Judy Bain, 81, spent most of her life unaware she was a direct descendant of the daring pilot Arthur Whitten Brown, who with John Alcock completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight in 1919. The revelation came decades after her birth mother, Elsie Barber, a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, had a clandestine fling with Brown's son, Arthur 'Buster' Brown, at an RAF base in Shropshire in 1944.
The Secret Liaison
In the spring of 1944, Elsie Barber, 24 and single, had a brief relationship with Buster, a recently married 21-year-old RAF pilot. The liaison at the RAF base near High Ercall in Shropshire was kept secret. Buster died months later on D-day when his Mosquito fighter plane crashed in the Netherlands. Elsie, pregnant, gave birth to a daughter and made the difficult decision to give her up for adoption.
Judy grew up unaware of her origins until she decided to investigate her family history decades later. The investigation uncovered a tale of family secrets, heartbreak, and glory. Judy learned that her grandfather was Arthur Whitten Brown, who with Alcock flew 1,950 miles (3,138 km) from Canada to Ireland in 16 hours and 12 minutes in 1919, a feat that astonished the world.
Discovering the Family Tree
For aviation enthusiasts, Brown's birthday on 23 July 1886 is tinged with melancholy because when he died in 1948, grief-stricken after losing his only child Buster, it was believed he had no descendants. In fact, he has seven: Judy, her two children, and four grandchildren. 'One of the things that saddens me is that when he died, and his son died, there was no other family,' Judy said from her home in Perth, Australia. 'Neither of them knew about me and there were no other relations at all.'
Piecing together the family story proved bittersweet, but discovering the celebrity connection was a welcome surprise. Alcock and Brown's flight in a Vickers Vimy biplane from Newfoundland to Clifden in County Galway showed the potential of long-distance air travel and earned both men knighthoods.
Buster's Fate and Judy's Journey
Buster followed his father into the RAF, married in 1943, and had his fling with Elsie while posted to the training base in Shropshire from January to March 1944. He was killed on a scouting mission. Later that year, Elsie gave up their baby for adoption to a couple in Cornwall. When Judy was about 10, the couple told her she was adopted but then shunned the topic. 'I didn't fit into that family. I was adventurous and they weren't,' she said.
After studying social science at the University of Liverpool, Judy married a Scot, Andy Bain, and they moved to Western Australia in the 1960s. Andy died of a brain tumour, leaving Judy to raise their son and daughter while working various jobs, including teaching.
Reuniting with Birth Mother
In the 1990s, Judy, through a researcher, identified and traced her birth mother to Cornwall. Elsie was in her 70s and married with two adult children to Tom Salmon, a retired BBC TV journalist. Mother and daughter met in Cornwall in 1994. 'We got on really well,' Judy said. However, Elsie misidentified Judy's father, thinking it was another RAF man with whom she had a relationship in 1944. Elsie died in 2000 at age 81 without identifying Buster.
Elsie's daughter-in-law Elizabeth Salmon, passionate about genealogy and DNA research, investigated Judy's parentage with her permission. 'I'm like a jack russell, once I start, I never let go,' Elizabeth said. After establishing the other RAF man was not the father, she identified Buster in 2020. 'It was the eureka moment.'
A Legacy Rediscovered
Judy had never heard of the doomed young pilot but as a schoolgirl had learned about his famous father. 'It was exciting to discover that I had a historical grandparent,' she said. One of her four grandchildren, Brown's great-great-grandson, has visited the biplane at London's Science Museum.
Brendan Lynch, an Irish author who chronicled Alcock and Brown's feat in a 2008 book, Yesterday We Were in America, helped Salmon with her research and has forged a bond with Judy. He hopes she will attend a commemoration of the landing in Clifden. 'At previous events there was an Alcock and I felt the absence of a Brown relative very acutely. It would mark a long overdue reunion and a fitting conclusion to one of aviation's most daring feats.'
Lynch believes the aviation pioneer would have embraced Judy had he known about her. 'As well as being a fearless flyer, Arthur Whitten Brown was known to his contemporaries as a thoughtful and considerate man. I am convinced that he would have braved the controversy of his son's escapade and welcomed his granddaughter.'
Brown was still mourning Buster when he died in 1948, aged 62, from an overdose of sleeping tablets. Some say it was an accident, others suspect suicide. 'I like to think that if he had met Judy he would have given her a good home, that it might have been a plus for him,' Lynch said.
Judy has inherited her grandfather's taste for adventure. She drove a camper van across Australia and scuba dived into her 70s. Despite a recent hip operation, she still adores the ocean. 'I enjoy snorkelling. There's a really good spot just down the road from me.'
