NatGeo, Ballard in new phony Earhart “search”
It appears that after 13 fruitless trips to Nikumaroro by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), the Powers That Be have finally decided to turn this tar baby over to someone who can bring real gravitas to the longstanding Earhart myths and lies. (Boldface and italics emphasis mine throughout.)
Ric Gillespie is out, Robert Ballard is in, and we can all now rest assured that the “Earhart Mystery” will be solved in short order. If you doubt this, I refer you to the National Geographic’s July 23, 2019 story: “Robert Ballard found the Titanic. Can he find Amelia Earhart’s airplane?” subheaded, “Ocean explorer Robert Ballard will lead a major expedition to the remote Pacific in hopes of discovering the famed aviator’s fate.”
With the same breathless tones that accompanied countless announcements that preceded so many of TIGHAR’s Nikumaroro boondoggles over the past 30 years, National Geographic’s “Now Robert Ballard, the man who found the Titanic, is planning to search for signs of the missing aviators. On August 7, he’ll depart from Samoa for Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island that’s part of the Micronesian nation of Kiribati. The expedition will be filmed by National Geographic for a two-hour documentary airing October 20.”
Bob Ballard, undated, from his Wikipedia page.
This is the same National Geographic Channel that produced and aired a much-anticipated (among some Earhart researchers) Amelia Earhart special in late 2006 to debut its short-lived Undercover History series, for which writer-co director Quinn Kanaly talked to me twice at length via phone. At my insistence, she took her crew to Woodbridge, Conn., to interview Robert E. Wallack about his summer 1944 discovery of the Earhart briefcase in a blown safe on Saipan, a segment that was included in the program that aired on Nov. 29, 2006, and which also depicted eyewitness Bilimon Amaron’s 1937 encounter with the fliers at Jaluit, as well as a thorough forensic debunking of the Irene Bolam-as-Amelia Earhart lie.
Only the slightest trace of that program can now be found on an Internet search, an IMDb entry that’s been swept clean of any meaningful information, as has the rest of the Internet. To see for yourself, please click here. Did National Geographic go to great lengths to cover the history of its past productions on the Earhart disappearance to protect the “credibility” of the current Ballard search? Just askin’.
Fox News, which has led the way in the Earhart deception business for several years now, followed the same day with their own story, and on July 26, a reader told me, “Ballard’s second in command was just on Fox News in studio with Harris Faulkner.” Another bunch allergic to the truth, Coast to Coast AM, did their part for the bad cause with their own story July 24.
In its July 23 story, National Geographic wastes no time, and starts right in with the lies that have so characterized the popular myths about the “great aviation mystery” for so many decades. In its lead paragraph, we’re told, “After taking off from Lae, New Guinea, in Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E, the pair aimed for tiny Howland Island, just north of the Equator. But they couldn’t find it, and despite many attempts, no one has been able to find them.”
“No one has been able to find them”? No one, that is, except the prewar Japanese on Mili Atoll and Saipan in 1937, Bilimon Amaron on Jaluit, Mera Phillip, John Tobeke and others on Kwajalein’s Roi-Namur, and many native Chamorros on Saipan that same year, beginning with the still-living Josephine Blanco Akiyama.
How about the numerous members of the American military, including Brig. Gen. Graves Erskine, during its summer 1944 invasion of Saipan, when the Electra was discovered in a Japanese hangar and was soon burned beyond recognition, according to several witnesses including Thomas E. Devine and Earskin J. Nabers? Sixteen years later, Fred Goerner and Joe Gervais found the fliers through numerous eyewitness and witness accounts, and soon Vincent V. Loomis, Don Kothera and other researchers added their own witnesses and findings to the growing volume of evidence, solidly establishing the presence and deaths of the fliers. The foregoing is just for starters. No point in going further here, when the entire content of this blog is devoted to these and so much more that attests to the hated truth.
The research vessel E/V Nautilus will soon search the waters off Nikumaroro Atoll in the Phoenix Islands in an attempt to find what we all know has never been there, the Earhart Electra 10E, which was destroyed on Saipan in July 1944 and now lies buried under Saipan International Airport. (Courtesy Wikipedia.)
National Geographic continued with its latest propaganda:
The National Geographic Explorer at Large brings a state-of-the-art research vessel, the E/V Nautilus, and extensive underwater expertise to this historic search. In addition to locating the Titanic, Ballard discovered the remains of John F. Kennedy’s World War II patrol boat in the Solomon Sea, the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic, and many ancient ships in the Black Sea, as well as hydrothermal vents near the Galapagos.
People have been looking for Earhart ever since she went missing. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy scoured the area by ship and plane for two weeks. George Putnam, Earhart’s husband, enlisted civilian mariners to continue the hunt. Eventually the U.S. government declared that the plane had most likely crashed and sunk into the Pacific.
“Eventually”? How about within three weeks of the fliers’ disappearance, when the commanders of the Coast Guard Cutter Itasca and the U.S.S. Lexington group filed their search reports? Please see “The Search and the Radio Signals,” pages 38-59 in Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last for the facts without the hype.
The Ballard news is highly reminiscent of the clatter that surrounded the similarly hyped 2017 Nauticos search for the Earhart plane in the waters off Howland Island. Here’s how I began my March 27, 2017 post on that time waster:
One of the better-known definitions of insanity has been attributed to Albert Einstein, who described it as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I wonder how many times it would take Nauticos, or the rest of clueless crashed-and-sankers to search the Pacific floor without finding the Earhart Electra before they admitted they might be wrong about what happened to Amelia and her plane. Based on past performances, the answer is, sadly, “Never.”
For more on my Nauticos post, see “Nauticos continues Earhart ocean-search insanity.”
It’s fair to ask why someone with Ballard’s impressive resume and fame is suddenly so interested in the rotten can of worms that the “Search for Amelia Earhart” has become, thanks to the ceaseless disinformation and distractions of the U.S government-media establishment.
We know, of course, that he is very much a highly regarded member of said establishment, and if you doubt that, here’s a YouTube video of Ballard’s remarks at a special event on March 20, 2012, at the U.S. State Department, announcing TIGHAR’s July 2012 expedition “to search for the remains of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra”: “Dr. Ballard endorses TIGHAR.”
The battleship USS Colorado joined the Earhart search July 7, focusing her search on the Phoenix Islands, 350 miles southeast of Howland. On July 9, three Vought O3U-3 Corsair float planes were launched from the battleship’s three catapult rails to make an aerial inspection of three locations: McKean Island, Gardner Island (now the infamous Nikumaroro), and Carondelet Reef. Nothing unusual was seen during the flyovers of these islands; neither Amelia Earhart nor her Electra were ever on Nikumaroro, contrary to the incessant propaganda efforts by our establishment media. A total of 262,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean was searched by the Itasca, USS Lexington and her group, and the USS Colorado; not even an oil slick was reported.
We also know that Ballard won’t find anything at Nikumaroro, and so does he, unless he is far more uninformed about the Earhart disappearance than the average reader of this blog, which is just too much for me to bite off. As with nearly everything in this hard world, it’s always about the money, and Ballard is no exception, but does he really need the gelt so badly that he would purposely taint his legacy with the certain stain of failure in the phony Earhart chase?
(As an aside, for readers who don’t know me, this has never been about money for me, another reason why you can believe what you read here.)
Perhaps Ballard let his ankle show when he told National Geographic, “Maybe some things shouldn’t be found,” he says. “We’ll see if Amelia is one of them.”
The switch from Gillespie to Ballard indicates, at least to this observer, that this latest machination from the establishment has the potential to be very big. Endless empty claims and wasted trips to Nikumaroro have stripped Gillespie of all credibility among the masses, but Ballard is an entirely different story, and most will believe what he says uncritically.
Thus, the forthcoming Earhart disinformation operation is far more disturbing than the usual, as we wonder why the famed ocean explorer would allow his name to be associated with this transparent charade, proven over 30 years to be nothing more than a huge mendacity that even casual observers of the Earhart case are now sick of watching.
Further, and worse, would Ballard knowingly be a part of a scheme in which he would discover planted material on or off Nikumaroro? It might be a piece of an engine or something else that can somehow be plausibly, though briefly, linked to the Electra, something that they can make plenty of noise about, but which would ultimately fail, because we know where the ruined remains of the Earhart bird are buried — under the Saipan International Airport.
I don’t know, but at this point, after nearly 32 years of studying this story, nothing would surprise me, except seeing anything resembling the truth coming from anyone in our thoroughly corrupt national media.
This constant barrage of lies and misinformation is proving two things: One, the U.S. establishment remains committed to protecting the Earhart sacred cow and keeping the truth from the masses, and two, that they rightfully believe in the overwhelming ignorance and indifference of America to the Earhart disappearance. The comments below the story on Fox News reveal this fact, as they always do. Why do they even bother, then, when the few who actually do care are in their dotage and dying daily?
Perhaps news of Marie Castro’s efforts on Saipan to build the Earhart Memorial Monument has created some small anxiety among the deep-state operatives responsible for managing the Earhart deception. These vermin understand that the memorial’s possible success on Saipan, as unlikely as it seems now, would bring more heat for disclosure to bear on Washington, something they want to avoid at all costs. Just a thought.
Nikumaroro Atoll, once known as Gardner Island, is one of eight atolls in the Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati, in the central Pacific Ocean. It is a remote, elongated, triangular coral atoll with profuse vegetation and a large central marine lagoon. It’s approximately 4.7 miles long by 1.6 miles wide and has gained international notoriety as the “most probable” landing place of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. No real evidence has ever been presented to support this false idea, because neither Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan nor the Electra 10E that they flew during their last flight were ever anywhere near it, but crash-landed at Mili Atoll at about noon, July 2, 1937, as established by eyewitnesses and other undeniable circumstantial evidence.
In light of Ballard’s forthcoming search, it might be an appropriate time to re-introduce readers, old and new, to the basic truth about the Earhart disappearance, by way of the Earhart Disappearance Position Statement I first presented in last year’s post commemorating Amelia’s final flight, “July 2, 2018: 81 years of lies in the Earhart case.” I’ve extracted and slightly edited the most germane paragraphs; to see the entire statement, just click on the blue link.
The very idea that the disappearance of Amelia Earhart is a “great aviation mystery” is among the most despicable of all the prevailing myths of mainstream American history. So effective have the U.S. government and its media allies been in creating, maintaining and protecting this straw man as the unquestioned narrative, that it has become a piece of our cultural furniture, a triumph of propaganda that would make even Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels proud.
Because of its universal acceptance by the gullible, incurious masses, the false phraseology “Earhart mystery” defines and dominates all public dialogue about the Earhart case, while the fact of Amelia’s wretched and unnecessary demise at the hands of the prewar Japanese on Saipan is ignored or labeled “conspiracy theory,” advanced only by and for the fringe conspiracy lunatics of society. Among our media – even our so-called conservative media – no story is as hated and demonized as the truth about Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s deaths at the hands of the Japanese on Saipan.
But in the deepest bowels of the U.S. government security apparatus, some are well aware of the fliers’ true fate, and they oversee and protect the physical evidence that would reveal the truth, known only to these scant few custodians of this precious evidence. I explain all this in my book and in my blog, and won’t go on at length here.
Discerning individuals who examine the popular Earhart “theories” soon find not a scintilla of evidence for either crashed-and-sank or Nikumaroro that doesn’t break down under the slightest scrutiny. Not a single artifact in a dozen trips since 1989 that’s been scrounged up from the Nikumaroro garbage dumps has been forensically linked to Amelia Earhart or Fred Noonan, despite the constant drumbeat of our corrupt media establishment telling us to buy this snake oil. Many of the ignorant and gullible have indeed bought it, much to their chagrin as they realize the Nikumaroro bill of goods is rotten at its core.
In fact, no real “theories” exist in the Earhart disappearance, as the word is properly defined. We have the truth — supported by several dozens of eyewitnesses, witnesses, documents, letters and other evidence — that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan crash-landed in the Marshalls, were picked up and taken to Saipan by the Japanese, and died there at some unknown date before the American invasion in June 1944, likely as many as six years before the Battle of Saipan. Several small details remain unknown, most importantly the how and why behind the Electra’s Mili Atoll landing — but the big picture is lying in plain sight, as clear as the nose on Fred Noonan’s face, obvious to all but the blind and the agenda driven.
And we have enormous, transparent lies. First came the original crashed-and-sank myth born in 1937 with the Navy-Coast Guard’s search findings — briefly logical until quickly overcome by the facts — which finally became so ludicrous and unacceptable by the late 1980s that a new deception to distract the sheeple was necessary. Thus was born the current Nikumaroro virus, which continues to be the media’s default position, infecting virtually everything Earhart. Even most of the brain-dead are no longer fooled, but that doesn’t stop our media from continually trying to force this lie down our collective throats.
Just as they are doing now, courtesy of National Geographic and Bob Ballard. We’ll know soon enough if these miscreants are up to more than the usual high-tech dog-and-pony show, with much sound and fury going in and nothing at all coming out, empty as usual. I do hope that’s all it is, but we have a new player in this game, and we don’t know yet what he’s got up his sleeve. You’re welcome to check in here whenever the spirit moves you; I’ll do my best to keep you informed and up to date — and will never lie to you.
For Amelia Earhart, it’s Happy Birthday No. 122!
It’s late July again, when thousands of the uninformed flock to Atchison, Kansas for the annual Amelia Earhart Festival, where the “Great Aviation Mystery” is renewed and celebrated. The only questions the sheeple ask are whether Amelia’s Electra 10E crashed and sank off Howland Island or landed on Nikumaroro, where she starved to death, along with navigator Fred Noonan, on an atoll teeming with natural food and water sources.
I sometimes imagine that some of the benighted at these Atchison shindigs actually hope that, just maybe, she’s still flying around out there in the timeless ether, searching endlessly for a way back to 1937 America — an eternal, romantic enigma without solution. That may be an exaggeration, but it’s no stretch to say that wherever PC and groupthink predominate, as in Atchison, the hated truth is assiduously avoided, and can be found only in the darkest corners, where vile conspiracy theorists speak in hushed tones about the despised “Japanese Capture Theory” that so intimidates all but the boldest Earhart truth seekers.
Once again we’ve reached another Earhart birthday, this one Amelia’s 122nd. It’s hard to say how long America’s First Lady of Flight might have lived had her remarkable life not been so cruelly stolen from her by a wretched combination of circumstances that have yet to be fully understood, but I can’t imagine Amelia would still be with us at 122, though she would have given it her best shot, you can be sure.
Amelia came from hardy genes indeed, if her mother and sister were any indications. Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey, of West Medford, Massachusetts, two-and-a-half-years younger than Amelia, died in her sleep on March 2, 1998 at the age of 98. Amy Otis Earhart, Amelia’s mother, was born in 1869 and died in 1962 at 93.
As is usually the case when Amelia’s birthday rolls around, the only Earhart-related news in America is about plans for more TV productions, more deceitful documentaries and specials by the true conspiracy theorists, who have only one goal in mind, besides ratings and dollars, of course, and that is to keep the same kind of gullible people who yearly flock to Atchison clueless about the truth. I will spare you the boring and meaningless details, which will be known and forgotten soon enough.
Amelia at 10. Even as a child, she had the look of someone destined for greatness, or is it just my imagination? In this photo, she seems to be gazing at events far away in time and space. But could she ever have imagined the wretched accident of fate that ended her life on earth? Who can fathom it?
Amelia Mary Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897 to Amy Otis and Edwin Stanton Earhart. Edwin, an itinerant lawyer and faithful husband, was also “a drunkard,” according to biographer Mary Lovell (The Sound of Wings, 1989), but Amelia’s childhood was nonetheless nearly idyllic.
Alfred Otis, Amy’s father, was a wealthy judge, and it was hard on the banks of the Missouri River in the home of Judge Otis and her grandmother, Amelia Josephine Harres, that Amelia came into the world.
Growing up in nearby Kansas City, Kansas, Amelia’s adventurous persona manifested early. Amelia (“Meelie”), and Muriel, or “Pidge” were close, “lived in reasonable comfort, unaware of any financial constraints” and were secure and happy despite occasional problems resulting from their father’s uneven professional life.
As we see in the early pages of another fine biography, Amelia, My Courageous Sister (1987), by Muriel Earhart Morrissey and Carol L. Osborne, Amelia was a consummate tomboy. At 7 she rode an elephant at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and was fascinated by the small cars that sped around an aerial track, though her mother said it was too dangerous for little girls to ride them. Soon after the family returned home, Amelia enlisted her uncle Carl Otis to help her, Muriel and the boy next door build a makeshift roller coaster in their back yard, with its starting point at the top of the tool shed, eight-feet high.
When all the sawing and nailing of boards and tracks was complete, Amelia stuffed herself into a wooden crate for the first ride. “As it careened down the track,” Muriel recalled, “we heard the sound of splintering wood. The car and Amelia departed the track when the car hit the trestle. Both tumbled onto the ground. Amelia jumped up, her eyes alight, ignoring a torn dress and bruised lip. ‘Oh, Pidge’ she exclaimed, ‘it’s just like flying!’ ”
Amelia wasn’t moved when she saw her first airplane at the 1907 Iowa State Fair, in Des Moines, recalling it as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and looked not at all interesting.” At 9, Edwin presented her with a .22 rifle “so she could clear the barn of rats,” much to the consternation of her well-to-do grandparents. “Don’t worry, Mother Otis,” Edwin told her grandmother. “This is really a very small rifle.” Describing their beloved father many years later, Muriel called him “loving, generous, impractical.”
For more on Amelia’s happy youth and the events that to her fateful meeting with Neta Snook, her first flight instructor, please see Chapter I, “Birth of a Legend,” pages 5-19 in Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last.
Back to the present, and a final observation. I find it greatly ironic that for the past two years the only significant news in the Earhart case has come from Saipan, where Amelia and Fred Noonan suffered and died so ignominiously. Here, as well, is our last living link to Amelia, 86-year-old Marie S. Castro, president of the Amelia Earhart Memorial Monument Committee, who daily wages a losing battle in her campaign to erect a memorial monument to the doomed fliers. If not for this blog and the two Saipan newspapers, not a soul in the United States would know about Marie and her quest to properly honor and commemorate the hapless duo at the site of their murders. For this sorry state of affairs we can thank our corrupt media, of course, which continues to dutifully cover up the truth in the Earhart saga, like the mindless, heartless little soldiers they are.
The uninformed, incurious and ultra-propagandized Saipan populace is either strongly against the Earhart Memorial Monument (see top right of this page for the architect’s model) or hopelessly indifferent. The former faction includes most of Saipan’s politicians, who can also be relied upon to bend to the popular wind, currently blowing stiffly in the wrong direction. Marie often finds herself surrounded by smiling faces who assure her of their support, but those who sincerely care are far too few, and as things look now and for the foreseeable future, it will require divine intervention before we ever see the Earhart Memorial Monument on Saipan. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, and will gladly admit it if the sentiment on Saipan ever turns in Amelia’s favor.
I’ve written plenty about Marie Castro’s work and will continue to do so. Although the Marianas Variety and Saipan Tribune have supported the AEMMI movement to varying degrees, fundraising from the United States has been very disappointing, and from Saipan it’s been far worse. Please see the Media Page of this blog for links to the newspaper stories; and for a complete list of all the posts I’ve done here since the institution of the AEMMI, please click here.
In any event, Happy Birthday, Amelia!
“Calvin Pitts Rips Dimity’s analysis” conclusion
Today we begin where we left off — with the confusing concept (to most non-aviation types anyway, including your editor) of the “azimuth” and its application to the last flight of Amelia Earhart. Let’s take another look at the azimuth, as explained by our resident aviation expert, Calvin Pitts.
Calvin Pitts: It is easy to see why the non-navigator would find this Wikipedia drawing confusing. TRY THIS: Replace the N with E (for East). Go to the back of the picture 90 degrees on the horizontal plane beneath the word “Zenith,” and place the N.orth on the same plane as E.ast.
The Electra is flying East toward the rising sun. The direction from the “Observer” toward the E.ast, is 90 degrees from the N.orth on the horizontal plane.
On July 2, 1937, the crest of the sun broke above the eastern horizon at 6:15 Howland time. The Observer would be looking 23 degrees to his left when he first spots the sun at 67 degrees (90 – 23 = 67). That difference of 67 degrees from North (000 or 360) is called the “azimuth” on the horizon.
That azimuth, 67 degrees on the horizontal plane, is used to calculate a “sun line” overhead for navigational purposes. In this case, that imaginary “line” is perpendicular, or 90 degrees to the horizontal azimuth (90 + 67 = 157 or 157 + 180 = 337) (157/337 degrees) to an altitude overhead, and is called a “Line of Position (LOP).” That position defines the line on which the plane is flying, but it provides no “point” on that line. What it does is to define “directional” information, i.e. the plane is either flying NW or SE.
As the sun rises, it is moving toward the North on the horizontal plane. After 1+02 hours on that morning, it’s “azimuth” was now 66 degrees to the horizontal plane. There at that point, since there is no longer an azimuth of 67 degrees, correspondingly, there was no longer a 157/337 line of position. Since the azimuth changes, so does the LOP. It is now only an imaginary line. If the pilot chooses to fly a “heading” of 337 or 157 degrees, that’s fine. But to call it a “line of position” is a misnomer.
Hence, Earhart’s call at 8:43 a.m., 1.5 hrs after the 67 azimuth disappeared, referencing a “line of 157/337” confuses the ears which hear it. Did she mean a “line of position,” which no longer existed, or did she mean a “heading on an imaginary line running NW and SE”? No one can answer that question.
Unfortunately, the position she gave had no meaning for those on the cutter or elsewhere, because it failed to give the all-important reference point for computing her bearing. What the figures meant, and why they were incomplete, can only be guessed.”
(And there are some reasonable guesses available.)
An important point that should be noted is that the plane (sic) direction finder evidently was not working as well as it should for she could not cut in on the agreed frequencies.
“Agreed frequencies” was precisely the problem. There was no agreement, nor understanding of what those frequencies were meant to be. Earhart believed that she had made it clear through Richard Black and husband George Putnam, but somehow, somebody dropped the ball. Frequency incompatibility was the major problem on this leg of the flight.
Another fact that is perhaps of significance is that when Miss Earhart reported half-hour fuel — the Itasca estimated that she should have about four hours’ fuel supply.
Itasca had it right in that she had four to five hours of “contingency fuel” remaining.
It is probable that she barely had gas enough to reach Howland, although she thought she was there at 11:20 a.m. (wrong time) when she circled (wrong assumption) trying to pick up land.
This was the official flight plan, 2,556 statute miles from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island. The 337-157 line of position, or sun line, passed through the Phoenix Islands, near Gardner Island, now known as Nikumaroro, and the popular theory, though completely false, is in part attributable to this phenomena. (Taken from Earhart’s Flight Into Yesterday: The Facts Without the Fiction.)
Calvin: After studying, not just reading this book, Earhart’s Flight Into Yesterday: The Facts Without the Fiction, I am of the opinion it should be renamed with a subtitle: “The Facts are exceeded only by the Fiction.” It is literally filled with non-facts, a statement which can be substantiated by evidence. Other than its fiction, its facts are interesting and well-written. But by the time you wade through its fiction, you begin to wonder about its facts.
Conclusive proof then exists that the Earhart plane landed safely, or at least that its occupants and its radio apparatus were unharmed, somewhere on land in the South Pacific. If on an island, where and why were they not found?
There is proof that the Electra contacted the coral-covered ground without death to the crew. There is reasonable cause to believe that they made one or more radio calls while the battery still lasted. But more importantly, there is “conclusive proof” that we have known the why and the where for longer than the public has been led to believe.
There are two schools of thought about the disappearance of the Earhart plane. Each cannot be right.
Indeed, they are not. No greater misrepresentation could be made. There may be only two “elementary-schools” of thought, but there are “university-schools” where thought is generated by factual evidence which is substantial for anyone who has been awakened to the biased agenda of the Establishment, which, more often than not, is the Government’s answer to undesirable truth.
One is that the plane was lost at sea. The other is represented by this memorandum.
As to the first, is it not perfectly natural that even those closest and among the most dear to the missing flyers, with the evidence of the Navy search of the sea close to Howland Island, would prefer to think that the flight had come to an end — to avoid the lifelong torture of a question in their minds? (Creating facts to avoid a painful reality? Is that the way history is recorded?) The facts (sic) as related have been to intrude such a question. No comfort, then, could come from, and the mind would seek to shut them out, in favor of the peace that comes from resignation (also known as self-deception).
A close-up look at the Howland Island camp, taken Jan. 23, 1937, that Amelia Earhart never enjoyed. (National Archives.)
In an effort to reconstruct what might have happened, let us review the possibilities. We know that the Earhart plane was lost. (To whom? A non-fact.) The navigation had gone wrong. It is likely, even, that it was hundreds of miles (Not likely. A non-fact.) from the sea area near Howland which the Navy searched, and from the Gilbert group.
With little gas left (Proof? A non-fact.) and after circling (a non-fact) the area beneath them, what would experienced fliers do? No doubt they had passed many islands on the course behind them. Any pilot, under the circumstances, probably would have gone back to one of them and landed, relying on their radio and on searching parties for rescue.
Not if she had a minor mission-agenda which precluded that. This “buried” fact is the subject of a possible later posting, “My Earhart Scenario.”
THAT RESCUE NEVER CAME BECAUSE NO ADEQUATE SEARCH HAS EVER BEEN MADE.
Compiled from notes and copied in August 1939. Recopied from original February 2, 1948. (End of E.H. Dimity’s “Grounds for Earhart Search.”)
Editor’s close to Part II: The study of the alleged Earhart post-loss messages is one fraught with endless speculation and individual interpretation, even by the real radio experts who have written and pronounced publicly on the topic. I have no expertise in this area, and so have no problem presenting others’ work as clearly and objectively as I can. The statements and opinions are those of E.H. Dimity, presented for your consideration, education and entertainment, and are not necessarily shared by the editor.
Calvin Pitts: The “post-loss messages” are an unnecessary cloud over an already-difficult story, which is challenging and exciting on its own merit without a venture into hoax-land. It is possible that one or two of those messages were valid, but to give them credibility-without-proof is to weaken the greater truth which can, and should be allowed to stand on its own legs. Distraction is precisely the thing that feeds the Government’s Establishment gorilla. Other than this, it was a privilege to read what someone had to say in 1939.
P.S. There is a CAVEAT here: This critique addresses the misstatements relating to the official Itasca crew logs of AE’s Lea-Howland flight. The log used here is presented as “official.” However, suppose a scenario like this: A crewman made a personal copy in the interest of preserving history. Reading it, he notices an omission which should have been included. Knowing that the weather was “Overcast” for an extended period, he adds this missing word for the sake of clarity. His motive is good, but he has just corrupted the official record. He should have noted this on his copy, but he did not. His well-intended corrupt copy now gets copied and passed on.
Paul Briand Jr., circa 1959, whose 1960 book, Daughter of the Sky, presented the eyewitness account of Josephine Blanco Akiyama and initiated the modern-day search for Amelia Earhart.
We can’t say such a thing did not happen. But to our knowledge, there is no evidence that it did. Thus, our comments are based upon this copy of the log that was used. Additionally, there were other intercepts of Earhart’s transmissions that were heard by stations like Nauru which were not heard by the Itasca. Any additional sources such as this must be added to the story, properly identified. There were weather reports, correspondence, personal conversations, and after-the-fact interviews of various “players.” While they cannot be part of the Itasca records, they are additional and sometimes useful material. (End of “Calvin Pitts weighs in.”)
“There had to have been a copy [of the logs available] before this because Dimity makes too many references to its times,” Calvin wrote in an email. “What did he use in 1939?”
“Was he writing from Hawaii using that time zone?” Calvin continued. “Some of his information is 3.5 hours off, some four hours, some 1.5 hours out of sync with other known events, and at least one time was accurate. The 3.5 hour discrepancy could be answered, perhaps by looking at the time differences between Howland and Hawaii. And then, at 7:42 a.m., he strangely gets the time accurate. The inconsistencies in the errors are bizarre. Even Paul Briand in 1960 made many references to the logs, with times and recorded events.
“These question aside, Dimity’s ‘all-over-the-map’ times need to be red-flagged. Where was he living in 1939 when he wrote this? And what were his sources? What was his professional career? Another interesting page in the Earhart Saga.”
Editor’s final close: First, I want express my deep thanks and appreciation to Calvin Pitts for his passion and selfless efforts, and for another significant contribution to the Earhart record. We are truly blessed to have him as a friend.
At the end of the day, it does appear that Dimity did not have the official logs of the Itasca to reference in his treatise, nor did Paul Briand Jr. in 1960. But when were they released? I can’t find any record of the Itasca flight logs’ public release except references to Leo Bellarts’ sons, Leo Jr. and Dave, turning over the three pages of his father’s original Earhart flight log in 1975. In a Sept. 1, 2008 article titled, “KHAQQ CALLING ITASCA . . . “ in Wings over Kansas, we find:
Chief Bellarts kept the first three pages of the Earhart Flight Log plus other messages and pertinent information under lock and key. Upon arriving at his homeport (San Diego, Calif.) Chief Bellarts removed these documents thinking that there would be some type of investigation by higher authority and he would be called to testify. But this never happened. Thus, these papers, including the three pages of the original Earhart Flight Log, remained in his possession until his death in 1974. His two sons, Leo Jr. and David Bellarts donated these papers and other items concerning Amelia Earhart in 1975 to the National Archives in Washington D.C.
To read the entire story, please click here.
Since Dimity never mentioned his sources for his numerous citations of the log entrees, and it seems he could not have had the official logs, he probably relied on many news reports and other sources from the original search in July 1937, which naturally would have been inaccurate and “all over the map,” as Calvin says. If anyone out there can shed some light on this little mystery — i.e. when were the official logs released, if not 1975? — please let us know.
Calvin Pitts rips Dimity’s Earhart flight analysis
With the recent publication of E.H. “Elmer” Dimity’s 1939 analysis of Amelia Earhart’s last flight, I’ve been gently reminded that, as an editor, I could have done a far better job of reviewing Dimity’s article. I’ve never been particularly drawn to the Itasca flight logs and have never claimed any expertise about them, as for me, they provide more confusion than clarity. But I can still proofread and compare times and statements attributed to them.
This I failed to do, in large part because I assumed that Bill Prymak, the editor of the Amelia Earhart Society Newsletters, had done this already, before presenting Dimity’s work, or that Prymak would have made some kind of a disclaimer to accompany it. He did neither, and my own disclaimer following Part II, in light of Calvin Pitts’ stunning findings, should have been far more emphatic. I broke a journalism rule — never assume anything — that I’ve always done my best to obey, until now.
Regular readers of this blog are familiar with Calvin, best known for his 1981 world flight, when he and two co-pilots commemorated the 50th Anniversary of the Wiley Post-Harold Gatty World Flight in 1931. The 1981 flight was sponsored in part by the Oklahoma Air & Space Museum to honor the Oklahoma aviator Post. Calvin has already graced us with his impressive five-part analysis of Amelia Earhart’s last flight. To review this extremely erudite work, please click here for Part I, from Aug. 18, 2018.
Calvin Pitts in 1981, with The Spirit of Winnie Mae and the thermos Amelia Earhart carried with her on her solo Atlantic Crossing in 1932. The thermos was on loan from Jimmie Mattern, Wiley Post’s competitor who flew The Century of Progress Vega in an attempt to beat Wiley in the 1933 solo round-the-world race, but Mattern crashed in Siberia. Calvin brought Amelia’s thermos along with him on his own successful world flight in 1981.
Our focus today is a striking example of a difficult exercise in attention to detail, and an object lesson in the old axiom, “Never assume anything.” We appreciate Calvin taking the time to set the record straight. With his learned disputation below, in addition to his previous contributions, Calvin has established himself as the reigning expert on the Itasca-Earhart flight logs, if not her entire final flight, at least in my opinion. Without further ado, I’ll turn it over to Calvin, who has many important things to tell us:
First, I want to thank Mike Campbell for his passion and dedication to The Amelia Story. SHE — and history — have had no better friend.
I also appreciate Mike’s ability to dig up “forgotten” history. As a lover of history’s great moments, I am always fascinated by the experiences of others. Also, as one who has made a 1981 RTW flight in a single-engine plane, passing over some of AE’s ’37 flight paths from — India – Singapore – Indonesia – Australia – New Guinea – Solomon Islands, Tarawa and within a few miles of Howland — I was drawn to this story, and to this blog’s record of it.
Recently, I was fascinated by the publishing of Dimity’s 1937-1939 insights into the details of AE’s flight. However, upon reading it, I spotted some errors. Ironically, I was at that very time re-studying the Itasca Logs as I re-lived some of the details and emotions of the most famous leg of any flight. I had the Itasca details in front of me as I read.
Because it is easy to unconsciously rewrite and revise the historical record, I felt an unwelcomed desire to share some errors which were in Dimity’s interesting account. I shared my thoughts privately with Mike, and he, in turn, asked me to make them public. I’ve had a long aviation career, and have no desire to add to it. At 85, I’m retired in a log house on a small river with more nature-sights than anyone could deserve. I’ve no yearning for controversy. But Mike asked, so here are some observations. If you spot errors in my response, please make them known. Only one set of words are sacred, but these at hand do not qualify.
Calvin Pitts’ analysis of:
“Grounds for a Possible Search for Amelia Earhart” (First of two parts)
by E.H. “Elmer” Dimity, August 1939
(Editor’s note: To make it easier to understand and track the narrative, Dimity’s words will be in red, Calvin Pitts’ in black, with boldface emphasis mine throughout.)
At 3:15 [a.m.] in the morning after her takeoff Miss Earhart broadcast “cloudy weather,” and again, an hour later, she told the Itasca that it was “overcast,” and asked the cutter to signal her on the hour and half hour.
I am sitting here reading Dimity’s Part II of the “Grounds for Earhart’s Search” with a copy of the Itasca LOGS on the screen in front of me. My challenges to Dimity’s reproduction of the Itasca Earhart flight logs are based, not upon prejudice, but upon the actual records compiled and copied from those 1937 Logs.
At 3:15 a.m. Howland time, times recorded by the crew of the Itasca, there is no such record of “cloudy weather.”
Copy of an original page from Chief Radioman Leo Bellarts of the Itasca showing the entry of the now-famous 2013z / 8:43 am call, “We are on the line 157-337, will repeat message . . .”
From position 2/Page 2: At 3:15 am, Chief Radioman Leo Bellarts records: “3:15-3:18, Nothing heard from Earhart.”
Position 1/Page 1: At 3:14 am, Thomas J. O’Hare, Radioman 3rd class records: “Tuned to 3105 for Earhart,” with no additional comment. Seven minutes later at 3:21 am, he records: “Earhart not heard.”
Position 2/Page 2: However, at 3:45 a.m., not 4:15 a.m., Bellarts records: “Earhart heard on the phone: WILL LISTEN ON THE HOUR AND HALF ON 3105.”
Position 1/Page 1: At the same time, 3:45 a.m., O’Hare records: “Heard Earhart plane on 3105.” That was it. No reference to “overcast,” and no request for a signal.
However, in his book, Earhart’s Flight Into Yesterday (2003), Laurance Safford copies Bellarts’ statement, except that he adds the word “Overcast.” The word “overcast” is not in the Itasca log at that time.
Position 2/page 2: According to the log’s record, it was not until 4:53 a.m., more than 1.5 hours later, that the phrase “PARTLY CLOUDY” appears.
Earlier, at 2:45 a.m., Safford quotes a statement by author Don Dwiggins about 30 years later: “Heard Earhart plane on 3105, but unreadable through static . . . however, Bellarts caught “Cloudy and Overcast.”
Yet, Bellarts, who was guarding Position 2/Page 2 made no such statement on his report. The statement, “unreadable through static” was recorded by Bellarts at 2:45, but that was it.
Bellarts was also the one who recorded, an hour later at 3:45: “Will listen on the hour and the half on 3105.” These issues are very minor to most readers. But to those at the time, where minutes count for survival, the devil was in the details.
Also, there is the historical and professional matter of credibility. If one is not accurate, within reasonable expectations, of quoting their sources correctly, then the loss of credibility results in the loss of confidence by their readers.
More than an hour later, at 4:42 a.m., the Earhart plane indicated for the first time that it might be off course, and made its first futile plea for aid in learning its position. The plane asked, “Want beatings (sic) on 3105 KC on the hour. Will whistle into the microphone.”
At 4:42 a.m., which is a very precise time, there is nothing recorded at any station. But we can bracket an answer. Bellarts records the following at 4:30 a.m.: “Broadcast weather by Morse code.” His next entry, at 4:42 a.m., is an empty line.
At 4:53 a.m., Bellarts states, “Heard Earhart [say] ‘Partly Cloudy.‘ ”
Also, Position 1/Page 2 of this record states: “4:40 a.m. – Do you hear Earhart on 3105? . . . Yes, but can’t make her out.” Five minutes later at 4:45 a.m. (with no 4:42 notation at this position): “Tuned to Earhart, Hearing nothing.” There is no recorded statement here from her about being off-course or whistling.
Half an hour passed (5:12 a.m.), and Miss Earhart again said, “Please take a beating on us and report in half hour will make noise into the microphone. About 100 miles out.” Miss Earhart apparently thought she was 100 miles from Howland Island.
5:12 a.m.? At neither position is there a posting at 5:12. At 5:15, one says, “Earhart not heard.” And the other, at 5:13 says, “Tuned to 3105 for Earhart signals. Nothing yet.”
Radio room of USCG Cutter Tahoe, sister ship to Itasca, circa 1937. Three radio logs were maintained during the flight, at positions 1 and 2 in the Itasca radio room, and one on Howland Island, where the Navy’s high-frequency direction finder had been set up. Aboard Itasca, Chief Radioman Leo G. Bellarts supervised Gilbert E. Thompson, Thomas J. O’Hare and William L. Galten, all third-class radiomen, (meaning they were qualified and “rated” to perform their jobs). Many years later, Galten told Paul Rafford Jr., a former Pan Am Radio flight officer, “That woman never intended to land on Howland Island!”
The above “about 100 miles out” message was sent at 6:45 am, about 1.5 hours later.
The Itasca could not give her any bearing, because its direction finder could not work on her wavelength. An hour later, at 7:42 a.m., Miss Earhart said, “We must be on you but cannot see you. Gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.”
Strangely, even amazingly, sandwiched between numerous bogus times, 7:42 am IS correct.
This was a little more than 15 hours after the takeoff.
Would you believe that, more than 19 hours after takeoff, this call was made? Here, there are four unaccounted-for hours in Dimity’s record-keeping.
The ship carried 1,150 gallons (sic) of gas, enough for about 17 hours in the air under normal conditions.*
Would you believe “more than 24 hours” of flight time, a seven-plus hour discrepancy?
* AES calculates 24-25 hours. — (Whoever AES is, this is more realistic and accurate.) Editor’s note: AES is The Amelia Earhart Society, almost certainly Bill Prymak’s estimate.
Perhaps the plane had encountered heavier weather earlier, or in just bucking the headbands had used more gas than anticipated. At any rate, Miss Earhart must have flown about 1,300 miles from the point of her first known position, when she first said her gas was running low.
An interesting question: When was her first known position? And measured by what evidence? 1,300 statute miles from the transmission at 7:42 a.m./1912 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT and z, for Zulu, are the same) would put her about halfway between Nukumanu Atoll and Nauru. If Nukumanu was her first or last known position at 5:18 p.m. Lae/0718 GMT/ 7:48 p.m. (Howland, the previous day), then that is roughly 1,600 statute miles, not 1,300.
This distance, with perfect navigation, should have taken her to Howland Island, and that without doubt is the reason she said, “We must be on you.” If the plane had hit its mark, why could she not see the island or the Itasca (Having such a flight under my belt, I could offer several reasons) with a clear sky and unlimited visibility? Even a smoke screen laid down by the cutter to help guide her evidently escaped her view. It is impossible that she was where she thought she was — near Howland.
Although Miss Earhart reported at 11:13 a.m. that she had fuel left for another half hour in the air, the contact was poor and no landfall position was heard.
At 11:13 a.m., the Navy ships and Itasca had been searching the ocean for some two hours or more. The “last known” message from Earhart was at 8:43 a.m./2013z when she said, “We are on the line 157/337.” The message “fuel for another half hour” was made at 7:40 a.m./1910z, some 3.5 hours before Dimity’s “11:13 a.m.” time.
This particular time discrepancy possibly could be corrected by adjusting it to a new time zone in Hawaii, but that would destroy the other record-keeping. At no place in this Itasca log saga were they talking in terms of U.S.A. times. The Itasca crews were recording Howland local time. If someone has proof otherwise, it should be provided, and it will alter the story.
Fifteen minutes later (11:28 a.m.) she said, “We are circling, but cannot see island. Cannot hear you,” and asked for aid in getting her bearings. This plea she repeated five minutes later (11:33 a.m.).
This “circling” reference was made at 7:58 a.m., some 3.5 hours earlier. However, something which is often missed is the fact that the word “CIRCLING” is in doubt even within the footnotes of this log itself. It is listed as “an unknown item.” It was a word they did not hear clearly. It could have been, “We are listening.” No one knows.
It will be recalled that at 11:12 a.m., Miss Earhart said she had only a half-hour’s fuel left, but an hour later, at 12:13 p.m., she called the Itasca to report, “We are in line of position 157 dash 337. Will repeat this message on 6210 KC. We are running north and south.”
This “line 157/337” radio call, NOT a “line of position” call, was made, as already stated, at “8:43 a.m./2013z” and NOT at “12:13.” Somehow Dimity has a discrepancy here of some 3.5 hours from the Itasca logs.
The “157/337 line of position” is not only NOT what she said, but it is inaccurate for any researcher who understands basic navigation. The LOP of 157/337 existed only as long as the sun’s azimuth remained 67 degrees.
As the sun rose above the horizon, its azimuth changed 1+02 hours after sunrise (6:15 a.m. Howland time on July 2, 1937.) That meant that at 7:17 am, there was no longer a 67 degree azimuth by which to determine a “157/337” line of position (LOP). It simply no longer existed. It lasted only an hour-plus. After that, she could only fly a heading of 157 or 337 degrees.
(Editor’s Note: As a non-aviation type, I’m lost when Calvin starts using terms such as azimuth. For others like myself and for what it’s worth, Wikipedia (image above) defines azimuth as an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. The vector from an observer (origin) to a point of interest is projected perpendicularly onto a reference plane; the angle between the projected vector and a reference vector on the reference plane is called the azimuth. Calvin will provide clarity in Part II.
(End Part I)
Lone U.S. vet at 75th anniversary of Saipan invasion
In a recent email, Marie Castro informed me that the 75th anniversary ceremonies for the Battle of Saipan, which liberated the native Chamorros from decades of Japanese oppression, would be attended by a single American veteran of the Saipan invasion. (Boldface emphasis mine throughout.)
In a July 4 story in Saipan’s Marianas Variety, Junhan B. Todiño wrote that “Saipan David M. Mayor Apatang announced that as part of the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Battles of Saipan and Tinian, the Liberation Day Committee named Burke Waldron, a 95-year-old World War II veteran, as the honorary grand marshal.” On July 5, in Todiño’s follow-up story, “A great turnout and an emotional presentation,” Todiño wrote:
Another highlight of this year’s celebration was the presence of Burke Waldron, a 95-year-old World War II veteran who was selected as the honorary grand marshal. He served in the Naval Ground Force of the Pacific and was part of the invasions of Makin Islands in Kiribati and Saipan. He retired in 1946 as a petty officer, second class.
A few months earlier, on April 24, Marianas Variety writer Lori Lyn C. Lirio announced Waldron’s plans to attend the 75th anniversary festivities and offered readers a bit more about Waldron’s personal history:
Burke Waldron, a World War II veteran who will be 95 in May, will participate in the island’s annual Liberation Day celebration [July 4].
Waldron served in the Naval Ground Force of the Pacific and was part of the invasions of Makin islands in Kiribati and Saipan. He retired in 1946 as a petty officer, 2nd class. . . . Waldron said his unit’s job on Saipan “was to handle visual communications from the Island Commander to ships standing by for instructions for the troops’ needs of various supports such as personnel, armament, fuel, equipment etc.”
Burke Waldron, in 1945 and 2017, a Navy petty officer who, in 2019, was the only American veteran of the Battle of Saipan to return to the scene of the great U.S. victory that launched our victory over Japan in the Pacific War.
He said they “used flashing light (Morse code) and semaphore method to transmit encoded messages. At first we had temporary facilities but soon the Navy Seabees rebuilt the light house . . . for our base of operation. We served in this capacity till the end of 1945 when I was shipped stateside and honorably discharged.”
He added, “Over the years I have said to myself ‘it would be a great experience to return to Saipan and maybe meet some of the survivors or their descendants.’ By means of this GoFundMe Campaign I may be able to do just that for otherwise it would not be possible. . . . I would be most grateful for your help to reach the goal of my new campaign for my trip back to Saipan after 74 years.”
To read the complete story, see “WWII veteran to join Liberation Day celebration.”
“I met Mr. Waldron at our meeting the other day at the Mayor’s office,“ Marie wrote in a July 3 email. “I just mentioned that it was an honor to meet him. I was 11 years old hiding in the cave when the Americans were bombing into the Island. Thanks, America for liberating us in 1944.”
Upon seeing Marie Castro’s email, I immediately recalled my friend Jim Golden, who in 2009 at age 83 was one of just five veterans who attended ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the invasion of Saipan. In my March 2, 2015 post, “Jim Golden’s legacy of honor in the Earhart saga,” I wrote:
In mid-June 2009, Golden was, incredibly, one of only five American veterans of the Battle of Saipan who returned to the island for ceremonies commemorating its 65th anniversary — events completely overlooked by an American media focused solely on the June 6 D-Day observances in Normandy, France.
At a campfire held for the ex-servicemen on June 18, Golden and the others shared their Saipan memories with local officials, historians, and students. Golden, who didn’t bother to keep any record of the attendees’ names, challenged the skeptics’ claims that no documentation exists to support Earhart’s prewar presence on Saipan, citing Goerner’s work, the native eyewitnesses on Saipan and the Marshalls, and his own experience with Marine Intelligence on Kwajalein in early 1944. His moving speech brought a standing ovation from most in attendance. I found it so very moving and appropriate that, more than anyone, Golden was the face and voice of the forgotten Saipan veteran 65 years after the key U.S. victory of the Pacific war.
To read much more about this great American, who was once the head of security for Howard Hughes, a secret service agent assigned to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, headed the detail assigned to Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and worked closely with Fred Goerner in search of the top-secret Earhart files, among other distinctions, please click here.
Jim Golden, Washington, D.C., circa 1975. As a highly placed U.S. Justice Department official, Golden joined Fred Goerner in the newsman’s unsuccessful search for the elusive, top-secret files that would finally break open the Earhart case. During his amazing career, Golden led Vice President Richard M. Nixon’s Secret Service detail and directed the personal security of Howard Hughes in Las Vegas.
To the few who pay attention to such things, the media’s treatment of these monumental World War II events continues to remind us of the wicked and brutally biased politics that influence everything that we see, hear and read daily, and most emphatically attends the media’s mendacious treatment of all World War II events. Every summer, everything is Normandy and D-Day, everywhere you look. Nowhere do you see any mention of Saipan; if you didn’t know better around this time of year, you’d think the Pacific War never happened.
Thus Normandy and D-Day are just about all that most Americans know about World War II, thanks to films like Saving Private Ryan, the many other war movies that preceded it and the endless vilification of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Please don’t misunderstand, I know that Hitler was evil incarnate, and his Nazis demonic, but we don’t need to be reminded of it every minute of every day on our cable TV news and movies. They were all sent to their just rewards long ago.
And not to take anything away from the brave Americans, Canadians, Brits and other Allies who fought and died in the largest amphibious operation in history, but it’s a little-known fact that more Americans died on Saipan during the June 15-July 9, 1944 battle to take the island from the Japanese than died taking the beaches at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944.
Do you doubt it? Here’s Wikipedia’s Battle of Saipan entry: “For the Americans, the victory was the most costly to date in the Pacific War: Out of 71,000 who landed, 2,949 were killed and 10,464 wounded.” Compare that to the Normandy landings, about which Wikipedia tells us, “Allied casualties were documented for at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead. Museums, memorials, and war cemeteries in the area now host many visitors each year” — neglecting to specify the number of American dead.
But the Warfare History Network tells us that the “First U.S. Army, accounting for the first twenty-four hours in Normandy, tabulated 1,465 killed, 1,928 missing, and 6,603 wounded. The after-action report of U.S. VII Corps (ending 1 July) showed 22,119 casualties including 2,811 killed, 5,665 missing, 79 prisoners, and 13,564 wounded, including paratroopers.”
Nowhere in our mainstream “Drive-By” media, as the faux conservative windbag Rush Limbaugh likes to call it, do we ever see or hear any mention of this fact about the bloodbath that was Saipan and all the other tropical island death pits in the Pacific War, which by comparison overwhelmed U.S. European casualties. Limbaugh himself has never dared reveal the truth about Japan’s war crimes, let alone whisper about Amelia Earhart, nor have any of the other well-known talk show hosts who so falsely sell themselves as truth tellers.
Attendant to this phenomenon is the U.S. establishment’s longstanding policy of suppressing the record of Japan’s wartime atrocities, which Australian historian and author Gavan Daws, who spent ten years interviewing hundreds of survivors of Japanese POW camps, capturing their stories in Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific (1994), certainly did not.
Gavan Daws’ 1994 exposé of the countless atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese military before and during World War II is another book that’s been ignored and suppressed by our national media. Its revelations are chilling.
In Prisoners of the Japanese, Daws recited a gruesome litany of torment and death that continues to shock all but the most fanatic of Japan’s remaining wartime apologists. In opening his grim narrative, Daws tried to capture the vast scope of Japan’s savagery against its imprisoned enemies:
They sacrificed prisoners in medical experiments. They watched them die by the tens of thousands from diseases of malnutrition like beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy, and from epidemic tropical diseases: malaria, dysentery, tropical ulcers, cholera. Those who survived could only look ahead to being worked to death. If the war had lasted another year, there would not have been a POW left alive.
The cold statistics reflect the desperate plight of POWs in Japanese captivity. Thirty-four percent of Americans, 33 percent of Australians, and 32 percent of British POWs in the Pacific theater died in Japanese hands, while the Allied death rate in Nazi POW camps was just 4 percent. “The undeniable, incontrovertibly documented record of brutality, disease, and death in the POW camps,” Daws wrote, “plus what happened in the civilian internment camps for white men, women, and children, and the massacres and atrocities perpetrated on native Asian people in occupied territory—all this shows the national tribe of Japan at its worst as a power in the world. That worst was humanly dreadful, a terrible chapter in the world’s twentieth-century book of the dead.”
Following the surrender of Bataan in April 1942, about 70,000 American and Filipino soldiers were force-marched, without food or water, for seventy-five of the one hundred miles from the Bataan Peninsula north to Camp O’Donnell in central Luzon. The infamous Bataan death march was the worst single atrocity against American POWs in history. Starving men were beheaded or bayoneted at such a rate that one dead body was left every fifteen yards for a hundred miles, “every death a Japanese atrocity,” Daws wrote.
For more of the appalling, grisly history that Daws dug up and exposed in Prisoners of the Japanese, you can buy the book, of course, or see the section titled “Japan’s War Crimes,” pages 286-289 in Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last.
How do we account for the media’s aversion to Saipan and the complete panoply of Japanese wartime atrocities, including the Rape of Nanking (December 13, 1937 to January 1938), where yet unknown hundreds of thousands of Chinese men, woman and children were butchered by the Japanese military? Why are these monstrous war crimes always glossed over or forgotten by our “esteemed media gatekeepers”?
One major factor, of course, is the liberal establishment’s collective guilt over the two atom bombs President Harry Truman delivered to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 that saved up to a million Americans — and incalculable Japanese civilian lives that would have been lost in defense of their homeland — and helped put a much quicker and merciful end to the war for all concerned, a guilt that our media amplifies at every turn.
But quite another reason lies at the root of our World War II-Japan problem, an infinitely more subtle, virtually unknown factor, which remains as real and tangible as the countless deaths the Japanese war machine inflicted. Appearing in July 1968 before a Republican subcommittee chaired by Kentucky Governor Louie Broady Nunn, Fred Goerner spelled out the problems in the Earhart case in a brief, four-page presentation he called “Crisis in Credibility—Truth in Government.”
“[W]hen the full truth regarding Earhart and Noonan is known,” Goerner told the lawmakers in his conclusion, “a new view of the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the years before Pearl Harbor will emerge. Should that be classified because cause of ‘national security’? I believe not.” (For more on Goerner’s Miami appeal, see pages 273-276 in Truth at Last.) Goerner’s impassioned plea is another lost chapter in the Earhart saga, suppressed from the moment it happened, never to be acknowledged by the American press.
Thus the protection of FDR’s already shaky legacy — in addition, of course, to protecting our good friends and allies, the Japanese — is still the overweening motivation and raison d’être for everything our deceitful media does and does not do regarding Amelia Earhart — including its policies in dealing with the Pacific War. Make no mistake: The insidious influence of FDR’s abandonment of Earhart and Noonan on Saipan continues to reverberate in our time, like the ripples of a large stone thrown into a tranquil pond. Imagine, for example, the impossibility of rewriting or destroying 82 years of history books.
Marie S. Castro holds a copy of her book, Without a Penny in My Pocket, as she as speaks to Saipan Rotarians in February 2018 about her intimate knowledge of Earhart’s detention and death on Saipan. (Photo by Junghan B. Todino, for Marianas Variety.)
In a July 4 email to me (July 5 on Saipan), Marie Castro recalled an occasion in 2015 when she was moved by the spirit of freedom so exemplified by some of our finest World War II heroes:
Thanks for acknowledging Burke Waldron. I consider those Marines heroes who fought in the invasion of Saipan. Burke Waldron indeed maintains the spirit of valor and courage I believe till he dies.
In 2015, five WWII veterans perhaps for the last time wanted to revisit Saipan, Tinian and Japan. They were invited including myself to join a group of college students from Ozarks, Missouri who were studying WWII in the Pacific. A 92-year-old vet in a wheelchair who was on Tinian and helped with the launching of the atomic bomb was in the group, bless his heart.
When we got to Guam, we heard the news that Typhoon Soudelor [July 29-Aug. 13, hitting Saipan directly on Aug. 2] was heading directly to Saipan. All the flights to Saipan and Tinian were cancelled. You could imagine the disappointment of the group especially for the 92-year-old vet.
That evening, after dinner we sat for an entertainment in the hotel. Feeling so bad about the Typhoon news, I asked the 92 year old, Sir, What is your favorite song. He looked at me saying, “How Great Thou Art.”
I went up to the entertainer and requested the song in honor of the vet. The entertainer asked me to join her sing the song “How Great Thou Art.” I forgot about myself and my shyness, just to console the veteran, so I joined in.
I feel like part of the family of WWII Vets. I was affected so much by the war and considering the sacrifices of those marines, I forget myself to console them.
![This story appeared at the top of page 1 in the July 13, 1937 edition of the Bethlehem (Pennsylvania)-Globe Times. “Vague and unconfirmed rumors that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan have been rescued by a Japanese fishing boat without a radio,” the report began, “and therefore unable to make any report, found no verification here today, but plunged Tokio [sic] into a fever of excitement.” The story was quickly squelched in Japan, and no follow-up was done. (Courtesy Woody Peard.)](https://earharttruth.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/fishing-boat-story-5.png?w=616&resize=616%2C352#038;h=352 "Fishing boat story 5")
Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last 
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