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36 - Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart by Paul L. Briand, Jr. · Daughter of the Sky- The Story of Amelia Earhart

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty six of Daughter of the Sky, The Story
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  Speaker 1: of Amelia Earhart by Paulbrion Junior. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Part three, The Last Flight eight
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  Speaker 1: The Fog of Rumors. The first great rumor which had
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  Speaker 1: gained widespread acceptance was that Amelia and Fred were prisoners
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  Speaker 1: of the Japanese. They had flown over islands in the
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  Speaker 1: Japanese Mandate which were being illegally fortified. The plane had
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  Speaker 1: been shot down by anti aircraft guns, the pilot and
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  Speaker 1: navigator had been taken and held a spies. This Japanese
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  Speaker 1: prisoner story still persists after more than twenty years, largely
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  Speaker 1: because of a movie released in the early forties while
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  Speaker 1: World War II was at its highest pitch and anti
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  Speaker 1: Japanese feeling at white heat. The film Flight for Freedom,
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  Speaker 1: starring Rosalind Russell and Fred mc murray, told the story
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  Speaker 1: of a famous American woman flyer, Tony Carter, who had
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  Speaker 1: been asked asked by the United States Navy to get
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  Speaker 1: lost in the South Pacific, actually to remain in hiding
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  Speaker 1: at Holland Island so that Navy planes could take photographs
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  Speaker 1: of illegal Japanese fortifications while looking for her in the movie,
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  Speaker 1: Tony Carter's navigator was an old beau, Randy Britton, to
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  Speaker 1: whom she had once been engaged. This gave rise to
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  Speaker 1: another rumor. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were in love
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  Speaker 1: and decided to find a lonely Pacific island where they
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  Speaker 1: could live out their idyllic love happily. Ever after, incensed
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  Speaker 1: by the broad illusions of the film, George Palmer Putnam
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  Speaker 1: filed suit. The movie company settled out of court. The
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  Speaker 1: scenario writers for Flight for Freedom were not alone, however,
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  Speaker 1: in their belief. Aboard the USS Colorado while it was
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  Speaker 1: conducting its search for the missing flyers were doctor M. L.
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  Speaker 1: Britton of Georgia Tech and other university presidents who were
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  Speaker 1: guests of the battleship on a Pacific cruise. There was
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  Speaker 1: the possibility. Doctor Britton later suggested that Amelia was a
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  Speaker 1: prisoner of the Japanese even as late as nineteen forty four,
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  Speaker 1: and that one day soon she would be liberated by
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  Speaker 1: the advancing United States Marines. We got the definite feeling.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Britain was quoted as saying that miss Earhart had
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  Speaker 1: some sort of understanding with government officials that the last
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  Speaker 1: part of her voyage around the world would be over
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  Speaker 1: some Japanese islands, probably the Marshals. Amelia's mother, amy Otis Earhart,
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  Speaker 1: has long maintained that her daughter was on a secret
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  Speaker 1: government mission and that she was captured by the Japanese.
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  Speaker 1: This is missus Earhart's belief, even though she has no
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  Speaker 1: official basis for it. The Navy Department at the end
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  Speaker 1: of World War II was compelled to make a final
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  Speaker 1: official announcement about Ae's disappearance. Amelia Earhart had not been
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  Speaker 1: sent on a naval Cloak and DAWs jagger operation. Her
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  Speaker 1: plane had not been shot out of the skies by
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  Speaker 1: Japanese gunfire. She had not been captured, held as a prisoner,
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  Speaker 1: or shot as a spy. Nevertheless, despite official and unofficial
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  Speaker 1: beliefs and statements to the contrary, rumors still flourished. There
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  Speaker 1: was the story of the Japanese fishing boat. After United
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  Speaker 1: States forces had invaded the Marshall Islands north and west
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  Speaker 1: of Howland, Lieutenants Eugene T. Bogan and James Tool were
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  Speaker 1: quoted as saying that this story was told to them
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  Speaker 1: by a missionary trained native named Eliu Ajima, a jap
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  Speaker 1: Trader said three and a half years ago that an
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  Speaker 1: American woman pilot came down between Jaluit and Alinglapalap Atolls,
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  Speaker 1: southeastern Marshall Islands, and was picked up by a Japanese
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  Speaker 1: fishing boat crew. She was taken to Japan. In July
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen forty four. During the invasion of Saipan. In
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  Speaker 1: the Mariana Islands, far north and west of Howland Island,
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  Speaker 1: the Marines found in an abandoned Japanese barracks a photograph
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  Speaker 1: album filled with snapshots of Amelia Earhart in her flying clothes.
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  Speaker 1: It is known that Ae carried a camera with her
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  Speaker 1: on the world flight, but not that she was carrying
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  Speaker 1: a photograph album filled with pictures of herself. Doctor Britton,
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  Speaker 1: the same who had been on the searching Colorado, was
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  Speaker 1: queried in nineteen forty four about the Saipan pictures. He
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  Speaker 1: felt that there was a definite connection between the album
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  Speaker 1: and the disappearance of the Earhart Lane. Of all the
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  Speaker 1: pieces of evidence in the stories about the disappearance, the
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  Speaker 1: most extraordinary was a piece of wood. It was a
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  Speaker 1: fragment of a fence post with several nail holes in
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  Speaker 1: it and with one end badly charred. The piece of
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  Speaker 1: wood was found in July nineteen forty two by Robert D.
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  Speaker 1: Weisshaupt while he was on beach duty with the Coast
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  Speaker 1: Artillery at Paranoff Island, Alaska. Whyshap noticed the burned piece
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  Speaker 1: of fence post as it washed in and out from
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  Speaker 1: the shore. It looked as if it had some writing
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  Speaker 1: on it. He waded in and picked it out of
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  Speaker 1: the water. On one side was printed to my husband,
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  Speaker 1: I have crashed two hundred and fifty mills from Hawaii northwest.
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  Speaker 1: Our motor went into flames. Sharks about me. AE. On
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  Speaker 1: the other side simply missus AE. Whoever wrote on the
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  Speaker 1: piece of wood and set it adrift on the water,
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  Speaker 1: perpetuated a cruel hoax. It is extremely unlikely that Ae
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  Speaker 1: could have crashed two hundred fifty miles northwest of Hawaii.
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  Speaker 1: The electorate did not have enough fuel to fly another
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  Speaker 1: two thousand miles beyond Holland. And if Amelia had written
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  Speaker 1: such a desperate message on wood suddenly provided in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the Pacific, she would have addressed the message
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  Speaker 1: not to my husband but to G P P, her
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  Speaker 1: husband's well known initials, and she would have signed her
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  Speaker 1: initials on the reverse side, not missus a E, but
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  Speaker 1: a E, because she was not Missus Amelia Earhart. For
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  Speaker 1: the rest of his life, George Palmer Putnam was a
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  Speaker 1: man haunted and hunted by people who claimed that they
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  Speaker 1: had mystic powers and that they could put him in
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  Speaker 1: contact with his wife. Eighteen months after her disappearance, Amelia
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  Speaker 1: was declared legally dead and g P married again. He
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  Speaker 1: went to live in the mountains, away from the crowds,
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  Speaker 1: and during the war he joined the Air Force end
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  Speaker 1: of Section thirty six