Wednesday

Latest piece of the electra found?

It's funny how Discovery seems to be a spokesperson for these expeditions to Nikamauroro.  Why is it that only Rosella Lorenzi is the only writer credited with these stories?

And this latest discovery?

That very piece they're claiming was from the Electra was discounted by Electra expert Elgen Long 22 years ago:

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-03-30/news/vw-278_1_amelia-earhart

March 30th, 1992,

"Long recruited a formidable panel of volunteers: a professor of metals engineering; a structures engineer for Navy patrol aircraft; the owner of two Lockheed 10 airplanes, and the assistant foreman, now retired, of the Lockheed fuselage shop at the time Earhart's plane was built.

The group pored over photographs of the piece. They examined blueprints and engineering orders for repairs to the airplane's underside needed after a takeoff accident ended an earlier Earhart attempt to fly around the world. And the team visited a 1936 Lockheed 10B at Oakland's Western Aerospace Museum.
The associates placed the template over the starboard belly of the airplane. They slid the piece over all other exterior sections of the airplane. Just in case.

"We decided the fragment could have come from anywhere . . . anywhere but Amelia Earhart's airplane," Long says.

The latest article asks for funding for the eleventh expedition.


Actually just read the last paragraph of the DiscoveryNew.com article. “Funding is being sought, in part, from individuals who will make a substantial contribution in return for a place on the expedition team,” Gillespie said." 

22 years ago, this piece of the plane was definitely said "not to be from the Electra." 

Experts were consulted, and for the past 24 years (since it was found) it was considered just another piece of junk. 

Question is - where's the rest of the plane? So we're to believe that the plane crashed - but then sank - where he wants to get people to fund his expedition to find it. So this one piece either fell on its way into the water - or magically jumped up onto land.

He's had TEN EXPEDITIONS to this island. ABC funded a couple - one guy sued him over the last one. I wish it was a piece from her plane. Alas, it would mean that over 200 islanders and over a dozen US Marines (that I have on film) were lying. That they didn't see her plane, didn't see her incarcerated on Saipan. That she wasn't executed by the Japanese for being an American when the US launched the invasion of their Headquarters for the war in the Pacific.

That all these islanders who came forward during my trip to Saipan last year - who never have spoken about what they saw, or what their parents saw or what their relatives told them - was untrue. Again - I'd LOVE for this to be her plane. Then it would mean she didn't die the tragic death everyone has told me she died... in their own words.

I'm sorry to say - there's not real evidence that links that piece to her plane - other than saying "it's a patch that she got in Florida." Which is why it was discounted 24 years ago. 


But gee, the article doesn't mention that, now does it? How could the author of this piece have missed that key detail?

Oh well. Stay tuned.
This webpage examines the eyewitness accounts and other evidence that shows Amelia and Fred were arrested and taken to Saipan. There were over 200 individuals who claimed they saw her, this site examines who they were, and what they heard or saw. It includes details of evidence the Electra was found on Saipan, interviews with people who saw her and the Electra before and after they were taken to Saipan. Interviews with over two dozen Saipanese who claim they saw her there and over a dozen US Marines who claim they found the Electra, her passport, briefcase and other details.

EYEWITNESS REPORTS

THE EYEWITNESS REPORTS VIDEO IS NOW .99 CENTS

Eyewitness Accounts: Published

EYEWITNESS: THE AMELIA EARHART INCIDENT BY THOMAS E DEVINE WITH RICHARD M DALEY

Pg 40. “Glancing out on the runway ramp.. an area not the main part of Aslito Field, but an extended arm of the airstrip at the southwest corner… Near an embankment was (AE’s plane). (LATER) .. a muffled explosion at Aslito Field erupted into a large flash fire… I crouched and crawled toward the airfield. When I could see what was burning, I was aghast! The twin engine plane was engulfed in flames! I could not see anyone by the light of the fire… in July 1944.”

THE SEARCH FOR AMELIA EARHART BY FRED GOERNER

Goerner gathers dozens of eyewitnesses to Earhart’s incarceration and second hand info about her execution.

AMELIA EARHART: LAST FLIGHT

Amelia reveals she did not know Morse code (and neither did Fred Noonan)

AMELIA EARHART:HER LAST FLIGHT

By OLIVER KNAGSS

South African journalist gathers numerous eyewitnesses at Mili, Majuro and Jaluit. There is footage of these interviews, but it exists somewhere in Miami – still trying to locate the negative.

AMELIA EARHART: THE MYSTERY SOLVED By ELGEN M LONG AND MARIE K LONG

Elgen shows how the original plan devised by radio man Harry Manning was adhered to by the Coast Guard Itasca – they didn’t know Manning got off the plane in Hawaii and wasn’t on the electra. So 90% of all their communication was in Morse code – something neither AE or FN knew.

“WITH OUR OWN EYES – EYEWTINESSES TO THE FINAL DAYS OF AMELIA EARHART” MIKE CAMPBELL WITH THOMAS E DEVINE

PG 32. Robert Sosbe, 1st battalion 20th Marines, 4th marine division) Sosbe said he saw the Electra before and during its destruction) “on or about D+5 after our infantry had captured Alsito, the night before, then were driven off, only to capture it again, our Co was called up to fill a gap between our infantry and the 27th Army infantry. The trucks carrying us stopped off the opposite side of the runway from the hangars and tower about 3 to 5 hundred yds. This two engine airplane was pulled from the hangar to off the runway where it was engulfed in flames from one end to the other. I can still remember exactly the way it burned, how the frame and ribs because it was visible. It was about half dark. It burned approximately 15-30 minutes.”

Same page: a letter from Earskine Nabers: “I am seeking Marines who were placed on duty at Aslito to guard a padlocked hangar containing AE’s plane. The hangar was not one of those located along the runway. It was located near what may have been a Japanese administration building, and an unfinished hangar at the tarmac, in the southwest corner of the airfield.

The follow up letter (pg 33)

…”we had to get Col. Clarence R Wallace to sign all the messages that came through the message center.) Hq 8th moved back to bivouac area. I was dropped off at the Hangar for guard duty at the main road that went by west side of hangar. The road that went out to hangar, I was placed on the right side, just as it left the main road….

Pg 34 The best I can recall the plane was pulled on the field by a jeep.. the plane was facing north after the plane was parked and jeep moved. A plane came over real low and on the next pass he strafed the plane and it went up in a huge fireball. (We were sitting on the west side of the airfield about one hundred yards from the plane. We were on higher ground. As far as I remember, the (men) that pulled the plane on the field and us guys from H & S 8th were the only ones there.”

Pg 36 Marine Capt Earl Ford of Fallbrook, CA, artillery master sgt with 2nd Marines. Interview 6-7-88 by Paul Cook. “The aircraft was about 100 yards (from me) maybe less. We all saw it. No way we could miss it. A civilian twin engine. No way it was military. American aircraft in civil registration… some officers were saying it was Amelia’s… it had only two windows on the side, back here.”

Arthur Nash, Air Corps Corps, P47 group on Aslito. Claims he saw the plane on July 4, 1944 (book says 1945, must be a misprint based on following) pg 40:

“After landing on Isley.. at 2:30 pm, Japanese soldiers were running around the airstrip, one killed himself in the cockpit of a P47D with a grenade…” I slept fairly well (in the hangar) and (in the morning) wandered over to a large hole in the hangar wall facing the other hangar. The hangar floor and the area between the hangars was littered with debris, displace with siding from the hangars, maybe 65 yards apart, but close enough to get a good look at a familiar aircraft outside the other hangar. My eyesight was acute and what I saw was Amelia Earhart’s airplane!... the next morning I went over to see it but it was gone.”

Jerrell Chatham, 1st platoon, I company, 3rd regiment, 2nd marine deivions: “I was driving trucks .. on Saipan… when we went ashore I saw the hangar where Amelia Earhart’s plane was stored, I also saw the plane in the air. They told us not to go close to the airplane hangar and we did not…”

Pg 44: Howard Ferris, US Marines: “Sent to Saipan for guard dutey… an old hangar structure at end of a runway. This hangar was not large,.. small trees in front of big doors.. (then he recounts the same Marine argument that Devine and Nabers recount – where some Navy brass attempted to get in, but a Marine (Nabers) refused them entry.)” Howard was not present at the fire, but one of his buddies was. The buddy said a truck arrived with many gas cans and the guards saturated the entire hangar.. and it burned totally.

Pg 50 Robert Sowash, 23rd regiment 4th Marines Division: “I saw a plane in a building that was not a military plane.. I remember other Marines saying it was the same as Earhart’s. Later the place was cordoned off..”

Pete Leblanc, 121st Naval CB’s, 4th Marine division: “some of our guys were sneaking over towards the airfield to try and see (AE’s plane). We heard there were guards there. Then it was burned up later.”

AMELIA EARHART: LOST LEGEND - DONALD MOYER WILSON

Over 200 eyewitnesses as gathered by all the different authors with the various reports of her landing on Mili, being brought to Jaluit and incarcerated in Garapan prison.