Warbird Information Exchange

Cubs

There is also the consideration that being as she couldn't hear anybody and could not receive any help by HF Radio Rx's, she may have said "Why bother Tx'ing".

The surprising thing is that when she found out that ITASCA "had heard her", as evidenced by the Letter A's being sent by ITASCA, why didn't she set up transmission on the HF followed by a switch to the Loop Aerial to receive slow Morse ? She could then have established a somewhat clumsy two-way radio link and if ITASCA sent the Morse "reeaalll sllooow" perhaps between the pair of them they would have been able to read it.

Personally, I can't go past the messages heard by Nauru starting at 6:25pm RABAUL Local time and ending at 6:54pm. These were reported to ITASCA via Tutuila and to SYDNEY and appeared in the papers in Australia. Someone was in the air in the South West Pacific on 6210 Kcs at somewhat evenly spaced intervals starting at a point which corresponded to 32.5 Hours in the air by the Electra and ending just before 7:00pm Local time. It's dark by that time.

cwmc

It must be remembered that lean of peak was a technique used by Charles Lindberg and Earhart had met him. What would long range flyers talk about on meeting ? Long Range flying no doubt. The Electra was fitted with Cambridge Gas Analysers so she would know how lean she was getting. A clue on her technique is in her "Last Flight" book, where she records that one engine on the OAK to HNL flight was "in" and "out"... She remarks "...leaned too much", so she certainly was not running the engines rich.

In a situation where endurance becomes critical and in the knowledge that in a turnback, they would be following the sun, Noonan would find Navigating easy. My guess is that because they would be able to make NUKUMANU Island easily on what they had, they would head for there by Noonan fixing their position as they went Westwards. After Nukumanu by about 100 miles are The Mortlock Islands and these islands are shown on the NatGeo Pacific Map they carried but are not marked on Clarence William's strip maps. By the time they would reach the gap between New Ireland and Buka Island it would be getting dark. This is about the start of the timing of the Nauru intercepted calls.

If she can save the airframe she has it made, let the CHT's run high you can always get other engines, airframes cost just a little more !

Regards,

David Billings

Thanks for that input, Chris. With Wasp Jr. smaller displacement burning 16 gph, that would correspond to the 20 gph of the Electra's engine. Lean of peak was fairly common practice among ocean spanning aircraft of that time. Considering the technical assistance she received,
which as we all know, included C.L. Johnson, I think it is assured she knew about LOP operation. And there is written evidence from AE herself that she utilized that method, including what David just referenced.

Mr. Billings,
As far as why she didn't setup a TX like you mentioned. Again, we get into speculation. She apparently was not operating the radios correctly to start with. The radio operator on the Itasca,(Ballart?) said that he was frustrated as why she didn't do 'such and such'. Cannot remember the details, my notes are not available at this moment. Plus, she had been awake for at least 21 hours. Fatigue could be a factor and according to the Itasca radio operator(s) her voice did sound panicked (bordering on hysterical I think is the way they described it). That's a bad mix, if you ask me.

I think someone on this forum, remarked, that if she was panicking, then it doesn't sound like she had a plan B. And she may not have, or at least not in a cohesive, systematic form.
But, (as you say), let's not forget Noonan. He could have passed her a note, saying, 'turn this thing around, heading xxx degrees, I'll steer you to xxxxx.' As you and others pointed out, the island chains to the westward are much larger and easier to locate visually.

Just in case anyone wants to know, I am not a proponent of any theory of Amelia's disappearance. But, I have ruled out all but, two. (Disclaimer: Does that mean that when I narrow it down to one, I'll have the correct answer? No. Could it be that there is a theory that hasn't been presented that is correct? Yes.)

By the way, as far as lost messages on forums. Been there, done that. Something you might try: I type my message,then highlight the entire message. RIGHT click.... then click COPY from the MENU, before I press Submit or any other button.
That way the message is "stored" in the mouse, so to speak.

Heck, we're all adults here! Let's hear 'em!

David, a few points in your theory bring some doubt:

First, you say two vets saw a plane that had twin engines of her type and was unpainted, may have been a Lockheed.
This plane might well have belonged to the most famous woman pilot in history,missing only 8 years. Now what did these vets do, report it so that someone might search? No, you say they made some note on the side of a map, to lay dormant for 65 years.
Is that really logical?

Next, you refer to wreckage that is in land, in jungle and hills. If Amelia did reach land, it seems she would have ditched on a beach or just off shore, not crashed in the jungle. And they had no chutes, so if Amelia and Fred remains are not in the plane, then what?

Next, if Amelia did turn back from Howland, is there not closer land,like Mlli atol or Gardner that would have been more logical?

Have you read the Loomis and Ethel book?

Good luck, hope you find that plane, whoever it is. And the Japanese did have some unpainted planes, if I recall one of the two with Yamamoto was such.

_________________
Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

For Bill Greenwood:

Bill,

The patrol was a 20 man patrol plus one New Guinea Police "Boy" (as they were called then), so 21 in all on the patrol. Three were on rearguard when the patrol stopped to examine the wreck so in all, 18 saw the wreckage. When I heard of the story at Xmas 1993 and contacted the Vets, there were only four Vets from the patrol still breathing and one of the three was the Sergeant on the rearguard and he did not see the wreck. When he caught up with them after waiting on rearguard for 30 long minutes, he asked, "Why did we stop ?", because he didn't see the wreckage at all. So the descriptive evidence came from three Vets.

At no time during the patrol did they think it was a Lockheed nor did they recognise "what" the aircraft was as they would not have known an Electra from a barn door. The Lieutenant viewed the actual aircraft wreck and reported that he could not see any national markings or insignia. He stood on the Port wing and looked down into the smashed cockpit but could not see anything except vegetation growing in there. He cannot recall seeing the tail section and from what I have seen of Liberator wrecks in PNG, the tail gets ripped off when it goes through trees. All they had seen were the words "Pratt & Whitney" and they had removed the tag which was tied to the engine mount tubing with wire. They "assumed" the aircraft to be "American" due to the Pratt & Whitney seen on the detached engine.

What did the Vets do ? Well, they reported the find in their Patrol Report and sent the tag they had removed to HQ with the report. That is what "any" army patrol would do. There were questions asked of them by a certain Captain Mott who was a staff Captain from Brigade HQ and who was a Topographer. He wanted to know where they had been and where the aircraft was. They couldn't pin down where they had been and an argument erupted between Mott and their Company Commander. The Lieutenant was sent out on another patrol straight away as a kind of punishment. Personally, I believe Captain Mott (who was in the Intelligence Section) did indeed have some intelligence and could have realised "whose" aircraft it was. After all, as you say, AE & FN had been missing for eight years and still could have been in the minds of many people.

From the report sent in, five and a half weeks later, the whole Company was on the move to a place around the coast where a large party of Japanese had been reported and they were waiting for a landing barge to take them there when an Officer from Brigade HQ approached them. He asked if they were the men who had found "an aircraft" in the jungle a few weeks ago. He then proceeded to read from a piece of paper that "the Americans" had said that the aircraft was "not one of theirs" but it could possibly be a Lockheed. They were told not to worry about it, they had other things to do. Of the three Vets I interviewed, one said he could not remember the "Lockheed" bit, but other men at their Company reunions over the years since WWII had said that was what the Officer had indeed said.

So, yes, Bill, logically, they did the right thing, they reported the find, the Americans said, it was "not one of theirs" and presumably, were not interested. However, two U.S. Army Officers did visit the fighting zone and did want to speak to the patrol Lieutenant but he was out on another patrol and they could not wait and left. So, someone in the U.S. Army did have some interest and sent two Officers up there to "find out" more. It must have been a field ranking Officer to do that as seats on aircraft going into the area would be at a premium as fighting was still going on and stores and ammunition would be the priority up and wounded the priority down.

I have continually said that we do not know "who" wrote the cryptic string of letters and numbers on the map edge but it is written there as a "reference" together with the Patrol Code No. and SITREP details from the Patrol Information and subsequent sent signals. We do know that the map was in one man's possession for 48 years. The one Signal we do not have is SITREP 63A, the "A" indicating an Annex report, ie; something not directly to do with the patrol. My opinion on that is that the Annex report described what they saw but due to it not being directly involved with the patrol per se, it has not been included in the records. I have no idea where it might be except that I know that there are "misfiles" in the records and it could be anywhere in other files.

Bill, the time factor dictates that the event occurred at around 7:00pm and it would be dark. Typically at around 5:00pm, fingers of cloud start rolling down into the valley from the hills and mid-year, it is common for the whole area to be socked in with low cloud. The event of fuel exhaustion in the circumstances doesn't bear thinking about.

You ask: "....if Amelia and Fred remains are not in the plane, then what ?"

That is entirely possible but I doubt that any insect or feral animal would obliterate all trace. There will be remains as has been evidenced many times in New Guinea in military situation wrecks. If there is only the shell of the Electra there, what you might be trying to say is that the "Mystery" will still be alive, I guess.

Next, if Amelia did turn back from Howland, is there not closer land,like Mlli atol or Gardner that would have been more logical?

The point is that, AE & FN "thought" they were at Howland or lateral to Howland and searched for an hour. On not seeing anything at all they have to assume that they are "unsure of their position", ie; lost. You cannot navigate to a known position from an unknown position, it is not possible.

Using logic, which is the wiser choice ?

1. Head for The Phoenix Group, a scattered group, which was not marked on their strip map, but they did have the 1936 NatGeo map of the Pacific. I have that map, the locations are so small as to be of no use in a situation which desires "accuracy". Other islands are shown in "insets" but not the Phoenix Group.
2. Head for the Marshall Islands, a scattered group, not marked on their strip map, but they had the NatGeo map.
3. Head for the Gilbert Islands, not marked on their strip map, marked on the NatGeo map and which would appear as a string of islands in a long spread 500 miles long across their reciprocal course.
4. The Phoenix Group is the closest, but we are unsure where we are on our track line.
5. The Marshalls are the furthest away but again, we are unsure where we are on our track line.
6. The Gilberts are mid-distance away compared to the Phoenix Group and the Marshalls and as we are unsure of where we are on our track line, they could be the closest.
7. If we turn onto our reciprocal and head back, surely we must see The Gilberts, we cannot miss them.

I leave it to you to make the decision, you have the fuel to reach any of them.

Then, when you get there you have to crashland with the possibility of serious injuries and no medical help.

If you then reach some land and still have fuel left and that fuel will (if you use strict economy measures) get you closer to civilisation or to an airstrip, what will you do ?

Have you read the Loomis and Ethel book?

Yes, I have.

Yes, the Japanese did have unpainted aircraft particularly at the commencement of the Pacific War when they had air superioprity but later they applied paint. In any case there would have been a BIG RED Blob on the fuselage that the Lieutenant inspected, surely he would have seen that ? WWII Japanese aircraft tended to have better primers than American aircraft and even a few years ago, some wrecks pulled together in the Solomons near Honiara on Guadalcanal still had the primer on and the red blob. Another in PNG, a Nakajima "Helen" at Madang (Alexishaven Field) still had the blob when I saw it in 1989.

Thanks for the "Good Luck"....

David Billings

Hello David.......

Any clue what they did with the tag that they removed?

"How" did the Americans come to the conclusion that it wasn't one of theirs? Did they send up a patrol? Are there any US records that they did, or did not send a patrol there, or if they had any troops in that area?

No body in the cockpit? Perhaps they/she survived and tried to walk out?

Gary M:

All we know from WWII Unit records is that the Metal Tag was sent to Battalion HQ and who would send it to Brigade HQ who would then send it to Division HQ where it would then be decided where it should go, the obvious place being the USAAF HQ Intelligence Section which at the time would have been in Port Moresby with the Command Unit still there after the 5th AF had left.

There is a signal from the Company which carried out the patrol saying: "The Patrol Report will be available at 0900 tomorrow together with a/c plates". That's where the trail ends in the signals.

The Vets are mystified by "plates" as they only remember the one "tag".

The Patrol Lieutenant, at interview, told me that two U.S. Officers came up to the fighting zone to speak to him but he was not available and they left. There were no U.S. Troops in this area, it was an Australian Army containment of the Soldiers of Nippon into the Gazelle Peninsular.

There was a Bomb Line and any Nipponese in numbers moving South-west over the Bomb Line would have got plastered. Some small skirmishes were going on but all in sundry recognised that it was all over bar the shouting and no serious movements on the Japanese in Rabaul, 100,000 of them, were contemplated by the 3,000 odd Australian Troops in the area of the neck of the Gazelle. In August 1945, the Australian Army moved into Rabaul and found six survivors of the prison camps who they greeted first to the dismay of the assembled Japanese Officers who expected normal courtesies to be applied. All the Allied aircrew in the main Rabaul cage had been executed except for these six who had been in a separate cage and had been subject to a total lack of care but who had managed to survive in spite of being administered injections of Malaria, as in "experiments"...... Read the story of the B-24 "Naughty but Nice" Navigator, Jose Holquin, and you'll get the general idea. It's in the book "Hostages to Freedom - The Fall of Rabaul" by Peter Stone, which is a remarkable book and well worth the read if you can find it in a Library or order it off the www. I digress, that's another story.

Back to the two U.S. Officers.... I have tried to get people interested in the States to find out "who" of Field Rank was in command at Port Moresby in April/May 1945 but I do not get answers and I do not have the wherewithall to get over there and do the digging myself. To get two Officers onto an aircraft and up to the fighting zone would have required some pull and typically in the Army it would be a rank of Colonel or close to it who would have that pull. Someone in the US Army G2 Intelligence Section smelt something in the air and got the Movement Order going to get someone up to New Britain to go have a looksee. That paper trail from the G2 Section should still be in US Army Records. "Not one of ours", says it all, doesn't it ?

In regard to the Metal Tag itself, I have a letter here, the content of which originated from a guy who actually worked on the Electras at Burbank. The letter says that when new R-1340's were delivered to the Burbank Plant, the crates were left outside but the engines themselves had been assigned to an airframe and were tagged as such. This statement about them being "assigned" before fitment and the normal "repair tag details" we do give in aircraft maintenance, could very well be the reason as to "why" Engine Details and Airframe Details would appear on the one type of tag.

I have been in aircraft maintenance for some 50-odd years and airframe and engine details only come together on tags if the tag is a "Repair Tag" and now with the letter content, we do know that the two could come together if a tag assigning a new engine was present on the engine. How are engines tarnsported ? Well, some are sent away and delivered back on their engine mounts bolted to a thick ply former on a stand, ready to get bolted onto the firewall mounts. For new engines, this would make sense as the mounts are usually designed by the engine manufacturer and only fit the one type of engine and are delivered together.

Either way, someone left a Metal Tag tied on the engine mount tubing which says the Engine is an R-1340 S3H1 and the Airframe is C/N 1055. The 600 H.P. is the Take-Off rating for the S3H1 using 100 Octane (which she did). Later, after 1936 (I recall 1941), when 100 Octane was freely available, P & W did rate the S3H1 at 600 H.P. instead of 550 H.P.

How did the USAAF know it was not one of theirs ? They would look at the information sent to them which we firmly believe was the "string of letters and numbers" off the tag, which are written on the edge of the map. The S3H1 was NOT a designation used by the US Military for the R-1340, the US Army designation is "AN-1" and the USN and USMC have their own designations, as none used the "S3H1", which is specific to a "Civilian" engine. They would look at details of the find of an "Engine" and the S3H1 would not gel with "AN-1" for a start.... Then if they took the C/N 1055 to be a serial number instead of a Construction Number, the "1" at the front would mean built in 1931 as P & W "year" annotations started with the number of the 30's "year" first, for example, the two Engine serials on Earhart's Electra were 6149 and 6150 built in 1936.

Concerning "No-one in the cockpit", well I could leave that to your imagination. Suffice to say that just before I first went to Singapore and Malaya in late 1959, an Auster AOP 7 single-engined aircraft left the RAF Airfield at the city of Kuala Lumpur in Malaya and disappeared, two people on board. About two days later one survivor managed to make a Rubber Plantation where he was found by some tappers and taken to Hospital. The RAF Recovery Team found the trail he had left and found the Auster after another day or so. The skeleton of the Pilot was left in his flying suit. Ants. The news made the papers. A collapsed skeleton would be on the aircraft seat or down in the bottom of the crushed cockpit and covered in jungle vines and plants after eight years. It would not be unusual "not" to see any remains. The Lieutenant did say to me, that at the time, he did say to himself, "I hope there are no poor devils in there..."

The ants in New Britain can be up to an inch or more long. There are also smaller varieties. There are also feral pigs.

David Billings

Mr Billings is wrong on the operations of R-1340 S3H1 engines in New Guinea. The RAAF operated Wirraways with that engine there from 1941-46. Also Nordyn Norseman aircraft also S3H1 powered flew there during WW2 and post way as civil aircraft. Re fuel. The fuel used outside of the USA at the time was 80/87 grade not 100..

as I commented on a prior posting,Fred and Amelia are swimming with the fishes.just my opinion and nothing more.based on fact but just my opinion. deep 6

_________________
"WHAT ME WORRY?"

For Invader 26....

You need some glasses or instruction on how to read websites.

I mention the Wirraways with their R1340-S3H1"G" (Geared) 650 HP engines.
To my knowledge Bobby Gibbes imported War Surplus Noorduyuns into New Guinea post-war for Sepik Airways.
Yes normal fuel was 80/87. Earhart positioned 100 Octane around the route for her use.

You also need to read that the Vets saw a TWIN-engined wreck. Wirraways and Noordyuns are single-engines. They also saw an all-metal wreck. Wirraways (on the fuselage) and Norsemen (in total) are fabric covered.

I rest my case. I have some used prescription glasses you can have, send me your address.

Why the arguing ,Gillespie and Tighar have solved the mystery,havent they?

_________________
"WHAT ME WORRY?"

Agent 86....

Not arguing, Mate... I just wish that people would read (and read correctly) before they put pen to paper or open their mouths and let the wind blow their tongue around. I have lost count of the number of times I have been mis-quoted, mis-read and mis-understood by people who should know better.

If people want to comment on the Earhart saga and comment well, then they should read all available evidence that there is and then they might just be knowledgeable to make comment. If they don't do that then they stand condemned of making ill-informed and unadvised comment which attracts critique such as that from Invader 26. My offer of used spectacles to Invader 26 still stands.

Incidentally, our Delaware Horse-riding friend who collects turtle bones has solved..... "NOTHING".

I really admire the amount of time and effort you have spent learning about this event.I think she and Fred are deep sixed but thats only my opinion

_________________
"WHAT ME WORRY?"

I'm just curious to know if this may be the airplane that could have been mistaken for AE's Lockheed? I can't seem to find when this bird went down, but if the timings work out, I could definitely see this plane mistaken for AE's especially when judged by someone who isn't too aware of the little differences between the two types.



Peace,

David M