I wrote to Randy Jacobson who got our copy of the Murfin chart from the archive at San Bruno many years ago. Here's what Randy had to say:
"I do have that map from San Bruno, and I never noticed the hand-drawn latitude/longitude lines. But I can explain somewhat where it comes from.
Examining the Lexington search map, the fonts and locations of the islands on the Lex map match Murfin’s map. The Lex map was produced by the Hydrographic Office, and is called a No. 5050, Strategic Plotting Chart No. 17, covering a bit below -8*S to 16*N, and 175*E to 147*W. It too has a bit extended on the left hand side, but the chart is complete. This chart covers the Phoenix Islands and has their positions and names. The tick marks for longitude are located at -5*S and 10*N, and for latitude at 155 and 175* W. What is different between the Murfin map and the Lex Map is “Pacific Ocean” is not on the Lex Map spanning the two circular plots.
So…I believe there were a series of these charts, all at different scales and different coverage areas, all prepared by the Hydrographic Office. They were used as early as 1920, as US Navy annual reports indicate (googling).
What’s puzzling to me is that I do not remember the original maps (Lex or Murfin) being from multiple pieces. It was a good 20 years since I was at San Bruno, so my memory may not be holding up. I do remember, however, that I asked for copies of the maps, and got some in real time and some sent to me. When I was at San Bruno, I didn’t spend a lot of time pouring over maps and charts due to limited time constraints, but rather found something useful and requested copies.
Given unlimited assets and resources, it would be worthwhile to go back to San Bruno and re-examine the originals. There’s an ink or coffee stain on the Murfin chart that I cannot read with my Xerox copy. That text deals with the post-loss radio messages and signals. If the map pieces have been folded and taped together, then the folded sections (found on the back?) would have the chart number on them as well.
So why did Murfin’s map have hand-drawn latitude and longitude lines? They had a small scale of the North Pacific available but no comparable map immediately south. The Lex map is a bigger scale of the western South and North Pacific, useful for them, but at a different scale than Murfin’s map.
It’s too bad we don’t have a listing of all of the Strategic Plotting Charts from that era."
Randy also sent an undated transcript of a talk San Bruno archivist Kathleen O'Connor gave to a symposium about the archive's Earhart-related holdings.
"Hello, my name is Kathleen O’Connor, and I am the Archivist at the San Francisco Branch of the National Archives, located in San Bruno across the bay. I am here to tell you that I have not solved the Earhart mystery, at least not yet. My job is to preserve, protect, and to make available to researchers information that may help in their investigations. Most of you know about the numerous documents regarding Earhart’s flight in 1937 from materials found primarily in the National Archives in Washington DC and other archives in that area. What many of you may not know is that the National Archives have several regional branches containing materials of regional interest. The San Francisco Branch is responsible for archiving documents from the west coast region, including Hawaii and Alaska. Since the search for Earhart was tasked by the Chief of Naval Operations to be conducted by the Commandant of the 14th Naval District in Hawaii, Adm. Orrin Murfin, there is a substantial number of unique documents located in the San Bruno facility. In addition, records from the 12th Naval District, based in San Francisco (which covers Oakland, where Earhart started both of her round the world flights), and records from the Naval Station in American Samoa are also stored here.
The kinds of documents belong to three general classes: radio messages and related correspondence, maps, and reports. I should also state that all records dealing with Amelia Earhart have all been declassified long ago, even those records remotely connected with her flights and disappearance. In the brief time I have, let me just touch on some aspects of the uniqueness of these records.
Radio Messages: According to Dr. Randy Jacobson of the Office of Naval Research, who has catalogued all available radio messages relating to Earhart’s flights, there are 512 radio messages in the COM14 section, 223 in the COM12 section, and 103 in the Tutuilla, American Samoa collection out of a total of 3239 radio messages. Once the duplicates are counted, there are 1687 records, and 966 that are unique, or single-copy radio messages. COM14 has 97 (10.04%), COM12 has 16 (1.66%), and Tutuilla 38 (3.93%) unique radio messages. These 151 messages cannot be found anywhere else. Well, what do they say? I’m sorry to say that you will have to come to San Bruno and read them yourselves, or ask Dr. Jacobson for that information, as it is not the job of the archivist to do this kind of research. Dr. Jacobson has graciously provided information as to decoding the cryptic headers of Naval and Coast Guard radio messages, and those guides are also available at San Bruno.
Reports: The reports on Earhart’s disappearance are those that you have seen elsewhere in various archives, except that we have the original Colorado report to Adm. Murfin, as well as Capt. Friedell’s original report on the Lexington search. We also have the original full-scale maps of the Lexington and other ships’ search, with the unique addition of the working copy of the Lexington search map. On this map are lines drawn in ink that were obvious mistakes, but were copied onto the final version, altering the actual areas that the Lexington purported to search.
Maps: The real jewel in our collection is the 14th Naval District working map of the Earhart disappearance covering the period from July 2 through July 5, when numerous radio messages were thought to have come from Earhart. On this map are annotations of events that are not found anywhere else. Let me briefly state what these annotations are:
Additional Dope on Radio Bearings
Mokapu
3 July first bearing 213 (+-10)
4 July 2nd bearing 200
also 105o and 180o thrown out as doubtful
Wake 115o
5 July 144o
2200 night 2nd Itasca heard weak signals
night 3rd Itasca heard weak signals?
Night of 3rd-
KGMB request to broadcast-
0630GCT 4th (8PM local Honolulu to 215) Amateur in Maui
CG
Wailupe
Army [unreadable]
PAA
asked for 8 dashes if on water---got 8 in response
asked for 4 dashes if North of Howland and 6 is [sic] South [unreadable] received [unreadable] 105
0120 to 0150 morning of 5 July 3 operators at Wailupe [unreadable] transmission transmission [sic]
“281 North of Howland beyond north” etc. Coast Guard [unreadable] could not copy
From what I know, no other document mentions a 200, 105, and 180 degree bearing from Makapuu, Oahu. Furthermore, there is no other documents (except perhaps the local Hawaiian newspapers) of what KGMB broadcast to Earhart and what specifically was heard in response. There are other very interesting markings on this map, and I invite anyone interested to spend some time in San Bruno examining it.
Well, I hope I have piqued your interest in the amount of information still to be examined by Earhart researchers that is available for examination. Perhaps some of this information may provide the definitive clue as to what happened to Earhart and why. I invite anyone interested to come to our facility, and I will help you in any way I can. Good luck to all of you, and thank you for inviting me to speak at this marvelous symposium.
