HAROLD GATTY - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 04/18/1939 - HFSID 176691

HAROLD GATTY
Typed Letter from New Zealand to a librarian in Honolulu (1939), thanking her for books about Pacific Islands
Typed Letter signed: "Harold Gatty", 1 page, 8½x11. Auckland, New Zealand, 1939 April 18. To Miss Alma Jonson, Library of Hawaii, Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. In full: "I wish to acknowledge with this the receipt of the copies of 'Paradise of the Pacific' and the copies of Midway Island material. I am very interested in the articles in the 'Paradise of the Pacific' relative to the mid-Pacific Islands. It looks as if I am delayed here further and will not be up through Honolulu for several months yet. It seems as though we will have some activity on the air route down here very shortly. Please let me know how much I owe you for the material you have sent." In 1931, Australian Harold Gatty (1903-1957) was the navigator for Wiley Post on their record-setting flight around the world in eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes. The eastward flight of the single-engine Winnie Mae began at Roosevelt Field, Long Island on June 23, 1931 and ended there on July 1, 1931 after ten stops en route. For this flight, Gatty and Post became the first civilians to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross. Lindbergh once called Gatty "the best navigator in the country if not in the whole world." During World War II, Gatty served with the US and Australian air forces in the Southwest Pacific, and wrote a survival guide for airmen downed at sea, which was subsequently included in flyers' survival kits. Lightly creased, horizontal fold across lower blank margin. Fine condition.