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YOUR PURCHASE OF THESE BOOKS SUPPORTS THE WEB SITES THAT BRING TO YOU THE HISTORY BEHIND OLD AIRFIELD REGISTERS

Your copy of the Davis-Monthan Airfield Register 1925-1936 with all the pilots' signatures and helpful cross-references to pilots and their aircraft is available at the link. 375 pages with black & white photographs and extensive tables

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The Congress of Ghosts (available as eBook) is an anniversary celebration for 2010.  It is an historical biography, that celebrates the 5th year online of www.dmairfield.org and the 10th year of effort on the project dedicated to analyze and exhibit the history embodied in the Register of the Davis-Monthan Airfield, Tucson, AZ. This book includes over thirty people, aircraft and events that swirled through Tucson between 1925 and 1936. It includes across 277 pages previously unpublished photographs and texts, and facsimiles of personal letters, diaries and military orders. Order your copy at the link.

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Military Aircraft of the Davis Monthan Register 1925-1936 is available at the link. This book describes and illustrates with black & white photographs the majority of military aircraft that landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield between 1925 and 1936. The book includes biographies of some of the pilots who flew the aircraft to Tucson as well as extensive listings of all the pilots and airplanes. Use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author, while supplies last.

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Art Goebel's Own Story by Art Goebel (edited by G.W. Hyatt) is written in language that expands for us his life as a Golden Age aviation entrepreneur, who used his aviation exploits to build a business around his passion.  Available as a free download at the link.

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Winners' Viewpoints: The Great 1927 Trans-Pacific Dole Race (available as eBook) is available at the link. This book describes and illustrates with black & white photographs the majority of military aircraft that landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield between 1925 and 1936. The book includes biographies of some of the pilots who flew the aircraft to Tucson as well as extensive listings of all the pilots and airplanes. Use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author, while supplies last.

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Clover Field: The first Century of Aviation in the Golden State (available in paperback) With the 100th anniversary in 2017 of the use of Clover Field as a place to land aircraft in Santa Monica, this book celebrates that use by exploring some of the people and aircraft that made the airport great. 281 pages, black & white photographs.

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I'm looking for information and photographs of pilot Keith-Miller and her airplane to include on this page. If you have some you'd like to share, please click this FORM to contact me.

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Thanks to Bob Woodling for help researching this page.

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JESSIE MAUDE "CHUBBIE" KEITH MILLER

Jessie Keith Miller landed and signed the Parks Airport Register twice. Both times she flew, apparently solo, the Fleet Model 2 she identified as NR406K (S/N 129). Her first visit was on Monday, August 12, 1929 at 11:30AM (she signed as "Mrs. Keith Miller"). She identified her origin as Buffalo, NY, where Fleet aircraft were manufactured, suggesting her airplane was brand new, or that she was at the factory for modifications or repairs. She remained on the ground for one hour at East St. Louis before continuing westbound to Los Angeles, CA, probably Clover Field in Santa Monica. The reason I say that is because she was headed for the start of the 1929 National Air Races (NAR).

Jessie Maude Keith Miller, Ca. 1929 (Source: Web)
Jessie Maude Keith Miller, Ca. 1929 (Source: Web)

Indeed, for women, the NAR (August 24-September 4) of 1929 began at Santa Monica. The Women's Derby that year traveled from Clover Field to Cleveland. It was the first year female pilots were allowed to compete in this premier Golden Age event. A photograph of the twenty female competitors and a route map is exhibited about half way down the page at the link. Although some of her fellow racers signed the Clover Field Register before the race, Keith-Miller did not.

Her second landing at East St. Louis was on Saturday, August 24, 1929 (she signed the Register as "J.M. Miller"). She identified her home base as Melbourne, Australia (she was an Australian citizen). Although Keith Miller entered no destination, at this landing she was among the group of women competing in the NAR now on their way to Cleveland. Among that group, all of whom signed the Parks Airport Register on the 24th, were, in their order of landing, Blanche Wilcox Noyes, Amelia Earhart, Louise Thaden, Gladys Odonnell, Ruth Nichols, Ruth Elder, Opal Kunz, Mary Von Mach, Neva Paris, Mrs. Keith-Miller, Phoebe Omlie, Edith Foltz, Thea Rasch, May Haizlip, Clema Granger and Bobbie Trout. Over 30 airplanes landed at Parks Airport that morning and early afternoon. It must have been quite a mix of dust and noise.

Jessie Keith Miller, Ca. August 24, 1929, Parks Airport (SLU)
Jessie Keith Miller, Ca. August 24, 1929, Parks Airport (SLU)

 

The photograph, at left, is courtesy of the St. Louis University Digital Collections (SLU) at the link.The photo caption at the link states, "An image of Jessie Maude 'Chubbie' Miller, participant in the first Women's Transcontinental Air Race in August 1929. Jessie, an Australian journalist, turned aviatrix, became the first woman to fly from England to Australia, with her friend, Bill Lancaster, in 1927. After going to the United States, Chubbie learned to fly and became a highly successful air-racing contestant. The photo at left was taken at Parks Airport when Chubbie arrived with the [15 other] women flyers [listed above] participating in the Transcontinental 'Ragwing Derby [sic]' (24 August 1929)."

The official name of the race she was competing in was the "Women's Derby." It later became known as the "Powder Puff Derby." Regardless, at Cleveland, Keith Miller and her Fleet placed third in the Class C (engine displacement 275-510 cubic inches) section of the Women's Derby. She had averaged 51.98 MPH overall. She won $325 for her effort.

Later that year (October 5-October 21), she also participated in the 1929 National Air Tour. She flew NC289K, a Fairchild KR-34C (not a Register airplane). She placed 8th, winning $500.

Keith Miller was born in Australia September 13, 1901 in the small town of Southern Cross, in the state of Western Australia. Her name did not carry a hyphen. For some reason, she remained known in the U.S. by her husband's full name, Keith Miller, whereas in Australia it was more often Mrs. Jessie Miller. Some information comes to us from her biographer, Chrystopher Spicer, contacted me through this page. He states, "Jessie was a very important female pilot. You might say that before Amelia Earhart, there was Jessie Miller because at the time of her flight with Lancaster to Australia, no woman had flown so far, to so many countries, or even across the equator. Let me clarify at this point, too, that in 1928 Earhart flew across the Atlantic only as a passenger whereas Miller flew half-way around the world in 1927 as a co-pilot and a mechanic, although I'm pretty sure she didn't have an actual licence. She gained that at Red Bank in New Jersey in 1929 so she could fly in the Derby which I think (and you may correct me on this) made her only about the third or fourth woman to have a private licence in New York and one of about 40 in the US."

To digress, regarding the number of female pilots in the U.S. circa 1929, the following excerpt from a letter I received from Bobbi Trout discusses how many there were and how the Ninety-Nines pilot organization was named.

"So many people get the wrong way the 99s started. I was there under the grandstand at the Cleveland Air Races [September, 1929] with Amelia and about 4 other flyers who were not known names. We all about the same time said wouldn't it be nice if we had a Club or something where we all could get together and know each other and talk. I opened my mouth and said "YES" it would be great but there is quite a bit of red tape to do and by-laws to work out etc. Amelia then just in front of me said, 'Bobbi, how about us doing all this back east?' I thought for a moment and said yes and the others OKd it. About a month later in 1929 they sent out 117 letters to girl flyers saying that if they would sign the bi-laws [sic] and send in a dollar they would be a charter member of the new Organization. 99 did and at the first meeting I am told it was Amelia who said why not name it the 99s since that many were Charter Members. Many articles as well as in my book 'JUST PLANE CRAZY' the writer put in several of the names of girls from the east but that was wrong--none of them were there but Amelia and me who were known."

Regarding primacy, Harriett Quimby was the first U.S. female who earned a pilot certificate in 1911. Bessie Coleman earned hers in 1921. For comparison, the earliest among Register signers was Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie, who flew with Transport certificate T199. Next was Ruth Nichols with T326. Keith Miller carried certificate number 6014, but I'm not certain what category it was, Transport, Commercial, etc., or in what order she was among women who earned a certificate. She could very well have been the third or fourth woman in New York to earn her certificate, but I would guess not nationally.

Continuing, further, Mr. Spicer writes, "... Miller held the second official U.S. transcontinental speed record in both directions in October, 1930, immediately after Laura Ingalls, and that she was also the first woman to fly in November 1930 from the East Coast to Cuba. In fact, as far as I know she was the first woman to fly from anywhere in the US to Cuba and was only the second person to fly there from the East Coast after Frank Hawks. She famously became an early candidate for the Bermuda Triangle on the way back. Suffering from the same compass anomalies and bad weather as many have noted, she was forced to land on Andros Island and was listed as missing and given up for lost back in the US until she turned up in Nassau, having caught a ride there in an open sail boat belonging to another Australian."

Keith Miller moved to the U.S. in 1928, fresh on the heels of her England to Australia flight. She was accompanied by her "friend," Bill Lancaster (not a Register pilot), who had piqued her desire to learn to fly during that flight. In the U.S., she soon turned to air racing and entered the 1929 Women's Derby as a relatively fresh pilot, as documented above. Lancaster also competed in the 1929 Air Tour, placing 25th in an unidentified Great Lakes 2T1A and winning $200.

A few years later, in April, 1932, Keith-Miller was involved in a love triangle that led to a murder (or suicide as it was adjudged) involving Bill Lancaster. For more information about that saga, please direct your browser to the Web page for Register airplane Curtiss Robin C-1, S/N 444, NC75H and the links there from.

National newspapers of the era had a field day reporting on the hearings and trial proceedings, which culminated with both Lancaster's and Keith Miller's exhonoration in August, 1932. The New York Times published a dozen or so articles about the trial. In the aftermath of the trial, in October, 1932, both of them left the U.S. by ship for England, as cited in the article, below, left. Rumor that their departures were due to deportations was not clear.

It is also not clear what their relationship was over the next six months. But it was terminated in April, 1933 when Lancaster, in an attempt to fly from England to Capetown, South Africa, was lost in the Algerian desert. He remained lost for 29 years, a victim of the crash of his airplane while, allegedly, lost and disoriented at night.

The New York Times, October 15, 1932 (Source: NYT)

 

Lancaster's Fateful Route, 1933 (Source: Link)
Lancaster's Fateful Route, 1933 (Source: Link)

A good source for the fate of Bill Lancaster, with numerous then and now photographs, is at the link. This story is titled, "A Butterfly in the Desert." It documents the final flight of Lancaster from England to the Algerian desert. His intention to fly to South Africa, ended in a crash landing south of Reggan, Algeria, as shown in the route map at right. The text at the link is in French, but you can translate it into English, German, Spanish or Italian, whichever is more comfortable for you, using the translation tool at the top of the linked page. The resulting English translation is not perfect, but it is understandable. It should give you all you want to know about the relationship between Keith-Miller and William Newton Lancaster, their 1927 record flight, and the demise of Lancaster. Mr. Spicer states, "Incidentally, when Lancaster went down out there in the desert he was flying Charles Kingsford-Smith's old plane Southern Cross Minor and so in the early seventies an expedition went out and retrieved it and brought it back to Australia where it now resides in storage at the Brisbane Museum here in Queensland."

Jessie Keith Miller, Ca. 1930 (Source: NAC)
Jessie Keith Miller, Ca. 1930 (Source: NAC)

 

Jessie Keith Miller, Ca. 1962 (Source: Link)
Jessie Keith Miller, Ca. 1962 (Source: Link)

 

A photograph of Keith Miller, left, is from the link above. It was snapped shortly after Lancaster's body was found 29 years after his crash and death in the desert in April, 1933 (ironically, one year exactly after the murder cum suicide).

The document opened in front of her is a diary that Lancaster kept during his 8-day ordeal in the desert before he died of dehydration. Key artifacts of the crash and rediscovery were the airplane itself and a diary maintained by Lancaster as he waited, injured, for rescue under the wing. Details of the diary contents, and other artifacts found at the crash scene, are in the story. The airplane was recovered from the desert and is on exhibit at a museum in Australia, just as it appeared when it was discovered.

Keith Miller died in London in 1972. Incidentally, she was a petite woman, right, and in no way "Chubbie." Photograph courtesy of the Polish NAC.

A new book entitled "The Flying Adventures of Jessie Keith “Chubbie” Miller: The Southern Hemisphere’s First International Aviatrix" by Chrystopher Spicer is now available at the link.

 

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THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 10/27/14 REVISED: 11/12/15, 03/19/17