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Enola & Bless, debunkers are pointing out that it's a pretty blurry photo. What do you think?

Well it is a plausible match for Noonan (especially that distinctive hair style), a vaguely possible match for Earhart, and there is something on the barge that could just about conceivably be the salvaged fuselage of a light-coloured aircraft. This would support anecdotal evidence from Marshall Islanders who claim the plane ditched in the water nearby and the Japs took Earhart and Noonan prisoner. The photo's resolution (or questionable provenance) is not high enough to go beyond a "possible" here though, so I remain unconvinced.
 
More on the Marshall Islands narrative here (largely anecdotal to begin with). Haven't heard the entire two hour programme yet tbh, but the Saipan ditching & Japanese execution on grounds of actual or suspected espionage has always seemed plausible to me.

Could just be a re-hash of old information/ rumours...just posting it here as it popped up on me YouTubes.

 
Enola & Bless, debunkers are pointing out that it's a pretty blurry photo. What do you think?

I've only seen the CBS news segment so far, in which the photo wasn't all that distinct. I have no comment for now ...
 
"Japanese execution on grounds of actual or suspected espionage has always seemed plausible to me."

Agreed. The Earhart disappearance was around the same time as the Japanese invasion of China, so the imperial Japanese forces were already on a full war footing and would have been ultra-sensitive about security.
Throughout the 30s tensions had been rising between Japan and the USA, with some low-level military contact between the two powers:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fir...orld_War_II_before_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

So, the Japs would certainly have been deeply suspicious of Earhart's motives.
The Japanese claim that they have no records of her detention does weigh against this theory, however the subsequent chaos of the Sino-Japanese war and of course WW2, could possibly explain the absence of any official supporting documentation. Or maybe the Japs simply do not want to admit that they executed an innocent global heroine?
 
Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.
 
That new photo finding doesn't contain enough clear visual evidence to convince me.
That said, it's a perfectly viable theory.
Also, there would have been fairly few Western women in that part of the world with a short hairstyle like that. It was really not common at all for women to wear trousers and have short hair. So it could have been her.
 
"Japanese execution on grounds of actual or suspected espionage has always seemed plausible to me."

Agreed. The Earhart disappearance was around the same time as the Japanese invasion of China, so the imperial Japanese forces were already on a full war footing and would have been ultra-sensitive about security.
Throughout the 30s tensions had been rising between Japan and the USA, with some low-level military contact between the two powers:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fir...orld_War_II_before_the_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

So, the Japs would certainly have been deeply suspicious of Earhart's motives.
The Japanese claim that they have no records of her detention does weigh against this theory, however the subsequent chaos of the Sino-Japanese war and of course WW2, could possibly explain the absence of any official supporting documentation. Or maybe the Japs simply do not want to admit that they executed an innocent global heroine?

Mili Atoll, where the aircraft shouldn't have been, was massively strategically important to Japan, being effectively an enormous natural fortified harbour bang in rhe middle of the ocean. Whether Earhart & Noonan ended up there due to poor navigation or cause they were on a spying mission, their presence wouldn't have been welcome.

For those don't feel like wading through a load of podcasts and articles, what is really persuasive is the number of contemporary eyewitness accounts (from natives, not Japanese military types) describing an aircraft landing on the atoll, two men (one of whom turned out to be a short-haired woman dressed like a male Westerner) exiting the plane via a 'yellow boat that grew bigger' before being taken into Japanese custody and along with the Lockheed being transferred by ship to Saipan - where there was a military detention facility...hence the set of stamps issued in 1987 to commemorate the event. Supposedly the islanders wouldn't mention what they'd seen in the intervening years as they were still afraid of Japanese retribution even after the war was over - so traumatic had the occupation been.

Also a bit odd is Earhart's very brief and sporadic radio communications - which just might indicate the behaviour of a pilot determined not to allow her position to be fixed by triangulation, not that of an aircrew following a normal flightplan, nor becoming lost in the middle of the sea and needing to find out where the hell they were.

Of course they could've had electrical trouble, I suppose.
 
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OK, I've looked at the photo now ...

I can't say I find the figures even strongly suggestive of Earhart and Noonan, much less compelling enough to call a positive ID.

The alleged Earhart figure does, admittedly, exhibit a short hairdo. So did a lot of females during the 1930's.

Owing to the blurring and high contrast, I can't see any clear evidence the figure's hair is wavy / curly. There's also no clear evidence the hair has the highlights evident in photos of Earhart all along. The figure's slight build is on a par with the obvious males in the photo. I'm not even sure the seated figure is a female.

The alleged Noonan figure is even more ambiguous. I'm still trying to make sense of its apparent posture, position relative to the arched awning (whatever), and what contortions were required to have him(?) standing behind the guy (just to the right) and the vertical post / sign, yet apparently holding the signpost (?) out front.

Noonan's bare forehead was a lot taller then this figure's, and I have yet to find a photo in which so much of Noonan's hair hung down so close to his eyebrows.

I'm not buying it - at least not yet ...
 
OK, I've looked at the photo now ...

I can't say I find the figures even strongly suggestive of Earhart and Noonan, much less compelling enough to call a positive ID.

The alleged Earhart figure does, admittedly, exhibit a short hairdo. So did a lot of females during the 1930's.

Owing to the blurring and high contrast, I can't see any clear evidence the figure's hair is wavy / curly. There's also no clear evidence the hair has the highlights evident in photos of Earhart all along. The figure's slight build is on a par with the obvious males in the photo. I'm not even sure the seated figure is a female.

The alleged Noonan figure is even more ambiguous. I'm still trying to make sense of its apparent posture, position relative to the arched awning (whatever), and what contortions were required to have him(?) standing behind the guy (just to the right) and the vertical post / sign, yet apparently holding the signpost (?) out front.

Noonan's bare forehead was a lot taller then this figure's, and I have yet to find a photo in which so much of Noonan's hair hung down so close to his eyebrows.

I'm not buying it - at least not yet ...

Just checked out the photo, it's far from convincing, eh?.


You're right; plenty of women had short(ish) hairdos at that time, and not entirely due to fashion, as many suddenly found themselves working with hazardous machinery in factories (...er, probably, he hypothesised).

But this would have been extremely unusual and noteworthy to the native Marshall islanders, and allegedly the original eye witnesses said as much - and although they were by then used to ships and aeroplanes the concept of a female pilot was somewhat mind-blowing...and not something they would have made up as the possibility would not have occurred to them!
 
... You're right; plenty of women had short(ish) hairdos at that time, and not entirely due to fashion, as many suddenly found themselves working with hazardous machinery in factories (...er, probably, he hypothesised).

But this would have been extremely unusual and noteworthy to the native Marshall islanders, and allegedly the original eye witnesses said as much - and although they were by then used to ships and aeroplanes the concept of a female pilot was somewhat mind-blowing...and not something they would have made up as the possibility would not have occurred to them!

It wouldn't have been unusual for a Japanese woman (if it's indeed a woman in the photo ...). Japan had been ceded control of the Marshall Islands after WWI, and there was already a population of Japanese inhabiting the atoll (which I believe was still the administrative seat for the island group) as of 1937.
 
Fair enough - one of the witnesses btw was mixed race Japanese / Marshallese* (*I think that's the correct term), but I forgot to mention that the islanders who witnessed (allegedly) the Electra's arrival described the occupants as 'white'. So I guess they meant non-Japanese...they probably hadn't encountered many white folks at the time.
 
Fair enough - one of the witnesses btw was mixed race Japanese / Marshallese* (*I think that's the correct term), but I forgot to mention that the islanders who witnessed (allegedly) the Electra's arrival described the occupants as 'white'. So I guess they meant non-Japanese...they probably hadn't encountered many white folks at the time.

As of mid-1937 there were still Spanish missionaries operating on the islands, according to:

Francis X. Hezel. Strangers in their own Land: A Century of Colonial Rule lin the Caroline and Marshall Islands. University of Hawai'i Press, 2003.

... accessible at Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=R...Dz4Q6AEIXDAM#v=snippet&q=missionaries&f=false

According to this book, the first restrictions the Japanese administrators imposed on foreign missionaries' locations and movements began in "late 1937".
 
I'm surprised no one (here or elsewhere that I've visited ... ) has asked what strikes me as an obvious question:

If Earhart and Noonan did end up in the Marshalls, and were taken into custody by paranoid Japanese administrators, why the hell were they allowed to casually hang out on the jetty / pier?
 
Ah right, that's interesting. So the Spanish 'owned' the islands from 1528 until 1884, when they sold them to Germany!

Quite a chequered history!
 
I'm surprised no one (here or elsewhere that I've visited ... ) has asked what strikes me as an obvious question:

If Earhart and Noonan did end up in the Marshalls, and were taken into custody by paranoid Japanese administrators, why the hell were they allowed to casually hang out on the jetty / pier?

'cos they were under (discreet) armed guard?

Don't know, of course - just speculating.
 
Ah right, that's interesting. So the Spanish 'owned' the islands from 1528 until 1884, when they sold them to Germany!

Quite a chequered history!

Yep ...

First the Spanish, then the Germans, then the Japanese (who were awarded custody for nominally being on the winning side in WW1). The book I cited above indicates the Japanese forced the German ones to leave. Otherwise, Xtian Euro's of all stripe seemed to have had an open door until the late 1930's.

All along there were plenty of opportunities for the ubiquitous missionaries to visit, live, and maybe even stay. The Wikipedia article on the Marshalls notes there were both Catholic and Protestant missionaries in residence by the time the Japanese starting cracking down on them.
 
What the National Geoghraphic should do, is get into some high tech imagery, you can 3Dize images, enhance, do all kinds of things, make a 3D model of this image, and test all kinds of things. The other thing they can do is interview people who may recognize people in the photograph, family, etc, whatever the case here is you have a lead to try to follow, people's opinions do not work here, you have to work the proof. This image is very curious, you could have had a photographer snap a shot, Emila could have just been rescued off the plane onto the dock. Who knows, many things can be done to verify the pic and surroundings, etc and location.

I would love to see this program, but no cable here, so if anyone has more data, photos, reports of the show, share it.
 
The most straightforward way to start whittling down the possibilities is to focus on the two most tangible items cited:

- the photo itself (as a physical artifact that ended up in the National Archives), and
- the ship in the background, alleged to be the Japanese vessel Koshu.

On the photo front, the first thing is to check any logs or catalogues for reference points on this particular photo. I have yet to read any article on this latest claim that specifies what, or how much, was done in this regard.

The ship in the new (-ly publicized) photo is claimed to be named Koshu. The Koshu was a Japanese oceanographic / survey vessel. This photo:

koshu-circa-1918.jpg


SOURCE: https://earharttruth.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/koshu-circa-1918.jpg

... is purported to be a picture of Koshu circa 1918. This earlier photo appears generally consistent with the vessel in the currently-publicized photo to my eye.

I find it interesting that this photo from two decades earlier shows Koshu towing(?) what seems to be the same smaller craft one sees in the new photo - the craft that is purported to be a barge carrying the Electra. It makes sense to me that a survey ship would travel with a sizable satellite craft.

This vessel shouldn't be confused with the freighter Koshu Maru, which was Lloyd's-registered under its inaugural name Teishu Maru as of 1937 (the same year as its entry into service). The name apparently changed once the vessel was turned over to the IJA (Imperial Japanese Army) for / during WWII. This freighter was sunk in 1944 while carrying POW's in the area of Java(?).

Citing research originally done by a Vincent Loomis, this blog page:

https://earharttruth.wordpress.com/tag/koshu/

... claims Koshu was at Ponape on July 2, 1937, set out for the Marshalls on July 6, reached Jaluit on July 13, re-coaled and headed for Mili on July 14, and returned to Jaluit on July 19.

If subsequent info indicates this photo dates earlier than July 13 it can't be Earhart / Noonan plus Koshu, because Koshu hadn't reached Jaluit yet.
 
I'm surprised no one (here or elsewhere that I've visited ... ) has asked what strikes me as an obvious question:

If Earhart and Noonan did end up in the Marshalls, and were taken into custody by paranoid Japanese administrators, why the hell were they allowed to casually hang out on the jetty / pier?

That's been bugging me too.
IF the photo does indeed depict Noonan and a seated Earhart looking towards her salvaged aircraft being towed into the harbour, then it would presumably have been taken pretty soon after they ditched. They could conceivably have felt relieved to have survived their unplanned landing and relaxed whilst under the mistaken belief that they had been rescued. Japanese soldiers weren't renowned for acting on their own initiative, so the military involved in the rescue and salvage would probably have treated them initially with courtesy but would certainly have radioed or telegraphed Tokyo to ask for instructions. Some time later, the order came to detain them and transport them to Saipan on the same vessel shown towing what could be their Lockheed Electra in the photo.
Obviously speculation, but not beyond the realms of possibility.
 
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If Amelia was imprisoned, the airplane picked up, it could have been searched, scrapped, maybe they hid it somewherre, who knows, Amelia would have died a prisoner and put in an unmarked grave, there's lots to poke around here and figger out.
 
If Amelia was imprisoned, the airplane picked up, it could have been searched, scrapped, maybe they hid it somewherre, who knows, Amelia would have died a prisoner and put in an unmarked grave, there's lots to poke around here and figger out.

I forget the details, but one of the many documentaries on the subject claims that a youngish US serviceman (or junior officer) saw the Lockeed (must have been post-war) and recognised it as Earhart's. He reported this to a superior and pretty soon thereafter the plane was destroyed (by American troops acting on orders) - the implication being that a cover up of the secret spying mission against Japan was still a priority.

Not saying I believe it, it's just another twist in the tale.
 
No. Have to watch it online.

And sorry, but I got my time zones cocked up. The US History Channel (I'm watching on freeintertv.com) is now showing something about the Nazca lines. 21:00 US CST is (I think) 02:00 British Summer time.
I'm not staying up that late, so will search for the documentary online tomorrow.
 
I forget the details, but one of the many documentaries on the subject claims that a youngish US serviceman (or junior officer) saw the Lockeed (must have been post-war) and recognised it as Earhart's. He reported this to a superior and pretty soon thereafter the plane was destroyed (by American troops acting on orders) - the implication being that a cover up of the secret spying mission against Japan was still a priority.

Not saying I believe it, it's just another twist in the tale.

This has been discussed earlier in this very thread. Go back and look at posts #70 - 79.
 
Ah-ha! interesting additional info, and also details of the skeletal remains, but it seems ever more unlikely the case can be definitively cracked after all this time. I'll see if I can dig out FT 308 :) I'm sure it's around somewhere...
 
The primary feature cited as insinuating Earhart (in the newly-publicized photo) is the figure's short / bob hairstyle. In the interest of illustrating why the hairstyle wasn't necessarily a unique Earhart feature, I've gone looking for photos.

The largest non-native population in the Marshalls were the Japanese (who'd 'owned' the island group for two decades by the time of Earhart's last flight). Jaluit was their administrative center at the time, and hence a likely candidate for the largest concentration of Japanese there (who apparently numbered over 1,000 in the late 1930's).

This photo:

JP-Rehearse-1938.jpg


SOURCE: http://ryanharp.net/post/68130279866/bag-of-dirt-japanese-women-rehearse-a-patriotic

... illustrates a group of young Japanese women (in Japan) rehearsing a dance / pageant routine in 1938.

You'll notice the ubiquity of short / bob hairstyles among them.

I'm not claiming the figure in the Jaluit photo has to be Japanese. I'm just trying to illustrate how it certainly does not have to be Earhart on the basis of the hair alone (which is the only basis I've seen cited so far) ...
 
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