“Sundowner Par Excellence”
(See J. J. Clark, pp. 54-59, June 1971 Proceedings)
Commander Ralph E. Patterson, U. S. Navy (Retired)—Admiral “Jocko” Clark was a “Sundowner” long before his conversation with Admiral Martin.
I had the privilege of serving under him in the USS Yorktown (CV-5) when he was executive officer. My relationship with him was pleasant except for one instance, when I exceeded my authority and put a boat into the water for a short time without his permission, when we were preparing to get underway. He had a few words for me on that occasion.
Some three years later, the Yorktown had been sunk and I was serving as navigator in the USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24). It was early in 1945 and we were ready for our first major attack on the Japanese home islands. We had five task groups on a line perpendicular to the Fleet axis, which was approximately parallel to the Japanese coast. Our task group, under Rear Admiral Clark, was farthest from land. During the night, the Fleet axis was rotated 180 degrees. That put our task group nearest to the land. Whether it was true or not, those of us who knew Admiral Clark agreed that “Jocko had wangled this to get first crack at them.” Of course, we were all disappointed because no one got a crack at them—we had no callers. But that takes nothing from Admiral Clark. He was one hell of a good fighting man.
Vice Admiral Selden B. Spangler, U. S. Navy (Retired)—Anyone who knew Jock Clark could well understand his admiration for Ernie King. They were much alike in some respects. If you wanted to start a fight with someone, and win it, Jocko was your man. He was always asking for, and receiving, the position in the van or on the exposed flank. I would not be too sure that the ships and aviators of his task group always appreciated his aggressiveness, but they most certainly followed his leadership. Jock’s impulse always was to close with the enemy and settle the affair hand-to-hand, and as soon as possible. In addition to this aggressiveness, he had that attribute which all successful wartime commanders must have some modicum of—he was lucky.
Perhaps my own recollection which best exemplifies Admiral Clark’s character occurred during the Trial Board trials of the XP3Y-2 and XP3D-2. During the trials of the XP3Y-1 and XP3D-1, mentioned in Clark’s story, the Board had decided that there was not enough difference between the two aircraft to definitely establish a winner. In fact, I, among others, had voted for the XP3D-1. However, the XP3Y-1 had one important feature felt to be necessary in the final winner. That was the retractable wing tip floats. After takeoff, the floats were swung out and up so the operating struts fitted up into the wing, and the floats became the wing tips. This markedly reduced drag and improved the air flow over the wing. The Douglas Company was informed of this decision and told to develop a similar system. But since Consolidated owned a patent on the float wing tip configuration, the Douglas system involved retracting the floats inward and up, so the struts fitted flush with the wing and the floats were partially recessed into the wing surface. The operating struts were covered with a fairing in order to reduce drag when retracted. They were operated hydraulically.
This sets the stage for the incident to which I referred as illustrating some of Jock Clark’s traits of character. We had already finished many of the tests of the XP3Y-2 when the XP3D-2 was presented for trials. As I remember, the airplane was delivered to the Board on Friday, 29 May 1936. Despite the fact that it would be Saturday and the start of a long Memorial Day weekend, Jock decided to schedule the first flight for the next day. The Air Station at North Island, which was supporting the Trial Board detachment, was shut down, and so no emergency equipment was manned and all offices were closed. Those members of the Trial Board not involved in the flight were also excused from duty. Fortunately for us, however, one member, Dutch Duerfeldt, decided to come down and watch the proceedings. With Jock at the controls, the takeoff was smooth and easy and all seemed to be going well until we attempted to retract the floats. The hydraulic system had been borrowed from the DC-3 landplane and was a continuous loop system, and those who flew the earliest series of the PC-3 will remember that it was not at all unusual for the gear to retract sequentially rather than simultaneously. However, the setup was such that this made little difference in the aircraft trim and the pilot would hardly notice it. But in the case of the XP3D-2, the retraction of the port wing tip float before the starboard float put the airplane in a violent skid due to the high, flat plate drag of the fairing covering the operating struts. Since the floats retracted inward, the airloads imposed a force opposing the retraction process so we were stuck with one float up and one down. Jock directed the Douglas flight mechanic to raise the hydraulic pressure in an attempt to overpower the airloads, but when the pressure reached some 150% of normal, a line ruptured. Nevertheless, we thought that we were in no real danger. We only needed to lower the port float again, and then go in and land and fix the system. The port float came down and apparently locked into position, but the starboard float now decided not to lock in the down position and began to swing freely from the wing attachment points. The flight mechanic and I held a council of war to decide what to do next. The mechanic informed me that the operating struts went only slightly beyond dead center when the floats were down so that no positive down lock was assured. When I so informed Jock, his answer was, in effect, “Nuts, I'll fix it.” Attack, always attack, was Jock's motto. So he put the airplane in a violent skid throwing the starboard float into the down position. It did not lock. So he tried it again and again. After about the fifth attempt, the float strut attachment started to fail and the float was now rolling about the strut end. So now we had a waving strut and a float waving at the bottom of the strut, and we were really in trouble.
We faced an uncertain landing with no emergency equipment out to pick us up in case anything happened. So we decided to try to attract the attention of the beach crew by flying low over the ramp, hoping they might see the flapping starboard float and get out the emergency boat crew. Nothing happened. I guess the beach crew thought we were just having fun. I remembered that the Marines always had a sentry near the balloon hangar, so I wrote a note requesting emergency service, attached it to a wrench, and as we flew by, dropped it at the sentry’s feet. When the Marine was asked later why he did not retrieve the message and get things underway, he said, “Aw, them Navy guys are always throwing things at us Marines.”
In the meantime, Dutch Duerfeldt decided something was wrong so he went over to the land field, got one of the landplanes assigned to the detachment, and came up to see what the trouble was. We, of course, had no voice communication, but we could not have reached the station even if we had had a set since the station was closed down. Nor could we communicate with Duerfeldt. He quickly diagnosed the problem, however, guessed what we wanted, and immediately landed and called for the emergency boat crew. It took a long time to round up a crew and get them underway, and in the meantime Jock decided to attempt the landing without them.
As for the landing, Jock decided to land left wing down, hoping that we could rely on the port float to keep us upright. We hit the water in good landing, left wing down, but when the port float hit the water it bounced the left wing up and right wing down. The force of the hull rotation forced the starboard strut out to its down position and the float, rolling outward on the strut, exerted an upward and outward force which helped to keep the strut locked in that position during the impact. In the meantime, as soon as the boat hit the water, the Douglas flight mechanic scrambled out of the other hatch, ran up the top of the hull, and out on the left wing with a boat hook in his hands. With this he succeeded in locking the port strut in the down position and his weight held the left wing down on the good float. So we made a normal landing and approach to the ramp.
As a test, while the airplane was on the ramp, I retracted the port float and put a man on the left wing. The wing and the position of the float offered no buoyancy and the wing did not stop until it hit bottom.
Admiral Clark was, to say the least a go-go man, aggressive, impatient, afraid of nothing, and lucky. I am not sure he was always loved by his officers and men but, just as in Ernie King’s case, they were damned glad he was of their side.
“The Only Option?”
(See G. E. Lowe, pp. 18-23, April 1971 Proceedings)
Dr. Russell D. Shaver—I will restrict my remarks to what is certainly Mr. Lowe’s most dangerous advice: “Increase at events the movement of the strategic deterrent to sea while there is still time.”
It is widely accepted that modern technology has provided the Soviets with the option of developing a force of SLBMs and ICBMs which, within a few years, could place in doubt the independent assured destruction potential of our current ICBMs and bombers. Whether they elect to follow that course, only time will tell; even if they do, several U. S. counter-options exist. (See Secretary Laird’s FY 1972 Defense Report to Congress.) The question to be considered is whether moving ICBMs and bombers onto surface vessels and aircraft carries respectively is a preferred counter-option. The author mentions several points in support for his “Blue Water Option”: (1) the impending vulnerability of land-based systems, (2) their attractiveness as targets in times of crisis, (3) the problem of collateral U. S. fatalities should these land-based systems be attacked, and (4) cost advantages of his all sea-based option. Each of these points deserves comment.
Vulnerability: Nobody can afford to be complacent about the potential erosion of our Minuteman or bomber force survivability in light of the growing might of the Soviet strategic force. But are ballistic missile ships (BMS) and aircraft carriers (CVA) themselves sufficiently survivable? In a nuclear environment, the survival of BMSs or CVAs appears to rest primarily on their locations being unknown at the start of a war. If we take into account the predicted growth in the Soviet fleet, its emerging global character, and its already demonstrated ability to trail U. S. surface vessels, then our ability to deny location information is dubious at best. It follows that we cannot be certain that a sufficient fraction of these ships will have their positions unknown. If their positions are known, there seems little likelihood that surface ships can survive a nuclear attack. In addition, the survival of unescorted ships (as apparently envisioned for the operation of BMSs) is highly questionable even if attacked by relatively small craft employing non-nuclear weapons. Technology and surprise strongly favor the attacker. As the precept of assured destruction compels us to concede that the enemy can start the war at a time of his choosing, and as we cannot guarantee that he will not wait until he knows the locations of a large number of BMSs or CVAs, surface ships fail to meet the first and most important criterion demanded of our strategic forces—adequate assurance of survivability. By contrast, other options are available that would make Minuteman and the bomber force survive well into the 1980s.
Crisis Stability: Lowe obviously believes that U. S. offensive forces in known locations make compelling targets for Soviet military planners in times of severe crisis. If we accept this belief, we must then follow through and judge which is a more compelling and lucrative target—1,000 Minuteman missiles in hardened silos that, even in the worst case, can be destroyed only by an attacking force in excess of 1,000 reliable, accurate high-yield nuclear weapons (and even then some fraction of the force will inevitably survive), or about a score of surface ships, easily sunk by a small number of nuclear weapons which need he neither accurate nor of high yield (and tantalizingly vulnerable to small non-nuclear attacks). By any standard of crisis stability—the risk of escalation, confidence in achieving a meaningful success, use of resources cost to negate a major element of the U. S. retaliation capability—surface ships are a poor second.
Collateral Fatalities: Lowe stresses the danger that in case of war, attacks on our land-based systems would likely result in significant civilian casualties. In contrast, if our strategic forces were located at sea, such collateral effects would be avoided. Granting this, is this necessarily a point in favor of sea-basing? When considering a counterforce attack against the United States, the Soviet leaders, must weigh probable U. S. responses. An attack that results in millions of U. S. fatalities, intended or not, is likely to evoke an equivalent U. S. response. To the Soviet leaders, the attempt to gain a measure of nuclear superiority by a surprise counterforce strike may not seem worth the price of millions of Soviet fatalities and the risk of an even larger war. In contrast, the Soviet leaders may feel that attacks against sea-based systems are far less likely to trigger U. S. responses that would lead to Soviet fatalities, as these sea-based attacks would not cause U. S. fatalities. Furthermore, the fear of escalation to massive exchanges would be correspondingly less. Unpleasant as it may be, it appears that the risk of causing collateral fatalities is a positive deterrent to Soviet first strike counterforce attacks, and is an element in our deterrent posture.
Costs: Finally, the author implies that the costs of the Blue Water Option are significantly less than the cost of preserving our current posture. Costs are admittedly hard to estimate, and there is considerable debate about the relative costs of different basing postures. However, ignoring the added costs of making BMSs and CVAs sufficiently survivable, there still appears to be little evidence that Lowe’s optimism on costs is justified. Although no costs on BMSs have appeared in the open literature (as far as the author is aware), they are likely to run several billions, if past history on ship and missile building costs are used as a guide. In addition, the transferral of bombers from land to sea bases will not reduce their dominant costs associated with the requirement for being able to penetrate to their strategic targets. Also, the sea-basing option that includes CVAs must share a portion of the operating costs of carrier task forces, which far exceed those of maintaining equivalent bases on land, and if additional ships are required, must share those investment costs as well. ULMS has already been estimated to cost around $15 to 20 billion, according to the 1970 report on military spending, prepared by the Members of Congress for Peace through Law. Adding the appropriate costs together, it is not at all clear that the options that preserve the efficacy of Minuteman, the bomber force, and Polaris/Poseidon are not significantly less expensive. When the costs of making BMSs and CVAs survivable are included (as they clearly must be to make comparisons meaningful), the costs are likely to advocate against the Blue Water Option.
Thus, the Blue Water Option, characterized by our moving all our strategic forces to sea, appears to be a dangerous and potentially destabilizing policy. It does not increase the survivability of our strategic posture, is more unstable in a crisis, and may not save money. In answer to Lowe’s question in his title, I can only respond, “For the good of our country, I hope not.”
“Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight”
(See F. X. Holbrook, pp. 48-55, February 1971 Proceedings)
Rear Admiral Richard B. Black, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired)—I have always felt that Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, went into the water somewhere in the vicinity of Howland Island after running out of gasoline, but I have also been intrigued by some of the theories propounded by Frederick Goerner, author of The Search for Amelia Earhart, and others who have written on the subject.
There were circumstances in the flight and the preparations for it which seemed to lend some credence to those theories. In the first place, why would I, a field representative of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, U. S. Department of the Interior, be asked to cause to be built some scratch-grade runways on Howland Island for the use of a private globe-girdling flight by Miss Earhart? The only explanation I could get at the time from my superiors in Washington was that Amelia Earhart and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt were both members of a women’s professional organization called the Zonta Society, and that Mrs. Roosevelt wanted to do something, or urge to have something done, to assist her friend. My superior in Washington was Dr. Ernest Gruening, Director, Division of Territories and Island Possessions (recently retired as U. S. Senator from Alaska).
Other circumstances which caused me to lend at least some thought to the theories of Mr. Goerner and others were (1) the fact that during the last few of Miss Earhart’s radiophone transmissions (heard on board the U. S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca) she was on the air for only a few seconds each time, whereas one would think that a person in an extremity would have had her transmitter on continuously in the hope that the operators would be able to learn more about her situation. This lack of continuous transmission was picked up by Goerner and others as a sign that she was approaching Howland from a north-westerly rather than a southwesterly direction, leading to the expressed suspicion that she did not wish her position or course known; (2) the excellent motion picture “Flight For Freedom” which came out in 1942, the advertisements for which said something like this: “Now it can be told—years after the event and after Pearl Harbor—how a one-woman task force struck our first blow at Japan.” The name was not “Earhart,” but the circumstances of the life of the woman flyer were those of the life of Amelia: (3) a statement from Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz to Fred Goerner (as reported by Goerner), “Fred, you are on the right track.” And later, “I can tell you that Amelia landed in the Marshalls.”
I will try to recount the events which Mr. Holbrook covered while mentioning my name:
All this is from 33-year-old memory. The files are all in the Interior Department or disposed of by my successor in Honolulu.
I was appointed field representative in June 1936, and proceeded to take up my duties administering the American Equatorial Islands of Jarvis, Baker, and Howland at Honolulu, and cruised to the Islands in July 1936. After my next cruise, in October, on which Dr. Gruening was a member of the party, I began to have despatches from Washington hinting that I might be asked to have an airport constructed on one of the islands as a waystation for Amelia Earhart on her first, or east-to-west globe-girdling attempt. Jarvis was mentioned at first, and this was later changed to Howland.
From the Territorial government, I procured the loan of a road-grader and a roller; from the Army at Fort Schofield I was promised two World War I tractors and a few other smaller items; and it was not necessary to get any material from the Navy. The landing of the heavy equipment was solved by the Army, which caused to be constructed a raft made of five or six wooden pontoons.
A greater difficulty arose when I asked my Division for an appropriation to cover the salaries of additional men to augment my four “colonists” on Howland. On each island we needed a radio operator, and we employed American citizens of Chinese ancestry who were also radio amateurs.
We sailed in January 1937, on our regular quarterly cruise to all three islands, making our first stop at Howland. Because of the boisterous weather in January, with extremely difficult surf, we had great difficulty in landing the equipment. The raft broke up just as the second tractor was being landed, but we were able to drag it off with the other machine just as the raft sank. Two surf boats broached and one overturned, pinning two sailors beneath the gunwale. They were pulled out and rolled over a fuel drum to get the water out of their lungs. Lieutenant Commander Frank T. Kenner (later Rear Admiral, U. S. Coast Guard, and now deceased) had his knee badly injured in the capsize, but he continued to direct landing operations, sitting in a camp chair with his leg on a crate.
On the next cruise in March 1937, we stood by for Amelia’s arrival from Luke Field, Pearl Harbor, and when we learned of her crack-up during attempted take-off, we called all hands to proceed with our mission to Jarvis Island. Captain H. A. Meyer of the Army sent a visual signal to the ship, “What shall I do with the gasoline?” (18 drums for Amelia). Commander Kenner scribbled an answer and handed it to the signalman: “Drink it, put a feather in your tail, and resume flight!”
My first indication that there was to be another, an east-to-west attempt, was when a representative of an oil company in Honolulu telephoned me saying, “What shall I do with the 87 octane gasoline destined for Howland Island? Messages to Washington revealed that “. . . all we know about it is what we read in the papers, but you had better get ready for another support expedition on your next cruise.” This we did.
The next expedition sailed in June 1937, on board the Itasca. The Navy had supplied an aerologist on the March trip, Lieutenant True, but he was unable to get away on this one. It was planned that he would forecast for the flight from Pearl Harbor, but the communications were a very difficult problem, to say the least. Meteorological data was transmitted to Amalgamated Wireless, Sydney, Australia, from a number of islands in the west central Pacific. This was relayed to Tutuila Radio, Pago Pago, and thence to the Itasca for relay or direct to Pearl. A very poor forecast for the night of 1 July, 2 July (Western Hemisphere dates) was transmitted by the Itasca over the reverse route to Lae, New Guinea. On the same schedule, I forwarded to Amelia a message from her husband, George Palmer Putnam, saying in effect, “Is it possible for you to get in (to Oakland) by Saturday night, or at the latest Sunday night? We have a radio commitment Monday.” So Amelia took off with a forecast which said, in effect: “Head winds 20 to 30 knots over whole course. Dangerous rain squalls 500 miles in diameter centering on your course.”
Through the early morning hours of 2 July, I was in the radio shack most of the time and heard several of the voice transmissions from Amelia, all of which are a matter of somewhat garbled record. All transmissions of the Itasca were being monitored in Hawaii and even in West Coast Coast Guard stations. Actual communication with the plane was never really established although, at one time near the end, there was an indication that Amelia had heard the operators pleading with her to transmit long dashes on CW so that an experimental short-wave direction finder on Howland Island might get a minimum or null on her signal. At one point, she said, “I’ll whistle in the microphone,” and she did. Of course, this was not a proper signal on which to take a bearing, even if the experimental Navy set had been working perfectly, which it was not. The radio batteries had weakened during the night, but the Coast Guard operator was still able to hear her. This set was a matter of some controversy. A Navy lieutenant (whose name I have forgotten) asked me by telephone one day in Honolulu if I would like to take an experimental “bread-board,” short-wave direction finder on the next cruise. I told him that Miss Earhart had specified that she did not want any homing devices on the ship or the island—that she would home on the ship’s signal with her own homing device. When the lieutenant insisted that it might be “an ace in the hole,” I agreed to take it. When I asked if he could supply an operator he said that he could not, but that his station would train a Coast Guard operator in its use. This was done. The operator’s name was Cipriani. To my knowledge I never saw the set unpacked. It was set up in the center of Howland Island, and the ship steamed around at a distance of 20 or so miles to calibrate it. It was able to receive on 3105 kilocycles and 6210 kilocycles, the frequencies that Amelia planned to use.
The set was on Howland against Amelia’s specific wish, as an “ace-in-the-hole” in case of emergency, and it would not have been possible, nor in accordance with her instructions, to tell her about it. In similar vein, it is reported that Amelia jettisoned her reel and trailing antenna at Miami to save height. This antenna would have allowed her to come up on 500 kilocycles, the international homing frequency, and if communication had been established, the Itasca could have homed her in.
Dr. Francis X. Holbrook, Department of Social Studies, Fordham Preparatory School—Admiral Black made mention of his October 1936 Equatorial Cruise with his chief, Senator Gruening. The fact is that the cruise did take place—in October 1937—after the Earhart incident. It had nothing to do with the Earhart incident, but with the opening controversy with Great Britain over Canton Island.
Admiral Black mentions dispatches hinting that he would be asked to build a runway for Earhart and he mentions Jarvis as the island selected.
Miss Earhart’s own letters show that she was not counting on an island airport in early November 1936, but had turned to the Japanese route despite the fact that it was not an Equatorial route. The route through Jarvis would have been approximately 3,600 miles to Lae, which would have been an impossible distance to risk. Earhart, when faced with the 3,900 miles to Tokyo, opted for in-air refueling. She could not do this on the equatorial route. Howland was the key. It was the midway point for her on the road to Australia. Jarvis could not have been Miss Earhart’s choice—it would have had to be Howland.
In mid-November, Black was told by Interior that there would be no funds available to provide equipment to conduct an emergency airfield at Jarvis (radiogram of the 17th and letter sent on the 19th). Black was just back from the islands so “the hints” would have had to come within less than two weeks of his return. Yet, by the 17th, Interior said they could not build on Jarvis although they told Black that he should check around to see if another Department or Division would help out. This he did and he got an Army promise of some old equipment of which he informed Interior on 2 December. He was planning to build on Jarvis. (The Army was interested in Jarvis for long-range plane practice.) Later, however, on 7 December, he was given the okay to build on Howland. Black did not know why there had been a change, although he maintains that he was in on the whole thing from October.
On 18 December 1936, he sent a letter to his friend Robert A. Kleindienst, the administrative officer of the Division, asking that he be told the reason for the shift from Jarvis to Howland, if possible, “. . . so that I may have my eyes open before sailing on the 12th.” On 28 December, Gruening radioed Black to consult with Campbell, who knew the whole story. It is only logical to conclude that if Black knew all about an Earhart airport on Jarvis, then the switch to Howland would not surprise him.
Campbell was Commerce’s airport planning man, who happened to be in Hawaii at the time. Black says that he asked for Campbell to construct the runways at Howland and such orders were soon given. Black found out about Howland on 7 December, and Campbell received orders from Gene Vidal at Washington to take over the construction part of the project. Campbell had been told by Vidal that he would get a letter explaining everything. He received the letter written on 14 December by J. S. Wynne of the Navigation Division, Bureau of Air Commerce, stating that “. . . inasmuch as Miss Earhart is including Howland as one of her stops, etc.”
It is interesting to note that Campbell and Black were both told to watch news leaks and to keep the information confidential. Obviously there was a fear of reaction if the word got out that the government was building a field for Miss Earhart. The government was sensitive on this point. Yet, the field was not being built for Miss Earhart in that sense. Since 1935, it had been planned to build fields at Howland and Jarvis, but money and initiative had been the problem. Miss Earhart provided the excuse for immediate building and on Howland instead of Jarvis. The key man here was Vidal and the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Air Commerce.
It is worth noting that the Bureau of Air Commerce dominates the scene. Miller contacts the WPA; is liaison for Earhart and the government; Campbell builds the field and selects the equipment; Vidal made the island choice; the Army supplied some technicians; the Coast Guard supplied the transportation. What was left for the Interior, which supposedly was in charge of everything connected with the islands? The Admiral mentions the difficulty of getting money for the men (the extra men) for the work on Howland. Actually, this is a restatement of his 2 December radiogram to the Interior, in which he mentioned that perhaps the WPA (on Campbell’s advice) would pick up the tab for building on Jarvis. In fact, the whole money question is rather ridiculous for it amounted to some $3,000 of WPA money.
Finally, Admiral Black makes mention of Earhart taking off under unfavorable weather conditions on 2 July (Lae) in order to make a radio date in Oakland set up by her husband. Actually, there is a radiogram from Miss Earhart at Lae on 1 July announcing that she had been delayed and would not be home by 4 July (Sunday).
I should like to take up several points that the Admiral raises, when he says that he could not understand why he was being asked to carve out an airfield for Miss Earhart. The Admiral tends to make this a point indicating something other than a world-flight. Yet, it is exactly what we have all run into in life—influence. Miss Earhart was famous and did have influence. The government really was not throwing money away on her, for there was supposed to be a field set up on Howland (The Japanese feared this in 1941). It was a convenient excuse to do what was supposed to be done.
As far as the government was concerned, it could have been Jarvis or Howland: as far as Miss Earhart’s friends were concerned especially in the Bureau of Air Commerce, it was Howland. The problem of Howland was not that it was built for Earhart, but that it did not work out to be the base that was needed by the United States. Therefore, within a short time, the United States turned to Canton Island. In fact, I maintain that the true historical importance of the Earhart incident is that Howland was not a good base for the Navy and caused them to ask for Canton.
As for the Roosevelts, Mr. and Mrs.—neither one seems that much involved personally, but only willing to ask that whatever could be done for her should be done, if possible. Gene Vidal is much more important than the President and his wife.
Admiral Black also indicates that the radio transmissions proved to him that she was approaching from the northwest. The major thrust of the article was to show that she was in constant touch with someone at Lae or Nauru until the two and three-quarter hour gap prior to getting within range of Howland. If she was trying to overfly Japanese islands quietly, she was failing. In the light of the very hesitant American policy toward Japan in 1937 (Note the hesitant reaction over the Panay affair and the previous reaction to the new Japanese advance), does it seem likely that the U. S government would take the chance of seriously offending the Japanese?
Admiral Nimitz’ statements to one of the writers on Miss Earhart are very strong and do open an element of doubt in one’s mind. But their very strength also undermines them. Could Miss Earhart have started World War II or would we be amazed if she had been a spy? No. Thus, what great answer is there left?
Everett F. Britz, Jr.—Though I take no strong position in this current debate, I did come away from the article with a new collection of intriguing questions:
(1) The Port Darwin delay is no longer the issue. However, what transpired at Lae for at least two days between 29 June and the take-off on 2 July?
(2) The Lockheed Electra presented as the plane which arrived at Lae (photo page 48) and the Lockheed on take-off from Lae (photo page 54) very possibly are not the same aircraft. I suggest a discrepancy in the exterior configuration, especially around the cockpit area.
(3) The admittedly inspiring lead photograph of Miss Earhart (page 48) seems contrived; for example, note suspicious photo touch-up around right elbow and DF loop.
Dr. Francis X. Holbrook—Regarding the Lae layover, first of all, the period was really from the afternoon of 29 June to the morning of 2 July—some 50-plus hours.
Second, Collopy’s Report contains a list of repairs done on the Electra on 30 June, and Collopy reported that Miss Earhart took her plane up to test it out. The repairs were carried out under supervision of the Chief Engineer, E. Finn.
A copy of the repairs could be made available.
Third, Miss Earhart, in her log published as the Last Flight by Putnam, mentions her repairs at Lae and also her delay on 1 July, due to weather. The manuscript was then mailed home.
Fourth, Mrs. Helen Schroyer of Purdue University Libraries Archives, provided me with the following Western Union telegram from Miss Earhart at Lae. 1 July, Press Tribune, Oakland, California:
Denmarks a prison and Lae attractive and unusual as it appears to two fliers just as confining. Lockheed stands ready for longest hop, weighted with gasoline and oil to capacity. However, clouds and wind blowing wrong way conspired keep her on ground today. In addition, FN has been unable account radio difficulties to set his chronometers lack knowledge their fastness or slowness. We shall try to get off tomorrow though now we cannot be home by Fourth of July as hoped. Earhart.
From all evidence, it would not seem that Lae was a spy nest.
Miss Earhart also took a little tour of the area around Lae on 1 July. She left with 1,100 gallons of fuel, which was not her supposed capacity.
Since submitting the article on Amelia Earhart, I have received other pieces of information, the most significant being that the wife of the Administrator on the island of Nauru kept a diary in which she mentioned that Earhart was expected near the island on the night of the 2nd and was heard by Nauru radio. The Diary goes on to record that Earhart was heard on 3 and 4 July, after having failed to reach Howland. To me, this seems the most reliable evidence of a radio message from Miss Earhart. The question then arises whether she could transmit on land and sea, or only on land. She did have a kite with her (or at least reported as part of her equipment) which seemed to be capable of taking up an antennae [sic]. If the plane would not float and she could transmit only on land, it would seem to indicate she was on land on the 3rd and 4th. If she could transmit from the water, the stronger presumption would be that the plane floated for several days before sinking.
Lieutenant Commander William Van Dusen, U. S. Naval Reserve—Dr. Holbrook’s carefully prepared description contributes another important footnote to aviation history. However, it fails to record certain essential facts which are considered basic to those of us who were close enough to Amelia Earhart, or sufficiently involved in her flight to know them first hand.
The simple reason why ships and shore stations were unable to communicate with the Earhart plane or to transmit bearings, is that the radio transmitter for these marine frequencies was left sitting in the corner of a hangar in Miami when Earhart and Noonan left this country. At the last minute, she decided to leave it behind because it weighed so much; it meant more work—paying out and reeling in an aerial line with a lead fish at the end; and because it required the use of code, in which both Earhart and Noonan were deficient. She said, “I’d feel so sorry for those poor seamen, trying to figure out what we were trying to say.” By jettisoning her marine-band radio, Miss Earhart arbitrarily limited her communications to the range of the voice, which was not much in the mid-1930s, and ruled out entirely any standard sea-going bearings. The DF she carried was an experimental and extremely short-ranged loop.
For some inexplicable reason, no one thought to advise the Coast Guard, the U. S. Navy, or any of the shore stations standing watch, that the frequencies over which they were expected to communicate were not even on board the plane. Starting with these should make much more intelligible the frantic frustration logged by the men in the Itasca, standing by off Howland Island, waiting to bring her in to a landing, when they could not get word on bearings through to the plane.
Another of those essential facts that persistently escape the historians: Amelia Earhart rarely sent out a position report, making it all but impossible for a watch station to chart an intelligent record of her course. The reason for this strange procedure must be credited to Amelia’s husband, George Palmer Putnam. Mrs. Helen Reid, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, because of her fondness for Miss Earhart, and not because there was that much popular interest in the event, contracted to syndicate Miss Earhart’s “exclusive” story of the flight. Because Putnam insisted the news wire services—or anyone else—could “high jack” the figure from the position reports and write their own version of what was happening (because there was no communication from the plane, the story was being largely “ghosted,” anyway) he decreed that Miss Earhart should not “put the clues” on the air. Hence, the few reports that did come through, over the limited voice range of the radio, read like this: “A.E. 12:20 GCT O.K.” Unless she was sighted en route or until she landed, no one ever knew, nor could they find out, where the plane was at any given time.
Those of us who understood the peculiar circumstances—and knew Noonan and his methods—know of only two actual position reports received from the plane on that final fateful flight. Noonan was a professional navigator and an excellent one. The first report was his “square away” day end message, filed 700 miles from Lae, New Guinea, their take-off point, reporting a “fix” by latitude and longitude, showing they were making good course and speed. That message, we believe, was ordered by Noonan. It followed the form he used navigating Pan American’s Clippers on their historic survey flights across the Pacific. Simple facts, no nonsense.
The second, which again must have come from Noonan, was received by the Itasca, laying off Howland Island, at 8:45 the morning of the plane’s disappearance. “. . . line of position 157—337 . . .” Noonan always sent a sun line when he was through with star sights.
Another one of those inexplicable things: the figures were misinterpreted as latitude and longitude and, in those precious hours and days immediately following the plane’s silence, sent the U. S. Navy scurrying off to search the area north and west of Howland and Hawaii. Researchers would be rewarded by reading the communications log for that Sunday (after the plane went silent on Thursday) from C. B. Allen, in New York, the Herald-Tribune’s reporter (calling from the writer’s apartment) to the Navy Department’s BuNav, messages to the Districts, culminating in the shift of responsibility for the search from the Coast Guard to the Navy, and the immediate change of orders which sent the search fleet from the north and west to the south and east, where they arrived in the area three and four days later.
One thing Dr. Holbrook has hopefully done, backed by his access to the official documents, is to lay to rest the contention that Miss Earhart was on some secret, spying mission, a notion that is as weird as it would have had to be unworkable.
Captain John O. Lambrecht, U. S. Navy (Retired)—Dr. Holbrook’s excellent analysis of what happened to Amelia Earhart is the only solution I have seen which is based on available facts. He does not speculate except perhaps at the very end of his article where he suggests that Amelia, presumably realizing she was lost, may have done a 180-degree turn and wound up in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands. In that event, it is not hard to imagine what eventually happened to Miss Earhart and Noonan, especially in light of what we now know of the psychology of the Japanese prior to (and during) World War II. Anyhow. I hope that the good Doctor’s analysis, with, possibly, the remarks contained herein, will be the final “word” on the Amelia Earhart mystery.
At the time of this needless tragedy, I was senior aviator in the USS Colorado (BB-45), and I led every flight of the Colorado’s aerial search. That, by no means, qualifies me as an expert on the mystery, except that I would lay odds Amelia did not land, crash, or otherwise go down in any of the Phoenix Islands.
But the fact that the plane might have gone down in those Islands was the basis and the practical extent of the Colorado’s aerial search operations. With only three aircraft, and those, tired and obsolete, we could not have hoped to cover more than minute water areas. Besides, that part of the search was a job for the carrier USS Lexington (CV-2), which even then was steaming “under forced draft” toward the search area. Fortunately, the Colorado’s aircraft could give any islands, which were possible landing spots, a good going-over. And we in the Colorado hoped that Amelia, having gotten off course and having missed Howland, had landed in one fashion or another in one of the Phoenix Islands, southeast of Howland. So the aircraft gave each of those islands a careful search.
As to the how, where, why, and when the plane got off course (or more properly, off track), no one will ever know. Nor does anyone know just how assiduously Noonan applied himself to working his navigation—quite obviously important in a flight of this nature.
In any event, depending upon the weather conditions encountered en route, Noonan’s navigation work should not have presented too much of a problem for an experienced aerial navigator such as he was reputed to have been. Bougainville in the Solomon Islands should have provided a good fix, which in turn would have given him a good wind factor for the next leg of the flight. Also it would have provided a second point of departure. And, at some time during the night, he surely must have been able to get one or more star sights (maybe a celestial fix?) and perhaps an evening and/or morning sunline. (He apparently did get a morning sunline, which was subsequently reported to the Itasca, but without also reporting a reference point.) Then the Gilbert Islands should have provided another good fix, a check on the wind, and a final point of departure. From the Gilberts on, Noonan desperately needed his radio and DF bearings or, alternatively, maximum visibility and a hell of a good pair of eyes, to say nothing of an intimate rapport with Lady Luck—Howland is a pretty small dot in a vast ocean.
But, as Dr. Holbrook has pointed out, the plane’s radio equipment and its use, especially its CW potential if it actually had one, seem to have been approached in a somewhat casual manner. Apparently, neither Miss Earhart nor Noonan had a working knowledge of the Morse code. And in one voice transmission to the Itasca, Amelia said she would whistle into the microphone as a means of producing a radio signal on which the RDF station on Howland was to take a bearing. So if Miss Earhart and Noonan dealt with their dead-reckoning and celestial navigation with the same calm insouciance with which they apparently treated their radio equipment, they were asking for it. It is no wonder they never arrived at their intended destination.
Lost at sea . . . Why not let it be their final epitaph? After all, it puts them in good company.
“Commanding Officer Comments: The New USS Hepburn (DE-1055)”
(See S. D. Landersman, pp. 99-102, March 1971 Proceedings)
Commander Stuart D. Landersman, U. S. Navy—After receiving numerous letters from friends and critics (often they are one and the same), and after reading the numerous comments on the Prize Essay and my Professional Note, I feel obligated to explain the purpose of my descriptive article on the DE-1052-class ship.
At the time I wrote the article, I was most satisfied with the performance of my ship. I was getting her ready to deploy to the Western Pacific. Since the writing, I deployed to the Western Pacific in the Hepburn, and what was satisfaction has grown into complete enthusiasm with the ship.
Still, too many people know too little about these ships. Those who do not know are highly critical. Only those who have deployed in these ships, and some who are about to, know and appreciate these ships, and these are the people who say that they are fine ships. These ships are capable of more than they were designed to do, and they do it well.
No one can learn about these ships from behind a desk. You must serve in one, see her operate, shoot, and communicate. You must get the feel of handling her.
We in the Navy are so bogged down by what we grew up with in the past that we cannot accept a completely new destroyer type ship. This one operates best on one boiler (although she has two). Most destroyer people cannot accept this fact even though there is no “split plant” in a two-boiler ship. The ship has only one gun, but it is probably the most reliable and accurate gun in the Navy. The ships are considerably faster than indicated in the specifications. They are among the fastest ships on two boilers that we already have.
Today, in the Gulf of Tonkin, they are serving as search and rescue ships with a helicopter and a detachment of men embarked to support it. In addition, they are performing every role that general purpose destroyers are expected to perform, and they are doing it with fewer men and less fuel.
Tomorrow, they will be the heart of the destroyer force, performing destroyer duties all over the world. They are different ships. There is much that our operational planners must learn about these differences, but the DEs will be with us for a long time and time will show that they are good ships.
Pictorial—“Ship Camouflage (WWI): Deceptive Art”
(See R. F. Sumrall. pp. 57-77, July 1971 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Frederick L. Koch, Jr., U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired), Office of the Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion, and Repair, U. S. Navy, Bath, Maine—The USS Allen (DD-66) was built here by the Bath Iron Works in 1916 and enjoyed a long and fruitful career before being stricken after World War II. We note that your cover caption lists the Allen as DD-6 vice DD-66, and the Leviathan as SS vice USS.
Mr. Poole’s rendering of “A Fast Convoy” was included in a recent collection of prints entitled “Our Navy in Action,” published by the U. S. Government Printing Office. It shows the Allen and the Leviathan moving from right to left with their port sides to the viewer. Your cover is the reverse of the print, showing the two ships with their starboard sides to the viewer.
A very similar picture, also credited to Mr. Poole is shown in the Naval Institute monograph, Flush Decks and Four Pipes, on page 62 and 63, and is captioned the USS Kimberly (DD-80) escorting the Leviathan.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Our Art Department staff had also noted the “flopped” or reversed print appearing in the other publication—close inspection revealed the artist’s name to be reversed—and so were able to correct the presentation for use on the Proceedings cover.