Amelia Earhart (22 page)

In December 1941, Kelley met with Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. A short time later, Kelley, with the assistance of Archbishop Francis Spellman, was appointed chaplain for the Atlantic Overseas Air Command. Spellman maintained close connections with every U.S. president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman as well as a number of cabinet members, other political appointees, and military leaders. To many of them he introduced Kelley.

Kelley's acquaintances and friends also included President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Jonathan Wainwright, J. Edgar Hoover, President Harry S. Truman, Margaret Truman, Charles Lindbergh, and a number of sports celebrities and movie actors.

Based on the available evidence, it appears that Monsignor Kelley entered the Earhart controversy at the invitation of Spellman, who had been advanced to the position of cardinal in the church. On August 14, 1945, Spellman flew from New York City to Honolulu, where he met with Admiral Nimitz. The following day, he met with long-time Earhart friend Jackie Cochran. The reason for Spellman's long trip and his presence at this meeting, along with Cochran's, has never been revealed, but the timing in relation to the pending liberation of the Japanese prison camp in Weifang seems beyond coincidence.

On August 17, the “unidentified” woman believed to be Amelia Earhart was encountered and rescued from a Japanese prison camp in northeastern China. Sometime in September, the woman was flown from Weihsien, China, to a camp in Korea overseen by the U.S. military. It was a location where important American prisoners of war were taken for assessment and preparation prior to returning them to the United States. During this time, Cardinal Spellman attended a meeting in Japan with Lieutenant Colonel Tex McCrary and Jackie Cochran. Speculation was that the three were making arrangements for the repatriation of the unidentified woman.

Though never verified, it has been related that the unidentified woman was disguised as a nun and flown to Japan and then on to the United States. According to researcher Dean Magley, the U.S. government was well aware that the rescued woman was Amelia Earhart. While in Japan, she adopted, or was given, the name Irene Craigmile. With the assistance of the U.S. military and the Catholic Church, “Craigmile” was flown to Rumson, New Jersey, where she was ensconced in an estate owned by Monsignor Kelley.

The selection of the name “Irene Craigmile” was indeed curious. A woman named Irene Craigmile was, in fact, a contemporary of Earhart's, a pilot, and at the time resided in New Jersey.

Prevailing wisdom has Kelley, the good friend of Cardinal Spellman, assisting in the repatriation of Earhart under her new identity and having a hand in helping her recover from her total of eight years of imprisonment and ill treatment at the hands of the Japanese.

According to revelations made by Kelley during the 1980s, he admitted to having had a role in the repatriation and rehabilitation of Amelia Earhart. He stated to Helen Barber, one of his neighbors on the island of St. Croix, that he was enlisted to help bring Earhart back from Japan and that he was chosen to serve as her “psychiatric priest.” For the time that Earhart lived at Kelley's estate, he claimed, he “was able to give her spiritual, emotional, and psychological help.” Kelley also told Barber that it was Cardinal Spellman who suggested him as the ideal person to rehabilitate Earhart.

According to Kelley, Earhart told him about a safe-deposit box in New Jersey wherein her birth certificate and other important papers were stored but was “adamant that she no longer wanted to be identified as Amelia Earhart.” She never provided Kelley a reason for her decision, but she was inflexible in her demand.

Some have ventured the opinion that Earhart was so humiliated and embarrassed by her forced role as Tokyo Rose that she chose not to return to her former identity. It has also been suggested that if, as has been purported, she was involved in the design and testing of Japanese aircraft and, according to a State Department document, applied for Japanese citizenship, then such things would have been difficult to explain and harder to live down if she were repatriated under her real name.

The notion has also been advanced that Earhart was encouraged by government officials to return to the United States under another identity in order not to embarrass those involved in the flight-around-the-world spy mission, which included Franklin D. Roosevelt and a number of his appointees.

Still others suggested that the eight years as a prisoner of the Japanese, often under terrible conditions, had such an effect on her mind that she opted for what today would be termed a witness protection program. This would have exposed her to a minimum of attention and possible attack from those who would perceive her as a traitor.

Author Joe Klaas expressed the belief that Earhart was “so fed up with the extravagant curiosity of the world and the intrusions of the autograph hunters and with a publicity-minded husband that she agreed to perform espionage for her country in exchange for the permanent peace and privacy of assumed death.” Monsignor Kelley stated, “After all she'd been through, she didn't want to be Amelia Earhart anymore.”

While under the care of Kelley, Earhart was in regular contact with U.S. government officials who were assisting her with her new identity. The principal motivation for the U.S. government to become involved in “such a complex and difficult operation as the transformation of the identity of Amelia Earhart . . . was embarrassment.” The potential for embarrassment to the highest political office in the land was great. The political implications of the knowledge that Earhart had been a prisoner of the Japanese and had been moved through a succession of prison camps were immense. Roosevelt would have been branded as a coward and an incompetent. His image would not have survived such an assault. Thus, it was in the best interest of the U.S. government and Amelia Earhart for her to return under an assumed identity.

In 1991, Earhart researcher Rollin C. Reineck contacted Donald DeKoster, a Detroit resident and good friend of Monsignor Kelley. DeKoster admitted that he and Kelley had had several conversations about Amelia Earhart over the years. He related that the aviatrix had “survived the war, but that she did not retain her identity.” DeKoster said that Kelley told him that Earhart did not want to be connected with the Tokyo Rose disgrace along with other issues related to her flight and disappearance. He also stated that her new name was Irene Craigmile.

Kelley passed away in 1996 at the age of ninety-four. Following his passing, permission was granted to Reineck to examine his personal files. Though there were file cabinets and boxes filled with a variety of materials, Reineck found only three Earhart-related items. One was a folder that had the name Amelia Earhart printed on one side and the name Irene Bolam on the other. (Irene Craigmile married Guy Bolam in 1958.) The second item was a handwritten note by Kelley that said, “It's too bad that her mother never knew she had survived.”

The third item was a copy of a letter written by the monsignor to Irene Bolam. A portion of the missive contained the following curious passage:

But by far the most distressing part of this past week was the most terrible treatment you received when leaving. I can never forgive him for simply dropping you off at the airport and then not calling me until 4:00 PM on Sunday. Had I known your high priority was not being recognized by the counter clerk, I would have called the airport manager immediately. It so happens he was upstairs in his office, just above the ticket counter all day Sunday. Our little friend should have used his intelligence and gone up to see him. There would have been no problem. I have since been assured by the manager's secretary. God love and bless you.

From the accumulated evidence, it is clear that Monsignor Kelley was acquainted with Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile Bolam and that the two could have been one and the same. It is also clear, based on the previous letter passage, that some level of secrecy relative to Bolam's identity was important.

J
oe Gervais was a retired command pilot for the U.S. Air Force. He also manifested a deep and enthusiastic passion for all things Amelia Earhart. Gervais was a tireless researcher and spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money flying to various Pacific islands and interviewing anyone and everyone who might have some connection to Earhart and/or her plane. His name is well known among Earhart enthusiasts, and his passion for studying her disappearance was all consuming. Some critics of Gervais maintain he was too passionate and that he oriented his conclusions to fit predetermined objectives. Regardless, his contributions to the realm of Earhart research cannot be denied.

Following an Earhart research–related visit to Truk Lagoon during the spring of 1965, Gervais arrived home to find in the mail an invitation to speak about his findings to the Early Fliers Club at West Hampton Air Force Base on Sunday, August 8, 1965. The invitation also mentioned that members of the Ninety-Nines would be in attendance. The Ninety-Nines was a women's flying organization; its first president was Amelia Earhart.

Gervais and his wife arrived at a reception held at the Sea Spray Inn on the Dunes, East Hampton, Long Island, New York, on August 8. Three hundred people were in attendance. A large percentage of the members were elderly and had not flown for thirty years or more, but their enthusiasm for aviation had not dimmed with the passage of time.

Gervais was introduced to most of the members. Many of them, he learned, had known Amelia Earhart. As Gervais took photographs of some of these aviation pioneers, Viola Gentry, who had arranged for his visit, was standing nearby. At one point, Gentry glanced about the reception room. Suddenly, according to Gervais, Gentry's “eyes widened and she gasped.”

Gentry pointed to a woman in the room and, speaking in a somewhat reverential tone, identified her as Irene Bolam. Gervais turned to look and spotted a “distinguished-appearing, silver haired . . . woman who had just entered the room.” Gervais stared at the woman and later stated that at that point he experienced a chill and a slight tremble, for he felt as though he were looking at Amelia Earhart. (Earhart would have been sixty-eight years old in 1965.) Gervais, who had been steeped in Earhartiana for so many years, had a feeling he was looking into the face of the famed aviatrix, “the same face twenty-eight years older than in her last pictures.” Her hair was “shaped the same way, short around the head . . . parted the same way.” He asked Gentry whether she could arrange for an introduction.

Gentry led Gervais across the room and introduced him to Mr. and Mrs. Guy Bolam. Following the exchange of opening pleasantries, Gervais asked Mrs. Bolam whether she had been a friend of Amelia Earhart. Mrs. Bolam “smiled to a far-off memory” and replied that she knew Earhart.

During the conversation, Gervais noted that hanging around Mrs. Bolam's neck was a silver medallion and pinned to her dress were a miniature major's oak-leaf insignia and a miniature metal replica of the red, white, and blue ribbon which is worn only by winners of the American Distinguished Flying Cross.

Gervais asked Mrs. Bolam whether she was a pilot, and she replied in the affirmative. He asked her whether she ever flew with Earhart, and she said that she had. Nervous and unsure how to proceed with his questioning of Mrs. Bolam, Gervais turned toward Mr. Bolam, who was from England, and asked him what business he was in. Bolam replied that he was in communications. More conversation ensued, during which Gervais elicited the response from Mrs. Bolam that she and Amelia Earhart had flown “together quite a bit.”

Unsure about how to continue his questioning, Gervais asked Mrs. Bolam whether she would provide her address so that he might write to her sometime in the future. She glanced at her husband, whose “eyebrows lifted just a touch.” Finally, he shrugged and acquiesced. Mrs. Bolam withdrew a card from her purse, wrote something on it, and handed it to Gervais.

Then Gervais held up the camera he was carrying and inquired whether he could take a photograph. Mrs. Bolam demurred and glanced at her husband. Mr. Bolam appeared concerned, hesitated, and said, “I don't know . . .” Before he could finish the sentence, however, Gervais snapped the shutter. Mrs. Bolam appeared quite uncomfortable, and Gentry looked concerned.

Gervais turned to Mrs. Bolam and asked her whether she was a member of the Ninety-Nines. She said she was. When he inquired whether she was a member of the Zontas, the feminist sorority that Earhart had belonged to, she replied that she was. At this point, Guy Bolam interrupted and led his wife away. Gervais turned to Gentry and asked her to confirm that Mrs. Bolam was a member of both the Ninety-Nines and Zontas. Gentry replied that she was.

Gentry excused herself to tend to other guests and left Gervais to mingle with the crowd. That afternoon, Gervais presented his talk to the Early Flyers Club. It dealt with his expedition to Truk Lagoon. During the presentation, he noticed that Mr. and Mrs. Bolam were not present—they had departed the premises. Following Gervais's talk, there ensued a short ceremony wherein his wife, Thelma, was presented the Amelia Earhart Award for Outstanding Contribution to Research in the History of Aviation. The award was presented to her for her assistance to her husband in his ongoing research into Amelia Earhart. The award was a bronze replica of a silver medallion that had once been awarded to Earhart by the city of New York following her first successful flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Gervais noticed that the medal hanging around his wife's neck was the same as one of those he had seen earlier hanging around the neck of Mrs. Bolam.

That evening, Gervais and his wife returned to their room at the Sea Spray Inn. Shortly after arriving, Gervais received a phone call from Mrs. Bolam, who invited him and his wife to join her and her husband at their home for dinner the following evening. She expressed a desire to speak with him about his research into Earhart. As Gervais had already made plans to fly out the next afternoon, he explained and made his apologies. Mrs. Bolam told Gervais that she “would very much like to talk to you,” and the disappointment in her voice was manifest. Gervais asked her what she wanted to discuss, and she replied she wanted to talk about his “investigation into Amelia Earhart's disappearance.” Gervais, again offering apologies, asked whether he could return another time. Mrs. Bolam told him to come and visit her the next time he came to New York.