Warbird Information Exchange

I don't have the answer, but here is a very brief summary.
What Amelia and Noonan set out to do would give me pause, even in a modern equipped plane. Think of taking off in California and flying blind ( no ground reference or Vors, etc. ) all the way to Oskosh and then trying to visually find the airport. At only the 4 mile long area, Appleton or Fon du Lac don't count. And if you are wrong, you don't have fuel to go back to land, and will probably die. They would fly 2500 miles, and rely on dead reckoning and sextant sights to find a low island only 4 miles long. They had some primitive detection finding gear, but it didn't seem to work, perhaps they were on the wrong frequency from the cruiser Itasca that was there to send out signals. They likely ran out of fuel, went into the sea,and may not have even survived the impact or been able to get out.

Noted warbird vet, author, and my friend Jeff Ethel wrote a good book, with Vincent Loomis about another theory. They may have crashed on or near an island and been captured by the Japanese and either executed or died of disease on Saipan. Jeff has uncovered one big fact that shows that the Japanese did NOT search for her as they claimed to at that time. I don't want to give this fact away, read the book, but if the Japanese did not search, why not? Perhaps they knew where she was, in their custody. The American navy only searched part of a vast area and took Japan/s word that they covered the rest!
Now, how would the Japanese have treated Amelia? As a hostile spy or invader, or as a famous and innocent person in trouble? We weren't yet at war, but I don't know if our relations were tense then. Amelia could have been a spy, she was probably a patriotic person and might have cooperated if asked. After all, Julia Childs worked for our govt behind the scenes. I don't know what info Amelia might have been asked to find, who knows?
Much of Jeff's book is based on 3rd person hearsay, such as some native says their Father told of seeing a plane like the Lockheed on a Japanese ship, and even a white man and woman held in their local prison. Other authors put a good deal of stock in stories of her being held by the Japanese.
Jeff was clear that his was only one theory, perhaps a good one, but not the same as fact, and possibly the ocean had claimed them.

Tighar's theory is that when Amelia could not find Howland Is, they would have turned SE, 157 degees toward the only land within reach, some small islands like Gardner( Nikumaruro) 230 miles away. Sounds logical, but who knows, and id they even have enough fuel left to reach there? Tighar has been to Gardner twice, found some relics, but no real trace of Amelia. One item of interest, a set of bones found on the island in 1940, well documented by the U S Coast Guard and sent to a medical school to examine. The were judged to be from an male of mixed race then. The bones are gone now, but Tighar has some expert ? Now, who examined the photos and measurements from 1940, and claims the bones may be of an European type female, the same height as Amelia, about 5', 7".

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

julia child's credentials as a world known chef / gourmet came many years after ww 2. i've been brokering a collection of investment grade amelia items since july, & have gathered alot of perspective on her. no answers, no conjecture, just perspective. some prudent aspects of her preparing for the flight were ignored. mantz, manning (who quit after the hawaii prang) & numerous others consulted on many aspects of the planning to no avail. it must be remembered while an aviation icon, earhart got her marketibilty through her husband putnam who had deep pockets & was well connected, hence a great portion of her fame. sitting on her duff as a non flying passenger, 1st woman to cross the atlantic on the friendship w/ stultz & gordon as flyers doesn't raise her credentials. she is a mystery, an icon of aviation, bigfoot with boobs. gillespie's grand standing needs to tone down, but i hope he proves me wrong until he can back up his research more conclusively!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Tom, mind me saying so, but you are unnecessarily tainting the girl a bit no? She did fly on several record setting events all on her own if I do recall. I wonder, just being a woman at the time and trying to do what she did must have called for more balls than most of the men around her had.

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rreis

If you want pictures, see rreis@flickr

Just a few observations.

She worked for the OSS in W.W.II which is where she met her husband - see the recent film Julie and Julia, pretty simple background, and only slightly longer than a T shirt. It wasn't 'background' but her job, of course.

Yes, but, you may as well say that modern sports and TV stars shouldn't have managers or PR. Aviation then took money and influence (as it does now) and all records set or broken were brokered by PR people or connected to a cash-source.

C'mon Tom, I know you would normally be fairer than that. It's well documented she wanted to fly the Atlantic herself, wasn't allowed, and later did, solo - first woman to do it too.

She may not have been the safest pair of hands, but she did set, and break many records in an era when women were patronised and expected to do as they were told. On any measure, her achievements as an aviator stand - regardless of her gender.

Going on -

Many of the pioneering airmen or women were dead by the end of W.W.II, many in the 1930s, and the often advanced suggestion or implication that she somehow wasn't good enough in some way (either as a pilot, or because she was a woman) to avoid her unfortunate end is snide, IMHO, and misses the point it was typical of the period, rather than exceptional. Any reading of the period accounts clearly show how often the record breakers were lucky to avoid being lost - permanantly.

As well as these records (as good as any other aviator's list of the time) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Ear ... hievements , bear in mind that she's done 2/3 of the global circumnavigation when she was lost. Again, no small, although usually overlooked achievement.

As to the various theories and fascination? Mostly bull. Tom's aware of this, but for others, see: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=36501 Draw your own conclusions by all means.

While I'm no fan (getting around all the Earhart guff and her somewhat driven personality) she deserves better than silly theories and dismissal as some kind of second rater.

Also she was notoriously flat-chested, Tom.

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

I'll just toss my .02 cents worth in.

I don't think it is piling on, or being disrespectful for saying she was a 'second-rater'. Even before I watched the show the other night, my opinions were that she was lucky a lot of the time, and that she was a product of her own hype (or as Ralph Payne used to say about people who started getting too big for their britches "they started drinking too much of their own bath water").

I'm not an ardent supporter, nor am I a conspiracy theorist, but it's fact that she wasn't a very good navigator (she got lost several times on high profile flights), she was an average pilot at best (the crash at Ford Island, according to Paul Mantz, was pi$$-poor pilot error), and she was famous because America was looking for a 'hero', and her husband exploited her flights and notariety into a 'bigger than life' figure. But, as has been pointed out, given that aviation was still in a fledgling state in the 1930's, that long-distance navigation was what it was back then, and that a LOT of male pilots were lost or killed trying to do the same kind of things she was doing, she still DID succeed in making record-setting flights. And nobody or nothing can take that away from her...regardless of the how or why. I think if nothing else, her success sort of backed her into a corner that she really couldn't get out of. I think she was a victim--albeit willing--of her husband's lust for fame.

On some levels I felt like the Discovery show was like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, since my dad and I were sitting there commenting on it from the peanut gallery...but I was also impressed that Mr. Gillespie actually showed a slight hint of humility with his failures, and that the show addressed the 'mistakes' and 'lack of experience' aspect of Amelia's talent and career instead of making her out to be a female Chuck Yeager with white scarf flowing in the breeze.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

Tom, Amelia was certainly not "sitting on her duff " for the many flights that see did in her career. And as for as being a good pilot, their were many men, like the French WW I aces who tried and failed or died doing similar flights. And she did fly the Atlantic solo.
I give her great credit for both the foresight, sense of adventure and plain guts to do and try what she did.
As for not being a great navigator,. That is why she took Noonan who was supposed to be the best of his day.

Having PR, while it may offend some peoples taste, does not change their skill or accomplishments. Ali, for instance, was great, even if he did say so often, and loudly. Same with Patty Wagstaff, or any of many other airshow acts who have more P R than you can stand.

Anyone can comment anyway they want, but the gist of my topic was what happened or what do we think likely happened to them.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

It's time to forget about Amelia. Sure she was inspiring. But why is her disapearance so popular? She got lost, simple as that. She took a risk and she lost. Plain and simple.

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double post.

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Okay, Let's say the Japanese had her.
Why wouldn't they hand her back...thus pre-empting the massive U.S.search which could have had intelligence overtones with the USN leading the search? If they were afraid of spys, it makes more sense to give her back.
Also, it would be a PR coup for Japan which was getting bad press for its actions in China and SEA.

In other words, there is a equally (or more) logical case for the Japanese giving her back if they found her.
And remember, we're talking about what the Japanese may have thought in the 30s before nutcases made conspiracy theories a cottege industry.
With her fame,and well publiczed attempts, its possible they didn't even think she was a spy.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

I just wanted to suggest that Amelia must certainly have been a good enough pilot to break all the records she did.

Sure, she probably wasn't the "best" pilot in the world, but back then who really was? I'm not an expert on that time period, but I assume practically all pilots back then were involved in numerous accidents. I'd also assume that training was fairly poor back then, leading to a "learning through making mistakes" style of education. Combined with the construction of aircraft being lower quality than todays standards, and very unreliable engines compared to today, I'd figure that accidents were very, very commonplace and happened dramatically more often than they do today.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd assume that Amelia had a fairly average amount of accidents. But, I assume due to publicity, and her being a woman, she got extra attention when things went wrong.

Getting back to Bill's original intention of this thread, I'd presume Amelia and Fred went down in the water simply because there's a heck of a lot more water in that part of the world than there is land, let alone flat land. Chances of survival would have been very slim in the vast oceans. If for some reason they were able to find land, I'd assume she'd put the plane down on or near the shore of an island and in that case it would probably be survivable.

Being captured by the Japanese is a possibility, just like any other theory is, because at this point nobody knows. I'd be curious to know how much research has been done into the Japanese records of that time period. Perhaps there are some top secret files outlining the capture of Earhart and Noonan, and perhaps not.

And Bill, to hopefully answer your question about US/Japanese hostilities in the Pacific in that period, I'd say that the relations were probably not that good. The Japanese interest in taking over the Pacific in WWII came from their belief that they were the rightful owner and protector of that entire area. This believe probably started well before WWII. That info is what I remember from my grade 12 history class. I'm sure James (JDK) can elaborate... please?

This suggests that the Japanese may very well have been paranoid of the flights of any Westerners into 'their' area. Whether they'd go as far as to capture any pioneering aviators, that's unknown.

I'm getting the feeling that the truth of the Amelia Earhart saga will come to light a few decades from now, when nobody expects it, when somebody will unwittingly discovery soemthing completely undeniable. I think the harder we look for answers, the further away we're getting from finding it.

By the way, in the vintage section here on WIX, there's a thread regarding Amelia, and David Billings is heading up an expedition to search for her Electra on the island of New Britain located NE of Papua-New Guinea. It's a good read on the topic and puts forth a plausible theory.

Sincerely,

David M

LOL, what?!

Should we forget about the rest of our aviation history, too?

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Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Just a comment on Amelia Earhart's piloting abilities - I used to fall into the trap of thinking Amelia having been a "bad" pilot, but as I've gotten a bit wiser to the world and started thinking a bit more critically about history and how it is recorded/preserved/told, I've come to realize that many of the impressions of Amelia being a poor pilot have come from male aviators of her time. I'd wager that there was a bit of sexism involved in the negative stories that have been passed down over the decades. Sure, she crashed some aircraft, but so did Roscoe Turner, Frank Hawks, and many others who were known to have pretty good stick and rudder skills at the time. As a separate example of sexism and women pilots, just look at how the WASPs were treated in their day, or the Mercury 13 for that matter. Whether she was a "bad" pilot or not, and despite the fact that much of her success was driven by her publicity hound husband George Putnam, Amelia helped pave the way for generations of women flyers to come after her. That wasn't a bad thing.

Zack

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bill i was alluding to her friendship flight across the atlantic only. i'm not bashing her, she was quite accomplished.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

C'mon Tom, I know you would normally be fairer than that. It's well documented she wanted to fly the Atlantic herself, wasn't allowed, and later did, solo - first woman to do it too.

She may not have been the safest pair of hands, but she did set, and break many records in an era when women were patronised and expected to do as they were told. On any measure, her achievements as an aviator stand - regardless of her gender.

Going on -

Many of the pioneering airmen or women were dead by the end of W.W.II, many in the 1930s, and the often advanced suggestion or implication that she somehow wasn't good enough in some way (either as a pilot, or because she was a woman) to avoid her unfortunate end is snide, IMHO, and misses the point it was typical of the period, rather than exceptional. Any reading of the period accounts clearly show how often the record breakers were lucky to avoid being lost - permanantly.

As well as these records (as good as any other aviator's list of the time) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Ear ... hievements , bear in mind that she's done 2/3 of the global circumnavigation when she was lost. Again, no small, although usually overlooked achievement.

As to the various theories and fascination? Mostly bull. Tom's aware of this, but for others, see: http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.o ... 16&t=36501 Draw your own conclusions by all means.

While I'm no fan (getting around all the Earhart guff and her somewhat driven personality) she deserves better than silly theories and dismissal as some kind of second rater.

Also she was notoriously flat-chested, Tom.

Regards,[/quote




yes i'm aware that she didn't have the physical attributes to fly topless!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!