Chapter XII: Part THREE: The Last Flight (3)

She spread across her knees the sectional map prepared by Clarence S. Williams. As usual, all the information was there. She noted the course directions: a magnetic compass heading of 73°, later to change to 72°, then to 71°.

If the Wasp engines would continue to purr, and if the navigation could be correct, or not too far wrong, she would make it. She would be happy when it was over. After 22,000 miles, thirty stops, nineteen countries, five continents, and three crossings of the equator, and looking after 100 dials, gauges, and gadgets, and bucking wind, rain, thunderstorms, and monsoons, she had become tired from strain and weary from the work, not the pleasure, of flying.

The head winds were strong. A few hours out from New Britain and the Solomon Islands, directly on course, Amelia radioed her position to Lae. It was 5:20 P.M. Friday. They were, she said, at 4.33 South Latitude and 159.6 East Longitude, 795 miles out from New Guinea, and proceeding on course. Now, she hoped, if she could home in on the _Itasca_ in the morning, getting home by way of Hawaii would be an easy matter.

On the _Itasca_ preparations had been made and carried out with Swiss-watch precision. Commander Thompson had set up his watches--two men on the ship and one on the shore--and waited. The prearranged radio frequencies were checked, the higher short wave and the lower long wave. The limits of the Electra’s direction finder--the loop antenna--were listed as 200 to 1,500 and 2,400 to 4,800 kilocycles.

Giving her call signals, KHAQQ, Amelia would report in on radio at quarter past and quarter to each hour, as was her custom when possible during the entire world flight. Her frequencies for transmitting were 6,210 kilocycles by day and 3,105 kilocycles by night. For telegraphic code by key, Fred would use 500 kilocycles, the standard frequency used by ships at sea.

On the hour and the half-hour the _Itasca_ would broadcast weather reports and forecasts, and homing signals, on 3,105 kilocycles by voice and 7,500 kilocycles by key.

At 6:30 P.M., Howland time, the first of July, the San Francisco division of the Coast Guard notified the _Itasca_ that the Electra was airborne. To make doubly sure that the ship’s radios were operating correctly, the _Itasca_ tested signal strength with San Francisco, then tried to contact the Electra. It was too early to establish communication with the plane.

Listening at two receivers and a loud-speaker, in addition to officer and enlisted members of the crew, were correspondents from the Associated Press and the United Press, and the Interior Department’s Richard Black, whom GP had asked to be his representative and the coordinator for the flight. The _Itasca_ was standing by and ready.

12:04 A.M. The _Itasca_ transmitted by voice on 3,105 and by key on 7,500, trying to make contact; then keyed the homing signal, · --, the dit dah of the letter A.

12:15 A.M. KHAQQ was not heard.

12:30 A.M. The ship sent out the weather, repeating twice each part of the report: wind direction east, force 11 miles, partly cloudy, visibility 20 miles, calm swell, direction east.

Checking against possible radio receiver difficulty, the _Itasca_ asked Samoa if the cutter _Ontario_ had heard the Electra; the ship’s answer was that it had not.

12:45 A.M. KHAQQ was not heard.

1:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent the weather on 7,500 kilocycles by key and on 3,105 kilocycles by voice. The code was sent at a slowed-down ten words per minute.

1:15 A.M. The _Itasca_ had not heard AE’s signals. The ship felt that there was no cause for alarm, for the Electra was still about 1,000 miles out.

1:25 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Have not heard your signals yet; please observe schedules with key; go ahead, am listening on 3,105 now.”

This transmission was not answered by Amelia.

1:45 A.M. KHAQQ not heard.

1:55 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent the weather on 7,500 kilocycles by key and on 3,105 by voice.

2:15 A.M. KHAQQ not heard on 3,105 kilocycles.

2:45 A.M. Electra heard on 3,105, but the message was not completely understood because of the static. AE’s voice, identified by Carey of AP and Hanzlick of UP, was a low monotone. “Cloudy and overcast,” she had reported; they were her only intelligible words.

The _Itasca_, having heard Amelia, however indistinctly, now tried to establish communications with her. The attempt was unsuccessful. Again checking its own signals, the cutter now broadcast to stations in the vicinity; its messages were heard throughout the Pacific area.

3:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ reported the weather by key on 7,500 and by voice on 3,105; wind direction east 8 miles per hour; clear, calm; ceiling unlimited. Then by key the ship sent out the homing signal, the dit dah of the letter A.

3:15 A.M. The Electra was not heard.

3:30 A.M. _Itasca_ weather report: Wind direction east, force 8 miles per hour; clear visibility, 20 miles; calm swell, direction east; ceiling unlimited.

Then by voice on 3,105: “What is your position? When do you expect to reach Howland? _Itasca_ has heard your phone, go ahead on key. Acknowledge this broadcast next schedule.”

3:45 A.M. AE reported in by voice: “_Itasca_ from Earhart.... _Itasca_ from Earhart.... Overcast.... Will listen on hour and half-hour on 3,105.... Will listen on hour and half on 3,105.”

4:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ again gave the weather, then asked: “What is your position? When do you expect to arrive Howland? We are receiving your signals; please acknowledge this message on your next schedule.”

4:15 A.M. AE not heard on 3,105.

4:55 A.M. The _Itasca_ heard AE. But her message was garbled and unintelligible.

5:15 A.M. KHAQQ not heard on 3,105.

5:30 A.M. The ship sent the weather by key and voice; then by key on 7,500 kilocycles, a long line of dit dah’s.

5:45 A.M. AE not heard.

6:15 A.M. Amelia called in. She wanted a bearing on 3,105 kilocycles, on the hour. She would whistle into her microphone, she said, so that the Electra could get a bearing. She was about two hundred miles out, she figured.

6:20 A.M. Commander Thompson called the watch on Howland Island and told him to get a bearing with his direction finder on 3,105. AE’s whistle went out; the attempt was a failure.

6:45 A.M. Amelia’s voice broke in; it was clear and strong. “Please take a bearing on us,” she pleaded, “and report in half-hour. I will make noise in microphone. About one hundred miles out.”

Her voice was on the air too briefly to allow sufficient time for the Howland direction finder to take a bearing from it.

7:00 A.M. For the next fifteen minutes the _Itasca_ sent out the homing signal, both on 3,105 and 7,500 kilocycles.

7:18 A.M. The _Itasca_ broadcast to AE by voice: “Cannot take bearing on 3,105 very good [sic]. Please send on 500, or do you wish to take bearing on us? Go ahead, please.”

There was no answer from Amelia.

7:19 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”

The message was not answered.

7:25 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Please go ahead on 3,105.”

There was no answer.

7:26 _A.M._ KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”

Again there was no answer from Amelia. The ship again sent out the A homing signal.

7:30 _A.M._ KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Please acknowledge our signals on key. Please.”

Again the request was unanswered.

7:42 _A.M._ Amelia broke in loud and clear. Her voice was high and frantic. “We must be on you,” she said. “But cannot see you. But gas is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at altitude 1,000 feet.”

7:43 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Received your message, signal strength 5. Go ahead.”

Again the ship sent out the homing signal on 3,105 and then on 500 kilocycles.

7:49 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Your message O.K. Please acknowledge with phone on 3,105.”

7:58 A.M. Amelia called in again. She obviously had not heard the _Itasca_, for she failed to acknowledge the ship’s message. “KHAQQ calling _Itasca_,” she reported in; again her voice was loud and clear. “We are circling, but cannot hear you. Go ahead on 7,500 either now or on schedule time of half-hour.”

8:00 A.M. The _Itasca_ sent out a long series of A’s on 7,500 kilocycles.

In response to the ship’s message, Amelia broke in: “We are receiving your signals, but are unable to get a minimum [for a bearing]. Please take a bearing on us and answer with voice on 3,105.”

The _Itasca_ probably could have taken an accurate bearing on her if she had counted numbers rather than whistled. The whistling sound was too much like static to be distinguished from it.

At 10:00 A.M. July 2, when Amelia had taken off from Lae, it was 12:00 noon, July 1, on Howland, two hours later but one day earlier. At 8:00 A.M. the next day, Howland time, she had been in the air for twenty hours of elapsed time. If after adding throttle to compensate for head winds she had averaged a ground speed of 142 mph over the distance of 2,556 miles, she should have been over Howland at the end of eighteen hours. If she had averaged only 128 mph because of head winds, after twenty hours she should have been well over the target island.

8:33 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Will you please come in and answer on 3,105. We are transmitting constantly on 7,500 kilocycles. We do not hear you on 3,105. Please answer on 3,105. Go ahead.”

The message was not acknowledged.

One minute later the _Itasca_ continued: “Answer on 3,105 kilocycles with phone. How are signals coming in? Go ahead.”

8:45 A.M. Amelia broke in on 3,105 kilocycles. Her voice was loud and clear, but broken and frenzied. “We are in a line of position 157-337,” she said hastily. “Will repeat this message on 6,210 kilocycles. Wait, listening on 6,210 kilocycles. We are running north and south.”

Anxiety drew taut across the radio room of the _Itasca_ as everyone strained to hear the repeated message on 6,210. Nothing was heard by anybody.

8:47 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “We heard you O.K. on 3,105 kilocycles. Please stay on 3,105. Do not hear you on 6,210. Maintain QSO on 3,105.”

The same message was sent by key on 7,500 kilocycles.

The _Itasca_ again heard nothing on 3,105 or 6,210.

8:49 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Go ahead on 3,105.”

8:54 A.M. KHAQQ from _Itasca_: “Your signals O.K. on 3,105. Go ahead with position on 3,105 or 500 kilocycles.”

The ship listened for AE’s answer on 3,105, 6,210, and 500 kilocycles.

The message was not acknowledged.

“We are running north and south,” at 8:45 A.M. had been Amelia Earhart’s last words.

Until ten o’clock on that morning of July 1 the Itasca continued to call. The operators transmitted on 3,105 and 7,500, and listened on 3,105, 6,210, and 500, and also on 500 of the direction finder.

Nothing more was heard from the Electra.

The decision of the _Itasca_’s crew was obvious and unanimous: Amelia Earhart was having radio receiver trouble.

Questions abounded. How account for her last report: “We are in a line of position 157-337”? What was the geographical point of reference for the line of position? Did she get a bearing from Howland? Where was she when she made the report?

The answers lay partially in several alternatives: the Electra’s loop antenna, or radio; the stars before dawn, or the early-morning sun.

The loop antenna, one of the plane’s direction finders, had a low-frequency limit of 200–1,500 kilocycles and a high-frequency limit of 2,400–4,800 kilocycles; therefore, it could not receive the _Itasca_’s homing signal from 7,500 kilocycles, but it could receive the one from 500 kilocycles. If the line of position 157-337 were determined from 500 kilocycles, then the all-important point of reference from which it was drawn had to be understood as Howland or the _Itasca_.

Obviously, AE knew her line of position, but she did not know where she was north or south on the line. This fact accounts for her “We are running north and south.” If she had known her exact position, she would not have conducted the search pattern for the island, nor would she have asked the _Itasca_ to take bearings on her.

Curiously, the only transmission she seems to have received on radio was the telegraphed A on 7,500 kilocycles, but she did not receive that signal long enough to get the aural-null, a minimum of sound for a bearing.

If neither the line of position nor the bearing could come from the loop antenna or the radio, there were still the aids of celestial navigation.

For navigator Fred Noonan, veteran of eighteen previous Pacific air crossings, it should have been relatively easy to determine position, if his navigation instruments were operating correctly and if the weather were clear enough to take fixes from the stars or the sun.

Before dawn on July 3 he could have taken a fix from the stars. But an error in his chronometer of a mere four seconds would lead to a mistake of one mile in the longitude of his determined position. If the sextant were in error, however, the mistakes could have canceled out by the taking of three observations. Yet it would seem that Noonan could not shoot the stars, for as early as 2:45 A.M. AE reported the weather as “cloudy and overcast,” and at 3:45 A.M. as still “overcast.” If that bad weather continued until dawn, Fred Noonan could not use celestial navigation regardless of instruments.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, if he saw the sun after dawn, he could have shot a sun line. But if 157-337 were a sun line, it was worthless without a geographical point of reference, because the line could be drawn anywhere on the globe. No point of reference was given by AE in her last report.

Thus the question persisted: Where was she?

7. _The Disappearance and the Search_

Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan and their plane were lost somewhere over a possible area of 450,000 square miles in the South Pacific. The United States Navy was determined to find them.

In Washington Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William D. Leahy acted quickly and ordered ships and planes to take up the search for the missing fliers. In addition to the _Itasca_, an aircraft carrier and its full complement of planes, a battleship, four destroyers, a minesweeper, and a seaplane were pressed into service. Together these ships and planes would search for sixteen days an area of more than 250,000 square miles.

Commander Thompson of the _Itasca_ made some quick decisions after Amelia failed to arrive at Howland. If she had flown to the south, she should have seen Baker Island, just 38 miles south of Howland. The area to start looking for her, he concluded, was in the northwest quadrant indicated by the 337° of her last position report of 157-337.

Also, he was far from abandoning hope. Although Amelia was having radio trouble, there was every belief that Fred Noonan could make a fix and yet find Howland. Radio transmissions, therefore, continued around the clock at the same frequencies, of 3,105, 6,210, and 500 kilocycles.

If Amelia were leaning out her fuel at the rate of 50 gallons per hour, at the end of twenty-one hours, at 9:00 A.M. on the morning of July 2, she would have enough fuel left for two more hours of flying time, for she had had 1,150 gallons of gasoline aboard the aircraft. If, on the other hand, AE were using fuel at just under 45 gallons per hour, she could have flown for a total of twenty-six hours--until 12:00 noon, Lae time, but 2:00 P.M. Howland time. In other words, just as her tanks were going dry, her chronometer for elapsed time would have indicated approximately twelve o’clock. The Navy reasoned, presumably from AE’s point of view in the cockpit, that she could stay aloft trying to find some island somewhere until about noon.

If she were slightly north and west of Howland, and realized the fact, she would have tried for the Gilbert Islands; or, if she were even more north and west, she would have attempted the Marshall or Caroline Islands; if extremely north and west, the Mariana Islands. The last possibility was most unlikely.

“If they are down,” George Putnam wired from San Francisco, “they can stay afloat indefinitely. Their empty tanks will give them buoyancy. Besides, they have all the emergency equipment they’ll need--everything.”

That the Navy was unable to find the two fliers defies understanding if all the conclusions and predications were correct.

At 10:15 A.M. the _Itasca_ steamed north, and a Navy seaplane took off from Honolulu bound for Howland, to help in the search.

At twelve o’clock Amelia was reported as definitely not having reached Howland. Her time had just about run out. She was most probably down; somewhere close by, everyone hoped, either riding the wing of the floating Electra, or paddling away from it in the emergency rubber raft. Holding to the first assumption, the _Itasca_ listened for AE’s SOS on 3,105 and 500, because it was believed that the plane’s radio supply was by battery and that the antenna could be used from on top of the wing. The _Itasca_ pressed the search and kept calling the Electra continuously.

Because only portions of Amelia’s transmissions had been received during the night, and those garbled amid static, the Navy concluded that the Electra had been flying through or above thunderstorms.

After her last report to Lae, at 5:20 P.M. on July 2, something had happened to put her off course. After sunset at 5:55 P.M. and during the night until sunrise at 6:12 A.M. the next morning, she had somehow become lost.

The navigation procedures of Fred Noonan tend to confirm this last view. It was his practice, according to those who knew him, to follow course and to correct it by taking infrequent fixes during the night; then, just before dawn, he would correct course for destination by determining a line of position near the end of the estimated run. This procedure would allow a flight of about three hundred miles during the morning without a good fix.

If the compasses had tumbled during the night and if the chronometers were badly out of calibration, then there were navigation errors aplenty--especially where Amelia depended on a faulty radio to make her landfall at Howland.

The seaplane out of Honolulu had to turn back to base because of bad weather. During the initial part of its 1,800-mile flight to Howland, however, it constantly received transmissions from the _Itasca_. Obviously, there was nothing wrong with the ship’s radios.

The Lockheed engineers were contacted to find out whether the Electra’s radio could operate if the plane were floating. Their answer was the first heavy note of discouragement. The Electra’s radio definitely could not operate if it were on the water, they wired, because it needed the right engine for power. But, they added, the plane could float from the buoyancy provided by the empty tanks for a maximum period of nine hours. It was now hoped, for radio purposes, that the Electra had made an emergency landing on land.

The _Itasca_ searched an area of 9,500 square miles without success. In addition to constant transmission on 3,105 and 500, during the day it set up a smoke screen, and during the night it played its searchlight against the sky. These measures were in vain.

On July 7 the battleship _Colorado_ and the minesweeper _Swan_ joined forces with the cutter _Itasca_. The _Colorado_ with its planes went south and east through the Phoenix Islands, exploring the 157° reciprocal of 337° represented in AE’s last reported line of position. The _Swan_ and the _Itasca_ turned north and then west to the Gilbert Islands.

On July 9 the aircraft carrier _Lexington_, with 63 planes, accompanied by the four destroyers _Perkins_, _Cushing_, _Lamson_, and _Drayton_, sailed from Hawaii. They arrived in the Howland area on the thirteenth to lend their support to the search. For the next five days the _Lexington_’s planes logged 1,591 hours looking north and west for the missing fliers. The planes covered an area of 151,556 square miles without turning up a trace of the Electra or its pilot and navigator.

Each ship was required to send out the same broadcast:

“We are using every possible means to establish contact with you.
If you hear this broadcast, please come in on 3,105 kilocycles. Use
key if possible, otherwise, voice transmission. If you hear this
broadcast, turn carrier [a steady key transmission] for one minute
so we can tune you in, then turn carrier on and off four times,
then listen for our acknowledgment.”

All attempts by the ships and planes were in vain. After exploring an area of 161,000 square miles, nothing was found of the Electra, the life raft, Amelia Earhart, or Fred Noonan.

Newspapers and radio stations across the country told the story of the disappearance and the search. Americans could not believe that Amelia Earhart was missing, and would not believe that she was dead. Everything about the story was too sudden, too tragic.

False signals and false reports now began to give spark to a despairing hope. On one of the ships two lookouts and an officer of the deck had seen a distinct green flare on the northern horizon. It was known that AE’s rubber raft had emergency flares. The _Itasca_ steamed north and east to investigate; at the same time it asked AE on the radio if she were sending up flares, and if she were, to send up another one. A few seconds later another green light appeared at a bearing of 75°. It was seen by twenty-five witnesses.

The _Itasca_ now checked with other ships in the area to find out if they had seen the flares. The replies were all in the negative; the signals, they cautioned, were probably heat lightning.

Howland Island then reported flares to the northeast. The men on the island immediately set flame to three drums of gasoline, hoping that the fire would serve as an unmistakable beacon. The Swan reported more lights but thought that they were meteors.

Because of the position, appearance, and timing of the lights, the _Itasca_ seriously thought that they were flares; but because of the other dissenting reports, it was now decided that the lights were merely a meteoric shower.

There were all kinds of radio reports. Amateur and professional radio operators from Honolulu; from up and down the west coast of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle; from across the Rocky Mountains in Cheyenne; and from as far inland as Cincinnati, now reported hearing SOS signals from Amelia Earhart.

If Amelia had landed on an island or reef, and were using her radio, it was possible that her signals had skip-waved back and forth and forward between ionosphere and ocean across thousands of miles. Yet, if there were SOS signals, they were not heard in the Pacific by the official radio operators on any of the assigned Navy and Coast Guard ships, or on any of the shore stations from the Gilbert Islands through the Hawaiian Islands to San Francisco Radio on the West Coast.

In exploring the Gilbert Islands, the _Itasca_ sent a party ashore to Tarawa, to confer with the senior British administrator of the islands. He had been informed of the Earhart search, and was surprised that neither the station at Tarawa nor the one at Beru had been notified about the flight before it began from Lae. Both stations, although they heard no Electra transmissions, could have helped, for Amelia’s course had lain just 20 miles south of Arorae, the most southern island of the Gilbert group.

The concentration of the search to the northwest had been based on a very careful analysis of the evidence. The weather conditions at the end of the flight were a clear blue sky to the south and east of Howland but heavy cloud banks about fifty miles north and west of Howland.

The _Itasca_ had laid a heavy smoke screen for two hours on the morning of July 2; it would have been visible to AE, flying at an altitude of 1,000 feet, for more than forty miles from the south and east, but only twenty miles from the north and west.

Evidently, judging from her reports, Amelia had been flying earlier during the night at a high altitude and above a thick overcast of clouds. Her signal strength, if direct and not the result of skip waves, indicated a maximum distance of 250 miles from Howland and not nearer to the island than 30 miles. Such was the conclusion of the _Itasca_.

All available land areas were searched and hundreds of thousands of miles of sea area. On July 19, 1937, the Navy released the _Itasca_ from any further search; the cutter’s mission was completed.

Back in California George Palmer Putnam had called on Jacqueline Cochran. He remembered Amelia’s having told him about her friend’s strange and marvelous powers at extrasensory perception. He was very excited when he came into Miss Cochran’s Los Angeles apartment. He begged her to help him locate Amelia.

Miss Cochran told GP where the plane had gone down: that it had ditched in the ocean, that Fred Noonan had fractured his skull against the bulkhead, that Amelia was alive, and that the plane was floating on the water. She named the _Itasca_ as a ship that was in the area although she had never heard the name before; and she named a Japanese fishing vessel in the same location. She told GP to get ships and planes into the area immediately to begin the search.

For two days Jacqueline Cochran followed the course of the drifting Electra. Ships and planes searched the area of her insight, but to no avail. Miss Cochran was racked with disappointment. If her ability were worth anything, she reasoned, it should have been able to locate and save her friend. Giving up, Jacqueline Cochran went to the cathedral in Los Angeles and lit candles for the repose of Amelia’s soul. She never tried her powers at ESP again.

Amelia had unquestionably disappeared. At best, her attitude toward her radio plans for the flight was casual; at worst, a combination of poor coordination, faulty radio receiver, and imperfect navigation instruments, had sent plane, pilot, and navigator to a watery grave.

The search over, rumors now began to abound and multiply about what had _really_ happened to Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan.

Each would cause Noonan’s wife and Amelia’s husband and mother untold hours of anguish and false hope.

8. _The Fog of Rumors_

The first great rumor, which had gained widespread acceptance, was that Amelia and Fred were prisoners of the Japanese. They had flown over islands in the Japanese mandate which were being illegally fortified, the plane had been shot down by anti-aircraft guns, the pilot and navigator had been taken and held as spies.

This Japanese-prisoner story still persists after more than twenty years, largely because of a movie released in the early forties, while World War II was at its highest pitch and anti-Japanese feeling at white heat. The film, _Flight for Freedom_, starring Rosalind Russell and Fred MacMurray, told the story of a famous American woman flier, “Tonie Carter,” who had been asked by the United States Navy to “get lost” in the South Pacific (actually, to remain in hiding at Howland Island), so that Navy planes could take photographs of illegal Japanese fortifications while “looking” for her.

In the movie, Tonie Carter’s navigator was an old beau, “Randy Britton,” to whom she had once been engaged. This gave rise to another rumor: Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were in love, and decided to find a lonely Pacific island where they could live out their idyllic love “happily ever after.” Incensed by the broad allusions of the film, George Palmer Putnam filed suit. The movie company settled out of court.

The scenario writers for _Flight for Freedom_ were not alone, however, in their belief. Aboard the U.S.S. _Colorado_ while it was conducting its search for the missing fliers were Dr. M. L. Brittain of Georgia Tech, and other university presidents, who were guests of the battleship on a Pacific cruise.

There was the possibility, Dr. Brittain later suggested, that Amelia was a prisoner of the Japanese, even as late as 1944, and that one day soon she would be liberated by the advancing United States Marines.

“We got the definite feeling,” Dr. Brittain was quoted as saying, “that Miss Earhart had some sort of understanding with government officials that the last part of her voyage around the world would be over some Japanese islands, probably the Marshalls.”

Amelia’s mother, Amy Otis Earhart, has long maintained that her daughter was on a secret government mission and that she was captured by the Japanese. This is Mrs. Earhart’s belief although she has no official basis for it.

The Navy Department at the end of World War II was compelled to make a final official announcement about AE’s disappearance. Amelia Earhart had not been sent on a naval cloak-and-dagger operation. Her plane had not been shot out of the skies by Japanese gunfire. She had not been captured, held as a prisoner, or shot as a spy.

Nevertheless, despite official and unofficial beliefs and statements to the contrary, rumors still flourished.

There was the story of the Japanese fishing boat. After United States forces had invaded the Marshall Islands--north and west of Howland--Lieutenants Eugene T. Bogan and James Toole were quoted as saying that this story was told to them by a missionary-trained native named Elieu:

“Ajima, a jap trader, said three and a half years ago that an
American woman pilot came down between Jaluit and Ailinglapalap
Atolls [southeastern Marshall Islands] and was picked up by a
Japanese fishing-boat crew. She was taken to Japan.”

In July of 1944, during the invasion of Saipan, in the Mariana Islands--far north and west of Howland Island--the Marines found in an abandoned Japanese barracks a photograph album filled with snapshots of Amelia Earhart in her flying clothes. It is known that AE carried a camera with her on the world flight but not that she was carrying a photograph album filled with pictures of herself.

Dr. Brittain, the same who had been on the searching _Colorado_, was queried in 1944 about the Saipan pictures. He felt that there was a definite connection between the album and the disappearance of the Earhart plane.

Of all the pieces of “evidence” in the stories about the disappearance, the most extraordinary was a piece of wood. It was a fragment of a fence post, with several nail holes in it and with one end badly charred. The piece of wood was found in July, 1942, by Robert D. Weishaupt while he was on beach duty with the Coast Artillery at Baranof Island, Alaska. Weishaupt noticed the burned piece of fence post as it washed in and out from the shore. It looked as if it had some writing on it. He waded in and picked it out of the water.

On one side was printed:

TO MY HUSBAND--I HAVE
CRASHED 250 MLLS FROM HAWAII--N.W.
OUR MOTOR WENT INTO FLAMES--SHARKS
ABOUT ME.

A.E.

and on the other side, simply:

MRS. A.E.

Whoever wrote on the piece of wood and set it adrift on the water perpetrated a cruel hoax. It is extremely unlikely that AE could have crashed 250 miles northwest of Hawaii; the Electra did not have enough fuel to fly another 2,000 miles beyond Howland. And if Amelia had written such a desperate message, on wood suddenly provided in the middle of the Pacific, she would have addressed the message, not “TO MY HUSBAND,” but, rather, to GPP, her husband’s well-known initials; and she would have signed her initials on the reverse side, not “Mrs. A.E.” but AE, because she was not Mrs. Amelia Earhart.

For the rest of his life George Palmer Putnam was a man haunted and hunted by people who claimed that they had mystic powers and that they could put him in contact with his wife.

Eighteen months after her disappearance Amelia was declared legally dead, and GP married again. He went to live in the mountains away from the crowds, and during the war he joined the Air Force.

9. _The Light of Fact: A Mystery Solved?_

Two additional events, however, separate in time and both involving Amelia Earhart--but heretofore never interrelated--do fit together into a logical and revealing pattern. All the pieces of the puzzle are not available, but there are enough of them to form a discernible picture.

At the end of World War II Jacqueline Cochran, then head of the WASPS, the famous organization of women ferry pilots, was asked by General Hap Arnold to go to Tokyo and investigate the role that Japanese women had played in aviation during the war. While she was in Imperial Air Force Headquarters Miss Cochran noticed that there were numerous files on American aviation notables--and many files on Amelia Earhart.

These documents since that time have mysteriously disappeared. They are not in the official custody of the United States Government, or any of its departments, services, or agencies; nor do they seem to be in the possession of the Japanese Government. (All captured documents, those of historical importance having been copied on microfilm, have been returned to Tokyo. No AE files were discovered among the captured materials.) Nevertheless, these files seem to indicate that the Japanese had more than a normal interest in Amelia Earhart, because of another event that happened, curiously, again in the Marianas. This new evidence has never before been made public.

At the end of the war on the island of Saipan a Navy dentist worked with his assistant, a native girl named Josephine Blanco. It was 1946. Dr. Casimir R. Sheft, now practicing in New Jersey, was taking a break between appointments and talking with a fellow dentist. During the conversation Dr. Sheft casually mentioned the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and speculated about whether the famous flier could have ended her flight in the Marianas, and possibly near Saipan, for he had read somewhere that the Marines had found AE’s flight log during the invasion (actually, it had been the photograph album). Suddenly his dental assistant, Josephine, broke in: She had seen an American woman flier many years ago--nine or ten--on Saipan, when she was a little girl. The American woman wore khaki clothes and had her hair cut like a man....

Josephine Blanco, now Mrs. Maximo Akiyama, and living in California with her husband and their young son, was witness to an incident which is as incredible as it is enlightening.

In the summer of 1937 Josephine was riding her bicycle toward Tanapag Harbor. She was taking her Japanese brother-in-law, J. Y. Matsumoto, his lunch, and was hurrying along because it was nearly twelve o’clock.

That summer she had just finished Japanese grammar school, where she had gone for the last five years, ever since she was seven years old. In March she had celebrated her eleventh birthday, and now she could begin Catholic school. She was looking forward to studying with the Spanish missionary sisters. Father Tadzio had hoped that someday Josephine, too, like some of the other Chamorro native girls in the Marianas, would answer God’s call and become a native sister.

Josephine had a special pass to the Japanese military area near the harbor. Not even Japanese civilians were admitted to the area unless they carried the proper credentials. The young girl rode up to the gate, stopped her bicycle, and presented her pass. The guard allowed her into the restricted area.

On the way to meet her brother-in-law, Josephine heard an airplane flying overhead. She looked up and saw a silver two-engined plane. The plane seemed to be in trouble, for it came down low, headed out into the harbor, and belly-landed on the water.

It was not until she met her brother-in-law that Josephine discovered who it was that had crash-landed in the harbor.

“The American woman,” everyone was saying, greatly excited. “Come and see the American woman.” Josephine and her brother-in-law joined the knot of people who gathered to watch.

She saw the American woman standing next to a tall man wearing a short-sleeved sports shirt, and was surprised because the woman was not dressed as a woman usually dressed. Instead of a dress, the American woman wore a man’s shirt and trousers; and instead of long hair, she wore her hair cut short, like a man. The faces of the man and woman were white and drawn, as if they were sick.

The American woman who looked like a man and the tall man with her were led away by the Japanese soldiers. The fliers were taken to a clearing in the woods. Shots rang out. The soldiers returned alone.

Mrs. Akiyama has affirmed, after identifying a photograph of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan taken on the world flight, that the couple was unquestionably the same man and woman she and her brother-in-law had seen on Saipan: the clothes were different, but the woman’s haircut was unmistakable.

Josephine Blanco’s story, which is basically the same one she told Dr. Sheft in Saipan, is most probably true. It is extremely unlikely this native girl could have invented her story. If she had, then for what purpose? If for profit or gain, she had, for more than ten years after the American invasion, the opportunity to capitalize on her sensational news.

As an eleven-year-old girl, Josephine of course had no idea of the significance of what she had seen other than it was indeed an American woman she had seen. Dr. Sheft has never doubted her story, and for many years he has hoped that a thorough reexamination of the facts would be made. They were.

Amelia Earhart could have ended her flight around the world at Saipan. If she were indeed headed for Howland Island, however, she somehow made an error of about 100° in reading her compass.

It means that all during the night of July 2, beginning after sundown at 5:55 P.M., Fred Noonan was not able to get a fix from the stars to determine his position. And if, after fourteen hours out from Lae, he looked down and saw a chain of islands, he would have determined that he was on course and over the Gilbert Islands; but if AE had turned north while he was napping, and he had still awakened in time to see islands, they would have been, not the Gilberts as he might have thought, but the Caroline Islands--exactly the same distance away but in the wrong direction.

By somehow departing from her course, and making the tremendous error of steering north and west instead of east--as she had done once before on the world flight, when she had turned north to St. Louis instead of south to Dakar, overriding Fred’s directions, after the flight across the South Atlantic--AE would have found herself after twenty hours of flying time somewhere along the chain of islands that marks the Marianas.

Her last report, at 8:45 A.M., gave her line of position as 157-337. The Navy’s search satisfied judgments that the line was not a radio line, for the areas northwest and southeast from Howland were thoroughly investigated. One hundred fifty-seven-337, therefore, was undoubtedly a sun line.

Near Howland, at position 01° 00’ North Latitude and 177° 20’ West Longitude, on July 3, 1937, the bearing of the sun was 66° from the north point at 7:00 A.M., Howland time. The sun line, therefore, would have been 156-336.

Near Saipan, at position 13° 00’ North Latitude and 153° 00’ East Longitude, at 5:00 A.M., Saipan time, the sun was 64° from the north point. A sun line there would have been 154-334.

If Noonan had thought he was close to Howland when he shot his last sun line, his geographical point of reference--used for computing and plotting his observation--would obviously have been close to Howland. If he had actually been close to Saipan, however, the relative position of the sun would still have been almost the same: 64° from the north point near Saipan, as opposed to 66° from the north point near Howland. But his observation, when computed and plotted on his chart, would have shown him to be the same number of miles from his geographical point of reference.

An experienced navigator with trust in his abilities such as Noonan would have tended to believe that either his observations or his computations were somehow wrong. He would not have thought, at least immediately, that he was some 2,600 miles off course. If AE had been pressing him for a position to radio to the _Itasca_, he might have, in agonies of doubt, merely given her the line of position, which he could be sure of, but _not_ the geographical point of reference, because he could now no longer determine that point with certainty. This possibility would explain the irregularity of Amelia having transmitted the line of position without the necessary point of reference.

On the basis of these determinations, therefore, there is strong support for believing in Josephine Blanco’s story.

The Navy gave Amelia until about noon before she would go down. It was at noontime that Josephine saw the two-motored plane ditch in Tanapag Harbor.

The Navy’s final conclusion was that Amelia had ended her flight somewhere north and west. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were seen by two eyewitnesses north and west of Howland on Saipan. At that time of the year the American woman and her tall male companion could have been none other than AE and Fred Noonan.

In 1937 on Saipan, according to Maximo and Josephine Akiyama, the Japanese military did not hesitate to kill anyone, Japanese civilian or Chamorro native, whom they suspected of spying on their illegal fortifications.

Japanese officialdom maintaining an enigmatic silence (the Japanese Embassy in Washington knows nothing of the Earhart case, nor does Dr. John Young of Georgetown University, who examined captured Japanese documents for the American Government) concerning the disappearance of the two fliers, it may be idle to speculate upon the final fate of Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart. The evidence, however, justifies at least one tenable conclusion.

When Josephine Blanco saw the twin-engined silver plane, Amelia and Fred had been flying for twenty-six consecutive hours and for 4,000 futile miles. The sight of the island that was Saipan must have cheered the fliers with renewed hope for safety and for life itself.

When they survived the crash landing in Tanapag Harbor only to be taken into custody as spies, their joy must have turned to inexplicable bitterness: they had been saved not for life, but for death before a Japanese firing squad.

For Amelia, who once had said to her husband, “I don’t want to go; but when I do, I’d like to go in my plane--quickly,” the last word of her wish must have struck her now with sudden and ironic force.

Yet, as she had so often before, Amelia Earhart must have met this challenge with stubborn self-control and resolute courage. For here at last was her unmistakable, but irrefutable, fate.

_RECORD FLIGHTS_

_AWARDS AND DECORATIONS_

_BIBLIOGRAPHY_

_A NOTE ABOUT SOURCES_

_ACKNOWLEDGMENTS_

_RECORD FLIGHTS_

1928, June 17: The first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a
passenger; with Wilmer Stultz pilot and Lou Gordon mechanic; in
the pontoon-equipped Fokker trimotor airplane; from Trepassey,
Newfoundland, to Burryport, Wales; time: 20 hours and 40
minutes.

1929, August 24: Third place in the first Women’s Air Derby Race;
from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio.

1930, July 6: Women’s speed record; three-kilometer course; at 181.18
mph.

1931, April 8: World’s altitude record for autogiros; at 18,451 feet;
in Pitcairn autogiro.

1932, May 20–21: First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic; from
Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Londonderry, Ireland; time: 14
hours and 56 minutes.

1932, August 24–25: Women’s non-stop transcontinental speed record;
from Los Angeles, California, to Newark, New Jersey; 2,447.8
miles; time: 19 hours and 5 minutes.

1933, July 7–8: Broke her own transcontinental speed record of
the year before; in her Lockheed Vega; from Los Angeles,
California, to Newark, New Jersey; time: 17 hours, 7 minutes,
and 30 seconds.

1935, January 11–12: First to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii, to
Oakland, California; in her Lockheed Vega; 2,408 miles; time:
18 hours and 16 minutes.

1935, April 19–20: First to fly solo from Los Angeles, California, to
Mexico City, Mexico; in her Lockheed Vega; time: 13 hours and
23 minutes.

1935, May 8: Solo flight from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey;
time: 14 hours and 19 minutes.

1937, March 17–18: Flight from Oakland, California, to Honolulu,
Hawaii; in Lockheed Electra.

1937, July 3: Record flight around the world at the equator; with
navigator Fred J. Noonan; in Lockheed Electra; covered a
distance of 22,000 miles, until strange disappearance over the
Pacific somewhere between Lae, New Guinea, and Howland Island.

_AWARDS AND DECORATIONS_

City of Chicago: medal presented by Mayor Cermak, 1932.

City of New York: medal of valor presented by Mayor Walker, 1928.

City of New York: mayor’s committee medal; presented by Mayor Walker,
1932.

City of Toledo: medal presented 1928.

Atlantic City: key.

City of Philadelphia: medal presented by mayor, 1928.

City of Pittsburgh: key.

Mexico: Order of the Aztec Eagle; medal with blue center and crest;
gold ribbon and lapel pin.

French Legion of Honor; with lapel pin.

Belgium Order of Leopold; with lapel pin.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts: medal presented, 1928.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts: medal presented, 1932.

Aero Club Royal de Belgique: medal presented, 1932.

Aero Club de France: medal presented, 1932.

Women’s Roosevelt Memorial Association: medallion presented, 1933.

Le Lyceum Société des Femmes de France of New York: medallion
presented, 1928.

Le Comité France-Amérique: medallion presented, 1932.

Distinguished Flying Cross: medal presented by the Congress of the
United States, 1932.

Columbia Broadcasting System: medallion presented, 1932.

Mexico: Union de Mujeres-Americanas: medal presented, 1935.

American Society of Mechanical Engineers: medal presented, 1929.

American National Geographic Society Award: medal presented by
President Hoover, 1932.

United States Flyers Association: member.

Poor Richard Club, Philadelphia: member.

Ciudad de Mexico: medal presented, 1935.

Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica: medal presented, 1935.

Society of Women Geographers: medal presented, 1932.

Chicago Aircraft Show, 1928.

International Civil Aeronautics Conference, 1928.

Brooklyn Rotary Club.

National Air Races: 1926.

International Shrine of the Birdmen: Mission Inn, California.

Badge with picture of Amelia Earhart, Lou Gordon, and Wilmer Stultz.

Two medals with picture of Amelia Earhart on the converse side and a
seaplane on the reverse side.

Kansas Commonwealth Club.

Atlantic City: freedom of the city.

Boy Scouts of America; Medford, Massachusetts, Council: medal
presented, 1928.

City of Toledo: key.

City of Buffalo: key.

Lafayette Flying Corps: medal.

Breakfast Club, Glendale, California: medal presented, 1928.

Lindbergh medal: presented in 1928.

Medal presented by Amelia Cardenas to Amelia Earhart: 1935.

City of Medford, Massachusetts: medal presented, 1928.

Harmon Trophy: presented in 1937; shared jointly with Jean Batten of
Australia.

N.B. These awards and decorations, in addition to many other memorabilia, can be seen on display at the National Air Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The display was made possible by: Purdue University, the Amelia Earhart Post of the American Legion at Los Angeles, California, Amy Otis Earhart, Amelia’s mother, and AE’s friends.

_BIBLIOGRAPHY_

Only major works are listed and they have been subdivided into books and periodicals. The unsigned articles from magazines are listed alphabetically according to title.

A. BOOKS

ALLEN, FREDERICK LEWIS. _Only Yesterday._ New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1931.

BALCHEN, BERNT. _Come North with Me._ New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958.

BYRD, RICHARD. _Skyward._ New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.

COCHRAN, JACQUELINE. _The Stars at Noon._ Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1954.

DE LEEUW, ADELE LOUISE. _Story of Amelia Earhart._ New York: Grosset,
1955.

EARHART, AMELIA. _20 Hrs., 40 Min. Our Flight in the_ Friendship. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.

----. _The Fun of It._ New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932.

----. _Last Flight._ Arranged by George Palmer Putnam. New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1937.

FORD, COREY. _Coconut Oil._ New York: Brewer, Warren and Putnam, 1931.

GARST, DORIS SHANNON. _Amelia Earhart: Heroine of the Skies._ New
York: Julian Messner, 1947.

HOWE, JAMES MOORE. _Amelia Earhart: Kansas Girl._ New York: Bobbs,
Merrill, 1950.

LINDBERGH, CHARLES A. _The Spirit of St. Louis._ New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1953.

NICHOLS, RUTH. _Wings for Life._ Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
Company, 1958.

PUTNAM, GEORGE PALMER. _Soaring Wings: A Biography of Amelia
Earhart._ New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939.

----. _Wide Margins: A Publisher’s Autobiography._ New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1942.

RAILEY, HILTON H. _Touch’d with Madness._ New York: Carrick and
Evans, Inc., 1938.

B. PERIODICALS

BOYKIN, E. M. “Amelia Earhart at Home,” _Better Homes and Gardens_,
15:46–47, February, 1937.

DRAKE, F. and K. DRAKE. “First Lady of the Air,” _Reader’s Digest_,
58:55–59, May, 1951.

EARHART, AMELIA. “Try Flying Yourself,” _Cosmopolitan_, 85:32–35,
November, 1928.

----. “Vagabonding by Air,” _Cosmopolitan_, 85:28–31, December, 1928.

----. “How Fanny Hurst Could Learn to Fly,” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:56–57,
January, 1929.

----. “Is It Safe for You to Fly?” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:90–92,
February, 1929.

----. “Shall You Let Your Daughter Fly?” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:88–91,
March, 1929.

----. “Clouds,” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:86–87, April, 1929.

----. “Man Who Tells the Fliers: ‘Go!’” _Cosmopolitan_, 86:78–79,
May, 1929.

----. “Why Are Women Afraid to Fly?” _Cosmopolitan_, 87:70–72, July,
1929.

----. “Fly America First,” _Cosmopolitan_, 87:80–82, October, 1929.

----. “On the Floor of the Sea,” _Cosmopolitan_, 87:45–46, November,
1929.

----. “Aviation Moves Forward,” _Country Life_, 59:39, January, 1931.

----. “Flying the Atlantic,” _American Magazine_, 114:15–17, August,
1932.

EARHART, AMELIA. “My Flight from Hawaii,” _National Geographic
Magazine_, 67:593–609, May, 1935.

ELLIOTT, LAWRENCE. “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight,” _Reader’s Digest_,
36:110–116, July, 1957.

MAYBIE, JANET. “Miss Earhart Sleeps as Her Shipmates Gossip,”
_Bookman_, 68:256, October, 1928.

----. “Amelia Earhart’s New Flight: Expedition into the Realm of
Academics,” _Christian Science Monitor Magazine_, April 29, 1936.

MCINTYRE, O. O. “I Want You to Meet a Real American Girl,”
_Cosmopolitan_, 85:21, November, 1928.

MCMULLEN, F. D. “First Women’s Air Derby,” _Woman’s Journal_,
14:10–11, October, 1929.

PERKINS, MARION. “Who Is Amelia Earhart?” _Survey_, 60:393, July 1,
1928.

PITMAN, JACK. “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight,” _Coronet_, 39:122–125,
February, 1956.

PUTNAM, GEORGE PALMER. “Forgotten Husband,” _Pictorial Review_,
34:12–13, December, 1932.

----. “Flyer’s Husband,” _Forum_, 93:330–332, June, 1935.

----. “Lady with Wings: The Life Story of My Wife Amelia Earhart,”
_Liberty_, Vol. 16, Nos. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16; March 11, 18,
25; April 1, 8, 15, 22, 1939.

C. UNSIGNED ARTICLES

“Air-Hearted,” _Commonweal_, 16:116, June, 1932.

“Amelia Earhart: How Long a Mystery?” _The American Weekly_,
September 10, 1941.

“Amelia Earhart’s Record Flight from Hawaii to California,” _Literary
Digest_, 119:8, January 19, 1935.

“Appreciation,” _Commonweal_, 26:336, July 30, 1937.

“Collector’s Stamps to Pay for Round-world Trip,” _Newsweek_, 9:33,
February 20, 1937.

“Earhart Wrecks Ship After Setting an Ocean Record,” _Newsweek_,
9:27, March 27, 1937.

“First Woman to Fly 2,408 Miles Over the Pacific,” _Newsweek_, 5:20,
January 19, 1935.

“Good-will Emissary Again Achieves the Unusual,” _Newsweek_, 5:34,
May 18, 1935.

“Lady After Our Own Heart,” _Nation_, 135:202, September 7, 1932.

“Lost Earhart,” _Time_, 30:50–51, July 12, 1937.

“Mourning Becomes Electra,” _Time_, 29:36, March 29, 1937.

“Mrs. Putnam’s Four Wreaths of Laurel,” _Literary Digest_, 113:5,
June 4, 1932.

“One in a Million,” _Time_, 30:45–46, July 19, 1937.

“Philatelists Fly into Rage Over Flyer’s Stamp Corner,” _Newsweek_,
5:15, May 11, 1935.

“Search Abandoned,” _Time_, 30:36, July 26, 1937.

“Society’s Special Medal Awarded to Amelia Earhart,” _National
Geographic Magazine_, 62:358–367, September, 1932.

“Sticky Business,” _Nation_, 140:118, January 30, 1935.

“Stultz, Gordon, and Miss Earhart Cross the Atlantic in Pontooned
Fokker Aircraft,” _Aviation_, 24:1847, June 25, 1928.

“Thoroughbred,” _Scholastic_, 26:23, February 2, 1935.

“Warships and Planes Sweep Pacific for Lost Flyers,” _Newsweek_,
10:25, July 17, 1937.

“Woman Hops the Atlantic,” _Literary Digest_, 97:8–9, June 30, 1928.

_A NOTE ABOUT SOURCES_

In addition to the books and articles listed above there are also countless newspaper accounts about the exploits of Amelia Earhart, which are too numerous to be cited separately. Among the primary sources are the files of the Boston _Herald_, the Boston _Traveller_, the New York _Times_, and the New York _Herald Tribune_, both in the original editions on file at The Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences in New York and on microfilm. They began in 1928 with AE’s _Friendship_ Flight, then to 1932 and 1935, and finally through the tragic year of 1937.

The basic story of AE’s life can be found in her books and articles and in George Putnam’s writings. GP had a keener eye for detail than AE: where Amelia needs to be rewritten, George elicits admiration for his skill; but this is true only for “ground operations.” In the air--for the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of flying--Amelia is the master, although she is sometimes vague and often inconsistent. I am indebted to GP for the ground story and to AE for the air story.