Amelia Earhart (11 page)

At 1744 GCT, Earhart transmitted, “Want bearing on 3,105 kilocycles on hour. Will whistle in mic.” After pausing a moment, she continued, “About two hundred miles out, approximately.” A few seconds of whistling followed, and she closed with the single word, “Northwest.” The sun was now coming up.

At 1815 GCT, Earhart broadcast, “Please take bearing on us and report in half-hour. I will make noise in microphone. About one hundred miles out.” Noonan plotted the sun line that ran 157–337 degrees across their course. At approximately 1833 GCT, the Electra was around sixty-five miles from its destination. Earhart began her descent, for it was imperative they get below the cloud line in order to be able to spot the island. At around one thousand feet, they were below the cloud base.

Presuming they were following Noonan's plan, Earhart would have turned north or south toward Howland Island around 1902 GCT, following the 157–337 sun line. The island should only be about fifteen to twenty miles away. It can also be presumed that because of the low angle of the sun, the pilot and navigator had to deal with a significant amount of glare coming off the ocean surface.

At 1912, Earhart sent her scheduled transmission on 3,105 kilocycles: “KHAQQ calling
Itasca
. We must be on you but cannot see you. But gas running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at altitude of one thousand feet.” By prearrangement, when the Electra got close to the island, the
Itasca
would release an abundant column of smoke. Since they were positioned just off Howland, the island would therefore be easier to spot. It has been estimated that such smoke could be seen from forty miles away and more.

The truth is, Earhart was nowhere near the
Itasca
. Based on an analysis of the radio logs by Paul Rafford as well as a study of the radio transmitting characteristics of Earhart's Electra, it was determined that she was 150 miles north-northwest of Howland Island when she made the above transmission.

By 1928 GCT, the Electra would have been flying along the 157–337 sun line for about forty miles. Earhart and Noonan could see neither the island nor the smoke from the
Itasca
. By this time, assuming the sun line course, they would have flown past the island.

Two minutes before the
Itasca
's scheduled broadcast time (1928 GCT), Earhart transmitted on 3,105 kilocycles: “KHAQQ calling Itasca. We are circling but cannot hear you. Go ahead on 7,500 either now or on the scheduled time on half-hour.” After receiving some Morse code signals, Earhart transmitted again at 1930 GCT: “KHAQQ calling Itasca. We received your signals but unable to get a minimum. Please take bearing on us and answer 3,105 with voice.” Following this, she sent a series of long dashes in the hope that the ship could get a bearing on her. By this time, the Electra had only one-quarter tank of fuel remaining. This would give them thirty-five to forty minutes of flying time left.

At 2013 GCT, Earhart, speaking rapidly, transmitted on 3105: “We are on the line of position 157–337. Will repeat this message. We will repeat this message on 6,210 kilocycles. We are running north and south.”

This was the last broadcast any of the designated stations ever picked up from Earhart. She was gone, and the immediate determination by United States Navy and Coast Guard, backed by U.S. government officials, was that the Electra crashed into the ocean somewhere near Howland Island, thus generating one of the greatest mysteries in history.

Over the next few days, newspapers across the world sported headlines relating to Earhart's and Noonan's disappearance, that they crashed and sank into the Pacific Ocean. Americans as well as others remained riveted to their radios and read newspapers as they followed the progress of the search for the missing aviatrix and her navigator.

N
umerous questions were subsequently raised relative to Earhart's flight that have yet to be answered adequately. For one, why were Earhart and Noonan unable to see the dense column of smoke emitted by the
Itasca
at a time when the ship's radio operators were convinced she was close to the vessel, if not directly overhead? It has been reported that similar plumes of smoke were able to be seen for great distances with little difficulty, and such a measure was used effectively numerous times in the past. Such a plume would have been impossible to miss. The answer may lie in the notion that Earhart and Noonan were nowhere near the
Itasca
. Subsequent research is strongly suggestive of the possibility that the Electra was in the area of the Marshall Islands over eight hundred miles to the northwest.

Related to the above, why was Noonan's navigation presumed to be so far off that they were unable to find Howland Island? Up to the point of arriving near their designated destination, as many believe they did, Noonan's navigating skills had served them well on the journey. It must be pointed out that he navigated them across the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean and the Sahara Desert only days earlier with little to no difficulty. Noonan had successfully navigated more than a dozen flights to Wake Island during his days with Pan American Airways. Wake Island was not much bigger than Howland. It should have been a simple task to locate the island.

Why couldn't Earhart get a minimum with her Bendix direction finder? It is an established fact that Earhart was less than competent and relatively uncooperative when it came to utilizing specialized radio equipment. Fred Noonan, however, was not only an accomplished and competent navigator, he knew his way around such communication devices and could have transmitted and received information easily. There is no evidence that any of the radio equipment was faulty. A possible answer may lie in the notion that Earhart, assuming she was on a clandestine aerial survey mission for the U.S. government, did not want her precise location identified.

Why couldn't Earhart hear the transmissions from the
Itasca
on 3,105 kilocycles? The fact that she did not respond to such transmissions is neither proof nor evidence that she did not hear them. If she was purposely off course relative to her aforementioned and hypothesized mission, she may very well have chosen to ignore such messages.

Another curious aspect of the series of events and circumstances involving this particular leg of the Earhart flight is related to the fact that the logs of the
Itasca
for this time period were classified “secret” for twenty-five years before being released on July 2, 1962. Those who have examined the logs have pointed out that (1) a great deal of confusion was manifest and (2) they appeared to have been tampered with. What is also apparent is that Warner K. Thompson, the
Itasca
's commander, had no inkling of what his mission was. He was ordered to Howland Island from Honolulu. He presumed his responsibility was to assist Earhart, thus he had to radio division headquarters at San Francisco to provide him with her radio frequencies, schedules, and plans. Division headquarters reported back that they did not know. They informed Thompson that they heard a rumor that she might be using 6,210 kilocycles at fifteen minutes before the hour and fifteen minutes after in order to take bearings.

Most “authorized” inquiries, those supported by the U.S. government, into the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan have been constructed around the belief that the Electra was close to Howland Island but ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Given that Earhart was on a special mission for the U.S. government, several alternative theories have been given attention over the decades following the disappearance. The more researchers and others among the curious have looked into what was being described as a mysterious disappearance, the more questions were raised. Among them were several related to the destination of record—Howland Island.

H
owland Island is a tiny landmass in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean and is located 850 miles southeast of the Marshall Islands, slightly north of the equator, and 1,900 miles southwest of Honolulu. It is two miles long and perhaps a half mile wide, and it rises only a few feet above sea level. During the nineteenth century, when whaling was active in that part of the Pacific and when navigation was less sophisticated, ships often missed the island.

Many have wondered why Earhart and Noonan elected to land and refuel on such a tiny speck of land in the middle of the ocean, assuming it was their decision at all. The rationale for selecting this location may have come entirely from officials of the U.S. government.

Within a reasonable distance of Howland Island was Canton Island in the Phoenix group. This entire cluster of small islands in this remote section of the Pacific Ocean, unlike Howland Island, could have been spotted with no trouble at all. Furthermore, Canton Island boasted a long and well-maintained landing strip, one that had been recently constructed by Pan American Airways.

It must also be asked: If Howland was the predetermined destination for Earhart and Noonan, then why did the USS
Swan
, on learning of the downed pilots, head immediately to Canton Island? Why was a search party sent ashore on Canton Island a short time later and not Howland Island? It should also be mentioned that another search vessel, the USS
Colorado
, directed its search toward the Phoenix group, specifically Canton Island.

If, as the U.S. government maintained, Earhart and Noonan went down in the ocean somewhere near Howland Island, why then did they bother themselves with searching locations that did not fit with their contention and their subsequent press releases? Were they aware that the Electra did not, in fact, go into the ocean where they claimed and were now involved in a panic search to recover the aircraft that had clearly been fitted with spy cameras before it was found by another government?

In 1822, the captain of a whaling vessel out of Nantucket named the little isle after himself, but Worth Island was known only to a few and largely ignored as hardly anyone visited the insignificant feature. In 1842, another whaling captain named Howland renamed it after himself. By this time, the area—known as part of the South Seas whale fishery region—was encountered more often by whaling vessels, and the name stuck.

A survey conducted in the early 1930s concluded that Jarvis Island held the best potential for an airfield. Jarvis Island was located three hundred miles east of Howland Island. On May 13, 1936, Roosevelt gave jurisdiction of Howland Island to the secretary of the interior. In November 1936 a cable was sent to Interior Department official Richard B. Black instructing him to construct a landing field at Jarvis Island.

On December 7, 1936, Black received notice from Washington to scrap the Jarvis Island plan and advised him that the proposed airfield was to be constructed on Howland Island. (It has been suggested by some researchers that the distance between Lae, New Guinea, and Jarvis Island exceeded the fuel capacity of Earhart's Electra.) Because of governmental bureaucracy and weather delays, the construction of the airfield was not undertaken until February 5, 1937. The east-west landing strip was completed on March 4.

Until the construction activity was begun, Howland Island was unoccupied and rarely visited. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, via the Bureau of Air Commerce, established an American presence on Howland, Jarvis, and Baker Islands in the Pacific. Roosevelt stated that they were to be colonized as the “American Equatorial Islands.” To that end, he initiated an order for a party of young men to establish a temporary colony on the island. This was accomplished during the spring of 1935. The group consisted of six Hawaiian and Chinese American youths (some accounts say four). They were graduates of the Kamehameha School for Boys of Honolulu, a private educational institution. The tiny community was named Itascatown. The name came from the Navy ship that carried these first residents to the island and subsequently delivered supplies and provisions. The colonizers shared their habitat with tens of thousands of seabirds, hermit crabs, and rats. Their assignment was to live on the island and construct landing strips for aircraft.

Using equipment provided by the U.S. Navy, the colonists bladed out three 150-foot-wide intersecting runways onto the surface of Howland Island. The landing strips ranged from 2,400 feet to 4,000 feet. The building of these airstrips was undertaken with the utmost secrecy and urgency. The system of runways was named Kamakaiwi Field.

Though Roosevelt had earlier given jurisdiction of Howland Island to the secretary of the interior, he eventually turned the responsibility of overseeing the construction of the airstrips to the Public Works Administration. Later, during World War II, the Japanese conducted an air attack on Howland Island, killing two of the colonists. A short time later, the survivors were evacuated.

Howland Island was indeed a strange choice as a stop for Earhart and Noonan. There is no source of fresh water on the island; any fresh water available to the pilots, or anyone else, would have to be supplied from elsewhere, that is, delivered by ship.

Military personnel occasionally posted at Howland Island to operate and maintain radios and direction-finder equipment reported on the tens of thousands of birds found there. The bird population consisted of frigates, albatrosses, boobies, and terns. The frigates and boobies were described as being the size of buzzards. The bird population was estimated to be thirty thousand to forty thousand or more.

This large population of birds on an island as small as Howland presented a significant problem for airplanes landing and taking off. Bird populations in much smaller numbers have created similar difficulties for takeoffs and landings elsewhere and have been responsible for a number of airplane crashes. Determining that this could be a significant problem, and before attempting any landings and takeoffs from Howland Island, the U.S. military attempted to disperse the birds using dynamite and machine guns, all to no avail.