GREAT EUROPEANS: Those dismissive words crackled over the radio. A tiny plane lifted into the Ohio sky on March 19, 1964. The tower controller didn’t bother hiding his doubt.

After all, what was a 38-year-old housewife with three kids doing? She was attempting something that had killed the legendary Amelia Earhart.

Her name was Jerrie Mock, and the world was about to learn they’d underestimated her.

Millions know Amelia Earhart’s tragic story. However, almost no one knows the name of the woman who actually succeeded. She was the first female pilot to fly solo around the entire world.

Jerrie was born on November 19, 1925. She completed her 23,206-mile journey in a single-engine Cessna on April 17, 1964. This accomplishment was what Earhart had died attempting 27 years earlier. The press called her ‘the flying housewife.’ History barely remembers her name.

But Jerrie never fit the mold. ‘I did not conform to what girls did,’ she said years later.

‘What the girls did was boring.’ At age seven, after one short airplane ride, she announced her future: ‘I want to be a pilot.’

Other girls played with dolls. Meanwhile, she listened to radio reports of Amelia Earhart’s adventures. She dreamed of soaring over oceans, jungles, and deserts.

She was the only woman in her aeronautical engineering class at Ohio State. The male students avoided her, until she scored perfectly on a brutal chemistry exam while they struggled.

Suddenly, they wanted her in their study groups. But it was 1945, and women didn’t become aerospace engineers. At 20, she left college to marry Russell Mock. Soon, she found herself knee-deep in diapers and dishes. She experienced the quiet desperation of domesticity.

Years passed. Three children. Endless household routines. The dreams faded but never disappeared.

Her older kids started school. After they did, Jerrie began taking flying lessons in secret. She saved grocery money for each precious hour in the air.

When she finally earned her pilot’s license, something inside her reignited. One evening, exhausted by another mundane day, she complained to her husband: ‘I’m so bored I could scream.’

Russell laughed and said, ‘Maybe you should just get in your plane and fly around the world.’

He was joking. She wasn’t. For a year, she prepared obsessively while experienced pilots told her she was insane.

Two days before her departure, another woman, Joan Merriam Smith, took off on her own round-the-world attempt. Suddenly, Jerrie’s sightseeing adventure became a pressure-filled race.

What should have been joyful became a gruelling marathon. She endured 12-hour days on five hours of sleep. She navigated by maps and stars, utterly alone. The journey tested her beyond imagination.

She accidentally landed at a secret Egyptian military base and found herself surrounded by armed soldiers.

An antenna wire caught fire over the Libyan desert, flames creeping toward her fuel tank at 10,000 feet.

RIGHT: Michael Walsh’s books and novels make great reading. CLICK THE PIC to access the bookstore

In Saudi Arabia, an angry crowd refused to believe a woman had flown the plane solo. They remained skeptical until someone climbed up to peer into the cockpit. Only then was it confirmed that no man was hiding inside.

Twenty-nine days after that controller was dismissive of her, Jerrie Mock touched down in Columbus, Ohio.

Five thousand people flooded the runway, cheering until their voices gave out. The governor rushed to shake her hand. Reporters fought for interviews. Standing before the roaring crowd, tears streaming down her face, she could barely speak:

‘I don’t know what to say. This is just wonderful.’

But fame didn’t suit her. ‘A person who can sit in an airplane alone prefers solitude. That person is not inclined to be continually with other people,’ she explained.

She gave a few speeches, wrote a book that few read, then quietly returned to her life. By 1969, financial struggles meant she could never afford to fly again. The cockpit that had given her freedom became just a memory.

In later interviews, she was asked about her historic achievement. She downplayed it with characteristic humility. She said, ‘I just wanted to have a little fun in my airplane.’

Jerrie Mock passed away in 2014 at age 88. No major news outlets covered her death.

The woman proved every doubter wrong. She flew 23,206 miles solo when the world said she couldn’t. She accomplished what her hero, Amelia Earhart, had died attempting. She slipped away as quietly as she’d lived.

On that April day in 1964, her wheels touched Ohio soil. She had circled the entire planet. One thing was crystal clear: that tower controller had been spectacularly, gloriously wrong. We heard from her, all right. We just forgot to listen.

You can and should share this story on social media. TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

AFRICA’S DOGS OF WAR. legendary mercenary bestsellers by the man who wears the dirty tee-shirt: SWEETHEARTS OF DEATH, THE STIGMA ENIGMA and RETRIBUTION. https://michaelwalshbooks.wordpress.com/