The mythologizing process began in 1943 with a Hollywood film, Flight to Freedom. Anti-Japanese wartime propaganda, the movie starred Rosalind Russell as a famous pilot who volunteers for a secret mission in which she becomes deliberately “lost” on a Pacific flight. By this self-sacrifice the heroine provides a reason for a search in which the U.S. Navy can scrutinize Japanese-mandated islands for suspected fortifications in violation of their League of Nations mandate. The story was fiction but the doomed heroine was clearly meant to be Earhart. After the film was seen by thousands of American servicemen stationed in the Pacific area, rumors began to spread that Earhart really had been on a secret mission.
No one has been able to prove beyond doubt how, why, where, and when Amelia Earhart disappeared. Records have been examined again and again, expeditions made, and theories expounded in magazine articles, books, and lectures. In general, the explanations—none with conclusive evidence—have made claims that Earhart was on a U2-type mission, aided by her friend, Franklin Roosevelt, that she overflew the Caroline Islands as agreed but became lost in bad weather, ran out of fuel, and landed or crashed in the area of the Marshall Islands. A less imaginative version omits the spy mission. With minor variations both assert that she was captured by the Japanese and a) was executed, b) died of dysentery, or c) was imprisoned in Tokyo until her rescue by Allied forces in 1945 when she was shipped home incognito by an embarrassed government, which provided her with a new identity and residence in New Jersey.
Among those who knew her best, none believed she was on a mission of espionage, although Amy Earhart later consoled herself with a vague theory that Amelia must have been serving her government in some fashion or other.
Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt both denied Amelia had any such mission and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., authority on the Roosevelt administration, said, “I know of no evidence connecting Roosevelt and Earhart in espionage.” In a letter to Paul Mantz written ten months after Earhart disappeared, Eleanor Roosevelt said that she and FDR were satisfied that everything possible had been done in the search for Amelia.
For a brief time Mantz thought she might have reached Saipan after a generator like one he had installed in the Electra was fished from the harbor, but it proved to be Japanese-made. Eventually he was convinced that she went down near Howland.
Jackie Cochran, Earhart’s closest confidante during the last year of her life, knew of no secret mission. Cochran felt the loss of Earhart so deeply that it was difficult for her to talk about it forty years later. If there had been a grain of truth in the espionage story Cochran would have been the first to make certain the public knew that her friend was a bona fide heroine who sacrificed her life for her country. After repeatedly warning Amelia that Howland would be difficult, if not impossible, to find, Cochran was not surprised to hear Earhart had disappeared. She credited her psychic powers with a picture of the Electra landing at sea and floating for two days before it sank but she was practical enough to double-check this scenario. She wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt and Paul Mantz for affirmation from more prosaic sources.
Eugene Vidal was certain Amelia was not a spy but hoped at first that she might have landed on a Pacific atoll. Her plan, he said, was to hunt for Howland until she had four hours of fuel left, and then, if she had not located it, to turn back to the Gilbert Islands and land on a beach. He eventually abandoned that hope.
Paul Collins said she might have almost reached Howland but any experienced flyer could realize how easy it was to miss it looking into the morning sun under the stress caused by dwindling fuel and the fatigue of an all-night flight.
Kelly Johnson was convinced that she ran out of gas, attempted to bring the plane down on the ocean and failed. She had been airborne for twenty-three hours, he said, “and, so help me, that’s all the time they had fuel for.” As for spying, Johnson added, “the only camera she had was a Brownie.” Carl Allen agreed with Collins and Johnson.
Capt. Irving Johnson, who was at the War Plans office of the Navy at Pearl Harbor and had access to a file on Earhart, said there were no intercepted Japanese messages on her disappearance or capture.
The Japanese also denied any contact with Earhart. Inouye Shigeyoshi, in charge of the Japanese Naval Affairs Bureau in 1937, said he had never seen any evidence of such involvement.
Japanese historian Masataka Chihaya, a graduate of the naval academy in 1930 and later contributor to the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings magazine, said that stories of the Japanese finding Earhart and Noonan were false. Claims that they were captured and transferred to a naval seaplane had to be erroneous, he said, because the largest Japanese naval seaplane in 1937 was the Type 91 Hiro H4H1, with only three seats. Other reports that they were transported as prisoners on the naval vessel Kamoi were also wrong, he said. The ship was not in the area at the time.
What really happened to Amelia Earhart? The so-called solutions to an alleged mystery are pure conjecture, ideal material for Sunday supplement writers. Her family, friends, colleagues, and reputable historians all offer the same simple answer. She lost her way on a flight from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island and died somewhere in the Pacific.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Curley, Walter. “Amelia Earhart: The Aviation Record of America’s Most Famous Woman Pilot.” Weston, Mass.: Cardinal Spellman Philatelic Museum, Regis College, 1966.
Davis, Burke. Amelia Earhart. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1972.
Dolphin, Marie. Fifty Years of Rye. Rye, N.Y.: The City of Rye, 1955.
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Earhart, Amelia. “Flying and Fly-Fishing.” Outdoor Life (December 1934).
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REFERENCE NOTES
Notes are identified by page number.
Abbreviations
AYB Aviation Year Book
CG Log Log of the Coast Guard cutter Itasca at sea, Pacific Ocean, July 19, 1937. Treasury Department, United States Coast Guard, File 65-601.
COHC Oral History Collection, Columbia University
DDEL Dwight D. Eisenhower Library
LAT Los Angeles Times
NASM National Air and Space Museum
PSC Purdue University, Special Collections
SB Star Bulletin (Honolulu)
SLRC Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College
NYHT New York Herald Tribune
NYWT New York World-Telegram
NYT New York Times
PEB Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
Chapter 1. A Double Life
1 Tomboy behavior: Earhart, Fun of It, 11–12.
2 Amelia’s name: Ninety-Nines Archives.
3 Photograph and house description: Globe (Atchison, Kan.), July 21, 1963.
4 Holidays and behavior at school: Morrissey, Courage Is the Price, 67.
5 Hunting: Muriel Earhart Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
6 Private railroad car: Globe, July 21, 1963.
7 Childhood games: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
8 “I must recount”: SLRC, A-129 F. 7, May 12, 1903.
9 “like a big game hunter”: Earhart, Fun of It, 4.
10 “just like flying”: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
11 “It was a thing of rusty wire”: Earhart, Fun of It, 4.
12 Promotion: Morrissey, Courage Is the Price, 86.
13 Twelfth Night dance: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
14 “Of course I’m going to B.M.”: SLRC, 83 M-69 F. 4, March 1914.
15 Chicago: Morrissey, interview, May 20, 1983.
16 Schools for Amelia and Muriel: Morrissey, interview, April 20, 1983.
Chapter 2. Arrow without a Target
1 Abby Sutherland: Ellen Masters, letter, June 14, 1984.
2 Description of Abby Sutherland: SLRC, 83 M-69 F. 7, October 25, 1916.
3 Treatment of faculty members: Masters, letter.
4 “We treated her like a queen”: Myra Thomas, Times Chronicle (Jenkintown, Pa.), p. 20.
5 Letters to Amy: SLRC, M-69 F. 7, October 25, 1916.
6 Time at Camp Grey: ibid., August 1, 8, and 15, 1917.
7 “Honor is the foundation”: ibid.
8 Cruel and discourteous: Masters, letter.
9 “I nearly had my head taken off” and “lost all my friends”: SLRC, M-69 F. 7, November 1917.
10 Oscar Wilde: Masters, letter.
11 “Good girl, Helen!”: SLRC, A-129 F. 2.
12 St. Regis Hotel: SLRC, M-69 F. 7, February 21, 1918.
13 Watching soldiers: Morrissey, “Reminiscences,” COHC, 4.
14 “I’m not going back”: Manual, Zonta Amelia Earhart Fellowship Awards, 1938–84 (1984), p. 20.
15 “Ailments of the chest”: Susan Dexter, interview and correspondence, January 13, 1984.
16 Face of a mature woman: Marian Stabler, interview, June 16, 1984.
17 Description of college: Dexter, interview.
18 “on duty from seven”: Earhart, Fun of It, 12.
19 RCAF pilots: Morrissey, “Reminiscences,” COHC.
20 “mingled fear and pleasure”: Moolman et al., Women Aloft, 61.
21 “I have Sunday morning off”: SLRC, A-129 F. 7.
22 “Don’t think for an instant”: SLRC, 83 M-69 F. 7.
23 “I think of God”: Putnam, Soaring Wings, 48.
24 “a serious word of thanksgiving” Earhart, Fun of It, 21.
25 “the incongruity”: Morrissey, Courage Is the Price, 106.
26 Lake George: Morrissey, “Reminiscences,” COHC, 4.
27 Description of Amelia: Stabler, interview.
28 “One of the worst things”: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
29 Looking after Amy: SLRC, M-69 F. 6, April 24, 1920.
30 Boarders: Morrissey, Courage Is the Price, 116.
31 Dating Sam Chapman: Morrissey, interview, April 20, 1983.
32 Military personnel: Hatfield, Los Angeles Aeronautics, 27.
33 Inquiries about flying and first flight: Earhart, Fun of It, 24–25.
Chapter 3. Linen Wings and a Leather Coat
1 Barnstormers: Collins, Tales of an Old Air-Faring Man.
2 Cecil B. De Mille: Hatfield, Los Angeles Aeronautics, 12.
3 First airplane ride: ibid., 15.
4 “I want to fly”: Southern, I Taught Amelia to Fly, 101–3.
5 Cora Kinner: Cora Kinner, interview with Donna Kinner Hunter, January 24, 1980.
6 “visionary and not too practical”: Morrissey, interview, April 19, 1983.
7 “the kid who could fix anything”: Cora Kinner, interview.
8 regarded it with approval: Southern, I Taught Amelia to Fly, 104.
9 Its top speed: Collins, Tales of an Old Air-Faring Man, 34.
10 Teaching Amelia to fly: Southern, I Taught Amelia to Fly, 122.
11 “He’d come out there”: Cora Kinner, interview.
12 “I think he has the mating instinct”: Southern, I Taught Amelia to Fly, 111.
13 Scrapbook quotes: SLRC, A-129 F.3.
14 “Amelia was usually dressed”: Waldo D. Waterman, letter to Clara Studer, April 19, 1962.
15 Chronic abscess: Winfield B. Kinner, Jr., interview, October 27, 1985.
16 Oil-stained jacket: Southern, I Taught Amelia to Fly, 143.
17 “regarded by many people”: Morrissey, “Reminiscences,” COHC, 4.
18 “We shellacked the canvas wings”: Zonta Awards, p. 20.
19 “life was incomplete”: Earhart, Twenty Hours, 61.
20 Kinner plane: Winfield B. Kinner, Jr., interview.
21 “give up that truck”: Cora Kinner, interview.
22 Three-cylinder engine: Southern, I Taught Amelia to Fly, 121–22.
23 “all over again”: ibid., 125.
24 “Amelia set her little Kinner”: Bellingham Herald (Washington), November 10, 1968.
25 Accident and soloing: Southern, I Taught Amelia to Fly, 125.
26 “scared … to death”: Earhart, Twenty Hours, 54.
27 NAA license: National Aviation Association Records, NASM Library.
28 “a thoroughly rotten landing”: Earhart, Twenty Hours, 56.
29 “Pacific Coast Ladies Derby”: Hatfield, Los Angeles Aeronautics, 80.
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