Paul Amaron’s ’97 letter supports Bilimon’s account

On the heels of our March 6 post, “Amaron’s death certificate sparks new questions“ and the issues raised by Bilimon Amaron’s listed birth date in what appeared to be an official Republic of the Marshall Islands document, and to a lesser extent, his date of death, I thought some might be interested in a letter from Bilimon’s brother Paul to Bill Prymak that appeared in the March 1998 edition of the Amelia Earhart Society Newsletters.  Italics and boldface in the letter are in the AES version; otherwise boldface is mine.

“An Encounter to Remember
— with one of the most famous ladies of the world in 1937?”
by Bill Prymak

Bilimon Amaron, who possibly saw and treated Amelia long after the world had given up hope that she was alive, died a little over a year ago.  But his younger brother, Paul Amaron, is a teacher in the Elementary School at Jabor, Jaluit Atoll.  We were fortunate to talk with him on our trip to the Marshall Islands last spring [1997].  He told us the story of his brother’s dressing the wounds of an American lady pilot and man while on board a Japanese ship in the harbor at Jabor in 1937.  He later wrote a letter (in English), and delivered it to us as we were leaving.  He wanted to make sure we had understood it all.  Following are Paul Amaron’s exact words:

Bilimon was half Japanese and half Marshallese. He was given good opportunities.  Since he finished school on Jabot (Japanese Elementary school) the Japanese offered him few jobs but he preferred medical training. In Jaluit at this time there were 3 Japanese doctors on Jabor, and 7 or 8 Naval doctors on Imiej, taking care of the many Army and Air Force personnel on Imiej.  Bilimon helped out a Naval doctor who was stationed at Sydney Town, now the terminal area [at Jabor].  At his place there were many Japanese working on probably the biggest fuel tank in Jaluit.

Bill Prymak and Joe Gervais pause with legendary Earhart eyewitness Bilimon Amaron at Amaron’s Majuro home in 1991.

Current news was known to him for there was nothing hidden back from him.  He was trusted.

One time he told that because of him five people were save.  Anyone found
eating local food were beheaded.

If I remember it right, he said that the ship was a cargo ship, and not a war ship.  I forget who had a false tooth, either the man or the woman.  The woman, according to him, was neat.

Also one of them wanted to give him a ring or something.  I forget exactly how he put it.  He said the lady was calm, but the man seemed excited.

He told me this story a few months before he died, and also said that he misled some of his Marshallese friends or didn’t tell what he saw and knew.

Please find in Saipan who was the first Sanatarian [sic] who was either the Chief Police at that time, or the 2nd highest.  He may be still living.  Probably as old as Bilimon.”

                                      (Signed) Paul Amaron (End of Prymak entry.)

Paul Amaron, a schoolteacher, confirmed his brother’s experience in an interview and written statement. “Bilimon told his brother that the American man was slightly injured, but the woman was neat, calm, with no injuries.  Both were taken to Kwajalein and then to Saipan,” Prymak wrote in the May 1997 AES Newsletter story, “Interviewing the Native Witnesses.”  Just before Bilimon died in 1996, he told his family to “be sure to tell Joe and Bill, and the rest who asked about Amelia that my story is true,” Paul told Prymak.

Robert Reimers, the top businessman in the Marshall Islands in 1991, told Bill Prymak that the Mili Atoll landing of Amelia Earhart in 1937 was common knowledge among his people.  Reimers passed away in 1998.

All who interviewed Amaron, including Fred Goerner, Oliver Knaggs, Vincent V. Loomis, T.C. “Buddy” Brennan, Joe Gervais and Prymak unanimously endorsed his honesty.  “Having personally interviewed [Amaron], I still put the personal stamp of total credibility upon him,” Prymak wrote in 2001.  “Robert Reimers [local business tycoon] told me, ‘You will never find a more honest man’—that, coming from the number ONE man in the Marshalls before and during the war. [Emphasis Prymak’s.]  So what if his testimony varies slightly from interviewer to interviewer?  He never had a written script, he never embellished.  So many times during our interview, after a tough question was asked, he simply stated, ‘I don’t recall,’ and during his last few days on earth, he told his family, ‘Be sure to tell Joe and Bill that it indeed happened.’  That’s as close to hard copy as one can get.”

For much more information on Bilimon Amaron’s account and other witness testimony about Amelia Earhart’s landing at Mili Atoll, please see Chapter VII, “The Marshall Islands Witnesses” in Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last.