her body and the wreckage of the plane were never found.

The statue stands as a monument to women, aviation, engineering and all those who served with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War and will be a permanent landmark to inspire and educate.

Dressed in early 1930s flying clothes, striding forward, adjusting her goggles and looking to the skies, the bronze includes quotes by Amy who expressed herself with intelligent creativity. Standing at ground level on the promenade, she will merge with the crowd during the day but of an evening, when the seafront is deserted, you will see the silhouette of the lone girl flyer, making for a moving and poignant scene.

The statue shows Amy dressed in 1930's air force clothing and is shown as walking the the seafront while adjussting here goggle with her right hand.

Now in th title of this waymark i stated that this was "Amy Johnson - Herne Bay - Kent - UK" This is because there is a duplicate statue of Amy, made from the same cast, and is located in her birth town of Hull. The chosen site is on a new greenspace which will eventually provide a landscaped park for residents of new housing, only a few hundred yards from St Georges Road where Amy was born in 1903.

The bronzes were created by Ramsgate artist Stephen Melton and the Herne Bay statue was paid for entirely by the people and businesses of the town and local area making this a wonderful example of a community coming together to mark this special year.

URL of the statue: [Web Link]

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