According to Ian Mackersey in his 1990 book Jean Batten: The Garbo of the Skies, Jean wrote in her (unpublished?) memoir: “I failed my medical because of poor near-occular vision, which apparently could have been caused by excessive eyestrain during my record flights through peering at maps in dim light when suffering from exhaustion.”
Mackersey counters this by saying she later admitted to another vision problem resulting from her crash in Rome in 1934 which “gave her double vision for some time afterwards because the muscles had suffered temporary local contusions.” He also explained this caused her stress on later flights.
He also goes into detail (pg293-296) about her ego which may have played a part – losing her “hero” status and just becoming another anonymous ATA pilot – but in the end, he says, “Somewhere in the wartime files at Kew, clues to the truth possibly lie.”
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