By the time Jerrie Mock reached Manila, she was twelve legs into her historic around the world flight and trying to become the first woman to do so. She was hitting the home stretch. Just seven legs to go.
It was April 1964. Jerrie Mock was a 38 year old Columbus, Ohio housewife flying an 11-yr-old single engine Cessna 180 that was jointly owned by her husband Russ and a friend. ‘The Spirit of Columbus’ – as it was called – was fitted with a new engine, a new long range radio system and, to be able to cross oceans, its passenger seats were replaced with three fuel tanks totaling 178 gallons on board.
She did not have a navigator sitting next to her like the famous Amelia Earhart had 27 years earlier. There wasn’t room.
For the homestretch back to the USA, Jerrie would have to fly more than seven thousand miles over nothing but ocean. She would do it in only four legs: Manila to Guam (1597 miles), Guam to tiny Wake Island (1500 miles), then 2300 miles to Honolulu and another 2400 miles to Oakland, California.
Two days before it all began when Jerrie’s flight departed Columbus, a rival female – Joan Merriman Smith – had departed from Oakland, Calif in an attempt to do the same thing. And be the first female. The race was on, but Jerrie was winning.
After being serenaded by a U.S. Navy band upon arriving in Guam and dining with the governor and his wife, Jerrie asked for an early wake up call for Wake Island. The Japanese had occupied the tiny but strategic island during WWII just nineteen years earlier. There was an airport, but it’s 9800 foot runway took up nearly half of the four-mile wide island. Jerrie called it one of the easiest flights of the whole trip because of the powerful radio beacons there.
Amelia Earhart had disappeared over Howland Island just 1700 miles away in 1937.
Next, was Honolulu. Jerrie decided to leave late at night because of the expected sixteen hour flight time. She had trouble sleeping during the day. The next two legs would be the longest two legs of her entire trip. The good news is that it was easy to find Honolulu in 1964 because on the northern tip of Oahu there was a high powered radio beacon – Kahuka – that reached out over 1000 miles. A big crowd had come out to see her when she finally landed on the sun drenched runway in the late afternoon at 4:11pm.
She was immediately adorned with a lei and handed a phone. It was a call from her husband Russ who proceeded to tell her that all her luaus and parties had been cancelled because she needed to rest. Jerrie was running on thirty hours with no sleep. She reluctantly agreed.
At about 4:30pm the next afternoon (April 14) Jerrie left Honolulu. Her flight time was expected to be 17.5 hours. Charlie (her affectionate nickname for her plane) was fueled up to 171 gallons of gasoline and again was overweight at 3300 lbs. The weather was perfect with a few scattered clouds as she reached 9000 feet and headed toward the mainland. She flew all night.
Then sunrise. And soon thereafter San Francisco and the bay came into sight. She landed with a couple of bounces and was greeted by an enormous throng of people who she said looked more excited than her. Her husband Russ planted a big kiss on her in front of the cameras. Oakland was a bit overwhelming for Jerrie with all the people, the questions and the photographs.
The plan now was to get home to Columbus, however, they needed to get their air flight miles to 22,858 (the distance around the world at the Tropic of Cancer) required by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale for an official circling of the earth. Jerrie flew through Arizona and Texas before turning toward Ohio. As she dodged the rain & wind, she was getting congratulatory radio messages in her cockpit. She had to turn her radio down to stay focused.
Russ got ahold of her on a final unplanned fuel stop in Bowling Green, Kentucky. People were calling. The governor, the Administrator of the FAA, the Columbus Dispatch. She gave her ETA to be about 2.5 hours.
At 9:36pm EST on Friday, April 17, Jerrie Mock in her beloved Cessna 180 single engine plane touched down at Port Columbus before a jubilant hometown crowd estimated to be around 5000. After pulling off the runway, Jerrie – as instructed – shut off the plane just as the crowd surged past the barriers toward her. Russ and her two sons made it through the crowd to the plane. They were all then escorted by police through the crowd to a stage.
Her family was there including her mom & dad and her two sisters; her sponsors – Cessna Aircraft, Continental Motors, and Champion Spark Plug; the governor, the mayor, and other dignitaries. The governor spoke, a telegram from President Johnson was read by the Deputy Administrator from the FAA and of course Jerrie Mock herself spoke briefly.
Jerrie Mock’s journey lasted twenty nine days. She flew 23,103 miles. Jerrie’s rival Joan Merriman Smith touched down in Oakland, California fifteen days later.
On May 4 1964, in Washington D.C., Jerrie was presented with the FAA’s Gold Medal for Exceptional Service by President Lyndon Johnson.
Jerrie wrote a book about her amazing journey ‘Thirty Eight Charlie’ that was released in 1970.
On the fiftieth anniversary of Jerrie’s historic landing back in Columbus (April 17, 2014), a life size bronze statue of Jerrie Mock holding a globe was unveiled at Port Columbus (now John Glenn International). 88-yer-old Jerrie watched the unveiling from a computer screen in Florida.
Jerrie died five months later.
In 2022, she was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.
Twenty seven years earlier, in 1937, Amelia Earhart attempted the same thing. Her Lockheed Electra disappeared near Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean with navigator Fred Noonan on board. She was seven thousand miles from completion. Her airplane has never been found. President Trump ordered the government to declassify and release all her records in October (2025).
Jerrie Mock would have turned 100 years old this month.
Sources: ‘Celebrating Jerrie Mock, the first solo world flight by a woman, and all women earth rounders’, Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, April 16, 2024, www.airandspace.si.edu; Susan Reid (sister of Jerrie Mock) presentation in honor of the 60th anniversary of Jerrie’s flight, Whitehall Library, Mar 23, 2024; Three-Eight Charlie by Jerrie Mock, 1970; Jerrie Mock – the Spirit of Columbus, www.columbusfoundation.org; Files Declassified, Planet America, Oct, 2025, ABC News Australia; Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Jerrie Mock’s Flight Around the World by Michelle Caldwell, Columbus Metropolitan Library, April 2024, www.columbushistory.org; Jerrie Mock: Mother & Aviatrix by Loraine M. Wilmers, Columbus Metropolitan Library, July 2019, www.columbushistory.org; Featured pictures courtesy Susan Reid, sister of Jerrie Mock.