A recap and further adventures...

We are still in the hunt.

Captain Cooper at the old Japanese jail - photo Robert Rustin

Captain Cooper reports from Saipan that our permits are in order to being digging at Alsito airfield.  There may be one or two more hoops to jump through, but basically he's on the runway, his engines running.  Here is Captain Cooper in today's Saipan Tribune:

Amelia Earhart experts push for CNMI Cultural Center

Facility to host exhibit on female pilot

By Clarissa V. David
Reporter

A team of researchers doing investigative work in the Northern Marianas on the mystery surrounding famed American aviatrix Amelia Earhart's disappearance is reviving efforts to have a CNMI Cultural Center built on Saipan.

Capt. Paul H. Cooper, one of two guest speakers at the Rotary Club of Saipan meeting yesterday, said the center could accommodate not just the world-class Amelia Earhart exhibition the team is putting together but also the CNMI museum.

Cooper said he found the 2005 plan for the proposed $20-million center during discussions with Chuck Jordan, who served as director of the Office of Planning and Statistics for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

“This program is something that Saipan needs,” said Cooper, a pilot for Southwest Airlines, adding that their team already created a committee to do due diligence to ensure that the project prospers.

According to Cooper, there are grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other funding sources that could subsidize the construction of the center.

“There's plenty [of] available grants to do this project. We just need the people of Saipan to get behind this. We're gathering our resources to bring this forward. I'm excited to be able to share this with you today because the center is what's best for Saipan,” he told Rotarians.

Cooper's team is doing research on Earhart, the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, who disappeared in 1937 aboard a Lockheed Electra Model 10 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

“Our reason is to solve this aviation mystery that's been plaguing the world for the last 70 years,” said Cooper.

The team is composed of Cooper, film director, producer, screenwriter, and freelance journalist Richard Martini, and aircraft recovery lead investigator Michael Harris.

Harris, who also appeared before the Rotary Club of Saipan in January, said at the time that his visit is to make a documentary on the Naval Construction Battalions, popularly known as Seabees “because we didn't want the word to get out about the Amelia Earhart research that we're doing,” said Cooper.

“A lot of people out there don't want us to succeed,” he said.

Cooper said eyewitness accounts from a dozen U.S. Marines, plus over 200 from various Pacific territories attest that Earhart's plane was shot down and was taken to several islands before it was finally brought to Saipan.

“Her airplane was found here in 1944 by the U.S. Marines when they invaded Saipan. It was flown after they found the airplane then it was destroyed,” he said.

According to Cooper, some 20 eyewitnesses they interviewed on Saipan corroborate that Earhart indeed spent time on island during the Japanese occupation of the Northern Marianas.

Another group, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, is convinced that Earhart went down in Nikumaroro island, about 400 miles southeast of Earhart's intended destination, Howland Island.

“They don't have one piece of evidence. They don't have an eyewitness. Now, have I found a piece of the airplane? Not yet. But I'm close, I believe. The way the dominoes have fallen since I've been here, if my footsteps weren't guided by God, it would not have been possible for me to discover what I've discovered since I've been here. The whole team has just been totally blessed with this experience,” said Cooper.

Meanwhile, Mike Harris Sr. reports from Florida that he's been successful at locating some of the footage that he shot back in 1983 of islanders speaking on camera about seeing or hearing stories about Amelia Earhart being on Saipan.  This footage has been mistakenly identified as coming from "T.C. "Buddy" Brennan" when it was Mike who was directing the documentary and had hired the cameraman.  For whatever reason, Mr. Brennan released a video and a book about the expedition, but neglected to tell Mike that he was using his footage in either.  We've come that much closer to rectifying that oversight.  Mike will soon have a print of his footage in hand, so we can access it and blend it with what we've shot on Saipan.

Mike Harris shooting on Saipan

We've also had progress on two fronts; we have been able to locate some of the footage shot during the Oliver Knaggs expedition on Mili and Jaluit back in the 1980's.  After an exhaustive search, we are in the process of discussing what exists in VHS or 16mm form.  We will report back to you what condition this footage is in - but for those Earhart researchers who've been able to see Oliver Knagg's book, this footage will do a lot of clearing up the Mili portion of the story.  (Islanders reported the Electra coming down in Mili in 1937, these are eyewitness interviews with people who claim to have witnessed that event.)

Also we are pursuing an interview with someone who was instrumental in the Earhart saga.  We were able to interview her brother on Saipan, and god willing, we will do an interview with this woman who had a key role in the sighting of Amelia Earhart on Saipan.  The point of this being that we are asking people to just tell us what they saw - and when compared with other stories, eyewitness accounts, a fuller picture comes into view.  This person can also gives us an accurate portrait of what it was like on Saipan during the war years - and that information is priceless in terms of living history. 

Robert Rustin and David Dougherty - thanks for your help

Saipan, as we've come to learn, played a key role in world history.  Once the airfield was taken by the US forces, the air war was essentially won.  It was this key moment when bombers could refuel on their path to Tokyo.  And within months, the airfield had been expanded, and then a larger one was built three miles away on Tinian, where bombers could fly around the clock.  And of course, it was on Tinian where warfare changed forever, with the introduction of Fat Man and Little Boy into the lexicon of warfare.  It was this airfield that changed the way war has been fought since, and perhaps forever.

Aptly named Forbidden Island - another mystery of Saipan

By the way, one tidbit we've learned while on Saipan.  Japan was developing an atomic bomb at the same time the US was developing its own.  The story, as we've been told it from two sources is this; the Germans had a submarine not far from Saipan where Japan and Germany were doing a joint effort in the race to develop an atomic bomb - the bomb to end all bombs.  And when the first bomb destroyed Hiroshima, as the story goes, when word made it to this submarine, the three Japanese scientists went into their quarters and committed harakiri.  This story is not part of any history program we've come across, and if true, would change the argument about the necessity of dropping an atomic. If these fellows had been successful, the world would certainly have been a different place - and I probably wouldn't be writing this sentence...

Stay tuned...