In 1937 on Saipan, according to Maximo and Josephine Akiyama, the Japanese military did not hesitate to kill anyone, Japanese civilian or Chamorro native, whom they suspected of spying on their illegal fortifications.
Japanese officialdom maintaining an enigmatic silence (the Japanese Embassy in Washington knows nothing of the Earhart case, nor does Dr. John Young of Georgetown University, who examined captured Japanese documents for the American Government) concerning the disappearance of the two fliers, it may be idle to speculate upon the final fate of Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart. The evidence, however, justifies at least one tenable conclusion.
When Josephine Blanco saw the twin-engined silver plane, Amelia and Fred had been flying for twenty-six consecutive hours and for 4,000 futile miles. The sight of the island that was Saipan must have cheered the fliers with renewed hope for safety and for life itself.
When they survived the crash landing in Tanapag Harbor only to be taken into custody as spies, their joy must have turned to inexplicable bitterness: they had been saved not for life, but for death before a Japanese firing squad.
For Amelia, who once had said to her husband, “I don’t want to go; but when I do, I’d like to go in my plane—quickly,” the last word of her wish must have struck her now with sudden and ironic force.
Yet, as she had so often before, Amelia Earhart must have met this challenge with stubborn self-control and resolute courage. For here at last was her unmistakable, but irrefutable, fate.
RECORD FLIGHTS
AWARDS AND DECORATIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A NOTE ABOUT SOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
RECORD FLIGHTS
1928, June 17: The first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger; with Wilmer Stultz pilot and Lou Gordon mechanic; in the pontoon-equipped Fokker trimotor airplane; from Trepassey, Newfoundland, to Burryport, Wales; time: 20 hours and 40 minutes.
1929, August 24: Third place in the first Women’s Air Derby Race; from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio.