Charles Lindburgh and Amelia Earhart
George Palmer Putnam, publisher of Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 book "We", was looking for a female Lindbergh to replicate the success of the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic. In 1928, fascinated by Earhart & her similarity to Lindbergh, Putnam invited her to be a passenger on a transatlantic flight. In Jun 1928, on the 5th anniversary of Lindberg’s Paris journey, she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and back. The two married in Feb 1931, and he became her publicist/backer in the May 1932 flight.
In her 1932 memoir The Fun of It, Earhart wrote flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it was worth the price. Perhaps not, but she actually was a best selling author. Her career got going. She paid for her flying by being a writer and public speaker. Her publicity stunts paid well too; in 1935, she was paid heaps to become the first person to fly from Hawaii to mainland U.S.
Purdue Uni engaged the World’s #1 Airwoman to run a career centre for women, and she inspired many to switch from cooking to engineering and to the aviation industry. But by 39 this role-model for women knew she had only 1 more noteworthy flight in her. For her last project, she began by flying from Oakland to Miami, where she announced she would fly around the world.
She took off 1st June 1937, and en route, reported regularly to the U.S media. After leaving Darwin on 30th June, Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan stopped at Lae New Guinea, before leaving the next day for the longest and most dangerous leg of the flight. But they disappeared in the central Pacific Ocean. somewhere on their way to Howland Island, 4,113 km ms away .
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A search was quickly organised, but where would they look? The Coast Guard cutter Itasca, which had been sent from San Diego to Howland Is, could have taken directional bearings on the Earhart plane, if only it had tuned its signals better. And the Itasca‘s commander might have searched better, if the plane had radioed its position often. But after New Guinea, NO position reports were received.
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Later the Navy told the court that Earhart and Noonan had no petrol left, crashed into the Pacific and drowned. So a court declared her legally dead in Jan 1939. That tragic end was the result of years of searching for Earhart and decades of speculation about what had happened. But while the formal search ended, the citizen search was just beginning. Earhart’s death launched conspiracy theories that continued.
Some blamed Japan, America’s WW2 enemy, even though Pearl Harbour didn’t happen for another 4.5 years. The theory proposed that the pilots had landed on the Marshall Islands, then-Japanese, and were taken prisoners.
Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan
When word that the Earhart plane was lost reached the U.S, husband George Putnam sent a telegram to Pres Roosevelt. In any case the Secretary of the Navy had already ordered the Navy to start searching. The battleship Colorado launched small planes from its deck but they saw nothing relevant. By week’s end, the Colorado’s planes had scanned 100,000+ square miles.
The Itasca went on with its patrol until they ran out of petrol. The minesweeper Swan landed searchers on Canton Is. And the aircraft carrier Lexington, with 62 planes aboard and an escort of 4 destroyers, left San Diego, refuelled in Hawaii and continued into the search area.
Dozens of amateurs continued to report messages from the lost plane’s radio, but Navy radio experts doubted them. If the Lexington’s great fleet of planes could not find the lost flyers, the Rear Admiral who coordinated the search would abandon it. The flyers would not be alive by then. The oceans had claimed another aircraft in similar conditions to Kingsford Smith’s tragic disappearance in 1935 during his flight to break a UK-Australia speed record.
The Itasca went on with its patrol until they ran out of petrol. The minesweeper Swan landed searchers on Canton Is. And the aircraft carrier Lexington, with 62 planes aboard and an escort of 4 destroyers, left San Diego, refuelled in Hawaii and continued into the search area.
Dozens of amateurs continued to report messages from the lost plane’s radio, but Navy radio experts doubted them. If the Lexington’s great fleet of planes could not find the lost flyers, the Rear Admiral who coordinated the search would abandon it. The flyers would not be alive by then. The oceans had claimed another aircraft in similar conditions to Kingsford Smith’s tragic disappearance in 1935 during his flight to break a UK-Australia speed record.
Some blamed Japan, America’s WW2 enemy, even though Pearl Harbour didn’t happen for another 4.5 years. The theory proposed that the pilots had landed on the Marshall Islands, then-Japanese, and were taken prisoners.
And in 1970 the book Amelia Earhart Lives, by former Air Force Major Joseph Gervais argued that Earhart was on “a spy mission for Pres Roosevelt, interned in Japan during the war and traded back to the U.S in 1945, where she lived on.
In 1991, TIME reported that the FBI confirmed a clue to her last landing site; an aluminium map case was recovered by aircraft archaeologists on an atoll near Howland Is. More recently, a National Archives photograph was discussed showing that Earhart and Noonan died on an atoll in the Japanese Marshall Islands. Ted Waitt, producer of biopic Amelia, financed as recently as 2009 a robotic search of the ocean floor near Howland Is, to find the plane.
My best reference was Museum of Fine Arts and Sciences NSW. For the top modern theories about Amelia Earhart's disappearance, and for modern search projects, see National Geographic. A very interesting blog is Amelia Earhart.
In 1991, TIME reported that the FBI confirmed a clue to her last landing site; an aluminium map case was recovered by aircraft archaeologists on an atoll near Howland Is. More recently, a National Archives photograph was discussed showing that Earhart and Noonan died on an atoll in the Japanese Marshall Islands. Ted Waitt, producer of biopic Amelia, financed as recently as 2009 a robotic search of the ocean floor near Howland Is, to find the plane.
My best reference was Museum of Fine Arts and Sciences NSW. For the top modern theories about Amelia Earhart's disappearance, and for modern search projects, see National Geographic. A very interesting blog is Amelia Earhart.