She died on Saipan in 1944. She died in New Jersey in 1983. She died at sea in 1937. She’s on a Pacific island, alive and well today. . . . As a well-spring of American folklore, only the assassination of John F. Kennedy compares with the disappearance Earhart.
And inextricably connected with the Earhart legend is the U.S. Navy and what the Associated Press called “the greatest organized effort ever undertaken in behalf of a lost flier,” eventually involving “3,000 men, 10 ships, [and] 102 American fighting planes.”1 Why was such a huge effort mounted and why did it fail? What was really going on? Was there a secret agenda? Was there a cover-up? Is it even possible to know?
Yes, unequivocally, it is possible to know. What happened in the central Pacific in July 1937 is documented in official records that are voluminous, diverse, and, but for a couple of notable exceptions, mutually corroborative. Fifty-six years later, no significant sources remain classified. Who did what and when they did it is, therefore, possible to document. What cannot be known from the historical record is that which was not known at the time—namely, what became of Amelia Earhart? That question too can now be answered, but not without an accurate understanding of the U.S. Navy search that failed to answer it in 1937.
The first step in getting to the facts is to separate out the folklore. Allegations that there was secret government involvement in the Earhart flight or that her disappearance was used by the Navy as an excuse to reconnoiter Japanese activity in the Marshall Islands are entirely without documentary support. Their only adherents today are conspiracy buffs who invoke the canard that absence of evidence is somehow proof of a cover-up. But equally unsupported is the notion that the U.S. Navy’s search was a well-planned humanitarian effort that failed only because Earhart’s aircraft crashed and sank at sea without leaving a trace.
The message traffic, ship’s logs, official reports, and personal letters of the participants tell a very different story.
The U.S. Navy’s reaction to Amelia Earhart’s disappearance was not well planned, nor was it poorly planned. It wasn’t planned at all. Prior to 2 July 1937, Navy support for the Earhart around-the-world flight had been minimal, and limited to the journey’s transpacific legs. Departing from Oakland, California on 20 May 1937, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan hop-scotched their twin-engined Lockheed 10E Special nearly 20,000 nautical miles eastward around the globe to Lae, New Guinea. From there, on 2 July, they took off for the trip’s longest and most hazardous leg—a 2,224 nautical-mile flight to the newly completed airstrip on tiny Howland Island. They planned to refuel there with gasoline brought by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Itasca, which was standing by at Howland as a navigation aid.
After a night’s rest, Earhart and Noonan planned to continue on to Hawaii and, finally, end the flight back at Oakland. To guard these long overwater flights the Navy positioned a small patrol vessel, the USS Ontario (AT-13), halfway between Lae and Howland, and a small seaplane tender, the USS Swan (AVP-34), halfway between Howland and Hawaii. Other than routine weather information broadcast by the Fleet Air Base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, this constituted the Navy’s total connection with the Earhart flight.2 These courtesies were neither secret nor extraordinary and were considered, at the time, to be an appropriate commitment of assets for a civilian publicity stunt. No contingency plan for a search was made. Although the Swan was outfitted to carry a floatplane, none was put aboard for this cruise.3
The Navy’s first indication of trouble hit the desk of Rear Admiral Orin G. Murfin, Commandant, 14th Naval District in Hawaii, at 1100 on 2 July 1937 (Honolulu time). A copy of a message from the Itasca to the Coast Guard’s San Francisco Division reported Earhart overdue at Howland, and led Murfin to conclude that “failure of the flight was imminent.”4 Four hours later the Itasca advised San Francisco:
EARHART UNREPORTED HOWLAND AT 1200. BELIEVE DOWN SHORTLY AFTER 0915. AM SEARCHING PROBABLE AREA AND WILL CONTINUE.5
Although Earhart’s whereabouts were still technically the Coast Guard’s concern, Murfin suspected that they would soon become his problem and, at 1400, he convened a meeting of his senior officers to consider the situation.6 His suspicions were confirmed when, at 1440, he received a message from the Navy Department:
USE AVAILABLE NAVAL FACILITIES TO CONDUCT SUCH SEARCH FOR MISS EARHART IN YOUR OPINION IS PRACTICABLE.7
Weeks later, after the search had failed, Murfin’s official report claimed that, “. . . [T]he Department ... directed the Commandant of the Fourteenth Naval District to use all available naval facilities in the search.”8 But that’s not what his orders said, and the tendency to shift responsibility upward later helped create the myth that the Navy’s massive response was “personally authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.”9 The record, however, clearly shows that the Navy’s involvement in the search began with a telegram sent by Earhart’s husband and manager, George Putnam, as soon as it was apparent that the flight was overdue. The request for help was addressed not to the president, but to Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Naval Operations.10 The CNO, while approving the use of naval facilities, left it up to Murfin, the on-scene commander, to determine what response was “practicable.”
Perhaps because he had been advised that the plane could float “almost indefinitely,”11 or perhaps because he was unsure how he should interpret his rather fuzzy orders, Murfin failed to heed the first rule of search and rescue operations: time is the enemy. Lined up on their beaching gear at Fleet Air Base Pearl Harbor, were 24 new PBY-1 flying boats of Patrol Squadron (VP)-6F and VP-11F, each capable of making the 1,600-nautical-mile flight to Howland Island. On hand at the island were 1,600 gallons of aviation fuel originally intended for Earhart, while the Swan carried 10,000 gallons more.12 As early as 1138 that morning, the Itasca’s CO had suggested that the Navy send a patrol plane to assist in the search, but it was 1923 that evening before PBY 6-P-3 headed south piloted by Lieutenant W. W. “Sid” Harvey, CO of VP-6F. He and his seven-man crew spent the next 24-hours and 3 minutes aloft only to land where they had started—forced to turn back barely 300 miles from Howland by “extremely bad weather.”13 Consolidated PBYs eventually carried out more successful rescues than any aircraft type in history, but Amelia Earhart’s was not destined to be one of them. No further attempts were made to employ PBYs in the search.
Realizing that the flying boat might not get through, Murfin at 1700 asked the Navy Department that he be permitted to divert the battleship USS Colorado (BB-45) which was, at that moment, coming alongside Pier 2 in Honolulu in anticipation of four days of liberty.14 Fourteen days out of San Francisco, the 32,500-ton Maryland (BB-46)-class battleship was on her annual ROTC training cruise hosting nearly 200 college students, as well as several university representatives along for the ride.15
Of more interest to Admiral Murfin were the three catapult-launched 03U-3 floatplanes the Colorado carried to spot for her 16-inch guns—but the airplanes weren’t on board. Only an hour before Murfin made his request, the Colorado's Corsairs had flown to the Fleet Air Base at Pearl Harbor for scheduled maintenance.16 Four hours after Murfin’s request, at 2112, came the message, “COLORADO IS MADE AVAILABLE.”17 But with her crew scattered all over Honolulu, her aircraft opened up for inspection at the Fleet Air Base hangar, and the need to provision and fuel for an unanticipated major expedition, it was 1408 on 3 July before she cleared Pearl Harbor and set course for Howland Island18, “with the firm conviction that . . . if [Earhart and Noonan) were still alive they would probably die of old age before we could arrive on the scene.”19
By now Murfin was aware that there was a fast ship, with an aircraft on board, much closer to the search area and in receipt of radio signals believed to be distress calls from Earhart—HMS Achilles, a British Leander-class cruiser later to win World War II fame pursuing the German battleship Graf Spee.20 On 3 July, the Achilles was 800 nautical miles east of the island group the Colorado eventually searched on 9 July. Unlike the Colorado, she was familiar with the area and could have had her Supermarine Walrus observation plane overhead the suspect islands fully four days before they were, in fact, searched. No request was made for her assistance.
Instead, the carrier USS Lexington (CV-2), preparing for Fourth of July celebrations at Santa Barbara, California, was ordered to rendezvous with four destroyers and proceed immediately to join the search, refueling in Hawaii on the way. The Lexington was not ready for sea, though; first she had to re-provision at Long Beach and then steam to San Diego to take on aircraft whose pilots had to be recalled from holiday leave. It was 5 July before the Lexington group began its 4,000-nautical-mile voyage to join the search.21
On 6 July, the Itasca was put under Navy authority and, for the first time, all the search elements came under one unified command. Murfin immmediately delegated direction of the search to Captain Wilhelm L. Friedell, the Colorado's skipper.22 Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan had been missing for five days when at 1433 on 7 July, the Colorado's planes were catapulted to inspect Winslow
Reef, 150 nautical miles southeast of Howland.23 Until then, the only search conducted by anyone had been that of the lonely cutter Itasca, eventually joined by Swan, scouring the ocean to the north and west of Howland. But they were looking in the wrong place.
Among naval authorities, aerial navigators familiar with Noonan’s methods, and technicians at Lockheed, a consensus had developed that the lost Lockheed was . probably not bobbing about in the ocean, but had to be on an island or reef to the southeast of Howland.24 It was an intelligent assessment of the situation based upon the known capabilities of the aircraft, an analysis of the weather, Earhart’s own radio transmissions, navigational logic, and several Pan American Airways’ radio bearings taken on what were believed to be legitimate distress calls from the missing plane. As early as ,
5 July, Pan Am reported that the available evidence “PLACES PLANE NEAR LINE OF POSITION AND INTERSECTION OF RADIO BEARINGS . . .IN PHOENIX GROUP [of islands].”25
The spot best fitting that description was Gardner Island, an atoll 350 nautical miles southeast of Howland, but Friedell decided that the Colorado would search Winslow Reef on the way. As Lieutenant (junior grade) William B. Short, pilot of aircraft 4-0-5, wrote in a letter to his father, “It was a good idea only we couldn’t find the damn thing.”26 The Colorado's pilots spent the next two days looking for the phantom reef and never found it.
At 0700 on 9 July, one full week after Earhart and Noonan had disappeared, the Colorado's aircraft were launched for an aerial search of Gardner Island. The night before, Short wrote, “As the schedule calls for an early morning launching for us, I will probably miss most of the fun. However, if I can only keep my date with Amelia it will be worth it!”27 The fun Bill Short missed was the arrival of “Neptunus Rex” to initiate the many pollywogs on board—those who had never crossed the Equator. The ship’s official newspaper, with headlines reading “Plane Search Halts Cruise,” later devoted 30 column-inches and all seven of its photos to the party, while covering the entire search for Earhart in 12 column-inches.28
While cadets and university guests alike were being paddled, dunked and otherwise assaulted, the three O3U-3s were wheeling high over Gardner Island, a four-mile long, densely jungled ribbon of land surrounding a shallow lagoon. According to the official report of Lieutenant John O. Lambrecht, senior aviator, the aerial inspection of the island was done from an altitude no lower than 400 feet for fear of bird strikes, and a photograph taken during the mission was shot at a considerably higher altitude. The searchers saw no Lockheed Electra but they did see something else: “Here, signs of recent habitation were clearly visible, but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there.”29
What Lambrecht did not realize was that there should have been no “signs of recent habitation” on Gardner. The place had been uninhabited since prehistoric times except for a short period in 1892, when about 20 native laborers planted some coconuts on the atoll and then left.10 And yet Lambrecht was so convinced that people were down there that he made repeated attempts to get someone to come out and wave to him. Exactly what he saw remains a mystery. The only clue is a comment he made in an interview before his death in 1972 in which he said he had seen “markers.”31
In his official report, Captain Wilhelm L. Friedell, the Colorado's CO, directly contradicted Lambrecht with the statement that no signs of habitation were seen on Gardner.32 Over the next two days the Colorado's planes flew over the remaining six islands of the Phoenix Group, but at no time was a search party put ashore on any island.
On 12 July, the Colorado was relieved by the Lexington and began her long overdue return to the West Coast. On-scene direction of the search changed hands for the third time, passing to Captain Jonathan S. Dowell, commander of the Lexington group. Again contrary to good procedure, a thorough re-examination of the most logical area was not conducted. Instead, the carrier steamed off to search the open ocean northwest of Howland Island. Six days later, on July 18, the Lexington group ceased search operations having found nothing. At no time did the ships or planes of the group enter the Japanese Mandate nor did they inspect any island.33
In his official report dated 31 July 1937, Rear Admiral Orin G. Murfin, wrote, “It is regrettably unreasonable to conclude other than that the unfortunate fliers were not above water upon conclusion of the search.”34 Was Murfin’s assertion justified or were Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, as those words were written, still alive— classically marooned on a desert island?
Three months later, on 13 October 1937, a small British expedition evaluating Gardner Island for future settlement noted unexplained “signs of previous habitation” on the atoll.35 When the island’s first colonial work party was clearing underbrush in late 1938 they reportedly came upon “the skeleton of a woman” with “shoes of the American kind, size nine narrow.”36 Expeditions to Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) in 1989 and 1991 by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) have recovered aircraft wreckage consistent with Earhart’s Lockheed, as well as personal effects, including the remains of an American shoe identical in style and size (nine) to that worn by Earhart on her last flight.
In assessing the U.S. Navy’s search for Amelia Earhart it is, of course, unfair to apply current search-and-rescue standards. Today’s techniques are, in part, the product of experience gained in unsuccessful operations such as the Earhart search. The question of “How thorough was the search?” is only worth asking if it helps answer the larger question of “What really happened to Amelia Earhart?” Clearly it does. But while the preponderance of the evidence now confirms the Navy’s original suspicion that Earhart’s flight ended on Gardner Island, many questions remain unanswered. The pieces of wreckage found suggest either an explosion or catastrophic wave damage. Where is the rest of the airplane? How long did Earhart and Noonan survive on the waterless atoll? It is to answer these questions that TIGHAR will return once more to an island where, 56 years ago, a naval aviator tried in vain to elicit an answering wave.
1. Boston Globe, 19 July 1937.
2. Commandant, 14th Naval District, report to the Chief Of Naval Operations, dated 31 July 1937.
3. USS Swan deck log, July 1937.
4. Commandant, 14th Naval District, op. cit.
5. USCGC Itasca message to Commander, San Francisco Division, 2 July 1937.
6. Commandant, 14th Naval District, op. cit.
7. Navy Department message to Commandant, 14th Naval District, 2 July 1937.
8. Commandant, 14th Naval District, op. cit.
9. Mary Lovell, The Sound of Wings: The Ufe of Amelia Earhart, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), p. 292.
10. Western Union telegram from George Palmer Putnam to Chief of Naval Operations, 2 July 1937.
11. Commandant, 12th Naval District message to Commandant, 14th Naval District, 2 July 1937.
12. Message from COMINBATFOR(SOPA) to OPNAV, 2 July 1937.
13. Commandant, 14th Naval District, op. cit.
14. USS Colorado deck log, 2 July 1937.
15. The Colorado Lookout (ship’s newspaper), ROTC cruise issue, 22 July 1937.
16. Lt. J.O. Lambrecht, USN, senior aviator, USS Colorado, weekly newsletter to Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics, “Aircraft Search For Earhart Plane,” 16 July 1937.
17. Navy Department message to Commandant, 14th Naval District, 2 July 1937.
18. USS Colorado deck Log, 3 July 1937.
’10. Excerpt of letter from Lt.(j.g.) W.B. Short to his father dated Monday, 5 July 1937.
20. Radio transcripts from the Earhart flight, Cdr. Walter K. Thompson USCG, 19 July 1937.
21. USS Lexington deck log, July 1937.
22. Commandant, 14th Naval District, op. cit.
23. USS Colorado deck log, 3 July 1937.
24. Commanding Officer, USS Colorado report to Commandant, Fourteenth Naval Distict, “Resume Earhart Search by the USS Colorado, 13 July 1937.
25. Radio transcripts of Earhart flight, Cdr. W.K. Thompson, USCG, 19 July 1937.
26. Excerpt of letter from Lt. (j.g.) W.B. Short to his father, dated Thursday, 8 July 1937.
27. Ibid.
29. The Colorado Lookout, op. cit.
30. Lt. J.O. Lambrecht, op. cit.
31. H.E. Maude, History of Gardner Island, report prepared for the Western Pacific High Commission, 1938.
32. Letter from Fred Goemer to Dr. Thomas F. King, 29 February 1992. "Commanding Officer, USS Colorado, op. cit.
33. USS Lexington deck log, July 3937.
34. Commandant, 14th Naval District, op. cit.
35. Diary of Eric R. Bevington, Cadet Officer, Gilbert & Ellice Islands Colony; entry for 14 October 1937.
36. Floyd Kilts, quoted in San Diego Union, 21 July 1960.