Lydia Salsbury

December 7, 2017

English 1301

Fall 2017

Professor Hammett

The Women Who Knew No Boundaries: Amelia Earhart

            The public was given the story which was easiest to deal with, but was it true? On July 2, 1937, the famous flying female, pioneer in her craft, Amelia Earhart went missing without a trace. The public, including her family, was baffled. Where had she gone? Was she really dead? How was there not more information? Some believed that her disappearance was a lie from the government, meanwhile, others believed that she died as a castaway, and now new information suggests that she was shot down off the coast of the Marshall Islands and captured by the Japanese where she became a prisoner and died in Japanese custody. But the question still begs, what happened to Amelia Earhart?

Amelia Earhart was a trailblazer and a trendsetter.  Men and women alike admired her.  Early on, she was different from other little girls.  “Defying conventional feminine behavior, a young Earhart climbed trees, “belly slammed”(“Biography” 1) her sled to start it downhill, and hunted rats with a .22 rifle. She also kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering” (1).  These things, along with her education and determination, would set her apart and make her a topic for discussion over 75 years after her death.

Born on July 24, 1897, she was destined to become a role model, and to break social norms, for all girls to come.  As she grew, she stood above the crowd at five foot eight, and weighing in at one hundred eighteen pounds meant that she was unhealthily slender. Earhart was boyish in her features and had short blonde hair with striking grey eyes. She was attractive and determined. “While the social standards of the time held that young girls should behave in a genteel and ladylike fashion, young Amelia was interested in adventure. She recalled being fascinated by mechanical things, and she once designed a trap to catch stray chickens. As the daughter of a railroad employee, she traveled often and thus "discovered the fascination of new people and new places."(“Childhood Story of Amelia Earhart”1) She also realized early that boys were under fewer constraints than girls and questioned why.” (1).  Earhart attended a private preparatory school for girls, thanks to her mother’s family being financially secure.  She would move many times throughout her childhood, and before she would finish high school she would move several more times as her father was fighting a losing battle with alcoholism. His struggles are what helped her become even more determined about her own financial security. (“Amelia Earhart Biography” 1) With each move in life, she would become stronger and more resilient in her liberal ideas.  After graduating from a public high school in Chicago, she attended a finishing school for two years.  She would leave during her second year to move to Canada, after visiting her sister who was attending school in Toronto, to be a nurse’s aide in a military hospital during WWI.  Her volunteer efforts would continue on until the war ended. The entire experience made her a pacifist. She would also go on to attend college at Columbia University, which at the time, less than one percent of women were doing.

            Being ambitious as a woman made her dramatically different.   She left Columbia after a year to move to Los Angeles.  Here is where she took her first flight and fell in love with it from the beginning. She knew she needed to become a pilot, but since very few women were in the profession it made her journey difficult.  She would work odd jobs like file clerk, photographer and even truck driver to help pay for her license and would eventually save enough money, with help from her mother, to buy her own plane. (“Amelia Earhart Biography” 1) Everybody will have setbacks, and in 1924, when her father’s drinking worsened, Amelia’s mother would leave him. She had to sell her plane to buy a car and she drove her mother to Boston, where she would live with her sister.  Amelia would still fly in her spare time, but now had to get a job that would help pay the bills.

            Amelia’s success in flying would take a four-year hiatus, and in April of 1928, she was asked to join a team that would help her become the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic. She jumped at the offer and on June 17, 1928, “her team left Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F7 named Friendship and (on June 17, 1928), arrived at Burry Port, Wales approximately 21 hours later. Their landmark flight made headlines worldwide because three pilots had died within the year trying to be that first women to fly across the Atlantic.” (“Biography” 1) Even fear of death could not restrain Earhart. Her determination was unparalleled. Earhart’s popularity soared.  President Coolidge greeted her upon her arrival back in the States with a ticker tape parade and a reception at the White House.

            Earhart would marry her publicist in 1931, George Putnam, whom she had developed a strong friendship with. She would not take his name and “intent on retaining her independence, she referred to the marriage as a “partnership” with “dual control.”(“Biography” 1).  Flying would continue to dominate her life as well as breaking records never before seen by men or women.  She was the first to do many things in the world of aviation. In 1937, as she drew close to her 40^th birthday, she would set off on a true test of her fortitude and resiliency. She wanted to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. 

            Earhart was an amazing woman who left this world much to soon.  She amazed people of both genders for her determination, spirit and uniqueness. In a letter to her husband, written in case a dangerous flight which proved to be her last, her brave spirit was clear. “Please know I am quite aware of the hazards,” she said. “I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”(“Biography”1).

            What haunts us today about this amazing woman is the question, what happened to her? There are many theories explaining her disappearance. The government told us that she was lost at sea after a crash into the Pacific. Another theory that surfaced in the late nineties said that she crash landed onto Gardener Island and died while waiting for a rescue. The most recently revisited theory suggests that she crash landed in the Marshall Islands and died in Japanese custody. What theory works though, and does it solve this national mystery?

            The government story is believed by many, as in the beginning it was presented as though it was fact. This story lacked significant details and very little information was given to the public. The government searched for sixteen days, the second of July to the eighteenth, (USA Navy & Coast Guard 1) and supposedly failed to find any evidence explaining how she vanished. The conspiracy is actually that the government conspired against the public to keep them in the dark (Henry 1). Reasons given to explain this included that the government had cracked Japanese codes and did not want to alert the Japanese to that so didn’t question the information affirmed by the Japanese (Henry 1). Beyond assumptions however, the files on Earhart’s disappearance were mostly top secret as they remain to this day (Henry 1). This hidden information forces us to question the legitimacy of what we have been told. The government could be keeping this information from us simply to keep the public in the dark or they were hiding the information all along to protect themselves from the backlash of not saving her.

            A theory suggested by many that was looked into in the late nineties was that Amelia Earhart died on Gardner Island while waiting for rescue. This island made sense geographically, as it was not far from her destination of Howland Island (Joyce 1). The evidence for this theory is a stretch however. A shoe heel manufactured in the USA was found, but it fit the wrong size shoe for Earhart and a skeleton was found which was fitting for a five foot six person rather than the five foot eight Earhart (1). This theory was as intriguing though, as the evidence was confusing. The shoe matched the kind of shoe which had been seen on Earhart days prior (1) and the partial skeleton which was looked at was not looked at by a bone specialist when identified and was lost before it could be revisited. This theory though, however much compelling, is not well supported.

            Another thought for how Amelia Earhart went missing is that she was captured by the Japanese. This theory, which is relatively new, says that due to weather conditions to the north of Howland, her goal destination, and with the wind pushing north-west, these conditions, along with overcast skies would allow her to go astray towards the north (Henry 1). This going astray from her intended route would prevent her from arriving at her destination and furthermore when she turned around to return to the Gilbert Islands, due to low fuel, was already off course. She didn’t realize that she would be going straight to the north of her goal thus arriving at Mili Atoll which is a part of the Marshall Islands (1). The Marshall’s at the time were under Japanese control which meant that she could easily have been captured as a presumed spy (1). This theory is further reinforced by the finding of plane parts that matched Earhart’s Lockheed on Mili Atoll and by finding bones in the same place within a cemetery where Earhart was said to have been executed by beheading and hastily buried by the Japanese. To top it all off, there have been many eye witness accounts to her crash landing and imprisonment (1). The Marshall Islands also had a stamp series depicting the plane crash and people seeing it (1).

            With all of the presented information and evidence there are two theories which not only fit the situation but are extremely likely with all evidence considered, as well as one which is not even close to credible. The theory that the government conspired to keep the public from knowing the truth works together with the theory that Earhart was captured by the Japanese. This is because at the time, to acknowledge that they knew about this capture, would alert the Japanese that the USA had cracked their codes and would have created even more turmoil which had already begun as WW2 was just around the corner (“Quora” 1). We will likely learn even more to support both theories if the information, which is currently marked as top secret, is ever actually released. The theory placing Earhart on Gardner Island is not well supported and isn’t feasible with what we know about her flight and with the evidence for the theory negating the theory. To go further into the support of the theory that the Japanese captured Earhart, I surveyed twenty-two people and asked them if they believed that Earhart survived her flight and was captured by the Japanese. This question garnered a split vote as eleven people supported and eleven people negated on this. I then asked a secondary question to those who answered yes and found that one hundred percent of those who supported that she survived and was captured had in fact seen new evidence and specifically the photo.

            After looking into the departure of Amelia Earhart from our knowledge into the unknown realm of mystery, three conspiracies come to the forefront of our search for the truth:

1. Did The Government purposefully mislead Americans?

2. Was Amelia stranded on Gardner Island awaiting rescue until her untimely death after her crash landing?

3. Was Amelia Earhart captured by the Japanese after her crash landing and killed in their custody?

 Even today, over eighty years after her disappearance, the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s demise continues to baffle scholars and the public. Even with the new evidence which points to her death at the hands of the Japanese, the world will probably never truly know what happed to this amazing person.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amelia-earhart-may-have-survived-crash-landing-never-seen-photo-n779591

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

  

Works Cited

“Biography - The Official Licensing Website of Amelia Earhart.” Amelia Earhart, CMG Worldwide, June 2017, www.ameliaearhart.com/biography/.

Contributor, Quora. “How Did the U.S. Break Japanese Military Codes Before the Battle of Midway?” Slate Magazine, Quora, 20 Nov. 2013, www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/11/20/u_s_in_world_war_ii_how_the_navy_broke_japanese_codes_before_midway.html.

Gillespie, Richard E. “The Earhart Project.” Earhart Biography, Tighar, 2017, tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Earhart.html#1.

Henry, Shawn. “Amelia Earhart 2017 Full Documentary (The Lost Evidence).” YouTube, YouTube, 28 July 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCS4s4Io9lc.

Joyce, Christopher. “Bones, Shoes May Have Been Amelia Earhart's.” NPR, NPR, 2 Dec. 1998, www.npr.org/1998/12/02/1032135/bones-shoes-may-have-been-amelia-earharts.

Navy & Coast Guard, USA. “Report of Earhart Search.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, 31 July 1937, catalog.archives.gov/id/305240.

not listed. “Height/Weight Chart - Live Well.” NHS Choices, NHS, 14 Apr. 2015, www.nhs.uk/livewell/loseweight/pages/height-weight-chart.aspx.

None listed. “Amelia Earhart Learns To Fly.” Amelia Earhart Learns to Fly, Library of Congress: Americas Library, www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/earhart/aa_earhart_learns_1.html.

Not Listed. “Amelia Earhart Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2017, www.notablebiographies.com/Du-Fi/Earhart-Amelia.html.

Not Listed. “Childhood Story Of Amelia Earhart.” Amelia Earhart Museum , Amelia Earhart Museum, 0ADAD, www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/AmeliaEarhart/AEChildhood.htm.

The associated press . “Miss Earhart Forced Down at Sea, Howland Isle Fears; Coast Guard Begins Search.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2010, www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0702.html#article.