Authors: Doris L. Rich
Amelia Earhart (44 page)
For a brief time Mantz thought she might have reached Saipan after a generator like one he had installed in the Electra was fished from the harbor, but it proved to be Japanese-made. Eventually he was convinced that she went down near Howland.
Jackie
Cochran, Earhart’s closest confidante during the last year of her life, knew of no secret mission. Cochran felt the loss of Earhart so deeply that it was difficult for her to talk about it forty years later. If there had been a grain of truth in the espionage story Cochran would have been the first to make certain the public knew that her friend was a bona fide heroine who sacrificed her life for her country. After repeatedly warning Amelia that Howland would be difficult, if not impossible, to find, Cochran was not surprised to hear Earhart had disappeared. She credited her psychic powers with a picture of the Electra landing at sea
and floating for two days before it sank but she was practical enough to double-check this scenario. She wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt and Paul Mantz for affirmation from more prosaic sources.
Eugene
Vidal was certain Amelia was not a spy but hoped at first that she might have landed on a Pacific atoll. Her plan, he said, was to hunt for Howland until she had four hours of fuel left, and then, if she had not located it, to turn back to the Gilbert Islands and land on a beach. He eventually abandoned that hope.
Paul
Collins said she might have almost reached Howland but any experienced flyer could realize how easy it was to miss it looking into the morning sun under the stress caused by dwindling fuel and the fatigue of an all-night flight.
Kelly
Johnson was convinced that she ran out of gas, attempted to bring the plane down on the ocean and failed. She had been airborne for twenty-three hours, he said, “and, so help me, that’s all the time they had fuel for.” As for spying, Johnson added, “the only camera she had was a Brownie.” Carl
Allen agreed with Collins and Johnson.
Capt. Irving Johnson, who was at the War Plans office of the Navy at Pearl Harbor and had access to a file on Earhart, said there were no intercepted Japanese messages on her disappearance or capture.
The Japanese also denied any contact with Earhart. Inouye Shigeyoshi, in charge of the Japanese Naval Affairs Bureau in 1937, said he had never seen any
evidence of such involvement.
Japanese historian
Masataka Chihaya, a graduate of the naval academy in 1930 and later contributor to the
U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
magazine, said that stories of the Japanese finding Earhart and Noonan were false. Claims that they were captured and transferred to a naval seaplane had to be erroneous, he said, because the largest Japanese naval seaplane in 1937 was the Type 91 Hiro H4H1, with only three seats. Other reports that they were transported as prisoners on the naval vessel
Kamoi
were also wrong, he said. The ship was not in the area at the time.
What
really
happened to Amelia Earhart? The so-called solutions to an alleged mystery are pure conjecture, ideal material for Sunday supplement writers. Her family, friends, colleagues, and reputable historians all offer the same simple answer. She lost her way on a flight from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island and died somewhere in the Pacific.
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Notes are identified by page number
.
| AYB | Aviation Year Book |
| CG Log | Log of the Coast Guard cutter Itasca at sea, Pacific Ocean, July 19, 1937. Treasury Department, United States Coast Guard, File 65-601. |
| COHC | Oral History Collection, Columbia University |
| DDEL | Dwight D. Eisenhower Library |
| LAT | Los Angeles Times |
| NASM | National Air and Space Museum |
| PSC | Purdue University, Special Collections |
| SB | Star Bulletin (Honolulu) |
| SLRC | Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College |
| NYHT | New York Herald Tribune |
| NYWT | New York World-Telegram |
| NYT | New York Times |
| PEB | Philadelphia Evening Bulletin |
1
Tomboy behavior: Earhart,
Fun of It
, 11–12.
2
Amelia’s name: Ninety-Nines Archives.
3
Photograph and house description:
Globe
(Atchison, Kan.), July 21, 1963.
4
Holidays and behavior at school: Morrissey,
Courage Is the Price
, 67.
5
Hunting: Muriel Earhart Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
6
Private railroad car:
Globe
, July 21, 1963.
7
Childhood games: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
8
“I must recount”: SLRC, A-129 F. 7, May 12, 1903.
9
“like a big game hunter”: Earhart,
Fun of It
, 4.
10
“just like flying”: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
11
“It was a thing of rusty wire”: Earhart,
Fun of It
, 4.
12
Promotion: Morrissey,
Courage Is the Price
, 86.
13
Twelfth Night dance: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
14
“Of course I’m going to B.M.”: SLRC, 83 M-69 F. 4, March 1914.
15
Chicago: Morrissey, interview, May 20, 1983.
16
Schools for Amelia and Muriel: Morrissey, interview, April 20, 1983.
1
Abby Sutherland: Ellen Masters, letter, June 14, 1984.
2
Description of Abby Sutherland: SLRC, 83 M-69 F. 7, October 25, 1916.
3
Treatment of faculty members: Masters, letter.
4
“We treated her like a queen”: Myra Thomas,
Times Chronicle
(Jenkintown, Pa.), p. 20.
5
Letters to Amy: SLRC, M-69 F. 7, October 25, 1916.
6
Time at Camp Grey: ibid., August 1, 8, and 15, 1917.
7
“Honor is the foundation”: ibid.
8
Cruel and discourteous: Masters, letter.
9
“I nearly had my head taken off” and “lost all my friends”: SLRC, M-69 F. 7, November 1917.
10
Oscar Wilde: Masters, letter.
11
“Good girl, Helen!”: SLRC, A-129 F. 2.
12
St. Regis Hotel: SLRC, M-69 F. 7, February 21, 1918.
13
Watching soldiers: Morrissey, “Reminiscences,” COHC, 4.
14
“I’m not going back”: Manual, Zonta Amelia Earhart Fellowship Awards, 1938–84 (1984), p. 20.
15
“Ailments of the chest”: Susan Dexter, interview and correspondence, January 13, 1984.
16
Face of a mature woman: Marian Stabler, interview, June 16, 1984.
17
Description of college: Dexter, interview.
18
“on duty from seven”: Earhart,
Fun of It
, 12.