Date:         Fri, 4 Jun 2004 09:04:08 -0400
From:         Ric
Subject:      Slow Forum

Before anyone else emails me to ask if I'm on vacation (what's a vacation?) - - - the lack of forum postings for the past few days is due to the fact that no one has submitted a posting for the past few days.  That's fine.  If there are issues to discuss we should discuss them but there's no need for chatter for chatter's sake.

There is lots of research underway on various aspects of the Earhart Project which may produce results worthy of discussion in the near future.  Meanwhile, the forum is still here.

LTM,
Ric
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Date:         Fri, 4 Jun 2004 10:27:03 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Slow Forum

One way to keep the forum going is by someone throwing a silly theory on the table which is then shot down in flames for days... Or maybe someone should take a map, plot AE's course again and allow for all sorts of possible human errors which could have crept in to be usefully explored.

By the way and totally off topic: I flew the Airbus A340 (the four engine one) simulator the day before yesterday. What a dream to fly ! But beware of the F-16-like side stick. Handle with care... All one has to do is give the computers an indication by means of the side stick of what you want the 126 tonnes of aluminum and the 120,000 lbs of CFM56 thrust to do and they perform admirably. Never having flown an A340 before (I once flew an A320) I had no problem at all to land the 126 ton monster. The beauty is the automatic speed control. One does not even have to check speed during the approach. The computers keeps it at 140 kts for you until you touch down. All you have to next is apply brakes after landing.

Makes me think that perhaps an exchange of ideas of how aircraft have developed since 1937 might be an interesting subject. There are quite a few forumites who don't fly themselves but are interested in airplanes like the L10.

LTM
************************************************************************
From Ric

I understand that the next generation of commercial aircraft will have a crew comprised of one pilot and a Rottweiler.  The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 4 Jun 2004 13:24:57 -0400
From:         Carl Peltzer
Subject:      Re: slow forum

When I started doing this flying thing back in the 60s the plane was a steel tube and fabric Piper  J-3 Cub which was designed long before the L-10 and the particular one was built in August, 1941. It was very primitive compared to today; 75 mph on a good day, so light that every gust of wind was something to work you, a hand start, no radio, poor heat, no carb leaning and nothing but needle, ball and airspeed.

The stuff us small drivers play with today are a great many generations away from that time and that should be appreciated by those with limited knowledge of those times.

I have to give credit where it is due to those who truly were quite brave but perhaps foolhardy and overconfident along with very tired by that time in the flight in not using every thing possible to find their destination.

Kinds of makes me wonder if perhaps there was a sort of deathwish involved here in the back of her mind.

************************************************************************
From Ric

It might surprise you to know that the airplane we know as the Piper Cub was designed a year AFTER the Lockheed Model 10 first flew.

The airplane was based upon the woefully under-powered Taylor "Chummy" of 1929.   Bill Piper bought the Taylor company's assets the following year, retaining Gilbert Taylor as president, and upgraded the Chummy's engine from a 20 hp (!)  Brownbach "Tiger Kitten" to  the Continental A-40 and renamed the airplane the Taylor E-2 "Cub".

In 1935 Piper hired Walter Jamouneau to re-design the basic airplane and the result was the shape we know today as the Piper J3 (J for Jamouneau) Cub.  The Lockheed Model 10 Electra made its first flight on February 23, 1934.

Although the larger engines of the E reportedly made that variant somewhat nose heavy, the Model 10 was not a dangerous airplane and was, in fact, basically the same technology that dominated cabin-class twins until well into the 1960s.
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Date:         Sat, 5 Jun 2004 09:42:25 -0400
From:         Paige Miller
Subject:      Re: Slow Forum

Herman DeWulf says:

"One way to keep the forum going is by someone throwing a silly theory on the table which is then shot down in flames for days... Or maybe someone should take a map, plot AE's course again and allow for all sorts of possible human errors which could have crept in to be usefully explored."

Herman, I have tried. Believe me, I have tried to stir things up with my Paraguay theory but no one wants to debate my theory on its merits. What is wrong with you people, can't you understand this evidence when it is right in front of your eyes?

Oh well, I have discovered a Howland Island in upstate New York. Well, I didn't "discover" it ... I just recently learned of its existence. I shall continue my search for Amelia there.

--
Paige Miller #2565
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Date:         Sat, 5 Jun 2004 12:27:11 -0400
From:         Mike Holt
Subject:      Gardner Islands
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v606)

Paige Miller wrote:

> Oh well, I have discovered a Howland Island in upstate New York. Well,
> I didn't "discover" it ... I just recently learned of its existence. I
> shall continue my search for Amelia there.

You're looking in the wrong place.  Obviously, you've not been reading the TIGHAR website.  You need to look at Gardner Island. There's a Gardner Island in Long Island Sound.  I quote from the log of a recent sailing trip to the far corners of the Sound:

August 22nd - Three Mile Harbor, NY

We sail across the Long Island Sound at the Race and head into the Fishtail at the end of Long Island. We go around Gardner Island and pass inside of Plum Island. We head for the south fork of the Fishtail. We pass a huge windmill set right on the beach of Gardner Island. We enter a narrow passage that leads to the wide and deep Three Mile Harbor, which not surprisingly is located 3 miles from the exclusive South Hampton. It is windy but we head for a high point on the west shore to protect us from the wind. It is quiet there and we spend a quiet night.
(http://svfinn2.home.att.net/Aug2.htm)

This one would be the easiest to research, given that it's nearest to Howland Island. Apparently, this one has the added attraction that it's a part of the legend of Captain Kidd.  No aviation connection, unless Captain Kidd's parrot counts.

However, there is a "Gardner's Island" not too far away, in Washington County, Maine:  it's near Roque Bluffs.
(http://www.mainerec.com/wcounty1.asp?Category=145&PageNum=145)

That one is also within reach by car.

However, there's a Gardner Island in Lake Pontchartrain.   That may be a bit far away.   There's a great website:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2002/of02-206/biology/bio-gardner.html

Another website gives the location:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp043b/gcpoint.asc
Location is:
-89.38   29.68   99.99    1.50    0.803699   GARDNER ISLAND BRETON SOUND

Gardner's Island in Alabama is 221.7 miles from somewhere. 
(http://www.frontiernet.net/~asb/mileage.html)

You gotta look in the right place.

LTM (who always leaves her keys on the hanger in the kitchen)
Mike Holt
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 5 Jun 2004 13:03:11 -0400
From:         Tom Hickcox
Subject:      Re: Gardner Islands

The Louisiana Gardner Islands are one and the same and it is located in Breton Sound, not Lake Pontchartrain.

Check the pubs.usgs.gov url more closely.

Tom Hickcox in Baton Rouge
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 7 Jun 2004 12:04:38 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: slow Forum

Paige, after the aircraft carrier at Howland story and a few others I will not mention you have to be hard pressed to stir this group up. Actually I liked the Paraguay story. <G>

Alan, running low on flaming fuel

************************************************************************
From Paige Miller

Mike Holt had the following to say: "You're looking in the wrong place. Obviously, you've not been reading the TIGHAR website. You need to look at Gardner Island. There's a Gardner Island in Long Island Sound."

Mike, that's Gardiners Island in Long Island Sound, named after Lion Gardiner, the first owner. Note the letter I in the name, and letter S at the end. See:
http://www.newsday.com/extras/lihistory/3/hs310a.htm
http://docs.unh.edu/NY/grdi04ne.jpg

Everyone knows Amelia never made it to Gardiners Island. Duh!

I don't see how we are ever going to find Amelia if we can't spell properly. Spelling is crucial to our search, or we wind up at the wrong island. We'll wind up at Nikumanu or Nukumanu instead of Nikumawhatever (I can't spell it either), that place where Ric thinks Amelia competed in her final spelling bee.

--
Paige Miller #2565
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Date:         Mon, 7 Jun 2004 12:05:41 -0400
From:         Dan Brown

I can strongly recommend the book "Smithy, the Life of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith" by Ian MacKersey (first published in Great Britain in 1998 by Little, Brown and Company; my paperback copy purchased through Amazon.com was published by Warner Books, London, in 1999; 454 pp.) as a starting point for anyone interested in developing historical perspective on the technology and motivations for long-distance flying in the 1920s and 1930s. There are _many_ parallels (navigation, weather, radio, fuel) to the issues involved in the AE/FN World Flight, especially in the 1928 Hawaii to Fiji flight of the "Southern Cross" and the 1934 Fiji to Hawaii flight of the "Lady Southern Cross", which both flew over the Phoenix Islands. Interestingly, Smith's navigator Harry Lyon studied photographs of Canton and Enderbury atolls as potential sites for emergency diversion in 1928. However, the book lacks the level of minute technical detail we might wish for comparisons to the World Flight.

Unfortunately there is no reason for anyone to waste their time reading "Wide Margins, A Publisher's Autobiography" by George Palmer Putnam (I bought a first edition copy published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1942, through Amazon.com). It seems to have been written by someone else, there are virtually no specific details or even personal observations about anything.

Dan Brown, #2408
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Date:         Mon, 7 Jun 2004 12:07:30 -0400
From:         Tom Strange
Subject:      A Question of Weather

For Randy Jacobson,

Re: Forum post Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:27:26 EDT

Mr Jacobson in a past forum post ( 18 July 03 ) you discussed the location of the Intertropical Convergent Zone in reference to Howland Island's latitude when answering another forum member's perceived statement of fact- With regards to the subject Intertropical Convergent Zone, let me ask the following two questions.

Could someone cognizant of the weather conditions associated with an Intertropical Convergent Zone recognize visually those conditions at a distance while approaching in an aircraft?

Would the Intertropical Convergent Zone of 1937 north of Howland Island have been well defined visually?

As a person still on a learning curve in this one room school house, Mr Jacoboson I always appreciate your input on this forum - Hopefully you can help me with my questions.

Respectfully:

Tom Strang # 2559=
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 7 Jun 2004 19:07:12 -0400
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Weather question

The ITCZ would not normally be recognized as a "wall of bad weather" from the air, but merely as a place of increased cloudiness extending further up into the atmosphere than normal.  It's gradational, I suspect, from normal conditions to those conditions found in the interior.  However, the ITCZ was a good 3-4* of latitude north of Howland at the time, as determined by the PBY plane and the ships that passed through it within a couple of days.  It normally does not extend down to 1-2*N that time of year.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 9 Jun 2004 08:41:25 -0400
From:         Dave Porter
Subject:      Alternet search locations

Gardner Avenue and Earhart Road can both be found in Ann Arbor, MI, but they don't intersect.  Oddly enough, I drove on both of them in my then employer's commercial vehicle marked with the company name Phoenix Refrigeration.  Wouldn't that have been a great picture?

LTM, Dave Porter, 2288
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 9 Jun 2004 17:01:09 -0400
From:         Tom Strang
Subject:      Re: weather question

For Randy Jacobson

Thank you for your response to my questions pertaining to possible ITCZ impact on AE's world flight attempt - Your response triggered another question.

I've assumed that Intertropical Convergent Zones ( ITCZ ) greatest strength peaks about mid-afternoon, while the least amount of strength occurs during the early morning hours approximately 12 hours apart - Is this assumption of mine correct?

Respectfully:
Tom Strang # 2559=
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:43:23 -0400
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: weather question

Regarding ITCZ strength during the day: I do not know, but I would suspect there is little variation, but that is only my speculation.
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Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 10:10:46 -0400
From:         Alexander
Subject:      Looting

I was watching the National Geographic channel a few nights back and found a live broadcast of 'return to titanic'.... In the programme they were showing how the ship had fared over the years since being found and they showed the 'then and now' footage. But one thing stuck out and that was how various people had plundered the wreck...[The FRENCH being named as one of them] This may seem a bit off topic but i wondered if over the years tighar had had the same problem with any recovery projects ? Maybe where you have discopvered a new aircraft etc announced it to the world and then you have returned and its been plundered...

the damage that has been done to the ship hastens its demise to the bottom of the ocean....

Alexander
************************************************************************
From Ric

Yes, we can cite countless examples of objects being looted from historic aircraft crash sites, but your query raises larger questions.

What's the difference between "recovering" and "plundering"? Is it better to remove items to a museum for preservation or allow them to decay in situ?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 10:16:04 -0400
From:         Al Hillis
Subject:      Re: weather question

I went to the website www.askjeeves.com and entered "When does "ITCZ strength weaken". Several topics appeared in the form of PDF files including recent evaluations. It was very interesting info, at least to me. They spoke of what and when weakening occurs by having radar observations.

Hope this helps some in your question. My question is, "are the exact conditions known at the time of her expected arrival to her destination".

Thank you for a new avenue of exploration.

Respectfully
Al Hillis
************************************************************************
From Ric

The weather at Howland when she  was known to be close by (based on the strength of her radio transmissions) is well documented in the Itasca's hourly deck log observations and by weather observations taken on Howland.  It was  very typical Central Pacific morning with light winds and a scattered deck of cumulus clouds.  There is no indication that the ITCZ was a factor.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 10:41:32 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Douglas plant

Since we are all interested in Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed 10 Electra, I have question which is not really as off-topic as it looks. Is there any truth in what I hear, namely that Boeing is going to tear down the Douglas plant at Long Beach airfield and turn it into a multi-billion dollar housing project and a "Douglas Park" ?

I visited that Douglas plant years ago (as I also visited Boeing's at both Renton and Everett) and Lockheed's at Burbank. Boeing built the model 247 in Renton (1931 I guess). It was the first modern airliner at the time and a trend setter with twin engines, retracting landing gear and Fowler flaps. Since Boeing was too busy building them for United Airlines, TWA went to see Douglas about a competing design. this sent Douglas working on his DC-1/DC-2 and eventually the legendary DC-3. This prompted Lockheed to launch its own 10 seat airliner : the Lockheed 10 Electra. It was faster than both the Boeing 247 and the DC-2 and later developed into the bigger Lockheed 14 and Lockheed 18, all with the characteristic twin stabilizer which became typical for Lockheed designs. This aerodynamic idea later  developed into the three stabilizer Lockheed 049  Constellation, a four engine airliner which in my view is one of the aerodynamically most successful aircraft ever designed.

Lockheed is still around but is no longer in the airliner business. Douglas had to merge with McDonnell to survive and the merged company was eventually bought by Boeing. Next the Douglas brand disappeared and the last Douglas model ever designed is now called the Boeing 717. It is a fact a re-engined and updated DC-9-30.

LTM
************************************************************************
From Ric

I don't know whether Boeing plans to tear down the building or not.  Do you think it should be preserved?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 11:17:10 -0400
From:         Alfred Hendrickson
Subject:      Recovery versus Plunder

>What's the difference between "recovering" and "plundering"?

In my opinion, carefully removing an artifact from a wreck, without causing any unnecessary damage, following accepted archaeological practices, and then placing the object in a setting (museum) where the general public can enjoy it, is recovering.

Dynamiting wrecks and grabbing the goods for private sale is plundering, or near to it.

That said, I also feel that the vessels status before wrecking is also a factor. Government vessels (and planes), wrecked or not, belong to the folks who pay for them: the taxpayers.

>Is it better to remove items to a museum for preservation or allow 
>them to decay in situ?

In my opinion, in the case of the Titanic, better in the museum. On the deep ocean bottom, they'd be inaccessible to all but a few. I feel differently about shallow wrecks, which are more accessible, and are good for sport divers. That Jaluit wreck is fascinating.

I don't understand maritime law, though, and who owns the wrecks. Do insurers that have paid off an owner then assume ownership of the wreck?

It is probably full of inconsistencies, but that is generally how I feel.

LTM,
************************************************************************
From Ric

Your "accessibility  factor" is an interesting way of looking at the problem.  By that standard, removal of items from RMS Titanic was justified because the wreck can only be visited by a privileged few whereas the removed artifacts are touring the world as part of an exhibition.

The same standard might apply if the wreckage of Earhart's Electra were discovered in deep water (whether off the reef at Niku, northwest of Howland, or in Tokyo Bay).

The situation Jaluit is unique in that two virtually identical rare aircraft are present - one so accessible that it can be easily viewed by snorkelers on the surface, and the other nearby in water too deep for safe sport diving.  This would seem to present a best-of-both-worlds situation in which one aircraft could be recovered and preserved while the other remained to be enjoyed in situ.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 11:50:41 -0400
From:         Bruce Yoho
Subject:      Re: Douglas plant

Yes, it is a fact that everything west of Lakewood Blvd. is being torn down. As I write the work is in progress. The only Boeing aircraft buildings left will be those east of Lakewood Blvd. There will be very little left of what used to known as Douglas Aircraft plant.

Politics at work as to housing so close to Runway 25 right.  The concept is for small soft business such as computers, electronics, crafts ECT. With the workers living in the homes built in the park.

LTM
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 12:12:49 -0400
From:         Mike Holt
Subject:      Re: Looting

Ric wrote:

> Yes, we can cite countless examples of objects being looted from
> historic aircraft crash sites, but your query raises larger questions.

I read once that the Sierra Club was hiking the hills and cutting up wrecked airplanes as a part of their "environmental work."

> What's the difference between "recovering" and "plundering"?
> Is it better to remove items to a museum for preservation or allow
> them to decay in situ?

Partly, this question is a matter of context.  My world is early colonial America, and any artifacts are either vestigial due to decay in situ  or they have been carefully preserved.  I fall on the "put it in a museum" side as a result of this.

I've recently fallen into an internship at a museum of the American Civil War.  They have a similar situation, but not precisely the same: some artifacts are being uncovered in attics and at estate sales.   Those who possess the artifacts (also, diaries and the like) tend either do not understand what they have or they want to destroy it.  So, here, I argue for museum preservation.

Speaking of this, I wonder what ever happened to the balloons used by both sides in the Civil War?  Hmmm...

LTM (who keeps her old check stubs, too)
Mike Holt
************************************************************************
From Ric

Scrapping of wrecks as part of environmental cleanup efforts is a problem, but it's a different problem than looting.  The cleaner-uppers don't recognize the historic value of some of the wrecks.

The problem of the trashing of artifacts in private collections once the collector has died is one of the principal arguments against private collecting, aka looting.

The problem with recovering objects to a museum is, of course, that you lose the context.  No one would suggest that the stone wall at Little Round Top be removed to a museum.  Sometimes, however, the context is worth losing for the sake of preserving the artifact.  For example, a Battle of Midway veteran SBD Dauntless was later lost in a training accident and ended up on the bottom of Lake Michigan.  Museum preservation of the airplane was clearly more important than preserving its in situ context. The machine was recovered and is now in the National Museum of Naval Aviation collection .

But what about situations in which the in situ context is part of what makes the aircraft historic?  Leaving it there means that it will probably go away faster than if it was recovered but maybe it's worth it to have a more complete historic site for a shorter time.  Which is the more powerful experience - to view an object in a museum or be with it "on the scene" of the event that made it historic?  Who would not rather tour the Titanic in a submersible than stroll through an exhibit of artifacts retrieved from the wreck?  But we're back to accessibility question again.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:34:42 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: balloons

I don't know about the balloons. But I do know that during the Civil War a young German cavalry officer was sent to the US as an observer to report on the technical and military aspects of the war and he learned a lot. By the way, Germany did not exist at the time. It was still a patchwork of little kingdoms. That young officer was one count Zeppelin. I believe he was sent to America by the general staff of the army of the kingdom of Wurtenberg, but this is of little importance. Zeppelin observed the use of balloons in the American Civil War, reported on their use and began thinking of a better way of using them. After having fought against the French in the 1870-71 war (the one the French lost) he returned to balloons and began building airships. Zeppelin did not invent the dirigible. That was done by a Frenchman around 1852 but he had not been too successful. It was Zeppelin who thought of capturing several gas-filled balloons in a metal frame, thus inventing the rigid airship. By the turn of the 20th century Zeppelin airships were a household word. In 1909 Zeppelin's Deutsche Luftschiffahrtreedrei began domestic air services in Germany carrying passengers. Not a single passenger was lost until the operation was stopped by the war in 1914. In WW I both the German imperial army and the navy used Zeppelin airships as bombers until 1916. By that time they had become too vulnerable to fighter aircraft attacking with incendiary bombs.

After the war the Germans had to hand over some of their Zeppelins to the victors, including the USA, then began building a new series of long range airships of which the "Graf Zeppelin" and the "Hindenburg" were known worldwide because of the long voyages they made.

It all ended, as mentioned in this forum a short time ago, in 1937. By the way, whether there had been a blue light or not on the upper side of the Hindenburg remains a mystery. I asked an American friend of mine who attended a meeting of graduates at Princeton University earlier this month. He asked several professors who should or could have known but he was unable to find anyone who remembered any Princeton professor having watched the Hindenburg disaster and having commented on it or having mentioned that light blue light that is being mentioned today.

LTM
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 11 Jun 2004 14:12:13 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Douglas plant

Should it (the former Douglas plant at Long Beach) be preserved ? I don't know. I remember visiting the Santa Monica museum in 1998, where the Douglas story began. I talked to a guide who said : "It eats my heart out to hear them calling them Boeings today"... As far as I know even the Santa Monica museum had to move out of Santa Monica. With the Douglas plant at Long Beach being torn down there is nothing left of that once proud Douglas brand. If you look up at the sky any aircraft flying over America is called a Boeing these days. With Douglas gone and Lockheed n longer building airlines, it's no wonder the only competition comes from Airbus.

LTM (who believes the consumer is always right)
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 12 Jun 2004 09:07:26 -0400
From:         Lawrence
Subject:      Re: Looting

From Lawrence:

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment. Say you find Amelia's 10E on another island other than Niko. The craft is fully intact will all gear still stowed aboard. What do you do? Remove it to a museum so generations will be able to view it or leave it alone and let it rot? I think the object in question dictates what is to be done (based on its historical value). After all, you would not move all the ships that are on the bottom of Truck lagoon to a museum.
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

The devil has many advocates.  A counter- argument might be that Earhart's 10E has no historical significance aside from the fact that Earhart disappeared in it.  It's the mystery of Earhart's disappearance and the efforts to solve it, rather than the fact that she disappeared, that have become historic.  In that sense, the most important thing about the Electra is its location (wherever that might be) and to remove it from that context would be to disrupt and dismantle an historic site.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 12 Jun 2004 10:09:02 -0400
From:         Don Iwanski
Subject:      Re: Looting

In regards to the subject of looting, are there any TIGHAR members who were part of the Geomarex 10 year geological survey of the Phoenix Islands during the late 1970's and early 1980's?

How extensively has TIGHAR looked into their finding?

************************************************************************
From Ric

There was no 10 year geological survey.  Geomarex did some prospecting for minerals in the Phoenix Group in October of 1978 during which they visited Gardner and Sydney.  They were at Gardner for four days (Oct 24-27).  They returned to the Phoenix Group in 1979 and visited Canton and Hull.  No exploitable minerals were found.

I talked to two members of the Geomarex expedition in 1989 and we have copies of their daily log and final report as well as  aerial photos taken by Geomarex as part of the survey.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 12 Jun 2004 11:49:14 -0400
From:         Alexander
Subject:      Re: Looting

I would define plundering anything that further destroys what is left of a vessel plundering it. If on the other hand the taken objects were just lying around nearby like in the many thousands of cups and saucers then i would count that more as preserving as it does not cause damage to the main vessel.

This is of course just my thoughts on the ship but there are ways of preserving without damage. I know that in the near future the ship will tip over the edge of an abyss now in that situation then yes maybe ripping out what you can would be better.

Alexander
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 12 Jun 2004 12:36:36 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Merrill/Lambie

Ric wrote:

>They returned with film of the coronation of
>King George VI and flew nonstop westbound more
>than 24 hours from London to Boston and still
>had 170 gallons remaining.

Do we know the exact duration of this flight to Boston or the weight of the aircraft on departure? What is the source of this information? I seem to have some inconsistent information. I note that Long says that the aircraft had nearly 97 gal fuel left at New York. There seems to be some considerable discrepancy in average gph calculated from these two points. The time quoted for England - New York is 24 hr 22 min 25 sec. Since Boston is a couple of hundred miles from New York, how did they do it in less than 22 mins?

Regards Angus.
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

The most reliable information on the Merril/Lambie flights comes from New York Times coverage and articles in Aero Digest, Newsweek and Time.

The return flight from England departed Ainsdale Beach on the shore of the Irish Sea at 2115Z on May 13, 1937.The Atlantic crossing was made without difficulty despite some low weather which they had cleared by the time they reached Newfoundland.   However, once they were south of Maine, despite the forecast of clear conditions, a weak low pressure area had formed off the Atlantic coast and low clouds and visibility were blanketing the eastern seaboard.  As they approached the Boston area with solid cloud below Merrill and Lambie tried to pick up the low-frequency radio range.( The Daily Express was not equipped with DF.) Their plan was to fly the southern leg of the Boston range until they could pick up the range for Newark but they soon discovered that their hearing had become so deadened after 20 hours of sitting between the Electra's engines that they couldn't pick out the A and N audio signals. Forced to descend to figure out where they were, they stumbled upon Squantum Naval Air Station, landed, and discovered they were just south of Boston. How long all this took is difficult to reconstruct.

We don't know the time of landing at Squantum or when they departed but we do know that they were only on the ground for 20 minutes - just long enough to ask where they were and check the tanks.  They found that they had 170 gallons remaining and elected not to refuel.  When they took off Lambie estimated that they'd arrive in New York at 2130Z(16:30 EST). Their actual arrival at Floyd Bennet was at 2137Z(16:37 EST).

2015Z(15:15 EST):
Eastern Airlines sent a message to Merrill, "Rickenbacker wants you to land at Floyd Bennett. Under no circumstances go to Newark."

Newark had been briefly zero/zero in fog and drizzle but had lifted to 500 and a mile. Floyd Bennett was lower and flights were diverting to Newark, but the big welcoming ceremony was waiting at Floyd Bennett. Merrill apparently did not reply directly to this message, which may be an indication that they were on the ground at Squantum at that time.

2035Z(015:35 EST):
Another message from Rickenbacker, "Don't land at Newark." This time Merrill replied, "Leave me alone. Will get down all right."

2040Z(15:40 EST):
Voice message from Merrill (perhaps realizing that he had just snapped at his famously cantankerous boss) , "Thirty minutes south of Boston. Will land Floyd Bennett if I have to walk."

This would suggest that they left Squantum/Boston at about 2010Z.If so, then they covered the 200 miles from Boston to New York in 1 hour and 27 minutes for a ground speed of 138 mph. If they didn't get off in time to hear Rickenbacker's 2015 message then they made a groundspeed of at least 147 mph.

Either way, it looks like they landed at Squantum around 1950Z (14:50 EST) or maybe a bit later. A straight shot from Onawa, Maine to Squantum is 225 miles. They were over Onawa at 1705Z expecting to make 210 mph which should have gotten them to the Boston area at 1809Z.It appears, therefore, that there was a period of roughly an hour and three quarters when they were trying to pick up the range, looking for (in Merrill's words) a "sucker hole", and eventually descending blind until they found the bottom of the overcast at 800 feet and then "scud-running" until they happened upon Squantum.

If we put them on the ground at Squantum at 1950Z they had been in the air for about 21 and a half hours. The airplane was found to have, at that time, 170 gallons remaining aboard having burned 1100 gallons. In other words, carrying more weight than Earhart and flying against headwinds at low altitude for most of the flight, Merrill still went 21.5 hours on 1,100 gallons of gas.

Long's contention that they had 97 gallons remaining when they reached New York would mean that they burned 73 gallons in the roughly hour and a half flight from Boston - an entirely credible 48.6 gph.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 14 Jun 2004 11:48:00 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: Merrill/Lambie

Ric,

That is a wonderfully comprehensive reply. Thanks.

Was the 20 mins on the ground at Squantum actually timed or was this someone's estimate? Is there any record of the aircraft's weight when it left Ainsdale? It would seem then that the most accurate way of estimating fuel consumption must be to deduct the 20 mins from the total flight time (if the 20 mins is indeed accurate). ie 24:12 less 20 is 23:52. In this time they used 1173 gal for 49.15 gph. KJ's figures under schedule II (straight to 8,000ft) produce 45.55 gph over 24 hr 09min, indicating an average 3.6 gph penalty for flying lower than his recommendations, (always assuming M/L used similar economical settings to those KJ proposed). KJ's schedule I was more economical than Schedule II and so the discrepancy here was slightly larger.

Comments anyone??

There does seem too small a difference between the 49.15 and the 48.6 you calculate, as the plane should have been running much more economically at low weight, perhaps around 40 gph on the way to FBF.

73/40 would give a flight time of 1.8 hr to FBF which seems quite reasonable if they had a headwind.

Regards Angus
************************************************************************
From Ric

I would imagine that the 20 minutes on the ground at Squantum is a ballpark figure and, as far as I know, the aircraft was not weighed at Ainsdale.  Ainsdale was just a long stretch of beach.  No facilities for weighing and Merrill's approach seems to have been, "Just give me all the fuel we can get aboard and I'll see if I can it off the ground."

The Merrill/Lambie flights are the great untapped source of information about what the Lockheed 10E Special airplane was capable of.  Those who insist that Earhart ran out of gas soon after the last message heard by the Itasca must explain why NR16020 performed so abysmally compared to its sister ship NR16059.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 14 Jun 2004 11:32:43 -0400
From:         John Harsh
Subject:      Re: Looting

What are some of the examples of historic artifacts successfully preserved in their context?  The stone wall at Little Round Top was mentioned a few days ago, but like most civil was sites the surrounding area has changed to the point where the context is different today than it was when the area become historic.  There are several P-38s in the ice in Greenland, but they are difficult to visit and nature will eventually grind them to dust. In a visit to the Titanic the biggest impression may be how badly it has been plundered.  Even the USS Arizona is at risk to corrosion.

In the 1970s the USS Monitor was discovered off the Outer Banks.  There was some public interest in recovering it intact, but it was made an historic site and "preserved", probably because technology as insufficient to successfully recover it.  After realizing that the wreck was rapidly deteriorating recent expeditions have recovered the turret, steam engine, and sundry artifacts for public display.

Each artifact is its own case.  Education will only go so far.  My cousin once dated a girl who was arrested for taking a fossil from a national park. I know friends of friends who collect civil war artifacts, often without the benefit of permission and eBay provides a ready market for their disposal. Other than buildings or objects too large to move and house indoors, what are some examples of artifacts left in situ but not vandalized, plundered, or lost to nature?  How was this arranged so the artifact will be protected for the ages?

Here is a link to what I feel is the a best-case example of an aircraft recovery.  The 89 year old pilot was present to see his Hurricane's engine recovered.  Eventually the remains will be displayed in the Imperial War Musuem.  The artifact and its history are safely interred within the culture that gives it meaning.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040601/ap_on_sc/britain_unearthed_plane_3

LTM who knows nothing last forever
-JMH
0634C
************************************************************************
From Ric

You raise some interesting questions and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I believe that these things are worth thinking about - especially when we find ourselves having to make decisions about what actions to take, or not take, with respect to historic properties.

>What are some of the examples of historic artifacts successfully
>preserved in their context?

How about some historic aircraft?

Douglas B-23, Army Air Corps serial number 39-052, at Loon Lake, Idaho.  Very rare aircraft.  Largely intact.  Beautiful setting.  Accessible to hikers.  Placards erected at the site told the story of what happened.  It was a textbook example of in situ preservation - until the United States Air Force Museum came in and ravaged the site to obtain components they could use as patterns in the rebuilding of another B-23.  They destroyed the structural integrity of the aircraft at Loon Lake and it has since been flattened by snowpack.  Tragic.

Boeing B-29, USAAF serial number 45-21768 (aka Kee Bird), Greenland. Rare aircraft.  Entirely intact.  Amazing setting.  Accessible by aircraft.  Destroyed during recovery attempt.

Boeing B-17E, Army Air Corps serial number 41-2446, Agaiambo Swamp, Papua New Guinea.  Extremely rare aircraft.  Largely intact.  Amazing setting.  Accessible by helicopter.  Protected from recovery attempts (including one in 1986 by a young and misguided organization called TIGHAR) by the government of Papua New Guinea and by the astronomical expense of operating in such a remote and hostile environment.  The aircraft is still there, right where it belongs.

>There are several P-38s in the ice in Greenland, but they are
>difficult to visit and nature will eventually grind them to dust.

Yes...but nature will eventually grind everything to dust. "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more." (Psalms 103: 15-16)

There is no such thing as "permanent preservation" and even the finest museums can, and do, fall victim to natural and man-made disasters. But often the greatest threat to historic properties is not "the teeth of time" but rather "the hands of mistaken zeal".  One of those frozen P-38s you mention was recovered at great expense and hazard only to be destroyed by turning it into a flyable replica of itself with the phony name "Glacier Girl".  The remaining P-38s under the ice are better off right where they are until historic aircraft are recognized and treated as true historic properties.

Your example of  "a best-case example of an aircraft recovery" is revealing in that what was recovered was not an aircraft but rather a badly battered engine.  There are, of course, much better Merlin engines around.  What gives this one its perceived value is its connection to the 89-year old pilot.  And that's the point.  It's about the people, not the artifacts.  That stone wall on Little Round Top is a catalyst that helps us imagine and appreciate the experience of our fellow human beings who fought, bled and died on both sides of that wall.  The Hurricane engine was serving no purpose buried in the ground and will be treated as an historic property  - so recovery, while the pilot is still around, makes sense.

>I know friends of friends who collect civil war artifacts, often
>without the benefit of permission and eBay provides a ready market for their
>disposal.

That is looting in its purest form and it's despicable.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 14 Jun 2004 11:57:07 -0400
From:         Mike Haddock
Subject:      Re: Looting

I don't want to get off topic but the stone wall on Little Round Top was added long after the battle. Our private tour guide last summer told us that Chamberlain was very offended by it when he attended the dedication of the monument to the 20th Maine Infantry. Just a little tidbit of history.

LTM,
Mike Haddock, #2438

************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Mike.  That's fascinating.  I knew that the current forest setting, faithfully recreated by Holly wood in "Gettysburg", was wrong (The hill had been logged off sometime prior to the battle.) but I didn't know about the stone wall.

The revelation that it wasn't there makes another interesting point about historic artifacts.  It's our PERCEPTION of historical authenticity, not ACTUAL authenticity, that acts as a catalyst for connecting with people and events of the past. Issues of religious faith aside, there is nothing magical about relics.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:06:31 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Merrill/Lambie flight

Ric writes:

>Merrill still went 21.5 hours on 1,100 gallons of gas.>>

That's an average of a little over 51 GPH. That should mean Earhart would have had a bit better gas mileage as the Daily Express was heavier. If we arbitrarily suggest a gph of 48 then at 8:43 L she would have been down to 130 gallons. I had originally suggested 139. If she could then maintain 38GPH she had almost three and a half hours to dry tanks. How fast could the Electra fly and still hold 38 GPH? How far could she go on 130 gallons?

I am not pretending she averaged 48 GPH. I have no precise idea what that figure should be but 48 is going to be close as I look at the performance charts.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 16 Jun 2004 04:47:45 -0400
From:         Ric
Subject:      Forum glitch

The forum was down for a couple of days due to a glitch but we're back up and running.  Sorry for the inconvenience.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 16 Jun 2004 04:49:32 -0400
From:         Daryll
Subject:      Daryll's hypothesis

Today was the first time I read TIGHAR's research bulletin dated Nov. 2003 :

http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/47_Katagateman.html

"....For this reason, and simply to complete the historical record, it would be very helpful if anyone with knowledge of search efforts in the Gilberts to contact the authors....[TIGHAR]"

OK, why doesn't your research staff investigate the voyage of Astor's (FDR's friend) Nourmahal. Most historians accept that this was just an espionage mission to find out what was going on in the pre-war Marshalls. Doesn't anyone wonder WHY historians freely admit to this being a pre-war spy mission into the Marshalls by prominent private US citizens? This spying aspect of the voyage was meant to mask the true purpose of the voyage was to look for AE & FN in the Marshalls.

GPP's frustrations with the progress of the Gilberts search seems quite evident from your research bulletin. GPP was supposed to be in the Galapagos during the Nourmahal's voyage.

Why the Marshalls ?

"....Reflections on the Earhart Mystery

According to Earhart biographer Doris Rich, Earhart's plan on the Lae-Howland leg of the world flight was to "hunt for Howland until she had four hours of fuel left, and then, if she had not located it, to turn back to the Gilberts Island and land on a beach."[21] This reported plan, which Rich says was conveyed by Earhart to her friend and backer Eugene Vidal, has led some Earhart researchers to suggest with some confidence that it was in the Gilberts that Earhart and Noonan crashed.....[TIGHAR]"

"....until she had four hours of fuel left,..."

This is what we saw happen from the radio messages and the lack of messages after a certain time by the ITASCA. By 10:30 am ITASCA time they were approaching the 180 meridian heading back for what they thought was the Gilberts.

Vidal very likely conveyed this to FDR at their July meeting where no one took notes. The pressure for searching the Gilberts was reinforced by the "281 message" that was received on July 5th. This is reflected in the telegram from the Sec. of State.

".....On August 7 (the same day, but next date due to the International Dateline) the WPHC received this telegram from the Secretary of State: "United States Ambassador states that evidence, which to many sources seems positive, indicates that Miss Earhart was on land two nights following disappearance. Note proceeds to ask if further search of Gilbert Islands could be made at expense, if necessary, of husband, Putnam,.....[TIGHAR]"

"...two nights..." corresponds to the reception of the "281 message".

Like I have been saying all along. If 281 were regarded as a compass direction from the LOP, landfall could have been in the Gilberts OR the Marshalls. The Marshalls (MILI ATOLL) and the Northern Gilberts are only separated by about 120 miles. That is not much when you are LOST either north or south of Howland and have to travel several hundred miles to find land.

Daryll
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Okay, you've stated your hypothesis.  We're not going to test it because we think it's based upon nothing but fanciful speculation, so I guess it's up to you to prove us wrong.  How you gonna test it?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 16 Jun 2004 04:50:04 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Fuel

Alan asks;

>If she could then maintain 38GPH she had almost three and a half
>hours to dry tanks. How fast could the Electra
>fly and still hold 38 GPH? How far could she go on 130 gallons?

So what's the answer ?

LTM
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 16 Jun 2004 04:50:29 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Hollywood

Talking about Hollywood should not be off-topic when talking about Amelia Earhart... Anyone who has ever visited the Hollywood studios knows that. I admire Hollywood for its film making but will never take any Hollywood film serious any more. Some ten years ago Hollywood made a film about "The Battle of the Bulge" (December 1944). I happen to live near the area where that battle was fought. Somehow Hollywood decided to have the battle fought among mountains. The place looked like Switzerland. And then there was a desert where the Germans drove their Patton tanks through ! There are no deserts in Europe. Too much rain for that. I had bought the film on video believing it had some historic value. Having seen it I threw it  in the trash can, all 12 dollars worth of it.

LTM (who remembers Snow White and the Flintstones are Hollywood products too)
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 16 Jun 2004 04:51:11 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Restoration?

Ric said:

>Thanks Mike.  That's fascinating.  I knew that the current
>forest setting, faithfully recreated by Holly wood in "Gettysburg", was
>wrong (The hill had been logged off sometime prior to the battle.) but I
>didn't know about the stone wall.

Move your focus a little bit south of Gettysburg and look at the battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg to the Confederates).  The U.S. Department of the Interior now has plans to restore (can it do that?) the entire battle field to its original contours and vegetation by removing the many roads and buildings that have been erected since the battle on Sept. 17, 1862.

Over the past 20-30 years there has been serious encroachment over the mountains 3-5 miles east of the battle field that the view from the site doesn't resemble the original view in 1862.  So the park service is also working on preserving the "viewscape" to give the area the same look it had during the battle.  I don't know how they plan to evict the dozen of families that have settle on the mountain side, but they have something in mind for the entire Antietam battlefield and its "viewscape".

LTM, who is well restored and preserved

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

How does cleaning the landscape at a historic site differ from cleaning accumulated dirt and rust from an artifact?

A similar program (or rather "programme") was carried out about 20 years ago at the site of the 1746 Battle of Culloden near Inverness, Scotland.   What had once been barren moorland had grown up to pine forest so that it was very difficult for a visitor to envision how the ranks of the rebellious clans had been decimated by the King's artillery before they charged across the open ground onto the bayonets of the infantry.  I saw it before and after the "restoration" and I have to say that, from a historian's perspective, it was a big improvement.

Of course, the issue of private property rights raises a different question.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 17 Jun 2004 05:32:09 -0700
From:         Ric
Subject:      Forum on Friday

I'm on the road with limited email access until Friday.  I should be able to catch up on the postings then.  Thanks for your patience.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:16:45 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Restoration

Ric wrote :

>How does cleaning the landscape at a historic site differ from
>cleaning accumulated dirt and rust from an artifact? A similar program
>(or rather "programme") was carried out about 20 years ago at the site
>of the 1746 Battle of Culloden near Inverness, Scotland.   What had once been
>barren moorland had grown up to pine forest so that it was very difficult for a
>visitor to envision how the ranks of the rebellious clans had been decimated by
>the King's artillery before they charged across the open ground onto the bayonets
>of the infantry.  I saw it before and after the "restoration" and I have to say
>that, from a historian's perspective, it was a big improvement. Of course, the
>issue of private property rights raises a different question.

The battlefield where the armies of the French emperor Napoleon were at last defeated on 18 June 1815, marking the end of an era of French control over Europe in the 19th century, is only 40 minutes away from where I live. The site is preserved and will forever remain what it was: open farmland. That was decided by the Belgian government in 1914. That is what had been decided also by the owner of most of the land : the heirs of the Duke of Wellington. Why his heirs? Because in those days generals were not paid in money but in real estate. It was given to him by  the king of the Netherlands. After Napoleon's previous defeat in 1814 the country which is now called Belgium had become part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the King Willem decided to build a monument on the site in  commemoration of this historic battle : a 60 meter pyramid of topsoil with a huge lion on top, made of the molten bronze of the captured French guns. The artificial hill is not a pretty sight but it marks the place that was the center of the battle was and also where Dutch infantry fought shoulder to shoulder with the British.

A problem arose some 20 years ago when a new freeway had to built... across the battlefield. Plans were adapted to save the landscape and the freeway became a sunken road, so the view of the historic battlefield has not changed. Which was a good idea. However, private property mentioned by Ric is a different question. Ten years or so ago MacDonald's built one of its famous hamburger restaurants next to the battlefield on a peace of real estate that was not protected. Which was not a good idea... I wonder when McDonalds is going to erect a restaurant next to Omaha Beach.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:20:54 -0400
From:         Jack Thomas
Subject:      Re: Looting

Mike Haddock wrote:

> I don't want to get off topic but the stone wall on Little Round Top
> was added long after the battle. Our private tour guide last summer
> told us that Chamberlain was very offended by it when he attended the
> dedication of the monument to the 20th Maine Infantry. Just a little
> tidbit of history.

Actually, they were built immediately after the Battle for Little Round Top, but DURING the Battle of Gettysburg.

Breastworks on Little Round Top were built the night of July 2 and on July 3 in preparation for an attack that never came.  The walls appear in photos taken only days after the battle.  Chamberlain would have been offended because they were not there during the 20th Maine's defense in the late afternoon/early evening hours of July 2.

So, while the walls have certainly been restacked a number of times over the years and may no longer be in the exact locations as the originals, they are certainly representative of the walls as they existed on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

-J. Thomas
************************************************************************
From Kerry Tiller

Mike, that's a little tidbit of erroneous history. I was not aware that Chamberlain was offended by the existence of stone wall, but it does not surprise me. The stone wall was not there when Chamberlain and the 20th Maine made their heroic bayonet charge. It was a reconstruction of the stone breast works that the 44th and 140th New York Regiments spent the night of July 2nd/3rd building after Chamberlain's exhausted (and out of ammunition) troops were wisely sent to "re-enforce" the Union Center. The attempts to again collapse the Union left at Little Round Top on July 3rd were effectively thwarted by the stone walls erected during the night. The existence of these stone breast-works is well documented in the post battle photographs taken on July 6th by Gibson, Gardner and O'Sullivan, and show up in the Brady and Tyson brother photos taken up to two weeks after the battle. It is from these photos that the present wall was reconstructed using the stones on site. We, as historians, must temper our use of sources, no matter how good, with a look at every thing available. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain lived to be a ripe old age, and was an extremely literate man. He had the privilege of writing and telling his version of the battle in the end, with no one left to dispute him. This affected Michael Shaara's research for "Killer Angels" and the subsequent movie "Gettysburg", but it should not affect our perspective on the battle. Those stone breast works on Little Round top were every bit as affective in stopping the Rebels on July 3rd as Chamberlain was on July 2nd. Chamberlain stopped the attack with blood. The New York regiments stopped it with stone.

LTM (who still thinks I have too much useless knowledge)
Kerry Tiller
************************************************************************
From Ric

So it seems that we now have walls that were rebuilt using the same stones and that may or may not be where they originally were.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:38:17 -0400
From:         John Harsh
Subject:      Re: Restoration?

How is restoring the battlefield near Inverness different from returning the Greenland P-38 to its original condition?

John Harsh
0634C
************************************************************************
From Ric

First - neither the battlefield nor the airplane were returned to their original condition.  It is as impossible to return a location or an object to its condition at some previous point in time as it is to raise the dead.  We can make a place or a thing look like we think it did at some previous moment in time but whatever we achieve will be an illusion.

In the case of Drumossie Moor (the site of the Battle of Culloden), trees that had grown up since 1746 were removed so as to make the place look more like it did back then, thus creating the illusion that time has stood still.

In the case of the P-38, the end result was similar  - the illusion that time has stood still - but it was achieved by removing and discarding most of the object's original physical material and replacing it with new material.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:47:35 -0400
From:         Daryll Bolinger
Subject:      Astor's voyage

Ric wrote:

>Okay, you've stated your hypothesis. We're not going to test it because
>we think it's based upon nothing but fanciful speculation, so I guess
>it's up to you to prove us wrong. How you gonna test it?

I was only responding to your request in your last paragraph of your research paper.

"For this reason, and simply to complete the historical record, it would be very helpful if anyone with knowledge of search efforts in the Gilberts to contact the authors."

Then I suggested an area for some original research.

"OK, why doesn't your research staff investigate the voyage of Astor's (FDR's friend) Nourmahal. "

The Nourmahal was bigger than the Koshu. It could also carry an airplane if it had to.

FDR sent Astor on this voyage sometime over the winter of '37' - '38'. FDR made special arrangements for this voyage, presumably with the Navy and the British. We know the Navy gave Astor a special radio to communicate with and had prearranged code words. Astor was supposed to get to Jaluit. Carl Heine, an Australian missionary in Jaluit, acted as a translator for the Japanese Governor there. Carl Heine could have been Astor's intended contact person. Astor asked for permission from the Japanese and was denied so he spent his time cruising around the Gilberts and Elice islands.

It was only a suggestion, please excuse me for interrupting your more important discussions.

Daryll
************************************************************************
From Ric

I'm curious to know where you came across the name Carl Heine and the information that he was an Australian missionary in Jaluit who acted as a translator for the Japanese Governor there.

Dr. Carl Heine is a very distinguished Marshallese gentleman who now lives in Majuro but was born and spent his childhood on Jaluit.  The Carl Heine you mention could be his father or grandfather.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:50:27 -0400
From:         Patrick Gaston
Subject:      Batalla de Protruberancia

For Herman:

If you're talking about the 1965 movie "Battle of the Bulge," it was filmed in Spain due to lower production costs (i.e., cheap labor) and the availability of scads of WW2-era tanks, courtesy of Franco's army.  Of course this would be like filming the Battle of the Wilderness in the Mojave Desert, but hey, it's Hollywood.

I was bothered more by the film's cop-out ending than its historical inaccuracies.  The Nazis were on the march -- then they ran out of gas and left.  Eisenhower denounced the film shortly after its release.

LTM (who watched "Gunsmoke" as a kid and still gets a chuckle from those high mountains just outside Dodge City, Kansas)

Pat Gaston
********************************************************************
From Ric

This was almost too far off-topic to post but the subject line is priceless.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 08:40:06 -0400
From:         Mike Haddock
Subject:      Re: Looting

Egads! Sorry I brought it up. Thanks for the lecture, Kerry!

Mike Haddock, #2438

************************************************************
From Ric

No, this is fascinating.  The stone wall on Little Round Top is a poster child for the problems of historic preservation.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 08:45:58 -0400
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: Restoration

Hermann wrote:

>The battlefield where the armies of the French emperor Napoleon were
>at last defeated on 18 June 1815, marking the end of an era of French control
>over Europe in the 19th century, is only 40 minutes away from where I live.
>The site is preserved and will forever remain what it was : open farmland.
>....After Napoleon's previous defeat in 1814 the country which is now called
>Belgium had become part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the King Willem
>decided to build a monument on the site in commemoration of this
>historic battle : a 60 meter pyramid of topsoil with a huge lion on
>top, made of the molten bronze of the captured French guns.
>
>The artificial hill is not a pretty sight but it marks the place that
>was the center of the battle 
>was and also where Dutch infantry fought shoulder to shoulder with the British.

The building of the Battle of Waterloo pyramid took soil from the main ridge where the British made their stand.  The topography of the site has changed from the day of the battle due to this construction, rather drastically in terms of the details of the ridge and how the British used it. Nowadays, the ridge is rather flat and wide, whereas before, there was little flatness along its extent.  The pyramid is not at the center of the British line, but rather at the far western extent.  The current road that crosses the main valley and ridges goes to the central area where Wellington and the famous single elm tree were the command center.
********************************************************************
From Ric

Shades of Little Round Top.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 08:52:52 -0400
From:         Alexander
Subject:      The mountains of Dodge

Pat ended by saying :

>LTM (who watched "Gunsmoke" as a kid and still gets a chuckle from those
>high mountains just outside Dodge City, Kansas)

Out of interest pat doesn't Dodge have high mountains ? As i have only seen it on hollywood inaccurate movies and not in person I'm interested to know.

alexander
************************************************************************
From Ric

Dodge City is in Kansas.  Look at a map and find the Rocky Mountains.

Or if you would rather confine your research to Hollywood movies, watch The Wizard of OZ which includes a fairly accurate representation of the Kansas landscape.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 09:04:31 -0400
From:         Bill Leary
Subject:      Re: Looting

> What's the difference between "recovering" and "plundering"?
> Is it better to remove items to a museum for preservation or allow them
> to decay in situ?

OK, here's one that seems pretty clear to me as "recovery," though it also pretty clearly destroys part of the historical context of the objects.

Rumors had it that after WWII a quantity of German, Japanese, Italian, English and other aircraft parts formerly stored at Freeman Field, near Seymour, Indiana, were disposed of by being buried at the site.  In 1997, after years of chasing down rumors, the stories were confirmed when quite a lot of these items were found and unearthed.  Much of the material was "recovered" and some "restored."
***********************************************************************
From Ric

To plunder is to "rob or despoil", to take for personal gain without regard for permissions or legalities of ownership.  Many of the aircraft "recovered" from the southwest Pacific by "warbird" salvagers in the 1970s were, in effect, plundered.  The Freeman Field excavations were done through proper channels.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 09:45:39 -0400
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Carl Heine

Ric wrote:

> I'm curious to know where you came across the name Carl Heine and the
> information that he was an Australian missionary in Jaluit who acted as
> a translator for the Japanese Governor there.
>
> Dr. Carl Heine is a very distinguished Marshallese gentleman who now
> lives in Majuro but was born and spent his childhood on Jaluit.  The
> Carl Heine you mention could be his father or grandfather.

He rates a mention here Ric,

The war brought its share of personal tragedy to all Marshallese, irrespective of their church affiliation. Carl Heine, the foreign-born trader who sank roots in the islands and became its foremost Protestant missionary, was executed by the Japanese in the early 1940s. Also executed were two Sacred heart priests, Frs. Durand and Marquis, who set out from the Gilberts and were lost at sea for three weeks before washing up on Mili in September 1943. The priests, who were arrested and interrogated by the Japanese military police, suddenly vanished from sight until their bullet-ridden bodies were found offshore and secretly buried by some Gilbertese Catholics. Some Marshallese survived only by virtue of extraordinary fortitude and resourcefulness, like the young church leader on Likiep who, upon learning that he was marked for execution, swam across the lagoon towing his mother on a wooden plank and completed his escape to another atoll on a small boat.

Th' WOMBAT
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

This is very interesting.  Tom King found the following reference:

>Interesting note about Carl Heine, who I'd always assumed was simply 
>a descendant of one of the many German traders who married into 
>Marshallese society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But a quick
>google brought me to http://www.artworkoriginals.com/EB5SCUFV.HTM, a 
>pitch for the artwork of one Dean Ellis, which includes as background
>for a piece of art set in the Marshalls:
>
>As the early merchant ships sliced through the azure Pacific bringing
>traders to the Marshall Islands, life among the native people began to
>change. These new men brought new ways to the islands, which gradually
>blended with the old, combining the unique aspects of both. To enhance
>the Christmas Day celebrations, an Australian named Carl Heine helped
>to mix the old, native ways with Christian traditions. He and another
>man, James Milne, were or ordained as ministers on the Ebon and Jaluit
>atolls. Unlike their predecessors, the two helped to develop friendly
>competition between island churches and with their encouragement, the
>early practice of play-acting began to show up in the churches with
>re-enactments of Christmas bible stories.
>
>Milne is another important family name in the Marshalls today.

No mention of that Carl Heine being executed.  Maybe it was his son. The Carl Heine whom we recently interviewed in Majuro was born on Jaluit and witnessed, as a 6 year-old boy, the capture of the Americans who ditched their TBD Devastators in the lagoon in 1942.  His father or grandfather reportedly knew some English which they learned from a missionary (Rev. Carl Heine?) and they helped the Americans hide for several days before the Japanese took them prisoner, but Carl mentioned nothing about his father or grandfather later being executed by the Japanese ( and I'm quite sure he would have).  We interviewed another man who, as a boy, witnessed the TBD incident and he told us that Carl Heine's grandfather had helped the Americans, but again, no mention of any executions.

There was a strange incident in 1938 (I think) where someone found a letter addressed to Amelia Earhart in a post office in the Marshalls (on Jaluit?) and supposedly sent a letter about it to an Australian newspaper.  I've recently been told that the person who saw the letter to AE was named Carl Heine.  Does anybody have the full story on that incident?

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:00:01 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Astor

Daryll wrote

>FDR sent  Astor on this voyage sometime over the winter of '37' -'38'.
>FDR made  special arrangements for this voyage, presumably with the Navy
>and the  British. We know the Navy gave Astor a special radio to
>communicate with  and had prearranged code words. Astor was supposed to
>get to  Jaluit.

Daryll, I have some unexpected time on my hands for a few weeks. I would be happy to look into Astor's voyage if you can provide support for the statements  in the above paragraph. I'm not going to deal with pure speculation, however.

I agree with you that at some point all credible theories need to be looked into if they have sufficient support to them and they are testable. If they have  no legitimate support and/or they are not testable their pursuit is an exercise  in futility.

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

As I understand it, it is well-established that access was denied by the Japanese authorities and Astor did not succeed in visiting any of the Marshall Islands.

Here's another interesting aside.

U.S. intelligence about Japanese facilities on Jaluit was apparently very poor.  Although the atoll was the Japanese headquarters for the Marshalls, there really wasn't much there in the way of fortifications or facilities. When we interviewed James Dalzell, the radioman/rear gunner in one of the TBDs that ditched in the lagoon on Feb. 1, 1942, he told us that when he was interrogated following his capture one of the main points he was grilled on was why they had attacked Jaluit.  The Japanese couldn't understand why the Americans would go to all that trouble.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:10:02 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Plunder or recovery?

OK, here's one to throw into the mix.  Recovery is currently underway on SS Republic, a sidewheeler sunk off the coast of Georgia at the end of the Civil War.  Lots of gold coinage aboard.  Recovery is, as far as I can tell, being carried out with a high level of archeological precision, under archeological supervision, but the coinage and probably some other artifacts will be sold after they're catalogued and analyzed.  Is this plundering, or recovery, or what?
************************************************************************
From Ric

If the operation is being carried out within the law and with agreement by all parties about how the recovered material is to be managed I don't see how it can be called plunder.

You can agree or disagree with the decisions and approvals concerning methodology and disposition of artifacts, but that's a different issue. The Air Force Museum, for example, did not "plunder" the Loon Lake B-23.  They went through proper channels and got permission from the U.S. Forest Service to salvage parts from the wreck.  I happen to think that bad decisions were made and great damage was done, but it was all done legally.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:35:41 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: restoration

Ric wrote:

> No, this is fascinating.  The stone wall on Little Round Top is a
> poster child for the problems of historic preservation.>>

Little Round Top has a much bigger problem than the stone wall. The modern paved road to the summit would probably upset Col. Chamberlain.  Any attempt to "preserve" a battlefield for the purpose of viewing it as it was at the time of the battle will be thwarted by nature. Landscape changes over time. The reason for preserving a battlefield is to honor those who fought there.

LTM
Kerry Tiller
************************************************************************
From Ric

I don't think anyone would argue with that principle, but the question remains, "How do we do that?"

Here's another Scottish battlefield example.   The Battle of Bannockburn (1314) was arguably the most important in Scottish history.

The outnumbered forces of King Robert the Bruce won Scottish independence from England by defeating Edward II's army (as everyone who has seen the Mel Gibson cartoon knows).  Today the field is a housing development.  There's a very nice visitor's center nearby that shows a film and has a nice diorama of what it looked like back then and there's a really magnificent statue of  "the Bruce" on his warhorse - but there is no attempt to create any on-the-ground illusion that time has stood still for the last 700 years.

I think that, at any historic site, the purpose is to get the visitor to think about what happened here.  We all buy into the mystical fiction that somehow there is an enduring connection between the place and the event, as if dirt has a memory.  It's the way we're put together.  That chill goes up our spine if we can look around us and say, "Yes, this is where it happened."  The more the site looks like we imagine it did when the historical event took place, the easier it is to get that feeling of connection to the past that we're after.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:37:16 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: the mountains of Dodge

Ric wrote:

> Dodge City is in Kansas.  Look at a map and find the Rocky Mountains.
>
> Or if you would rather confine your research to Hollywood movies, watch
> The Wizard of OZ which includes a fairly accurate representation of the
> Kansas landscape.

If anybody is really interested, the first "Gunsmoke" shows were filmed at Old Tucson, a movie set built in the 1930s for a movie called "Arizona". The set was on the backside of the Tucson Mountains, about ten miles outside of the real Tucson. Even after "Gunsmoke" built their own Dodge City on a back lot in California, when ever Matt Dillon needed to go to another town, the crew would come to Tucson to use the Old Tucson set. It burned down a few years ago and has been rebuilt.

LTM (who loved to watch Gunsmoke)
Kerry Tiller
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:39:56 -0400
From:         Daryll Bolinger
Subject:      Re: Carl Heine

Ric wrote:

>I'm curious to know where you came across the name Carl Heine and the
>information that he was an Australian missionary in Jaluit who acted as
>a translator for the Japanese Governor there.
>
>Dr. Carl Heine is a very distinguished Marshallese gentleman who now lives in
>Majuro but was born and spent his childhood on Jaluit. The Carl Heine you mention 
>could be his father or grandfather.

Our research has shown that Carl Heine, a missionary in Jaluit circa 1937, was Australian. He had two sons I believe. He was the same Carl Heine who published a story in the Pacific Monthly in May (?) 1938 about finding a letter addressed to Amelia Earhart in the Jaluit post office. Carl Heine and his wife were executed by the Japanese before the Americans arrived.

Below are excepts from a book by a French author published in 1939. There is no English version. I struggled with the translation because I don't understand the French language. It is a first person account about their experiences in Jaluit circa 1935 from what I have deduced. 

French speaking forum subscribers (Herman?) can have a go at it. I would be interested in reading their translation.

Daryll

pg 238


Le Capitaine a devinŽ bien vite de quoi il est soup�onnŽ : Çde faire de l'hydrographie pour le compte d'une puissance Žtrang�re.È De quelle puissance Žtrang�re ? C'est toute la question dŽsormais pour le gouverneur, tant il est sžr d'avoir vu juste et d'avoir ar�te un espion. Quant ˆ imaginer un instant que le Fou-Po soit entrŽ dans Jaluit pour un simple motif de convenance personnelle, cela ne lui viendra m�me plus ˆ l'esprit.

En vain le Capitaine lui montrera-t-il la coque salie de son navire, ses voiles dŽchirŽes. et son gouvernail incomplet et suspendu par des bretelles. Ces visions matŽrielles n'entameront, en rien la conviction du gouverneur : toutes ces avaries ne sont qu'un prŽtexte adroit don't se camoufle le Fou-Po, dangereux ennemi de l'Empire nippon, dont lui, gouverneur des Marshall, commande une marche des plus importantes, tant par sa situation gŽographique que par son incognito, fort mal dŽvoilŽ aux amirautŽs Žtrang�res par les anciennes cartes allemandes de ces atolls.

Le gouverneur est un homme d'une cinquantaine d'annŽes, toujours en tenue civile de toile blanche, et les cheveux rasŽs au millim�tre ; il porte une petite moustache en accent circonflexe autour de ses l�vres serrŽes. Il est grand pour un Japonais, ˆ peu pr�s de la taille du capitaine, lequel est plut™t petit pour un Fran�ais. Il est incroyablement maigre, d'une maigreur infatigable de fanatique ou d'asc�te. Dans la rue il marche une sorte de pas de l'oie, ou de pas romain comme on dit aujourd'hui, et il se prŽcipite, d�s qu'il la recontre, dans la longue vedette qui lui sert d'automobile et qui va toujours ˆ plein moteur ; m�me quand elle bat en arri�re pour accoster le Fou-Po en tossant horriblement sur sa pauvre coque.

pg 239

L'instruction du proc�s a lieu dans la RŽsidence, qui est voisine du poste de police : les interrogations du gouverneur se font en japonais et les rŽponses du Capitaine en anglais ; ils communiquent ensemble par l'intermŽdiaire d'un interpr�te que surveillent les yeux bridŽs et per�ants de l'inquisiteur. Cet interpr�te sera tant™t le commissaire d'un second paquebot qui a succŽdŽ au premier, tant™t un missionnaire australien , tant™t le commandant d'un transport de guerre. Le gouverneur aime ˆ varier ses procŽdŽs d'instruction, et il ne s'en fie, au demeurant, qu'ˆ lui-m�me. Certaines de ses malices sont cousues de fil blanc, comme celle-ci, par exemple, d'envoyer ˆ Tati, pendant l'heure d'un des interrogatoires du Capitaine ˆ la rŽsidence, un gros Japonais fort disert qui lui explique dans un anglais parfait, tout en lui servant de la bi�re, comment jadis il aurait travaillŽ glorieusement pour sa patrie en faisant du service de renseignements en AmŽrique du Sud, au pŽril, non seulement de sa libertŽ mais, parfois aussi, de sa vie. Tati approuve poliment, mais il ne peut tout de m�me pas rendre confidence pour confidence, ni se muer, pour faire plaisir ˆ ce personnage, en une sorte de colonel Lawrence ou m�me en un simple agent du Deuxi�me Bureau fran�ais. La bi�re heureusement n'est pas truquŽe, mais de bon aloi, et, pour Tati, c'est autant de gagnŽ. Le gouverneur, en son for intŽrieur, a vite conclu sinon ˆ l'innocuitŽ compl�te de Tati, du moins ˆ son ignorance des buts secrets de la croisi�re du Fou-Po : il le laissera donc ˆ peu pr�s en paix ˆ condition toutefois qu'il reste clo”trŽ ˆ bord et ne s'avise jamais de descendre ˆ terre.

Le Fou-Po est veillŽ pendant le jour par deux policiers de faction, l'un sur le quai et l'autre sur la jetŽe : la nuit, le projecteur du poste reste continuellement braquŽ sur la jonque et aveugle nos marins quand il leur arrive de prendre l'air sur le pont. Indig�nes et Japonais fuient pareillement le

======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:06:21 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Carl Heine

>Frs.  Durand and Marquis, who set out from the Gilberts and were lost
>at sea for three weeks before washing up on Mili in September  1943.

Ross, I wish you hadn't wrote that. The crashed and sankers now have new food for thought. <G>

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:07:33 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Astor

>As I  understand it, it is well-established that access was denied by
>the  Japanese authorities and Astor did not succeed in visiting any of
>the  Marshall Islands.

Ric, given the relationships and climate of the time, I would not doubt that. But if I hold Daryll's toes to the fire I need to point to some support for your comment. That would get Daryll off the hook because if Astor never made it to the Marshall's nothing else in the story has any significance. It wouldn't  matter if any part of the story is true or mere fancy.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 12:08:43 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Carl Heine

Using the Internet to translate the French into rough English I saw nothing in the excerpts of interest regarding Heine or Earhart.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 19 Jun 2004 13:47:29 -0400
From:         Bill Leary
Subject:      Re: Looting

> To plunder is to "rob or despoil", to take for personal gain without
> regard for permissions or legalities of ownership.  Many of the
> aircraft "recovered" from the southwest Pacific by "warbird" salvagers
> in the 1970s were, in effect, plundered.  The Freeman Field excavations
> were done through proper channels.

Yes, I wasn't trying to make a point about legalities, and I didn't mention "plunder" myself.  It was just part of the item I quoted to hook my item into the thread.  Perhaps should have hung this into the one of the other threads?

Anyway...

What I was getting into (or trying to) was that the recovery had removed the items from at least AN aspect of their historical context.  Or maybe not. Was the fact that all these parts were dumped and buried sixty years ago actually in any way relevant to their historical context?  If not, then I guess digging them up searching for them didn't much matter.  Part of what I thought was interesting about the whole thing was that it was all rumors and stories to begin with.  Then research was done and it became more solid. Then some ideas were developed about places to use ground radar, then some digging, then some more research and so on until success.  So I'd assumed (incorrectly?) that the fact they were where they were was a part of their relevance.  No?

      - Bill #2229
************************************************************************
From Ric

I don't think that digging it up removed it from an important context. It had been disposed of - pushed into a hole with a bulldozer and covered over.  Had some German radar set, for example, been found in an abandoned building still hooked up to test equipment you could make the argument that the context was important, but that wasn't the situation.

Originally, the stories associated with Freeman Field alleged that captured German and Japanese aircraft were buried at the site.  We did some archival research and found that by the time stuff was buried, all of the aircraft and most of the interesting technology had been moved to Wright-Patterson AFB.  According to the records, most of what was buried was old mess hall equipment and so forth.  We decided that whatever might be there was not worth the trouble and expense of getting all the necessary permissions and digging it up, so we passed on the project.  As I understand it, a local group went ahead.  As I recall they had navigate their way through a tremendous amount of red tape but I don't think I ever heard what they actually found.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:49:24 -0400
From:         Bill Leary
Subject:      Re: Looting

Ric wrote:

> Originally, the stories associated with Freeman Field alleged that
> captured German and Japanese aircraft were buried at the site.  We did
> some archival research and found that by the time stuff was buried, all
> of the aircraft and most of the interesting technology had been moved
> to Wright-Patterson AFB.

That's mentioned, though TIGHAR involvement isn't.

> According to the records, most of what was
> buried was old mess hall equipment and so forth.  We decided that
> whatever might be there was not worth the trouble and expense of
> getting all the necessary permissions and digging it up, so we passed
> on the project.  As I understand it, a local group went ahead.

Correct.  Two of them, actually.  The first gave up when its efforts played
out.  The second stuck with it and succeded.

> As I
> recall they had navigate their way through a tremendous amount of red
> tape but I don't think I ever heard what they actually found.

Radios, tails, compressors, some Me-262 engine parts, air bottles, bomb selectors, rocket parts.  Things like that.

Details at http://www.indianamilitary.org/FreemanAAF/FF_museum.html with  some pictures of some of the stuff recovered.

      - Bill #2229

************************************************************************
From Ric

Looking at what they found I think we made the right call.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:51:49 -0400
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: Astor & Nourmahal cruise

Astor sent a cable to FDR I believe in  Dec 38, sort of a emergency cable , then sent a rather full report/letter to FDR concerning his observations of potential Japanese buildup on various atolls in the Gilberts. He did not get to land. His letter which is available is rather interesting.

Ron Bright
************************************************************************
From Ric

The Gilberts were British until December 1941.
======================================================================== 
=
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:53:10 -0400
From:         Rick Metzger
Subject:      Re: the mountains of Dodge

I guess nobody from Dodge City KS. reads this forum. Dodge City is set in the side of a hill. I did some photography for their Museum around 1985 and wanted to shoot some actual wagon train wheel marks (ruts). I was told that there was an area set aside about 5 miles west of town where there was a marker and sets of wagon wheel depressions. Great. I get there and find these deep depressions that were washed out leading to a cement marker that had a bronze plaque. I shoot some pics and turned them into the museum. I got a call shortly afterwards stating that I had shot the wrong tracks. A few weeks later I met the manager of the museum at the site. He pointed out that the wagon tracks were running east and west while the tracks I shot ran north and south. He stated that the deep tracks I shot were from the truck that had poured the cement for the marker. I pointed out to him that they crossed over and had damaged the original wagon ruts. And I also told while I was shooting the truck tracks there must have been at least 10 families that were shooting the same tracks as I had ...

There are hills around Dodge City, but no mountains.

Let's modernize an original site by destroying original wagon tracks. Later there was an article in the paper (with my photo)that made reference to the damaged tracks and that a group had gone out to the site and restored the area. How? I went out to the site about three years later and found that they had filled in the truck tracks and part of the original ones in order to make a walkway with arrows pointing out the original tracks.

Rick Metzger
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:08:35 -0400
From:         Mark Guimond
Subject:      Re: Carl Heine

Ric -

Do you still need the French doc extract translated? If so let me know, but I can get on it only in a day or so due to a tight schedule. 

This is my first communication with your site since I discovered it as soon as I got my first PC and onto the Net a couple months back. I skimmed thru just about all of your data with exception of the Forum in one marathon session. Some very interesting speculations, but I've caught a few points that seem way out in left field, and that have surely been brought to your attention long before this, e.g. why the interest and wasted effort in studying floatsam bearing a bar code since bar codes did not exist until more than 30 years after E.A.'s last flight. 

More speculation to come in the future as time permits. Some fair time back I knew a couple of our aviation pioneers, one who had met A.E. a few times, and one whose path crossed hers on occasion without actually meeting her, but did have considerable contact with people about her. Wish I had had the chance to pick their brains. Neither of them had anything complimentary to say about her skills as a pilot, but as a person they certainly had to admit their admiration.

Mark Guimond
************************************************************************
From Ric

It would be nice to have the text translated if only to end speculation about what it says.

The flotsam bearing a barcode was not flotsam.  It was a partly-burned piece of a paper can label that was excavated from the remains of a small fire very near where we found the remains of a shoe in 1991. We had reason to suspect that the shoe might have been Earhart's so we naturally wonder if the fire and the label were also associated with her.  It did not have a barcode on it.  It had a just a couple of tiny marks that one of our researchers, upon close examination, thought might be a fragment of a barcode.  Some excellent research confirmed that it was indeed part of a barcode, thus eliminating that artifact from consideration as part of the puzzle.   Some of our best work has been in proving that objects we've found are NOT part of the Earhart puzzle.  The navigator's bookcase, the "knob", the can label, and many other artifacts have been successfully identified and eliminated.  That makes the handful of artifacts that have survived our rigorous efforts to eliminate them all the more credible.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:13:11 -0400
From:         Daryll Bolinger
Subject:      Jeez

Alan wrote:

>Ric, given the relationships and climate of the time, I would not
>doubt that. But if I hold Daryll's toes to the fire I need pointed to
>some support for your comment. That would get Daryll off the hook
>because if Astor never made it to the Marshall's nothing else in the
>story has any significance. It wouldn't matter if any part of the story
>is true or mere fancy.

Alan, you're going to hold who's toes to what fire???

Because this is a forum I guess I just have to put up with your comments. I personally don't care for your research abilities. An example of that is your half-hearted attempt at a translation.

>Using the Internet to translate the French into rough English I saw
>nothing in the excerpts of interest regarding Heine or Earhart.

If you recall, Ric's question was how I knew that Carl Heine acted as a translator for the Japanese governor on Jaluit.

Let me narrow it down for you.

Cet interpr�te sera tant™t le commissaire d'un second paquebot qui a succŽdŽ au premier, tant™t un missionnaire australien , tant™t le commandant d'un transport de guerre.

How many Australian Missionaries do you think were on Jaluit during this time period?

Do me a favor and stay away from the Nourmahal story. You couldn't put 2 and 2 together without the plus "+" sign. The Nourmahal voyage was the one and only attempt by FDR to put a civilian boat into the Marshalls on Earhart's behalf.


Daryll
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Let's accept for the moment that the Nourmahal voyage was an attempt by FDR to put a civilian boat into the Marshall's.  Is there any mention anywhere in the available documentation that suggests that it somehow "on Earhart's behalf"?

In any event, the attempt failed.
======================================================================== 
=
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:44:09 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: Looting

Bill Leary said:

>Rumors had it that after WWII a quantity of German,
>Japanese, Italian, English and other aircraft parts formerly stored at
>Freeman Field, near Seymour, Indiana, were disposed of by being buried
>at the site.  In 1997, after years of chasing down rumors, the stories
>were confirmed when quite a lot of these items were found and unearthed.
>Much of the material was "recovered" and some "restored."

Equally bad was the U.S. Navy treatment of the two (?) AR-234 jet bombers it acquired after the war.  When they were finished test flying (such as it was) them at Patuxent Naval Air Station in Lexington Park, Maryland, they used them as filler for the extension of the new runways. If you venture to the end of the runway and climb down a ravine you can still see pieces of the aircraft sticking out of the dirt.

So, if I took a rivet from one of those pieces that would be looting or plundering, but if the Navy uncovered the wreckage and used what little was left to rebuild a AR234  that would be  . . . ahh . . . .ahh . . . I'm at a loss for words here.

LTM, who has not plundered or looted but has ransacked
Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

If you took a rivet you would be taking something that doesn't belong to you.  What the Navy does or does not choose to do with it is up to them.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:47:57 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: restoration

Ric said:

>Here's another Scottish battlefield example.   The Battle of
>Bannockburn (1314) was arguably the most important in Scottish history .
>. .  but there is no attempt to create any on-the-ground illusion that
>time has stood still for the last 700 years.

I see the point.  And a bit closer to home a parallel could be drawn of The Sunken Road site at Antietam.  Comparing photos of the site shortly after the battle and looking at it today one can see the road is deeper, with steeper sides, than it was in September, 1862.  I assumed the changes were caused by people continuing to use the road for several years after the battle (before the park service turned the battlefield into a monument) and natural erosion.  Nonetheless, standing in the sunken road, and knowing the history of that "dirt," still evokes some strong emotions.

LTM, who avoided marching
Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

A Park Service guide at Gettysburg once told me about a woman who scolded him that it was obvious that the battle had not really been fought there or all those monuments would have bullet holes in them.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:50:43 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: Looting

Ric says, with regard to a project that's carefully recovering historical material that will then be sold:

>If the operation is being carried out within the law and with agreement
>by all parties about how the recovered material is to be managed I
>don't see how it can be called plunder.

I agree completely, but it's worth being aware that many if not most professional archaeologists would argue that, in essence, the end invalidates the means -- that however carefully the site is excavated and the material recovered, and however much it may be endangered if left alone, selling the stuff after analysis renders the operation immoral, offensive, and a long step down the road to hell.  You can't join the Society for Historical Archaeology, for instance, without foreswearing participation in commercial ventures, and the Society won't accept papers at its annual meeting from people involved in such projects -- or at least it wouldn't the last time I cared enough to check.  I suspect that this attitude -- that commercial operations are simply BAD -- tends to color some archeologists' attitudes toward ANY project that isn't carried out either by government or academia; even the work of a non-profit like TIGHAR is suspect because we don't fall into either of the "legitimate" categories.

TK
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 16:01:02 -0400
From:         Rich Young
Subject:      Glacier Girl

The "Glacier Girl" owners claim that "80% of the parts" on the bird are original, including both engines.  I suppose such claims should be taken with a grain of salt - what percentage do you suppose is actually the original P-38, reconditioned or otherwise?  What percentage would you recommend as a minimum for such a project to be worth doing?  I know you aren't a fan of the project, but I can't see how the plane is any worse off than if it had been left in the glacier, to be spit out as a pile of shredded aluminum scrap millennia from now.

Rich Young
************************************************************************
From Ric

I don't buy the 80% figure for a second.   Look at the photos of the aircraft in situ or immediately after recovery.  I don't see many skins that aren't wrinkled and you don't hammer out wrinkles or fill with Bondo on airplanes.  And you can't tell me that every inch of the miles of electrical wiring and hydraulic tubing, every rubber gasket, and every hose on the machine was not replaced.  I suspect that 5% is a better number.

The choice is not between destroying the airplane by rebuilding it and letting it eventually be destroyed by the glacier.  The choice is between destroying the airplane by rebuilding it or preserving it as a historic property.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 16:02:43 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Astor

Ric wrote:

>Is there  any mention anywhere in the available documentation that
>suggests that it  somehow "on Earhart's behalf"?

No, there was no mention in any known communique suggesting a connection with Earhart and all Astor was able to do was forward old reports indicating no Japanese buildups or fortifications in the Marshall's. If there was an Earhart issue there is nothing in writing that has surfaced.

I received my own answers to my questions to Daryll who as usual was unable to respond with substance. He is correct, however, my French/English translation was a half hearted attempt. I was not looking for references to Australian missionaries or Carl but rather to any reference to Earhart which would have given some relevance to his posting.

Daryll is also correct that I don't know how many Australian missionaries were there. I doubt that anyone does but I don't see the significance to the Earhart mystery.

I will also stay away from the Astor subject as it clearly has no relevance to this forum.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:02:17 -0400
From:         Mike Haddock
Subject:      Re: restoration

I visited Antietam last summer & I agree about just being there evoking some  strong feelings--mainly the waste of good infantry. I was particularly saddened standing in Miller's cornfield, still a cornfield, and trying to imagine all those men who died in that cornfield. Very sad place. Ric, please forgive the distance from AE but I was truly moved by Antietam. Lincoln also visited the battlefield and was so apalled at the death and carnage that he returned to Washington & signed the Emancipation Proclamation which had been on his desk for some time. I'm done.

LTM,

Mike Haddock #2438
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:30:16 -0400
From:         Joe Weber
Subject:      Re: Glacier Girl

I prefer a flying airplane to a piece of aluminum sculpture - essentially useless.

Joe weber
Bedford IN
*************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Joe.  You've pointed out the basic misunderstanding that plagues historic preservation.

All artifacts are basically tools designed to perform a needed task. Once they become old enough and rare enough they become more useful as sources of information about the past and catalysts to help us feel a connection with the people who once used them.

P-38s were built as fighter planes.  They're now useless for that purpose but a flyable P-38 is valuable as a way to show us what a fighter plane used to look like, sound like and fly like.  The trouble is, a flyable P-38 - by definition - is not a source of information about the materials of the past because, in order to make it safe to fly, most of the those materials have to be replaced with new material.

We need both flyable and genuinely preserved P-38s.  The shame about the P-38 that was sacrificed to create the flyable airplane called Glacier Girl is that there was a rare opportunity to preserve the real thing but, as you have demonstrated, the aviation community would rather have a flying phony than a real "piece of aluminum sculpture".

Oddly, if you heard that a chariot had been found in a pharoah's tomb you would expect that it would be carefully cleaned, studied, and preserved in a sealed glass case.  You'd probably be horrified if someone said, "Hell, we can replace the wood that's rotted, put some decent wheels on it, make some new harness using the old leather as a pattern and drive that sucker."  Why is an old airplane any different?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:31:55 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: restoration

Ric wrote:

> A Park Service guide at Gettysburg once told me about a woman who
> scolded him that it was obvious that the battle had not really been
> fought there or all those monuments would have bullet holes in them.

LOL
Makes you wonder why we even try.

The Gettysburg monuments themselves, of course, have an interesting history and they give us an insight into the 19th century concept of what to do with a battlefield.

LTM (who took me to Gettysburg)
Kerry Tiller
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:34:16 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re; Looting

Tom King wrote:

> I suspect that this attitude -- that commercial operations are simply BAD --
> tends to color some archeologists' attitudes toward ANY project that isn't
> carried out either by government or academia; even the work of a non-profit like
> TIGHAR is suspect because we don't fall into either of the "legitimate"
> categories.

That's really "old school", but still true. I did my time writing grant proposals, taking temporary gigs, doing seasonal work and bending tacos in fast food restaurants between highway salvage projects. I realized eventually that the academic system wasn't big enough to absorb all of the budding young archaeologists and some of us would be squeezed out. I was among the chaff. When I returned to Tucson three years ago after 20 years in the navy I discovered several organizations of professional archaeologists that had turned archaeology into a business. From what I can see, by employing full time people they have increased the archaeology labor force in the state, resulting in more sites being dug. Highway salvage (excuse me, "cultural resource management") funds are being better spent and more grant money has become available. They use the same methodology and techniques as the academics and have the same education (often from the same place). The results of their work is always written up (though not always published). I don't understand the ivory tower attitude. If those organizations had been around 25 years ago; I'd probably still be an archaeologist.

LTM
Kerry Tiller
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:40:16 -0400
From:         Mark Guimond
Subject:      Re: Carl Heine

Here is my translation of the French text, paragraph by paragraph, in Italic + New Courier. It tends to lean towards the literal and without any of the much-needed editing I was so tempted to give it.

The relevant words re. the Australian missionary are underlined.

If you have occasion to require more translation from French, let me know.  Unfortunately my Spanish and Italian are in sad state as result of many years without practice.

Mark

Le Capitaine a devinŽ bien vite de quoi il est soup�onnŽ : Çde faire de l'hydrographie pour le compte d'une puissance Žtrang�re.È De quelle puissance Žtrang�re ? C'est toute la question dŽsormais pour le gouverneur, tant il est sžr d'avoir vu juste et d'avoir arr�tŽ un espion. Quant ˆ imaginer un instant que le Fou-Po soit entrŽ dans Jaluit pour un simple motif de convenance personnelle, cela ne lui viendra m�me plus ˆ l'esprit.

The captain quickly guessed of what he is suspected: "of undertaking hydrographical studies on behalf  of a foreign power". But which foreign power? That is the real question for the governor, sure as he is of having seen things right and of having caught a spy. To imagine for an instant that the Fou-Po came to Jaluit as a matter of necessity does not even enter his mind.

En vain le Capitaine lui montrera-t-il la coque salie de son navire, ses voiles dŽchirŽes. et son gouvernail incomplet et suspendu par des bretelles. Ces visions matŽrielles n'entameront, en rien la conviction du gouverneur : toutes ces avaries ne sont qu'un prŽtexte adroit don't se camoufle le Fou-Po, dangereux ennemi de l'Empire nippon, dont lui, gouverneur des Marshall, commande une marche des plus importantes, tant par sa situation gŽographique que par son incognito, fort mal dŽvoilŽ aux amirautŽs Žtrang�res par les anciennes cartes allemandes de ces atolls.

In vain the captain shows him the damaged hull of his ship, the torn sails, and what is left of his rudder hanging from straps. This visible evidence will not alter in the least the conviction of the governor: all these damages are but a clever pretext, a camouflage used by the Fou-Po, dangerous enemy of the Nipponese empire, and he, governor of the Marshalls, commands one of the most important outposts, as much for its geographical location as for the uncertainty of its location, so poorly revealed as it is to foreign admiralties on the old German maps of these atolls.

Le gouverneur est un homme d'une cinquantaine d'annŽes, toujours en tenue civile de toile blanche, et les cheveux rasŽs au millim�tre ; il porte une petite moustache en accent circonflexe autour de ses l�vres serrŽes. Il est grand pour un Japonais, ˆ peu pr�s de la taille du capitaine, lequel est plut™t petit pour un Fran�ais. Il est incroyablement maigre, d'une maigreur infatigable de fanatique ou d'asc�te. Dans la rue il marche une sorte de pas de l'oie, ou de pas romain comme on dit aujourd'hui, et il se prŽcipite, d�s qu'il la recontre, dans la longue vedette qui lui sert d'automobile et qui va toujours ˆ plein moteur ; m�me quand elle bat en arri�re pour accoster le Fou-Po en tossant horriblement sur sa pauvre coque.

The governor is a man of some fifty years of age, always in white civil attire, his hair shaven to down to a millimeter; he has a small moustache like an inverted V above his pursed lips. He is tall for a Japanese, about the same height as the captain, who is rather short for a Frenchman.  He is incredibly skinny, with the typical thinness of a fanatic or an ascetic. In the street he walks with a goose-step, or the Roman step as we call it these days, and leaps, as soon as he gets to it, into the long launch that serves as an automobile for him, always operating at full throttle; even when reversing as it comes alongside the Fou-Po, slamming horribly into its poor hull.

pg 239

L'instruction du proc�s a lieu dans la RŽsidence, qui est voisine du poste de police : les interrogations du gouverneur se font en japonais et les rŽponses du Capitaine en anglais ; ils communiquent ensemble par l'intermŽdiaire d'un interpr�te que surveillent les yeux bridŽs et per�ants de l'inquisiteur. Cet interpr�te sera tant™t le commissaire d'un second paquebot qui a succŽdŽ au premier, tant™t un missionnaire australien , tant™t le commandant d'un transport de guerre. Le gouverneur aime ˆ varier ses procŽdŽs d'instruction, et il ne s'en fie, au demeurant, qu'ˆ lui-m�me. Certaines de ses malices sont cousues de fil blanc, comme celle-ci, par exemple, d'envoyer ˆ Tati, pendant l'heure d'un des interrogatoires du Capitaine ˆ la rŽsidence, un gros Japonais fort disert qui lui explique dans un anglais parfait, tout en lui servant de la bi�re, comment jadis il aurait travaillŽ glorieusement pour sa patrie en faisant du service de renseignements en AmŽrique du Sud, au pŽril, non seulement de sa libertŽ mais, parfois aussi, de sa vie. Tati approuve poliment, mais il ne peut tout de m�me pas rendre confidence pour confidence, ni se muer, pour faire plaisir ˆ ce personnage, en une sorte de colonel Lawrence ou m�me en un simple agent du Deuxi�me Bureau fran�ais. La bi�re heureusement n'est pas truquŽe, mais de bon aloi, et, pour Tati, c'est autant de gagnŽ. Le gouverneur, en son for intŽrieur, a vite conclu sinon ˆ l'innocuitŽ compl�te de Tati, du moins ˆ son ignorance des buts secrets de la croisi�re du Fou-Po : il le laissera donc ˆ peu pr�s en paix ˆ condition toutefois qu'il reste clo”trŽ ˆ bord et ne s'avise jamais de descendre ˆ terre.

The inquiry process takes place in the Residence, next door to the police station: the governor's questions are in Japanese and the captain's responses are in English; they communicate using an interpreter as intermediary, who is closely watched by the piercing slit eyes of the inquisitor. This interpreter is sometimes the officer from a second steamer that followed the first one in, sometimes an Australian missionary, sometimes the commander of a warship. The governor likes to vary his inquiry process, and nonetheless trusts in no one but himself. Some of his threats are quite evident, such as the following example, of sending to Tati [the captain under arrest] as the interrogation of the captain was going on at the residence, a large, very eloquent Japanese [man] who explained in perfect English while serving him some beer how he had once worked gloriously for his homeland as a spy in South America at the risk not only of his liberty, but at times, of his life. Tati politely approves, but cannot nonetheless exchange secret for secret, nor can he change into, even to please this gentleman, some sort of Colonel Lawrence, nor even a simple agent of the France's Deuxieme Bureau. The beer is fortunately not drugged, but of good quality, and for Tati, at least that much to be gained. The governor, in his heart of hearts, quickly came to the conclusion, if not of Tati's complete harmlessness, at least of his ignorance of the secret goals of the Fou-Po's cruise; and so he leaves him more or less in peace on the condition that he remain cloistered on board and never tries to step on land.

Le Fou-Po est veillŽ pendant le jour par deux policiers de faction, l'un sur le quai et l'autre sur la jetŽe : la nuit, le projecteur du poste reste continuellement braquŽ sur la jonque et aveugle nos marins quand il leur arrive de prendre l'air sur le pont. Indig�nes et Japonais fuient pareillement le

The Fou-Po is watched by day by two police officers on sentry duty, one on the dock and one on the jetty; by night the station's floodlight stays bracketed on the junk and blinds our sailors when they are up on the bridge to get some air. Natives and Japanese alike flee the...
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Mark that's great.  Thank you.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 21 Jun 2004 20:48:45 -0400
From:         John Harsh
Subject:      Re: Looting

I found this interesting insight into the Navy's approach to historic aircraft.  It kinda helps explain how they approach certain "recoveries".

http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org12-7f.htm

JMH
0632C
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 09:34:32 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Carl Heine

Excellent job, Mark.

I saw nothing of relevance to our quest in the French text and I noticed  the text referred to ".... an Australian missionary........" not THE Australian missionary. No mention of Carl Heine. Should we consider that various missionaries came and went? Does it make any difference for any reason?

Apparently I have entirely missed the point of Daryll's post. Sorry Daryll.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 09:36:33 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Astor

Here is some additional information regarding the Astor voyage supplied by our friend Don.

The so-called 'mission' of Vincent Astor & his vessel, the  'Nourmahal', to spy-out the alleged Japanese fortification of the Marshall  Islands, was a total 'bust'!

The Japanese refused to grant Astor any  permission to sail into Japanese mandated waters, so any information that he  reported was via Australian/British or other foreign travelers who  (supposedly) had visited the Japanese mandates during the 1930s.

In a  subsequent letter that he wrote to FDR, (supposedly a 'preliminary' report on  the voyage) on file at the FDR LIbrary, he admits having _no_ first-hand  information about the mandated islands & merely passes-on the stories  he'd been told by other visitors to these islands, none of whom reported any  'fortifications' on any of the mandated islands, nor any evidence of any  overt build-up of any strictly military facilities.

This 'preliminary'  letter/report about the voyage makes _no_ mention of AE/FN or the missing  Electra, nor any suggestion that any search for same was ever contemplated or  conducted during the course of the voyage.

Daryll & the  other conspiracy 'buffs' simply utilize Astor's letter to FDR as yet another  vehicle to perpetuate their scenario of the AE/FN landing at Mili, since  Astor makes _no_ mention of AE/FN or the Electra in his 'preliminary' report,  ....therefore that must prove it was a 'secret' mission (part of the  governmental cover-up) authorized by FDR to locate AE/FN & there _must_  be another (more comprehensive) 'report' from Astor, buried somewhere in that  warehouse full of still highly classified documents pertaining to AE/FN's  mysterious disappearance!

Unfortunately,  FDR did have a penchant for the unorthodox in his personal pursuit of gathering intelligence/information. Here is a brief  excerpt from the book: 'Roosevelt And Churchill', mentioning Astor & the other 'gadflies' that constituted FDR's ad-hoc, totally  unofficial, intelligence gathering 'agency', prior to the start of  WWII.  Some embarrassing 'screw-ups' by this group of amatuer 'slueths', eventually resulted in FDR tapping a highly successful NY (republican)  lawyer (Bill Donovan) to head-up his new intelligence/counterintelligence  agency, the OSS .
************

...'Roosevelt's most  prominent informant, however, was Vincent Astor, his wealthy Hudson Valley  neighbour and distant cousin in whose heated indoor pool at Rhinebeck, just  north of the Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park in upstate New York, Roosevelt had  exercised his polio-damaged legs in the 1920s.

In 1927 Astor formed a  secret society he called "The Room", a group of about twenty close and  influential friends from the world of business that met regularly in New York  to discuss financial and international topics.

Founded with Astor and  Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of the former President, it included the  banker Winthrop Aldrich, the journalist and world traveller Marshall Field  III, the publisher Nelson Doubleday, Judge Frank Kernochan, and David Bruce,  a foreign service officer and future wartime head of the OSS in London and  ambassador to London and Peking.

Nearly all had some background in  intelligence and one, Sir William Wiseman, a partner in the Wall Street  investment bankers Kuhn-Loeb, had headed Britain's intelligence service in  New York during the First World War.

Roosevelt highly valued the  intelligence they provided, and in 1938 he secretly approved a Pacific cruise  by Astor in his luxury yacht, the Nourmahal, to spy on Japanese military,  naval, air force and radio installations in the Marshall Islands.

"The information-gathering side of our cruise has proved  interesting, instructive, and I hope, will be helpful," cabled  Astor enthusiastically to Roosevelt from Honolulu'...

Barnes & Noble.com - Roosevelt and Churchill: Men of  Secrets
Address:http://btobsearch.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?sourceid=3D00395996645644787198&btob=3DY&ean=3D9781572702271&displayonly=3DCHP
**************************************

Another book with some very  interesting insights about FDR's propensities for 'out-side the loop'  intelligence gathering ventures:

HoustonChronicle.com - 'Roosevelt's  Secret War' by Joseph E.  Persico
Address:http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/books/ch1/1087245
**************************************
The  Dorwart book on Naval Intelligence also had reference to Astor's 'Nourmahal'  voyage to 'spy-out' Japanese military fortifications & facilities in the  Marshall Islands .
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 09:38:40 -0400
From:         Dave Bush
Subject:      Re: Astor

I know, I know, the History Channel is entertainment, not fact, however, some grains of truth sometimes fall out of even the least trustworthy. I was watching a program last week that described FDRs approach to intelligence gathering. Apparently he had been a devotee of spying for some time. He even communicated with his "female" dates during college - assigning each of them separate codes for correspondence. After taking office, he set up his own personal information gathering group comprised of friends (non-professionals). That cost us during the war since his spies didn't work well with the established intelligence gathering organizations and information was not shared (sound familiar).

My point is that he used non-professional "friends" and thus the Nourmahal and other sources might not be so far fetched. Just a thought, but not one that we can easily dismiss out of hand just because there is no "official" documentation.

Yours,
Dave Bush
*************************************************************
From Ric

See Alan's non-History Channel posting on the subject.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 09:45:42 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Restoration

After the Battle near Waterloo (June 18th, 1815) it was the Duke of Wellington (who had just defeated Napoleon's army) who coined the historical phrase :

"The worst sight after a battle lost is the sight of a battle won".

I forget the correct number but I believe some 35,000 men had been killed that day which lasted from noon till around 8 p.m. Wellington spoke those words while looking at all those dead men after the battle. I believe it was after he met with his Prussian ally, general Blucher at the "Belle Alliance" farm. It was Blucher who had saved the day by attacking the French in their right flank in the late afternoon at the moment the British were about to give in. By the way, the dead are still there. They were buried in mass graves on the battlefield as was customary in those days. Military cemeteries came only after WW I and very much also at the place where battles were fought. Flanders Fields of WWI fame, are full of them.

LTM
************************************************************************
From Ric

It would be easy and it's very tempting to digress into a discussion about lessons that never seem to be learned, but we won't.
======================================================================== 
=
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 09:48:24 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: Glacier Girl

Why is an old airplane any different from an old chariot?  That question, not quite so starkly formulated, is a perennial hot topic in all kinds of historic preservation and cultural resource management.  Should a defunct Nike battery be treated the same as a Civil War mortar emplacement?  Should 1950s tract houses get the same treatment as 1850s row houses?  Should an early 20th century trash dump be treated like a prehistoric midden?  When I dug up an old steel axe head in my backyard, was it OK for me to put a new handle on it and use it to chop wood?

One crude measure of difference, of course, is age; another is rarity. Another is educational/interpretive value.  Another is whether scholars can learn anything from studying the thing in question.  Another is whether anybody really gives a damn about the thing.  And then there's the question of what it is about the thing that's worth preserving.  If the sound and smell of a P-38 engine is what you want, you're pretty much going to have to be able to fire the thing up.  If it's the physical fabric of the P-38 you're interested in, you probably don't want to operate it.  And what one person or group wants to preserve is not what another wants to preserve.

There aren't any easy answers to these kinds of questions.  That's why the U.S. government's historic preservation procedures emphasize sitting all the concerned parties down to reason together and arrive at consensus (if possible) about what to do each time there's a decision to be made about treatment of a historic property.  The best we can hope for is a decision that most people more or less agree is the appropriate one under the circumstances.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 12:00:47 -0400
From:         Rick Boardman
Subject:      Re: Glacier Girl

It must be pointed out that rarity usually means expensive on an open market.  I don't think anyone would have carried out such an amazingly complicated recovery on a P38 buried under tons of ice, had not the restored for sale value been potentially so high.

Here's a line or two from an Indiana Jones movie.

"look at this.  It's worthless.  Ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I put it in the ground, bury it for a thousand years, and it becomes priceless, and men will pay highly for it"

So on the whole, should any old recovered object be restored to the point where it loses originality?  NO.  If chunks of AE s and FN s  Electra are ever recovered, it is unthinkable that some 99% replacement project should restore an Electra to flight.  The historical value is just too great.  The same would apply to Glen Millers Norseman, The Wright Flyer, and all the others. (NO, I don't know where the Norseman is, so don't start fishing)

But if I can obtain parts for a P38, and make it fly, pattern it along the way, and potentially make more, why not?  It's the best of both worlds to have flying examples, and originals gathering dust in museums, isn't it? And yes, a purist might one day say, "Hey the thermos flasks in the wrong position for a wartime B17", but SO WHAT!  The museum B17 will have its flask just right, for reference.
************************************************************************
From Ric

No argument.  Now....where can I go to see an original P-38 gathering dust in a museum, or a P-51, or a B-17 (just in case I want to see where the thermos flask really went)?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 12:02:24 -0400
From:         Gary Fajack
Subject:      Re: restoration

> Oddly, if you heard that a chariot had been found in a pharoah's tomb
> you would expect that it would be carefully cleaned, studied, and
> preserved in a sealed glass case...

Nicely stated Ric, this puts the issue in a much more understandable light.

gary
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 13:19:44 -0400
From:         Jerry Geiger
Subject:      Re: Astor

Although it has been many many years since I read it, Eddie Rickenbacker, in his autobiography, speaks of going on a secret mission in the Southwest Pacific for FDR in late 42.  (It was during this mission that his plane crashed and he, along with the crew, survived a few weeks on a raft before being picked up.)  Prior to leaving, he describes being summoned to the White House where FDR briefs him on what he is supposed to do - all very classified and confidential according to Rickenbacker, and just between them.  I remember it because he made such a point of thumbing his nose at the readers, letting us know that he had never told anyone what his secret orders were, and since FDR was dead, there was no one who could release him from his vow of secrecy, and he would take those secrets to his grave - which I believe he did.

LTM (who believes ER had a sadistic streak)
Jerry
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 14:11:53 -0400
From:         Daryll Bolinger
Subject:      Re: Astor

Ron Bright wrote:

>Astor sent a cable to FDR I believe in Dec 38, sort of a emergency
>cable

Come on Ron let's be more accurate than that! Is that Dec. the 38th day of 1937 OR Dec. 1938? in either case your wrong.

Ric wrote:

>Let's accept for the moment that the Nourmahal voyage was an attempt by
>FDR to put a civilian boat into the Marshalls. Is there any
>mention anywhere in the available documentation that suggests that
>it was somehow  "on Earhart's behalf"?  In any event, the attempt
>failed.

NO, if Earhart's name was mentioned in the Nourmahal context it would already be part of the historical record. You have to question FDR's motives during this time period for the Jaluit voyage by sending a personal friend to do something that could have been done by a Yeoman. He used Astor because he had to trust that the true purpose of the voyage wouldn't get out AND trust in the information that he would possibly get via radio from that voyage. That information could have resulted in him sending the Navy into the Marshalls to heat up Earhart's trail.

Thanks  Mark G. for your translation, it makes the picture clearer. I too am hesitant about placing my own words into the text.

This scene is taking place around July 1935 in Jaluit. It is a good glimpse of the Japanese governor and it almost seems too stereotypical.

Fou Po was the name of the battered Chinese Junk. The Captain was Eric de Bisschop and Tati (Tatibouet) was his friend and 2nd mate on this two man crew. How coincidental to have a pair of wayward voyagers in a Chinese Junk being accused of spying in Jaluit two years before another pair of wayward air voyagers would arrive under similar circumstances.

The Japanese governor thought EdeB & Tati were spies. He detained and questioned them for 15 days. Sometimes the interpreters for the governor were from steamers anchored in Jaluit. Sometimes from Japanese warships. But it is clear that Carl Heine would do it also. After all this was 1935, why not?

The technic of alternating translators is revealing. It was a test of the translators as much as what was being translated from the subject. Especially in light of the Japanese man who went down to the Junk to try and ply Tati with some beer while talking very good English himself. That Japanese man admitted he was a spy in South America, Panama canal I bet....

Besides giving a glimpse into the Jaluit environment of 1935 and possibly extending that same posture into July 1937, it reveals one of the true sensitivities of the Japanese regarding strangers in the pre war Marshalls.

It wasn't the discovery of fortifications which could have been explained away as commercial development. Fortifications in the Marshalls held the same significance as the Maginot (sp?) line in France, there was no significance.

What the Japanese were sensitive about was the creation of contemporary hydrographic charts of the Marshalls by anyone other than themselves. During the Pearl Harbor hearings the Marshalls was referred to by one General as "those mysterious islands".  What was mysterious wasn't the islands but the water depths around the islands that the US Navy would have to operate in.

While in Jaluit EdeB (the captain) found out the Japanese had current charts but wouldn't sell them to him. The Japanese looked very hard down in the hull of the Fou Po for an electric depth sounder. If they would have found one I'm sure that Mark's translation wouldn't have been necessary because the words wouldn't have existed to translate.

Daryll
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Any connection between Astor's trip and Earhart exists solely in your imagination.

There were no Japanese fortifications on Jaluit in 1935 and the Japanese governor was a civilian administrator.

Yes, the Japanese were paranoid about the Frenchmen but even if they thought they could make a case for them being spies, I'm aware of no precedent that suggests that they would have done anything but arrest them and bring charges against them.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 14:34:47 -0400
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: Astor

Coincidently I finally found a copy of Courage is the Price, by Muriel Morrissey which discusses the searches for AE. On p. 202, she writes that within a month after AEs disappearance two small ships were chartered. They cruised to the Polynesian islands, Garoner [Gardner] Island and Phoenix Islands, then westward to the Gilberts and the Marshalls. It is not clear whether they went to Mili or Jaluit or whether they asked for Japanese consent, or what was seen in the Phoenix Islands. Apparently the ships may have been tracking the LOP .Morrissey does not cite this statement. [She didn't cite the China "trek" by GP  to hear Tokyo Rose either]. I can't recall but I think GP chartered the two ships , one of which went looking for a reef in the Gilberts that was never found. Obviously nothing relating to AE was found, but the extent and nature of the search may negate some theories. Do we more information on those ships, where they went, etc?

Ron Bright
************************************************************************
From Ric

The only chartered ship I'm aware of is the episode described in "Katagateman", Reseach Bulletin #47 on the TIGHAR website.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 14:56:23 -0400
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: Astor

Daryll,

Since I am not at my files, perhaps you could provide us the date that Astor cabled FDR his preliminary report.

Contrary to Ric's belief,  I also beleive that it would be naive to think that FDR didn't ask Astor, and his cousin Kermit Roosevelt, to not only check out the Marshalls for fortifications but keep an "eye out for Amelia Earhart", a close friend. Afterall, he authorized a ton of money for the search after she disappeared, and AE's disappearance into possible Japanese waters was still very much a possibility.

Of course there is no written report or evidence linking that search with AE, but I think a reasonable inference included a order to look for any kind of evidence of the missing Electra.

LTM,
Ron Bright
************************************************************************
From Ric

Ric doesn't know whether FDR asked his buddies to keep an eye out for his wife's friend or not.  What Ric does know is that your "reasonable inference" is based purely upon your impression of a situation and relationships that none of us know practically anything about.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 15:42:32 -0400
From:         Rich Young
Subject:      Re: restoration

"Why is an old airplane any different?"

I'll take a stab at that.  Unlike the Pharaoh's war chariot, we have extensive documentation on how a P-38 was built - blueprints, photographs, motion picture film, materials specs, erection and maintenance manuals - even some of the people who designed and built it either are still alive or wrote memoirs or granted interviews.  No such  material is available on the chariot. Further, the gaskets, wire, discarded stringers, longerons and skin are at the disposal of researchers now, just not attached to the airframe, (which was doing a pretty good job of disassembly on its own), if any would ask.  Additionally, there is little useful information in the damage done to the structure, so none is lost in re-doing same - I think we can all infer that 268 feet of moving snow and ice will damage stressed-skin aluminum monocoque structures of suitable lightness as to be airworthy, without an instructional example.  Also consider that at this time, the flyable, (or close to flyable) population of P-38s is around five; of "F" models, ONE - "Glacier Girl".  Further, P-38 debris rests in situ on several Aleutian islands, in protected Federal reserves,  if such research is deemed necessary.  Further consider that re-skinning all or part of an airframe, whether that be a doped linen Spad or an aluminum P-38 is a common maintenance requirement - if such re-skinning had occurred during it's operational life, it would not be considered "destroying" the airplane, so why so consider it now?  Lastly, the aircraft was lightly damaged and near-flyable after landing - it is the conditions of storage that damaged it so.  One can regard the repairs as ongoing remedial maintenance as part of preservation.  While somewhat more extensive, nothing was done to "Glacier Girl" that the National Air & Space Museum's Silver Hill restoration facility DIDN'T do to some degree on their FW190 and P51C "Excalibur" - and I thought they were considered "state of the art" in the business. There is also the fact to remember that if someone didn't want a flyable P-38 bad enough to spend 3 million dollars to recover and rebuild it, there wouldn't be ANY information retrieved from it.  Also, five more P-38s and two B-17s remain "preserved" under the ice, untouched by human hands, and unseen by human eyes.  While I cannot help but be impressed - awed, even - at your credentials and achievements, Mr. Gillespie, I must respectfully disagree that airplanes, even old ones, can teach us more by operating in their designed element, even if some compromises are made to authenticity in the details, than as wreckage, even preserved wreckage.

Just my opinion, (& I'm no expert....)
Rich Young
************************************************************************
From Ric

I'll try to address your several arguments.

>Unlike the Pharaoh's war chariot, we have
>extensive documentation on how a P-38 was built - blueprints,
>photographs, motion picture film, materials specs, erection and
>maintenance manuals - even some of the people who designed and
>built it either are still alive or wrote memoirs or granted interviews.
>No such  material is available on the chariot.

So if we were to discover a translatable set of hieroglyphic specs for Ol' Phayro's chariot it would be okay to go ahead and rebuild that puppy?   This gets back to the reasons that we hang on to old stuff. It's not solely about preserving the information.  It's just as much about the artifact being a catalyst for helping us make that connection with the people who used it.  Would you rather hold the sword that Henry V carried at Agincourt or hold a shinier reproduction?  We value the rebuilt airplanes more than the originals because we suspend our disbelief and tell ourselves that something that is obviously new is old.

And as for blueprints, photographs, etc. standing in for the preserved physical object - we're presently going to tremendous trouble and expense to seek out old crashed Electras precisely because the surviving paperwork and photos, extensive as they are, do not tell us what we kneed to know.

>Further, the gaskets, wire, discarded stringers, longerons and skin
>are at the disposal of researchers now, just not attached to the
>airframe

You're telling me that people that did not value the aircraft enough to preserve it were rigorous in labeling, cataloging and preserving the junk they ripped out?  I have a hard time believing that.

>Additionally, there is little useful information in the damage done to
>the structure, so none is lost in re-doing same ...

Huh?  The damage is part of the plane's history whether you value that part of its history or not.

>Also consider that at this time, the flyable, (or
>close to flyable) population of P-38s is around five; of "F" models, ONE -
>"Glacier Girl".  Further, P-38 debris rests in situ on several Aleutian
>islands, in protected Federal reserves,  if such research is deemed
>necessary.

There you have it.  You're not interested in historic preservation. You're interested in flying.  Why do you suppose there are so few P-38s flying?  How many P-38s have been destroyed in accidents in the last twenty years?  Glacier Girl will almost certainly end up as a smoking hole in some farmer's field - maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe 10 years from now - and then even the illusion of preservation will be gone for good.

>Further consider that re-skinning all or part of an airframe,
>whether that be a doped linen Spad or an aluminum P-38 is a common
>maintenance requirement - if such re-skinning had occurred during it's
>operational life, it would not be considered "destroying" the airplane,
>so why so consider it now?

You don't get it.  Preservation is about recognizing that an object is now more valuable as a historic property than as a flying machine or a chariot or whatever it original designed purpose.  Once we make that recognition we freeze it in time, to the best of our ability. Everything that happened to it up until that time was part of its history - it's service life as a flying machine or chariot, etc.

>While somewhat more extensive, nothing was done to "Glacier
>Girl" that the National Air & Space Museum's Silver Hill restoration
>facility DIDN'T do to some degree on their FW190 and P51C "Excalibur" -
>and I thought they were considered "state of the art" in the business.

Dream on.

>There is also the fact to remember that if someone didn't want a
>flyable P-38 bad enough to spend 3 million dollars to recover and
>rebuild it, there wouldn't be ANY information retrieved from it.

I doubt that any information was retrieved.

Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 15:45:24 -0400
From:         Bob Lee
Subject:      Re: Astor

Here's a very interesting link about Roosevelt that I found on the CIA's website. I wasn't around in '37 and am not a Roosevelt scholar, but I think we have to accept that there's evidence that FDR used his friends and associates for intelligence gathering and it's "possible" that he may have included Astor in it. Whether or not he also made a reference to AE and FN, who knows? With his penchant for secrecy, I doubt if anything would ever turn up linking Astor, Roosevelt and AE.

http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol46no2/article07.html

Considering the unfolding world events over the next few years, an unofficial request to keep an eye out for Amelia would easily be lost in the background. I don't think it happened

Bob
************************************************************************
From Ric

Earhart fans always make the assumption that her disappearance was a
big deal for years afterward.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 15:46:05 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Astor

Ron, in all fairness I have to partially agree with you that it is entirely reasonable or possible FDR DID ask Astor to keep an eye out for anything concerning AE and her plane. However, Astor didn't make it to the Marshall's so it is MORE reasonable that he found out nothing about Earhart, the Electra or anything else regarding the Marshall'. Given that, I don't know what significance the Astor postings have or why we are dealing with them.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 19:55:49 -0400
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: Astor

There was also the ship, I forget the name, but captained by Irving Johnson, but when he stopped at Pitcairn Island, he plundered part of the Bounty wreckage, which caused a big international stink at the time.  I believe it was 1938 or so when it began its voyage, and stopped briefly in the Phoenix Islands and Gilbert/Ellice Chain.  He wrote to Bessie Young regarding his "search" for AE.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 22 Jun 2004 20:13:41 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: restoration

Let's put it this way. WW I produced aircraft of a technology to survive the war. That same technology was used throughout into the Twenties. These aircraft were made mainly of wood and linen. Discarding military types of WW I which lasted only weeks, aircraft built in the Twenties had a life span of four years. After that their wooden airframes and wooden wings had suffered so much from heat, cold and damp that they had deteriorated to the point they had become useless. They were therefore disposed of, usually by lighting a fire under them... And a new and faster model was introduced to replace them. No WW I aircraft or any aircraft of the Twenties surviving today can therefore be genuine. That includes those shiny examples kept in museums, like the WW I Spads and the Nieuports and other Sopwith Camels of the day. None of these are genuine. Or are they ? After all, their wooden parts have simply been repaired or replaced by other wooden parts. Their linen wings and fuselages have been covered by new linen by craftsmen using the same techniques. Are these aircraft genuine ? How genuine is Charles Lindbergh's Ryan NYP, hanging from the ceiling of the Air and Space Museum in Washington ? How genuine is Amelia Earhart's red Lockheed Vega, the one in which she crossed the Atlantic solo in 1928 ? When I last saw them they both look like new to me. Are they genuine ?

LTM (who thinks that a thing of beauty is a joy forever)
************************************************************************
From Ric

Sorry Herman but it's simply not true that wooden airplanes necessarily fall apart after a few years.  They do, however, require some basic conservation.  That doesn't mean replacing original material.  It means slowing or arresting the deterioration of the original material.  The Smithsonian had a Spad XIII named "Smith IV" that was just as it came from the Western Front, patched bullet holes and all.  They neglected it until was so far gone that it was ready to fall apart so the "restored" it.  Today it looks like a plastic model.

Taking care to use similar or identical materials in repairing old objects might make them accurate replicas of themselves but it does make them "genuine".  Historic preservation is all about safeguarding the physical material that was there then and is here now.

Lindbergh's NYP is original to the time it was presented to the Smithsonian in 1928.  That is not the fabric that flew the Atlantic and many of the markings were added during the year that Lindbergh toured with the airplane.

Earhart's Vega was recovered (that is, new covering was put over the original plywood) by the Smithsonian about 30 years ago and Earhart herself swapped the engine before she gave the airplane to Philadelphia's Franklin Institute.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 09:31:26 -0400
From:         Ron Berry
Subject:      Re: Astor

Don't you think that anyone in the area had an eye out for our wonderer's. So if FDR ask anyone to look around those islands his motives were other than to find a couple of people and their aircraft.

LTM who is always looking around for a spare airplane and friends
Ron Berry
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 09:41:37 -0400
From:         Marty Moleski
Subject:      Re: Astor

Ric wrote:

> The only chartered ship I'm aware of is the episode described in
> "Katagateman", Reseach Bulletin #47 on the TIGHAR website.

When I was in Auckland in 2003, the assistant archivist gave me a few pages she happened to have on the voyage of the Yankee, whose "ostensible" reason for sailing through the G&EIC was to collect evidence about AE & FN.

The captain took part of the HMS Bounty's rudder and was thought to have illegally collected other artifacts from natives.

I think Ric knew all about the Yankee and had read the complete file himself on another occasion.

I don't have the date of the voyage at my fingertips.

LTM.
Marty #2874

************************************************************************
From Ric

Yes, I'm very familiar with the whole Yankee affair but that was in 1940 and the ship was not "chartered by Putnam".
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 09:57:34 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: restoration

This is an interesting discussion. I've always wanted an old original Camel but I suppose none survived. I know those that now exist are hardly original having been rebuilt as opposed to being "repaired." Your discussions have given  me pause for the following reason.

Let's say we find an old Camel in good condition except the wings need recovered. We recover the wings and now it is not an original Sopwith Camel.  Sad. Now suppose it is August 1917 and Sopwith Camel F.1 lands at Aerodrome 1 in England and goes off the landing strip into some trees and tears up the wing covering. They replace the covering and now the plane is flyable again. Is it no  longer an original? Does it make a difference WHEN the restoration takes place?

Alan
********************************************************************
From Ric

Yes.  The replacement of the fabric in 1917 is repair of an aircraft in active service.  The replacement of the fabric on a historic property is "restoration" if it involves the return of the object to a previously known appearance through the MINIMAL introduction of new material.

We can't discuss this stuff until we know what the words mean.  See the TIGHAR Guide to Aviation Historic Preservation Terminology at:

http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Histpres/guide.html
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 09:59:20 -0400
From:         Mark
Subject:      Re: Astor

Daryll... thanks for the info. All I had to go on were the few paragraphs that I translated, and that had me scratching my head sometimes. With the background data you just provided I see that I should rephrase a number of sentences, e.g. I had no idea that the captain and Tati were two different people, or how few there were in the crew.

"... little knowledge can be a dangerous thing..."

Mark G.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:21:45 -0400
From:         Daryll Bolinger
Subject:      Re: Astor

Ric wrote:

>Any connection between Astor's trip and Earhart exists solely in your
>imagination.
>
>There were no Japanese fortifications on Jaluit in 1935 and the
>Japanese governor was a civilian administrator.
>
>Yes, the Japanese were paranoid about the Frenchmen but even if they
>thought they could make a case for them being spies I'm aware of no
>precedent that suggests that they would have done anything but
>arrest them and bring charges against them.

When the pair left Jaluit heading for Hawaii the Japanese gave them a basket of fruit. A day or so out of Jaluit when they looked at the fruit to eat it, there were strange spots on it. Fearing that the fruit was poisoned, they threw it overboard. Paranoid, perhaps, but you never know when the person holding the gun to your head will pull the trigger.

Before reaching Hawaii they discovered that their food stores had spoiled by the smell coming from down below. All of their food had to be thrown overboard. How did this happen? When the Japanese searched the Fou Po for an electric sounding device (depth finder) they let water into the food stores. EdeB and Tati were found near death floating off the Leper Colony on Molokai. All of this was documented to some extent by the Hawaiian newspapers. EdeB and Tati were also debriefed by the Navy.

The point about Astor getting to Jaluit was to give FDR something to work with incase AE & FN did go down in the Marshalls. Since Carl Heine was known to act as a translator (ala EdeB's experiences and the Navy debriefing ) for the Japanese governor it was expected that an encounter with Astor, in that capacity, could provide the spark for action on FDR's part. To protect Carl Heine's status there, a casual question to Astor, during his visit, could have been a simple inquiry as to the well being of AE & FN after their stop there in July. Recall that Bilimon claims to have treated them at Jaluit. It could have been that the Japanese governor used Carl Heine to question and identify AE & FN at this time thereby involving Carl Heine.

Now of course you will say that this is all part of my imagination. It is not my imagination that Carl Heine wrote the AE letter story for the Pacific Monthly that was printed in May '38'. What prompted him to write that story? Is it because Astor didn't make it to Jaluit? It is your impression that the rest of the world had laid to rest the AE topic, but here we have this Australian Missionary from the Marshalls fanning the flames again. Do you blame his imagination also? If so how did he imagine the Hollywood-Roosevelt Hotel in the return address?

Recall that Margo DeCarrie, AE's secretary lived there, but she never claimed to have written the letter. From his isolated outpost in the Pacific, Carl Heine plucked that Hotel name from the clear blue sky? To my imagination there was either a real letter that he saw OR AE told him that name in some context during their brief visit with the Japanese Governor on Jaluit when Bilimon treated them.

Daryll
************************************************************************
From Ric

BINGO!  Margot DeCarie (correct spelling) was the nutcase who later told Gervais about the secret meetings AE had with high government officials prior to the World Flight.  (There was a huge discussion about all this on the forum a while back.) It looks to me like the most probable explanation for the letter is that DeCarie, acting on her own fantasies, apparently sent a letter to AE in the Marshalls.  Heine saw the weirdly addressed letter sitting in the Jaluit post office unclaimed (of course) and wrote about it.  No dark conspiracies and intrigue. Just a woman with an active imagination and a curious missionary.

Thanks Daryll.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:28:27 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Pre-restoration

Ric said:  "The Smithsonian had a Spad XIII named "Smith IV" that was just as it came from the Western Front, patched bullet holes and all. They neglected it until was so far gone that it was ready to fall apart so the "restored" it."

As many of you know, during World War I battle damage (usually bullet holes) to Allied aircraft was often repaired using a small cloth patch doped onto the existing fabric cover.  The patch was also often adorned with a crude hand-drawn Iron Cross, signifying battle damage by the enemy.  When I first saw Smith IV in its original fabric back in the 70's (I was a docent at the Smithsonian's Silver Hill restoration and storage facility off-and-on during the 80s and 90s) I counted approximately three dozen patches with Iron Crosses on them, though I am sure there more in areas not immediately visible (bottom of the fuselage, top of the wing, etc.

Surprisingly, when restoration began and the fabric was removed, the workmen discovered that several of the patches were fakes - there was no bullet hole or damage under the patch!   Someone had added extra patches apparently just for appearance.  Also, some of the bullet holes appeared only as entrance holes and there was no corresponding exit hole, leading to speculation that someone had used a ".30-caliber pencil" to create the battle damage.

Nonetheless, the frame of the aircraft did exhibit battle damage from bullets striking various wires, stringers and formers during combat. This damage was in addition to a pair of bullet holes in the aluminum frame of the windscreen.

LTM, who is in awe of WWI combat pilots
Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

Smith IV is the only example I know of where little Maltese crosses were painted on repaired fabric patches.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:03:58 -0400
From:         Rich Young
Subject:      Re: restoration

(From Ric - to save time I'll insert my comments in parentheses)

>...And as for blueprints, photographs, etc. standing in for the
>preserved physical object - we're presently going to tremendous trouble and
>expense to seek out old crashed Electras precisely because the surviving
>paperwork and photos, extensive as they are, do not tell us what we need to
>know.

But wouldn't a flying 10E, even one "destroyed" by restoration, come in handy for determining actual fuel consumption figures at different altitudes and power settings?

(Not unless we could somehow get our hands on some 1937 gasoline and, even then, we'd have experimental data for that particular airplane and those particular engines.  You can't prove what happened in the past using modern recreations.)

>...You're telling me that people that did not value the aircraft
>enough to preserve it were rigorous in labeling, cataloging and preserving the
>junk they ripped out?  I have a hard time believing that.

Perhaps a trip to their web site is in order - GG mounts the original (demilled) gun battery (the ONLY conmplete original armament from a P-38 in the world) she started acrss the atlantic with, and the cartridges carried were recovered with her.  You can even purchase bits of the discarded airframe or ammunition, should you feel the need to do any research.

(The website is poorly designed and much of it doesn't work but the situation with regard to the original material is  worse than I thought.  The real airplane has been cut up and is being sold in little pieces as souvenirs.)

>...Glacier Girl will almost certainly end up as a smoking hole in some
>farmer's field - maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe 10 years from
>now - and then even the illusion of preservation will be gone for good.

Can't have it both ways - it has already been destroyed, (your contention), in which case it's operational loss would be trivial from a historical aspect.

(There is no contradiction in what I wrote.  I said that even the illusion will be gone for good.)

>...I doubt that any information was retrieved.

To the contrary - this is the first time a demiliterized, unscrapped airframe has been recovered, and a wealth of information about instrumentation, markings, cockpit layout, etc has been learned. Civillianized aircraft rapidly shed things like armor, bomb rack actuators, gun selector switches, ammunition shutes and motors, etc.

(Please point me to the scholarly papers describing this wealth of new information.)

No disrespect, but if you disparage the Silver Hill facility so, can you tell us who DOES meet your standards for preservation?

(There are several.  The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan does a good job, as does the Militaire Luchtvaart Museum in Soesterberg, The Netherlands.  The RAF Museum at Hendon, England has done some good work, as has the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, FL.

(TIGHAR's critics often crow about how TIGHAR has never recovered a complete aircraft.  With our demonstrated ability to raise money and conduct complex and even hazardous archaeological operations in remote environments, it has clearly been a matter of choice, not necessity. We are, to put it bluntly, not willing to bust our butts to save an historic aircraft only to see it destroyed by a museum in order to create a pretty exhibit (much a less a flying toy).  That's why we have concentrated on the great mysteries - l'Oiseau Blanc and Earhart's Electra - in which success will not produce an intact aircraft to tempt the rebuilders.  We hope that our new Devastator Project will result in the first-ever archaeologically-sound  recovery and preservation of an intact historic aircraft.)

I'm just a layman, going by what I read in the magazines & see on cable, but it seems to me that the desire for flyable aircraft is what has driven the value of these items up to the point that the populations are starting to increase, and even some models, (FW 190, Me 262, P 51) are in limited, low volume production, either in whole, or on a component basis.

Rich

(You're absolutely correct, but that is not historic preservation.)

Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:05:53 -0400
From:         Andrew McKenna
Subject:      Re: Astor

Interesting, where have we run across Eric De Bisschop Before?

Wasn't he the guy who perpetrated the Message in a Bottle from Amelia Hoax ?

There are some snippets about him in the Forum Highlights back in 1999, but I can't quite remember what the final upshot was.

Randy apparently has a big file on this issue.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Whoa....is that right?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:09:43 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Camels

Hi Alan,

If you have always wanted a Camel, I know a guy who flies one. If you like I can give you his telephone number...

Herman
************************************************************************
From Ric

If it's a faithful replica you'll find that the kind of Camels you can buy down at the 7/11 are less hazardous to your health than trying to wrestle a 130 hp Clerget rotary into submission.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:07:36 -0400
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: Muriel's myths

My impression is that Putnam chartered the two ships sailing into the Marshalls and Phoenix from Muriel's book. Interestingly, Adm Black, according to J. Gordon Vaeth, ended up with a piece of the HMS Bounty rudder which I think came from the Yankee voyage. Displayed it at his Potomac home.

Ron Bright
************************************************************************
From Ric

The "two ships chartered by Putnam" turn out to be the launch Capt. Handley used to investigate the rumors of Katagetaman in August of '37 and the yacht Yankee in 1940 which Putnam did not really charter. The ship never went anywhere near the Marshalls.  I wonder if we ever determined which of the uninhabited islands of the Phoenix Group they called at.  Sydney, Hull and Gardner, were already settled by that time.

The following old forum postings (dug up by Don Neumann) shed more light on the Yankee issue.

Subject: Re: The yacht Yankee
Date:2/29/00
From: Randy Jacobson

Based upon the NG (National Geo) article, the Yankee was quite large: the family of about 5 or 6 plus a couple of others seemed quite comfortable. Shooting from the lip, I'd say the boat was at least 100'. The NG article ends with the ship in Easter Island. I was curious if the Yankee truly applied to WPHC, but they did visit the Gilberts and a number of the uninhabited Phoenix Islands.

The skipper, Irving Johnson, is quite renowned in the yachting community.
*******************************************
From Ric

The WPHC had an entire file on the Yankee. Permission was requested, and granted, to visit the Gilberts for the purpose of searching for Amelia Earhart.

On September 14, 1940, Jack Barley, the Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert & Ellice Islands Colony reported to his boss Sir Harry Luke, the High Commissioner, with the dates that the Yankee had visited various islands within the colony. There is no mention of the yacht calling at any island of the Phoenix Group.

According to Barley, the ships compliment was 19 and all were U.S. citizens. Barley concludes his report with this paragraph:

..."All my sources of information state that the activities of the party appeared to be only those of ordinary tourists -- batheing, sightseeing and fishing. Mention of Mrs. Putnam was made on one or two occasions,  but the "search" was purely incidental to the voyage. Personally I incline to view that the question of Mrs. Putnam's disappearance was linked to the Yankee's voyage very largely in order to ensure publicity for Captain Johnson who, as Your Excellency will be aware, runs these voyages on a profit-making basis"...

Gosh. Maybe we've been going about this all wrong.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:26:25 -0400
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: Astor

There is a huge file on Eric deBishoff re the bottle found off the coast of France, etc.

Ron Bright
************************************************************************
From Ric

Oh, man.......so the same dude who has these adventures at Jaluit (spots on the fruit, my God!) just happens to be the same guy who finds the letter in the bottle off France.  And the return address on the mysterious unopened letter addressed to AE seen by missionary Carl Heine in Jaluit just happens to be the hotel where Earhart's sometime secretary/maid (accounts vary) was living at the time - a woman who later told bizarre and unsupportable stories alleging a covert Earhart/Government connection.

With characters like these running loose it's not hard to see how the whole Japanese Capture myth got started.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:27:19 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Astor

To Ron Berry

I don't know what FDR's motives were for asking Astor or anyone to "look around" or if they, instead, asked him. It is not hard to assign motives nearly seven decades later using all of our wonderful hindsight. At that particular moment FDR may have not been interested in what was going on Juilut or maybe he  already had the information he wanted. We have no way of knowing. Anything is  possible. The relevant fact is Astor never got into Japanese waters so the Astor event has no significance.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:29:13 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Jaluit

Please excuse my spelling of Jaluit in my post to Ron Berry. Spelling was never my strong suit.

Alan
*********************************************************************
From Ric

In case anyone is interested, Jaluit is pronounced JAL-oo-it.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:40:35 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      The De Bisschop Hoax

Although this is long in view of the current discussions I thought it relevant to repost the following from the Forum archives.

*************
Subject:  Message Found in  Bottle
Date: 3/29/99
From:  Cam Warren

As previously explained,  the complete bottle story is discussed at length in Oliver Knagg's book, Chapter  7. Knaggs (a South African) did a thorough investigation of the story, including  visiting French archives in Paris and both Library of Congress and the National  Archives in Washington, DC. So his information can be seriously considered,  including his list of conclusions, as follows:

PROS:

1. The message in the  bottle could only have been written by a person with intimate knowledge of the  Marshall Islands. He knew the tiny and little known atolls of Mili and Jaluit  and knew, too, that the Japanese were building up fortifications there. How many people had  heard of the Marshalls, let alone those obscure outer atolls? And of those  few, how many would have guessed that the Japanese were erecting military  installations? The media were giving a lot of attention to Japan at the time  but this was almost exclusively concerned with the war in China. Again, of the  handful who might have known all this, none would waste their time concocting  a stupid hoax.

2. The writer included  a lock of hair he claimed was Amelia's and the wording of his note indicated  his conviction that this would prove he had met her. True, the hair was  described as "chestnut coloured" but this was not the description of the  writer of the letter, merely an opinion of, possibly, M Hoppenot.

3. The writer spelled  out the fact that Amelia was an aviatrix. Why? Virtually the whole world knew  what she was. Her name had been in headlines for months! But a man who had  been out of circulation, a prisoner and a yachtsman sailing around the  Marshalls, would not have realised how famous she had become, worldwide.

4. He  refers to Noonan as 'her mechanic (a man)'. Again, Noonan was her navigator  and the whole world knew he was a man, so why spell it out unless he felt no  one would have heard of the man. I didn't credit any hoaxer with the sheer  brain-power required to include such subtleties into a message.

5. He states he was  arrested because he disembarked on Mili. How on earth could anyone have made  such a statement unless he had been there ? With the scant knowledge then  current about Japanese activity in those islands, this is far more than an  inspired guess, as M de Bisschop's statement proves.

6. He refers to being  on the Nippon Nom (?) - sic. The NIPPON MARU was operating in the area. Maybe  I was stretching it a little to include this because a shipping clerk, for  instance, might have known this. Why not then, I argued, come  ight out with  the name? It was possible that a prisoner marched aboard would only have  obtained a brief glimpse of the full name.

CONS:

1. The writer did not  give his name. One must always be wary of people who wish to remain anonymous.  However, in fairness, he might have feared that the message would fall into  the wrong hands. Another factor that waters down this point somewhat, is that  a hoaxer would be more likely to give a false name than no name at all. But I  like to see names so I regarded this as a con.

2. The message being  washed up, in a sealed bottle, on a beach is, let's face it, hard to take  seriously. Or rather, I can appreciate the scepticism with which the message  was received in the police station at Soulac-sur-Mer. But what other method of  sending a message was open to a genuine prisoner, falsely accused?

3. The lock of hair,  quoted as chestnut-coloured, could not have come from Amelia's head. I  included this as a 'con' as well as a 'pro' because it can be argued either  way.

So there I was with six  points in favour of its being a genuine message and three against, but with  the 'pros' very much stronger than the 'cons'. I therefore included Paris in  my itinerary. It was well worth investigating the message further."
- - Knaggs  (1983)

Note: M. de Bisschop, the  former French naval officer who visted Jaluit in 1938, seriously doubted that  Earhart or anyone was held prisoner there, although he admitted it was  "possible".
Cam Warren
*****************************
From Ric

Thanks for that  information Cam. As you might expect, I have a couple of comments on Mr. Knaggs'  observations.

Knaggs says, "He knew the tiny and little known atolls of Mili and Jaluit ..."

The message writer did  not say anything about Jaluit or Mili. He wrote "Jalint" and "Mila." Assuming  that the corrections to "Jaluit" and "Mili" are justified, it should be pointed  out that these atolls are not particularly "tiny" nor were they "little known"  in 1938. They could (and can) be found in any decent world atlas.

"...and knew, too, that  the Japanese were building up fortifications there."

This is the big lie upon  which virtually all of the Japanese capture theories, and the letter in the  bottle hoax, are based. After the war there was, quite naturally, a great  curiosity about just how and when the Japanese had conducted their build-up in  the Pacific. The results of the American analysis, based upon Japanese records,  show that the fortification of the mandated territories was carried out at an  accelerated rate in the two years preceding the attack on Hawaii. Reproduced  below is the Marshall Islands section from Table 1 in "How Japan Fortified the  Mandated Islands" by Thomas Wilds (United States Naval Institute  Proceedings, Vol. 81, No. 4, 1955).

Kwajelein:
airfield: 1 runway begun  1940 completed 1942
airfield: 3  runways begun  1940 completed 1941
seaplane ramp begun  1940 completed 1941

Wotje:
airfield: 2 runways begun  1940 completed 1941
seaplane ramp begun  1940 completed 1941

Maleolap:
airfield: 2  runways begun  1940 completed 1941

Jaluit:
seaplane ramp begun  1940 completed  1941

The table bears the  following notation:

NOTE: Construction  listed in this table has been established to a high degree of certainty.  Additional air installations may have been started on Saipan, Tinian, the  Palaus, Wotje, and Majuro before December 8, 1941. There is no evidence that  any more than those so indicated above were completed by that time.

For those interested in a  more detailed discussion of what was really going on in the mandated islands I  recommend Nanyo - The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia -  1885-1945 by Mark R. Peattie (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1988). Prof. Peattie,  formerly of Harvard's Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies and presently at  Stanford University, is considered a pre-eminent authority in the field. We  sought his advice at the outset of the Earhart Project and are proud to number  him among the members of TIGHAR. He is intimately familiar with our work and my  copy of his book bears the following inscription:

"For Ric Gillespie and  Pat Thrasher - Their objectivity, imagination, judgment, persistence, and  investigative rigor in their research have my greatest admiration and respect. Mark R. Peattie, March 6,  1991"

As Cam would say, we  clearly have him hoodwinked too. The French bottle message  can be dismissed as a hoax because the situation it describes did not exist.

Love to mother,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:41:07 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re; Camels

Thanks, Herman but at 72 I would probably bust my you know what. It is just a nice dream. (so far <G>)

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 24 Jun 2004 20:39:09 -0400
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: deBisschop

In Oct 2000, Daryll Bolinger wrote a copyrighted comprehensive treatise, "TWO IF BY AIR, TWO IF BY SEA", describing his research into the so called bottle message that floated ashore near the French town of Solar-sur-Mer on 30 Oct 38.

He maintains  that Eric deBisschop wrote the msg indicating that as a prisoner at Jaluit he saw Amelia Earhart and her mechanic.

I am sure that Daryll will provide it or summarize his findings.

LTM,
Ron Bright
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:25:50 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: MCW??

I believe that Mike Everette has stated that AE's WE 13C had no provision for MCW viz:

> AE's radio was factory modified to also incorporate CW transmission
> capability (A1 emission), but not MCW. (Sept 2002)

However, W C Tinus of Bell Laboratories specifically stated in his letter to Navy Times that he had modified her radio for both CW and MCW operation.  What is the current view on this matter?
************************************************************************
From Ric

I wasn't aware of the contradiction.  Sounds like a question of whose sources are more reliable.  When did Tinus send his letter to Navy Times?  Mike?  Is your information specific to Earhart's 13C and, if so, from what source?
======================================================================== 
=
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:27:48 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: deBisschop

Ron, I'm confused. In the piece I posted deBisschop apparently said he didn't believe AE was ever at Jaluit. That piece also referred to deBisschop as "visiting" Jaluit in 1938.

When was he a prisoner on Jaluit? Or was he? If he was a prisoner in 1938 and in fact wrote the note how did the bottle float so fast to arrive in France October 1938?

Are we deciding deBisschop was the author of the unsigned note on good circumstantial evidence?

How do we reconcile the note writer claiming there were Japanese military buildups with the evidence there were none in 1938? Does one claim come from a more credible source?

Should I assume today there is no bottle, note or lock of hair?

Sorry for the questions but I had dismissed this as a despicable hoax but  if there is some good support for it I would like to know that.

Finally there has never been a rational explanation of how AE could ever  get to Jaluit in the first place but we can pass on that for now.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:30:21 -0400
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: de Bisschop

Andrew McKenna said:

> Interesting, where have we run across Eric De Bisschop Before?
>
> Wasn't he the guy who perpetrated the Message in a Bottle from Amelia
> Hoax ?
>
> There are some snippets about him in the Forum Highlights back in 1999,
> but I can't quite remember what the final upshot was.
>
> Randy apparently has a big file on this issue.

That is correct...it appears that the story becomes even more intriguing...
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:53:38 -0400
From:         Jim Young
Subject:      Who would have guessed?

I saw Alan's post in which the following question was asked, "And of those few, how many would have guessed that the Japanese were erecting military  installations?"

I couldn't help being reminded of the only Louis L'Amour collection of short stories I've ever read (while tramping around in a big rig in my year and a half version of a "walk-about").   His Night over the Solomons collection includes notes on how he was knocking about the South Pacific, toying with the idea of partnering with a bush pilot to start an express-passenger operation (before his writering career got full traction).

As a seaman, hitting a lot of small ports, especially in the Solomons, he tells of seeing Japanese and German frieghters dropping off a lot of large cargo loads but picking up very little.  His guesses at their intents do not seem to far wide of the mark.   He even had one story about a secret Japanese base at Kolombangara, in which he simply guessed that it would be a good location for them.  Turns out they did build a secret base there (near where Kennedy had his adventures).

I've never seen any comments by him on AE, but wonder what the forum members think of him and other observers like him.

Jim Young
************************************************************************
From Ric

After the war there was, quite naturally, a concerted American effort to document the timing and the extent of the pre-war Japanese fortification of the mandated islands.  No need to rely on anecdote and rumor.   See "How Japan Fortified The Mandated Islands", by Thomas Wilds in United States Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1955, Vol. 81. No. 4.

Bottom line: Construction of  military installations, facilities and fortifications in the Marshall Islands did not begin until 1940.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:54:29 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: de Bisschop

Randy -- I see another book in this:  "The Man Who Didn't See Amelia Earhart."

TK
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 19:17:23 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Who would have guessed?

"...And of those few, how many would have guessed that the Japanese were erecting military  installations?"

Jim, that phrase was from Oliver Knagg's book, Chapter 7 as posted by Cam Warren years ago. I simply reposted that note from the forum archives.

The overwhelming evidence is that the Japanese were NOT "erecting military installations" during the relevant time period. Those words so taken out of context could lead the uninformed or new folks to a false conclusion.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 19:26:11 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: MCW?

> When did Tinus send his letter to Navy
> Times?

Ric you yourself quoted:

In Amelia My Courageous Sister Carol Osborne reproduces the text of a 1962 letter from W.C. Tinus, Vice President of Bell Telephone Laboratories:

"I was the radio engineer who was responsible for the design and installation of her radio communications equipment [at the Newark Airport, New Jersey in February, 1937] and since there is apparently still some doubt as to what her equipment consisted of, perhaps I can clear up one or two points ...

"I had been a radio operator aboard ship in my younger days and knew the importance of being able to communicate at 500 kc over the oceans. I persuaded Miss Earhart and Mr. Putnam on this point and modified a standard three-channel Western Electric equipment of the type then being used by the airlines to provide one channel at 500 kc and the other two at around 3000 and 6000 kc ... A simple modification also enabled transmission to be made on CW or MCW, as well as voice, and a telegraph key was provided which could be plugged in, in addition to a microphone for voice communication. It was my thought that many ships throughout the world had 500 kc radio compasses and could probably better obtain bearings if the key were held down for an extended period while radiating modulated CW (MCW).

"I was less successful in persuading Miss Earhart of the importance of having a qualified radio operator in her crew. I had only a short period one afternoon at Newark Airport to show her and captain Manning (of the United States Lines Sea Rescue fame) how to operate the equipment.

"... I did not see her equipment during the period between the first and second starts, but had no reason at the time to believe it had been changed.

"Several months after her disappearance we received a small package from Pan American Airways at Miami containing her telegraph key, cord and plug, which she had left in their hangar there. Without these items she could have communicated on 500 kc by voice and could have sent out a suitable signal for direction finding by simply holding the microphone button down for a time. The remainder of her  equipment peculiar to the low frequency 500 kc channel probably weighed five or ten pounds, but apparently she did not leave it in Miami or it, too, would have been returned to us."

He ended:

"... She was equipped for 500 kc communication originally and she did leave one item, her telegraph key, behind when she departed from Miami."

This letter is also quoted in Goerner's book.

Regards Angus
**********************************************************************
From Ric

Okay (contrary to legend I do not keep all these details in my head).

So Tinus recollections are 25 year-old anecdote.  Maybe they're accurate.  Maybe they're not.  No way to be sure.

In any event, I'm quite sure that Mike Everette explained that Earhart's ability to send CW required that the key be present.  I would guess (but I don't know for sure) that the same was true of MCW.  If so, then the point is moot.
======================================================================= 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 19:27:10 -0400
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: deBisschop

Alan,

You have to read Daryll Bolinger's treatise on the deBisshop affair.   From memory, there was no direct evidence, but Daryll linked a lot of dots, as is his custom, to believe that deBisschop was a prisoner at Jaluit at the same time as Amelia and Fred. It is one of the most complex investigations I have read, but it is a great yarn.

Personally, I don't believe deBisschop had anything to do with AE or the bottle.

Perhaps, Alan, you can persuade Daryll to post it on the Tighar channel for all to evaluate. It is copyrighted so I can only quote limited amount under a fair use doctrine and critique.

Ron
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 19:34:29 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: deBisschop
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v606)

I thought that bottle story had been identified as a hoax. Why does it turn up again ?

LTM (who loves stories about mysterious bottles floating around the world in no time to be found by people who like good stories))

************************************************************************
From Ric

Because, among the faithful, Earhart's capture by the Japanese is a matter of faith and is not susceptible to reasoned discourse.  After all, this past year saw the publication of a book that peddled the Irene Bolam story - a myth that has thoroughly shot down thirty years ago.  There is, quite literally, nothing that could ever dissuade Daryll and his ilk.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 25 Jun 2004 20:21:02 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Artifact 2-2-V-1

The other day I was watching a PBS presentation on the search for AE, filmed about 1997, where TIGHAR (you and others), Long and others expressed their respective theories on what happened, etc.

In the film they showed what looked like and was described as Artifact 2-2-V-1 aluminum sheet (Reference TIGHAR Tracks Vol. 14 #1 May 1998). Apparently the sheet had been traced onto a clear plastic like material and then overlaid upon what was described as an original blue print; the TV image looked like you had a fairly good match of the rivet spacing and stringer lines.  The next segment in the film showed where the Artifact was laid up against a Lockheed 10-(?) belly looking for a fit; it was noted that there were not any locations that could be called a "fit" and therefor the Artifact was judged as inconclusive evidence that it came from a Lockheed 10!

A couple of questions come to mind:

1)  Did the Artifact trace in fact match some area on the original blue print and if so which fuselage stations?

2)  Was a trace of the original blue print area - from 1) above taken to the test aircraft for a match and if so did it line up with the rivet pattern on the actual aircraft used in the fit test?

3)  When a predrilled flat piece of paper or aluminum sheet is laid out to fit a contoured assembly, the rivet holes, etc., have to be adjusted for the curvature of the abutting structure as well as for the thickness of the sheet in order to get the correct fit - was this taken into account during the tracing and fitting test?

4)  I can recall having predrilled sheets of aluminum skin that were used as patterns and seldom used blue prints for actual production of replacement pieces.  In the days before CAD systems and numerical controlled machine tools I would have to guess that any blueprint skin layout was at first a "best guess" pattern and an actual fit would have to be matted to a prototype fitted, removed and retraced onto a set of "as built" drawings and/or traced upon pattern material for use on future production assemblies - what drawings were you working from for the tracing test?

and finally;

5)  Does anyone know if there were pictures taken (for insurance or repair engineering purposes) of the post Hawaii damage and repair areas of  AE's plane? Sure would be nice to get your hands on these if there were!

The TIGHAR Tracks article indicated that the thickness of 2-2-V-1 is .032 vs the standard .040 inch Alcad sheet used elsewhere on the 10E.  Let's assume for a minute that this difference in thickness is a calculated engineering specification rather than just a "grab what's available" decision made during the original or post Hawaii crash constuction/repair of AE's plane.

Do we have any information on what other fuselage modifications e.g. increased window size for the navigator, additional or modified antennae mounting surfaces, etc., that may have been made to AE's aircraft vs the "production" model of the 10E?  My thinking is, that if some other modification was made that added another stiffener/stringer in the area being modified, a thinner piece of sheet metal may have given the same or similar strength, to that of the production 10E.

Another  thought to consider - is there an area around an AE modification that could have resulted in the necessity to reduce the skin thickness by .008 in order to maintain a streamlined surface e.g. if a substitute stiffener/stringer of greater thickness was used a thinner sheet would be needed to maintain the same air flow profile of the production model.

All of this may be a long shot (I don't know how much detail we have in the build of AE's 10E) but it may be worth the look.  This may explain why a direct match can't be made against a standard L10 or the blue prints that were used in the "fit" analysis.

Finally, it may be of interest if someone could reverse engineer the strength of a .008 thinner sheet and thicker stiffeners/stringers so that the result would be the same as that used on the .040 sheet production model.  I am going on the assumption that a substitution in aluminum sheet i.e. the 2-2-V-1 thickness was a deliberate act and not just an accident of using what may have been available; I realize that the sophistication of such calculations back in the 1930s is no way near that used today.  However, the resulting analysis may give us a hint of what other areas on the aircraft could be candidates for a 2-2-V-1 "fit."

Thanks.

Ted Campbell
PS how is the summer "Dado" camp coming along?  How is the Post Loss Message Analysis coming along?
************************************************************************
From Ric

I'll try to answer your questions.  It's a complex subject and one that has come back to the forefront of our investigation.

>1)  Did the Artifact trace in fact match some area on the original
>blue print and if so which fuselage stations?

Our section of aircraft skin, Artifact 2-2-V-1, was found in 1991 and we've been trying to put it on Earhart's airplane, or any other airplane, ever since.  To do that means finding a match for a list of at least 7 variables.

1. The skin must be 24ST ALCLAD .032 of an inch in thickness.
2. The original skin's dimensions must be greater than the dimensions of the artifact because 2-2-V-1 includes no finished edges.
3. The skin must be riveted to five parallel underlying longitudinal structures at least 24.25 inches in length with no crossing line of rivets.
4. The skin must be attached to four of the underlying structures with small "#3" rivets  (specifically, AN455AD 3/3 "flat brazier head" rivets).  The fifth line of rivets must be the larger "#5" size.
5. The pitch (distance between rivets) of the #3 rivets must be 1 inch. The pitch of the #5 rivets must have a pitch of 1.5 inches.
6. The distance between the underlying  parallel structures must be nominally 4.25 inches at one end tapering to nominally 4 inches at the other end.
7. The skin must be a repair rather than original construction. (The manufacturer's labeling on the aluminum shows that it is sheet that was approved for repair but not construction.)

There is nowhere on the standard Lockheed 10, or any other aircraft we have examined, that meets all of these criteria but the Electra comes much closer than any other type we've looked at.  The combination of .032 skin attached with #3 rivets is especially unusual.  Most WWII types use larger rivets and the old "flat brazier head" was replaced by the "universal head" rivet early in the war.  The other unusual aspect of the rivet pattern is the long "throw" (at least 24.25 inches) without a crossing line of rivets.

At first we thought it may have come from the area labeled "1" in the attached illustration.  On the standard Electra that area between Fuselage Stations 239 and 269 5/8 ( a distance of 30 5/8 inches) is covered by an ALCLAD 24ST  .032 skin fastened with AN455AD 3/3 "flat brazier head" rivets - so far, so good.   There are also the right number of underlying parallel structures that taper at the correct rate, but the rivet pitch is 1.5 inches rather than 1 inch and there is no line of #5 rivets.  Also, the space between the parallel stringers is nominally 3.5 inches tapering to 3.25 rather than 4.25 tapering to 4. Worst of all, there's a crossing line of rivets on the airplane at Station 254 that is not there on the artifact.

The slightly wider distance between stringers might be explained by the fact that the airplane was apparently not "jigged" when it was repaired, and the tighter rivet pitch is not a big problem in a repair situation, but failing to stitch the skin at Station 254 seems unlikely.  However, what really killed our original hypothesis was learning that the antenna mast was not mounted on the keel as we originally thought, but was right in the middle of where 2-2-V-1 supposedly came from.  So much for that theory.

In 1994, TIGHAR member Frank Lombardo developed the hypothesis that 2-2-V-1 was part of a patch that had been installed during the repairs (number "2" in the illustration).  "Belly rubbings" were taken of a number of Electras by various TIGHAR members to establish how much variation there was between individual airplanes (quite a bit, as it turned out).  That was the theory being illustrated in the Discovery Channel documentray  that you saw. However, that theory too was ultimately shot down when we were able to find two photos of NR16020 taken in Puerto Rico during the second World Flight attempt which had sufficient resolution to show that the repairs were not carried out exactly in accordance with the repair orders and the supposed patch wasn't there.

>2)  Was a trace of the original blue print area - from 1) above taken
>to the test aircraft for a match and if so did it line up with the rivet
>pattern on the actual aircraft used in the fit test?

As explained above, that theory was based upon the existence of a "patch" called for in the repair orders but the actual repair was executed differently.

>3)  When a predrilled flat piece of paper or aluminum sheet is laid
>out to fit a contoured assembly, the rivet holes, etc., have to be adjusted
>for the curvature of the abutting structure as well as for the thickness of the
>sheet in order to get the correct fit - was this taken into account during the
>tracing and fitting test?

With 2-2-V-1 the situation is somewhat reversed.  The artifact is contoured (convex/concave) due to the forces that blew it out of the aircraft but the section of the belly where we suspect it originated was flat.

>4)  I can recall having predrilled sheets of aluminum skin that were
>used as patterns and seldom used blue prints for actual production of
>replacement pieces.  In the days before CAD systems and numerical controlled
>machine tools I would have to guess that any blueprint skin layout was at
>first a "best guess" pattern and an actual fit would have to be matted to
>a prototype fitted, removed and retraced onto a set of "as built" drawings
>and/or traced upon pattern material for use on future production assemblies
>- what drawings were you working from for the tracing test?

We weren't using drawings.  We were comparing a tracing of the artifact to tracings taken directly from existing aircraft.

Fortunately, the incredible revolution in computer technology we've experienced in the past ten years now gives us analytical tools we never dreamt of.  We now have accurate and easily manipulated structural drawings of the Model 10 digitized from Lockheed engineering drawings we dug out of the NASM archives last year.  Using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop we can scale a photo of 2-2-V-1 and compare it to various places on the aircraft.

What now seems forehead-slapping obvious is that 2-2-V-1 fits within a 1/4 inch tolerance between Fuselage Stations 269 5/8 and 293 5/8, a distance of just 24 inches.  We still have to postulate a slighter wider space between stringers,  a tighter rivet pitch, and the use of #5 rivets on the keel, but there's no crossing line of rivets and no antenna in the way.

>5)  Does anyone know if there were pictures taken (for insurance or
>repair engineering purposes) of the post Hawaii damage and repair areas of
>AE's plane? Sure would be nice to get your hands on these if there were!

We have never been able to find photos of the section of the belly we're now interested in, but that's not surprising.  Someone would have to be laying on their back under the belly opposite the cabin door.

>The TIGHAR Tracks article indicated that the thickness of 2-2-V-1 is
>.032 vs the standard .040 inch Alcad sheet used elsewhere on the 10E.  Let's
>assume for a minute that this difference in thickness is a calculated
>engineering specification rather than just a "grab what's available" decision >made during the original or post Hawaii crash constuction/repair of AE's plane.

The area we're now investigating is supposed to be .032 so that's not a problem.

There is no summer "Dado" camp.  A select team of TIGHAR researchers will try to locate and examine the Electra wreck in Idaho in mid-July. A recent recon of the area confirmed that it will be a tough trek. Whether the site will be suitable for a Field School later this year remains to be seen.  Another expedition to locate and examine an Electra wreck in southern Alaska is slated for August.  We're conducting both operation in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service.

I'm hoping to have the Post Loss Radio Study finished by Labor Day.
LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 08:37:17 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: deBisschop

Thanks, Ron. I assume Daryll will use his good judgment as to whether to post his work for Forum review or not.

From the little I know I could easily be convinced deBisschop may have been detained on Jaluit, by who I don't know. There is good evidence there were no Japanese military installations being constructed which flies in the face of the  note whoever wrote it. Secondly, there has not been a rational explanation for  AE's presence on Jaluit and thirdly no explanation as to how the bottle could  float at such great speed to get to France. It may well have been tossed in the  water near where it was found by whoever wrote the note. 

All of it seems interesting fancy but I could be persuaded by reasonable evidence rather than more conjecture.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 08:39:54 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Artifact 2-2-V-1

Ric, I'm not a metal person but in mentioning that artifact 2-2-V-1 was blown out made me wonder if it could have been "stretched" somewhat by the blow out. Could it have been contorted enough to alter the measurements somewhat?

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

I'm not a metallurgist either but that sounds like a reasonable
possibility.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 09:13:41 -0400
From:         Lee Kruczkowski
Subject:      Expedition participation

how come these expeditions to alaska and idaho are not open to any qualified tighar member in good health who would like tohelp and maybe even help with financing ?
lee 1821ce
************************************************************************
From Ric

Fair question.  TIGHAR is a "mission driven" rather than a "member driven" organization.  Simply put, our priority is to get the job done as safely and efficiently as possible.  Our labor force, as it were, is made up of  TIGHAR member volunteers who have the training and experience needed for the particular mission. Occasionally we offer a Field School where the priority is the training of new personnel.

When there is a need for an expedition it's my job to decide how to organize, staff and fund it.  Naturally, when the situation permits I like to open up participation to any TIGHAR member who has been through the school and can handle the physical aspects of the work to be done, but this summer's expeditions are more in the nature of "special ops". The logistics, the terrain, and the mission call for small, highly experienced teams.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 09:15:39 -0400
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re: de Bisschop

Tom King wrote:

> Randy -- I see another book in this:  "The Man Who Didn't See Amelia
> Earhart."

Followed closely by a new hit song: "The Man Who Almost Shot Liberty Valence" .......

Th' WOMBAT
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 09:21:03 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

Thanks Ric, great response with good detail.  Was there an attachment to the response that I missed?

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

Some of my posting was cut-and-paste from recent correspondence with our Earhart Project Advisory Council (EPAC) so there may be reference to an illustration I sent to them but am not able to include in forum postings.  Once we get this new line of thinking sorted out a bit more we'll put up a Research Bulletin on the TIGHAR website with photos and illustrations.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:06:26 -0400
From:         Dave
Subject:      Re: deBisschop

Alan Caldwell wrote:

> Thanks, Ron. I assume Daryll will use his good judgment as
> to whether to post his work for Forum review or not.

Incidentally, isn't Daryll one of "those" AES cultists?

A while back, I looked into the AES and inquired regarding membership and what I received was very McCarthy-like... Almost to the point of questions like "Are you now, or have you ever been, a DeSoto owner?"

LTM,
Dave (#2585)
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 13:16:44 -0400
From:         Daryll Bolinger
Subject:      ...long dashes...

Ric posted:

>Date:  Fri, 25 Jun 2004 19:26:11 -0400
>From:  Angus Murray
>Subject: Re: MCW?
>
>>Ric wrote:
>>
>>When did Tinus send his letter to Navy Times?
>
>Ric you yourself quoted:
>In Amelia My Courageous Sister Carol Osborne reproduces the text of a
>1962 letter from W.C. Tinus, Vice President of Bell Telephone
>Laboratories:
>
>"I was the radio engineer who was responsible for the
>design and installation of her radio communications equipment [at the
>Newark Airport,..........I persuaded Miss Earhart and Mr. Putnam on this
>point and modified a standard three-channel Western Electric
>equipment.........A simple modification also enabled transmission to be
>made on CW or MCW, as well as voice, and a telegraph key was provided
>which could be plugged in, in addition to a microphone for voice
>communication........
>
>Regards Angus
**********************************************
>From Ric
>Okay (contrary to legend I do not keep all these details in my head).
>So Tinus recollections are 25 year-old anecdote. Maybe they're accurate.
>Maybe they're not. No way to be sure.
>In any event, I'm quite sure that Mike Everette explained that Earhart's
>ability to send CW required that the key be present. I would guess (but
>I don't know for sure) that the same was true of MCW. If so, then the
>point is moot.

FROM THE TIGHAR WEBSITE:

Position Two , Page Two

".....58
"KHAQQ calling Itasca. We received your signals but were unable to get a minimum. Please take a bearing on us and answer on 3105 with voice. Itasca from KHAQQ, long dashes on 3105.....

"....long dashes..."

************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Daryll, what's your point?  Do you somehow think that Earhart could not have sent long dashes unless he could send CW or MCW?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 13:20:03 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: deBisschop

Dave, today I was referred to Daryll's paper on deBisschop posted on the  web and read it through. Daryll did a fine job with his research and writing. It was very thorough. Daryll concluded deBisschop was the author of the notes in    the bottle. I would not dispute his findings.

The only real difficulty I would have with the deBisschop affair (not Daryll's account) is that according to Daryll's research deBisschop's Pacific adventure occurred between 1930 and 1935, ending in Hawaii October 1935 after spending 15 days incarcerated on Jaluit.

The bottle story, if describing deBisschop's adventure could only be a hoax as there were no Japanese military constructions in 1935 on Jaluit but more importantly the Amelia Earhart flight was two years off in the  future.

Daryll recognized the discrepancy.

I cannot see any possibility that the bottle notes are anything but a cruel hoax. I can also resolve my earlier concern as to why deBisschop, after being freed from Jaluit, didn't follow up and inform the authorities of Earhart's prisoner status. The answer is that the flight hadn't happened  yet and wouldn't until two years later.

If interested you will find Daryll's excellent research at

http://community-2.webtv.net/DB225840/TWOIFBYAIRTWOIFBYSEA/

Daryll's account should settle the matter once and for all.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 13:31:04 -0400
From:         Brian
Subject:      Surviving on Gardner

I have read as much as I could on Gardner Island...never been there; you have.

If a person shipwrecked or crash landed: are there enough natural resources to get by???

Just curious
Brian
Nation of Lurkers
************************************************************************
From Ric

There's plenty to eat (clams, fish, birds, rats).  Water is the problem.  There's no fresh water on the island unless you can dig a deep well and even then the water is too brackish for drinking.   If it rains and if you can catch the rainwater you should be able to get by, unless you happen to get cut from a fall on the coral which is virtually guaranteed to become infected and, without medical intervention, lead to blood poisoning and death.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 26 Jun 2004 14:48:41 -0400
From:         Don Iwanski
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

I've seen a picture of this sheet metal before but this is the first time I was able to see exactly what the dimensions were and had some thoughts which I would like to pass onto you.

I wouldn't think what you have there is what is considered "Primary Structure"  Usually #3 rivets are used to attach nutplates or small brackets.  The 1 inch pitch for this type of rivet is very unusual as well.  Additionally, the unfinished edges of the sheet metal itself.  I think what you have there would be some sort of interior cosmetic skin, shot on to cover up an eyesore or to prevent human access of some sort. The unfinished edges were probably not visible, possibly tucked away behind other structure.  This doesn't sound like something which would be found on an original engineering drawing but perhaps as part of an Engineering Order during a modification process. Even on an EO, if it was in place for cosmetic reasons, any verbage regarding it perhaps would be very brief.  It really doesnt look or sound like Primary or Secondary structure as to why you can't readily place it.
************************************************************************
From Ric

The "Primary Structure" of the Lockheed 10 is full of #3 rivets in .032 skins.  Just look at any of the many existing examples.  As for the unfinished edges, they're not just unfinished, they exhibit extensive and very specific types of failure.  Back in 1992 we asked the metalurgists at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) lab in Washington for their opinion about how this piece of aluminum failed. For a second opinion, we visited Walter Korsgaard, a recently-retired FAA investigator who had led the team that examined the wreckage of Pan Am 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland.  Everyone agreed that 2-2-V-1 is a piece of external aircraft skin that was hit by an extremely strong fluid  force striking the inside surface of the skin with such violence as to cause two of the four edges to fracture almost instantaneously.  The rivet heads were literally popped off the shafts of the rivets as the skin detached from the underlying structure, except for one surviving rivet that had been improperly bucked and so the shaft tore through the underlying structure instead of the head being pulled off.  The third edge of the sheet either tore or was hacked free and the fourth edge failed due to fatigue after cycling back and forth at least twice against an underlying rigid structure.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 11:59:15 -0400
From:         Ric
Subject:      OFF TOPIC - missing pilot

This is off-topic but we've received a request from our friends at the Historic Preservation Office in Majuro in the Republic of the Marshall Islands asking if we can help the woman who sent them the following letter:

My Father, Capt. Jimmy P. Robinson, USAF R#703 522 was lost in the lagoon at Eniwetok during the Operation Ivy, Mike Shot on 10-31-1952. That test was the first thermonuclear test conducted by the United States. He was flying an F-84G-5 #51-1040. His mission was to fly through the mushroom cloud to collect radiation samples. Yes, our men were sent into harms way just as your citizens were. They were told that they would be safe.

I have been trying for over four years to obtain information from our government as to what really happened to my Father. No body was sent back to my Mother for burial. I have not been able to find out if the plane was recovered or if it still is in the lagoon. The report my Mother was sent in 1952 said that he went in approximately 3 1/4 miles SW of the runway on Eniwetok on the lagoon side. He was spotted above Ingurin Island as he glided towards the runway.

Any information that you may be able to share with me would most appreciated.

Thank you in advance for you time and concern in this matter.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Robinson Miller
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 12:04:35 -0400
From:         Don Iwanski
Subject:      Re; Artifact 2-2-V-1

Ric:

Your variable #2 states "The original skin dimensions must be greater than the dimensions of the artifact because 2-2-v-1 includes no finished edges."  I didn't realize when reading this variable that this did not mean "unfinished edges" and you already had determined that the edges had been torn away from the original skin section.

Still, #3 rivets are a very unusual size for primary skin structure.  I would think at least the minimum used would be a 1/8 or #4 in .032 skin. Even in larger aircraft where .032 is typically used in webs a #4 rivet is used to attach it.  The use of a #3 rivet in a primary skin structure call out on an engineering drawing is a very unique identifying feature.

Another unique indentifying feature would be the spacing of the framework in which the skin was attached.  It seems that on the inside of this skin there would of been some etching of the framework in which the skin was attached, giving you the size of the framework and also the spacing.  Was there any?
************************************************************************
From Ric

Yes, there are clear indications of the underlying structural members.

I agree that #3 rivets in .032 primary skin are unusual.  The only places I've seen them used are on Lockheed 10s and a small section under the tail on Lockheed 18s (Ventura/Lodestar).
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 12:10:42 -0400
From:         Ed Lyon
Subject:      Re; MCW?

Receiving CW requires the receiver to have a beat frequency oscillator (BFO) so as to convert the clicks into beeps, long and short, often called dahs and dits.  However, MCW requires nothing other than a straight AM receiver, like Amelia had.  MCW is modulated CW, meaning the tones are already in the transmission.  Thus when someone says a radio is modified for CW and MCW it means it can receive CW by use of the BFO, and it also means the BFO can be shut OFF, with a switch.

Ed Lyon
************************************************************************
From Ric

I believe the question was whether AE could SEND MCW.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 12:11:50 -0400
From:         Neil
Subject:      Re: MCW?

Ric wrote:

> In any event, I'm quite sure that Mike Everette explained that
> Earhart's ability to send CW required that the key be present.  I would
> guess (but I don't know for sure) that the same was true of MCW.  If
> so, then the point is moot.

If the radio was fitted with MCW mode, then yes, a key would certainly have been needed in order to send decent morse in that mode.

As already discussed many times, it would have been possible to send rather sloppy morse while in "Voice" mode by pressing and releasing the microphone switch in order to turn the carrier wave on and off. Long dashes for direction-locating purposes can also be sent by the same method.

Whether MCW could have been sent in that way depends on the technical aspects of the way MCW was incorporated into the radio. My educated guess is that it would probably not have been possible. A competent engineer would design the radio with the safeguard that the pilot could not inadvertently key up the transmitter with the microphone switch while the navigator/radioman was sending a morse (CW or MCW) message. In other words, a reasonable assumption is that switching from "Voice" to either CW or MCW should have completely disabled the microphone and its switch.

"Key up" is a term used to describe the act or process of switching a radio from receive to transmit, and does not necessarily imply the use of a morse code hand key. The term is used even when human action is not involved, eg. automatic transmission of data.

Neil, ZL1ANM
in Auckland.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 12:12:37 -0400
From:         Cam Warren
Subject:      Re: deBisschop

I recall that some researcher checked out deBisschop, and found that he made his living presenting "adventure lectures" in Europe.  The conclusion (speculation?) was that he concocted the bottle scam, and wrote the document himself, in order to sell tickets.

I have no precise citation on hand, but it's a logical theory  if anyone wants to pursue it.

Cam Warren
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 12:26:43 -0400
From:         Roger Kelley
Subject:      Re: Surviving on Gardner

Ric said:  " If it rains and if you can catch the rainwater you should be able to get by."

Gallagher stated in his telegram of 23 September 1940, "Some months ago working party on Gardner discovered human skull - this was buried and I only recently heard about it.  Thorough search has now produced more bones..."

I've never been able to nail down the expression, "some months ago." I've ask several people what the expression "some months ago" means to them.    The most common response has been "about three or four months."  Were the bones first discovered by the native colonists in May or June of 1940?

Remember, PISS was approved and the first working party of colonists arrived on Gardner (Nikumaroro) on 20 December 1938.  Teng Koata was one of the first to arrive.  His wife and family arrived later.

Koata's wife, Nei Ana, reported that she encountered Nei Manganibuka, "A tall fair woman with long dark hair falling to the ground aground her with two children..."  When did this encounter take place?  Sometime in 1939? Was Nei Manganibuka really Earheart who by then  was insane?  Was Nei Ana dreaming?

Eventually, the "bones" were examined by Dr. D.W. Hoodless in Suva, Fiji, at the direction of Sir Harry Luke.  Dr. Hoodless states in his Report on Portion of a Human Skeleton, in paragraph #4, "All these bones are very weather-beaten and have been exposed to the open air for a considerable time.  Except in one or two small areas all traces of muscular attachments and the various ridges and prominences have been obliterated."

What does the term, "a considerable time" translate to as used by Dr. Hoodless?  Six months?  Two years?  Longer?   I don't know.

How long would it take to have all traces of muscular attachments and the various ridges and prominences obliterated from the bones Hoodless examined?   I don't know.

However, I remain intrigued by this chain of events.

How long was the castaway dead before the first discovery of their bones?

If the "bones" are those of Earheart, how long did she survive after arriving on Gardner?

LTM,
Roger Kelley
************************************************************************
From Ric

In Gallagher's telegram to Vaskess dated October 17, 1940 he says,

>> "Skull discovered by working party six months ago - report reached me
>> early September."

That puts the skull discovery in mid-April 1940.

>How long would it take to have all traces of muscular attachments and the
>various ridges and prominences obliterated from the bones Hoodless
>examined?

Based upon the limited experiments we did using a lamb shoulder - not long at all. (see "A Movable Feast" - Research Bulletin #46 on the TIGHAR website) Remember that none of the people who examined the bones (Gallagher, Isaac or Hoodless) was likely to have had experience with remains that had been subjected to the depredations of coconut crabs and, as we have found, those little devils are amazingly fast and efficient scavengers.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 12:28:37 -0400
From:         Greg Moore
Subject:      Re: ...long dashes....

According to the schematic of the transmitter which TIGHAR has published, and which I am now researcing, the transmitter had NO MCW ,(Modulated CW) capability. Moulated CW is either generated by a tone which modulates the carrier, which is, in essence, simply an AM signal modulated with the tone, and would have no distance advantage over AM. because of the power taken up by the carrier and both sidebands (this is of course, why SSB (Single Sideband) is the voice transmission choice of today, because by suppressing the unwanted sideband and the carrier, one gains 75 percent more power out than with AM phone.

The other method of MCW generation is by using a "chopper" which interrupts the carrier at a rapid rate. This method "fools" the reciever into believing it is demodulating a AM signal, while still retaining the 100 percent pure carrier.  When MF and LF "ruled the airwaves", all emergency radio transmitters were required to be equipped for the transmission of MCW since the transmission could  be recieved on any radio capable of tuning the frequencies involved.  A pure CW signal will no be recognized except by a :"thunk" as the speaker magnet pulls the cone in when the carrier is on, it produces no tone of it's own. The reciever used by Earhart had what was then referred to as a "CW oscillator", today it is called a BFO, or Beat Frequency Oscillator. This device generates a signal slightly off from whatever IF frequency is used in the reciever, and is tunable.  when a CW signal is recieved, this additive offset from the BFO of "CW oscillator" generates a tone for speaker or headset listening.  This is plainly shown in the reciever schematic, although the tube used in the osc is unknown. The whole point of MCW is rendered moot, however, because, even though the transmitter theoretically maintained provision for CW, the key and microphone transfer switch were removed prior to the last flight, along with the trailing wire, the Gurr load coil, etc, etc.  If one looks at the schematic, one will notice that the additional relay for grid block keying was still there, but it wouldn't have worked using the microphone to key the 'mitter. In the original configuration, when the transfer switch was  set to "CW" the dynamotor was switched to constant run, and the 3rd relay provided grid block keying for the transmitter. This was a compromise at best, as there was no break in capability, wherein there is an antenna relay which automatically switches from TX to RX during key up periods, or of course, when the mode switch was shifted back to "phone" which, in the setup described in the schematic, was the switchology required to go from transmit to recieve.

Even had there been a antenna relay, or an MCW osc or chopper, it would have still proven useless since neither AE or Noonan cared about CW or were in any way proficient in the use thereof.  I believe that the radio op licence issued to AE waa a "Gimme" because there simply is no way she could have copied the requisite speed of morse required even for a Third Class Radiotelegraph licence. Now, the Itasca most likely had MCW capability on all frequencies, and thus would have been heard even if the switch was in the "phone" position....I also don't see where the "CW oscillator" was removed from the transmitter. Maybe it was disabled during the refit when the rest of the components required for Morse were removed. If it were still present, signals sent on 3105 in A1 could have been recieved by the aircraft.

My only query is the tuning of the BFO.. normally, when one is recieving a CW signal, one "zero beats" the signal by setting the BFO to center (i.e., so it is on the same freq as the IF of the reciever. When this is done, one tunes the reciever until one can't hear the beat note, indicating that the reciever is on the same freq as the transmitter.  Then, one turns the BFO until one has the most pleasing and comfortable CW note to the ears.   Believe it or not, this problem still raises its ugly head today, because some modern trancievers have no mark or detent on what is usually called "CW pitch" today.  I know this, because it is a shortcoming of my Icom 746PRO.  There is a learning curve associated with this unit, and they corrected it in the 756PRO.

At any rate, she SHOULD have been able to recieve the Itasca transmissions, unless they were sent in pure CW, and the BFO "CW oscillator" had been either removed or disabled during the refit.

hope this helps

Greg Moore
Former RM1, USN
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:48:11 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: de Bisschop

Who is that guy deBisshop anyway? If spelled De Bisschop he should be Belgian.

LTM
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:57:10 -0400
From:         Don Iwanski
Subject:      Re: Artifact 2-2-V-1

Ric:

I was looking at some information this morning regarding Rivet Strength Factors and interestingly enough the recommended fastner used in .032 skin is either a 3/32 or 1/8 in rivet (#3's and #4's).

I found it interesting that a 5/32 (#5) rivet is not called out until the sheet thickness is .040.

************************************************************************
From Ric

And yet we clearly have a line of #5 rivets in a .032 sheet.  My suspicion is that it's an unusual application necessitated by a particular repair situation.

Is there any particular recommendation about rivet pitch for #3s used in .032 sheet?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 14:22:51 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Jaluit

Daryll wrote:

> ...."for instance, in the 'English instructions,' that the port of
> Jaluit (under Japanese mandate) is the port of entry for Nauru 
> Island, which is under the control of New Zealand...".
>
> Any student of history or world politics of that era would immediately
> see what a blatant error that was. Could this have 
> been an intelligence ploy or a contrived excuse that was needed to
> call upon Jaluit ? > Who was most likely in a position to print such 
> a Chart back in Honolulu?

There is probably no conspiracy here at all. The reason the US chart showed Jaluit as port of entry to Nauru is merely that the information had not been updated. Nauru was part of the German Marshalls until 1914 and so the port of entry was indeed Jaluit before 1914.

Of course that doesn't mean that it would not have been some sort of an excuse to visit Jaluit but the Japs were hardly likely to swallow it as an explanation as they knew de Bisschop claimed to be some sort of a geographer. Such a claim might actually arouse the suspicions of the nips rather than allay them.

Regards Angus.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 28 Jun 2004 16:02:09 -0400
From:         Don Iwanski
Subject:      Re; 2-2-V-1

The Standards and Practices clearly calls out a 1.00 in. rivet pitch for #3 rivets. It also calls out a .964 rivet pitch for #4 fastners. There's no standard call out in .032 sheet metal for #5 Rivets but the standard callout  in .040 sheetmetal for #5's is .996.

You have a #5 rivet with a one inch pitch in .032 sheetmetal.  This could possbily  due to a repair in which the holes were stepped up due to elongation or cracking.

Or it could be related to a repair called out in an Engineering Order which directed installation of #5 rivets with a one inch pitch to follow the existing fastner pattern in the area.

FYI Ric - this information comes out of a Military Standard and Practices Manual NAVAIR 01-1A-8

The information contained in this manual is basic Standard and  Practices and is applicable to all aircraft, not just one model.

************************************************************************
From Ric

The #3 rivets are 1 inch pitch but the line of #5s has a pitch of 1.25 inch.
************************************************************************
From Don Iwanski

One more thought on this is the possible reason that you have a #5 rivet adjoining a row of #3's is that the underlying structure changed in that area.  The thickness of the framework underneath would determine the fastner size so possibly you should be looking in areas where the underlying framework changed. There could of been an angle underneath where the #5 rivets were.
************************************************************************
From Ric

That matches where the piece seems to fit best on a Lockheed 10.  The #3s go into stringers whereas the #5s go into the the keel that runs down the centerline of the belly. We'll be putting up a Research Bulletin on the TIGHAR website with illustrations and photos that show what I mean.  I'll let everyone know when it's up.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:33:00 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Artifact 2-2-V-1

Don wrote

>One more  thought on this is the possible reason that you have a #5
>rivet adjoining a  row of #3's is that the underlying structure changed
>in that area.

Don, may have a good point here, Ric. The idea has been fitting the artifact to a known structure but that structure itself may have been altered. It is becoming clearer, I think, that there is a far, far better chance we have a piece of AE's plane.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:36:35 -0400
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re: Surviving on Gardner

Roger Kelley wrote:

> Koata's wife, Nei Ana, reported that she encountered Nei Manganibuka,
> "A tall fair woman with long dark hair falling to the ground around her with
> two children..."  When did this encounter take place?  Sometime in 1939?
> Was Nei Manganibuka really Earheart who by then was insane?  Was Nei Ana
> dreaming?

Dark hair falling to the ground around her sounds rather unlikely at 2 years.  Female friends I've had who had hair falling past their buttocks, claim they grew it for many years to get it to that length.

Some of the women on the forum might be able to correct me on this however.  In the case of a male, I had no chance to get my hair cut from before Christmas until late April, due to being unable to get about after the motorbike accident in January.

My hair at the front had got to the stage of hanging in front of my eyes, at the sides, it had begun to cover my ears, and at the back it was over my collar.  This is in 5 months.  That would put it say over my shoulders by the end of 12 months, and possibly half way down my back in 2 years.

Not terribly scientific, but I suspect that if Nei Manganibuka was really Earheart, then Nei Ana was exaggerating about the hair just a little....

As for the twins.....

Th' WOMBAT
************************************************************************
From Ric

I think we need to be real careful about taking descriptions of encounters with spirits too literally.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 29 Jun 2004 08:39:17 -0400
From:         Mike Everette
Subject:      Re: MCW?

The schematics of the modified WE 13C transmitter, which are available to us, indicate that there is no MCW capability in the unit.

To send MCW requires an audio-frequency oscillator to produce the tone used to modulate the signal.  In most period designs this was done by causing the speech amplifier stage to oscillate at, let's say, 1000 Hz; or by use of a separate oscillator stage dedicated to that purpose.

The Western Electric transmitter had neither.  No switching was incorporated into the "CW-Phone" circuit to enable the amplifier to act as a tone oscillator.  Nor was there a dedicated tone oscillator or tone generator circuit.

She could not send MCW.

73
Mike E.
*********************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Mike.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 29 Jun 2004 15:53:22 -0400
From:         Don Iwanski
Subject:      Re; 2-2-V-1

Some other thoughts came to mind which are interesting as well -

(1)  A single row of #3 rivets on exterior skin.  This is a signature of a light aircraft, lighter than a modern day airliner.  It could be a sign that the aircraft was non-pressurized.

(2)  It's a piece of skin from a small light aircraft found in an area of the world which would make it impractiable for a small light aircraft to be.

(3) It was made in the USA with US technology

Additionally, the remaining #5 rivet was an AN455 rivet, which if I am correct, is made of steel and is similar to Monel rivets used today. These are typically found in the frames themselves.

It's an interesting piece of metal to say the least.

************************************************************************
From Ric

I agree with your three points but the surviving rivet is not a #5 and it is not steel.  It's an aluminum AN455AD 3/3 "flat brazier head" rivet.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 29 Jun 2004 16:08:19 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      RE; MCW?

Mike Everette wrote:

> The schematics of the modified WE 13C transmitter, which are available
> to us, indicate that there is no MCW capability in the unit.

What is the origin of these schematics and do they specifically refer to the actual set as modified by Tinus and used by AE?

Regards Angus
************************************************************************
From Ric

Mike is referring to schematics from "Aircraft Radio and Electrical Equipment" by Howard K. Morgan published in 1939.  The book includes schematics for a modification of the original WE 13C, known as the WE13CB, that included CW and low frequency capability.  Mike speculates that Earhart's modified 13C may have been the prototype for this later standard modification.  As far as we know, there are no surviving schematics that are unique to Earhart's radio.

************************************************************************
From Greg Moore

I don't want to beat this MCW business to death on the forum, because I believe it has been pretty well hashed over by all concerned, and it is obvious to anyone who has seen and analysed the schematic of the transmitter, that it had no MCW capability.... Incidentally,  the preferred method of this time period was the chopper which interrupted the CW signal at a rapid rate to produce a readable note in the headphones of any recieving operator.  This method alleviated the necessity of a separate oscillator, which would defeat the whole purpose of MCW as it would then become A3 transmission (AM phone) and not MCW.

If you so desire, I have quite a bit of info on various types of emergency transmitters, as well as maritime transmitters equipped with MCW capability.  If you so desire I can provide this info to the group (I would mail the info to you for whatever method of dissemination you desire).  I do believe that the discussion of MCW is getting off track, and confusing the issue for a lot of list members who are not former RM's or Radio Officers.  The concept of MCW, while seemingly easy at first to understand, gets rather complicated when one starts the investigation of the different methods of producing same.  Remember, the whole purpose of A2 emission is to provide a CW signal, retaining the full original power of an A1 (unmodulated carrier).  Any attempt to modulate the carrier with an oscillator negates the whole premise, as the emission now becomes A3 phone, since the carrier is now amplitude modulated.   The chopper method of interupting the carrier at a rapid rate, so as to produce a buzz or tone in the recieving headset, even if the reciever is not equiped with a VFO is the preferred method of MCW generation.

Again, if TIGHAR would like a dissertation on MCW vs CW I will be more than glad to provide one, but I think the issue leads nowhere at this point, since it has been determined to not have entered into the equation.....

73 de Greg "GW" Moore
Tighar Member
Former RM1, USN
*****************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Greg.  I appreciate the offer but I agree with you that it's not really an issue we need to dwell on.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:14:02 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: MCW?

Ric - thanks.

So.........we have Mike categorically stating that the set had no MCW capability and yet it transpires that the schematic is not for the prototype (if indeed that is what it was) that AE had but a production version that we guess might possibly be somewhat similar but then again it might not be identical.

And then we have Tinus, the modifier of the set, stating clearly that it did have MCW and we also know that MCW would have been an advantage.

We cannot in the least reach the conclusion that the set as modified had no MCW capability! Incredible - this is the sort of faulty reasoning of the conspiracy theorists who jump to unsupported conclusions. Whether the original MCW capability was compromised by the lack of a key is a quite separate issue.

Understanding as much as possible about AE's radio equipment is, in my view, something well worth dwelling on - much more so than some of the recent discussion which for some weeks has been rather uninformative. I at least, would be interested to take up Greg's kind offer though so perhaps Ric you would be good enough to forward him my email address.

Regards Angus
************************************************************************
From Ric

I'll be happy to forward Greg your email address but I think you're doing exactly what you accuse us and the conspiracy crowd of doing - jumping to unwarranted conclusions based on faulty reasoning.  As you'll see from Mike's posting below, saying that Tinus' anecdotal recollection of having modified Earhart's WE13C to have MCW capability is accurate is a bit like saying that he modified a refrigerator to be a dishwasher.

************************************************************************

From Mike Everette

Yes, this MCW thing  is a dead-end thread.

For everyone's information:  The Western Electric transmitter used by AE, model 13C, was never designed (originally) to be used for sending Morse in any form.  It was intended to be strictly a voice (AM) transmitter.

The modifications carried out to make it usable on CW were rather Rube Goldberg, when compared to the state of the art for multi-mode (CW and voice) radio equipment of the time.  The result was a rig that could (and very likely did) prove cumbersome, and confusing, to operate.  If anyone wants "details" I suggest you take a look at the diagram; but one important aspect of this rig was, it had to be manually switched from receive to transmit condition, and then keyed using the Morse telegraph key; then, it had to be manually switched back to receive condition.

Most aircraft radio gear of the time would operate "break-in" on CW, such that all one had to do, to transmit, was touch the key -- once the rig had been switched to CW mode.  The operator could actually hear a received signal, between the dits and dahs of morse, while his key was "up," in break-in mode; so, transmit/receive switching followed the keying.

NOT so, with AE's rig.  It definitely could not operate break-in.   The thought has crossed my mind, more than once, that it could conceivably be easy to FORGET to switch the rig from transmit-ready condition, back to receive.  This would leave the antenna changeover relay in the transmitter energized, and this would take the antenna away from the receiver (assuming, of course, that the same antenna was used for transmit and receive).

That's another can of worms.

And there was no provision of any kind for sending modulated CW.  No oscillator, no chopper, no nothing.

And, for Angus, yes, the diagrams I had access to are the ones in the Morgan book.  I stand behind my position that these diagrams document work originally carried out on AE's rig.  I don't have a copy handy at the moment but am almost 100% certain that Morgan gives their source as Western Electric.

LTM (who can whistle Dixie in morse)
and
73
Mike E.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:22:17 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Keys

Not to muddy the waters but I assume we are dead certain AE had only ONE key and she left that and therefore had no key. I also assume we are dead certain that nowhere in the flight thereafter did she pick up another key.

As my fading memory serves me I believe those facts were ascertained at Lae.
Correct?

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

Originally the airplane had two keys.  One in the cockpit on the copilot's side and the other back at the navigator's station.  Both keys were left behind.  One was sent to Tinus and, as I recall, Gurr had the other one.  Chater in Lae makes no mention of keys one way or t'other.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:24:12 -0400
From:         Lawrence
Subject:      Post loss radio messages

Just wondering, post lost radio messages, you were composing a chart or something.

************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Yeah, something like that.  It's actually rather a monster of a study that I'm hoping to have finished before Labor Day.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:49:14 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

You mentioned that the Artifact was most probably "blown out" of the aircraft structure except where it appears to have been repeatedly bent prior to  its final removal.  Also, I get the impression that current thinking has the Artifact most probably - i. e. better chance of fitting but yet unverified - coming from the tail section of the aircraft.  Finally, the Artifact is most likely from a larger repair panel as opposed to original structure.

The above leads to the following questions:
1)  Have we determined what force e.g. pounds per square inch, would  be required to pull the sheet metal through the #3 and #5 rivets (and still  leaving the "hinged" portion in place)?

2)  Do we know of any potentially explosive assembly that may have  been mounted in the tail area of AE plane - such as a standby battery, an oxygen  tank, a hydraulic accumulator, any other vessel capable of storing enough energy to cause an explosion, etc.?

3)  Can we see from photos of the 1st attempt crash if any damage was done in the tail area of the plane? Or alternatively, do we know of any structural modifications that may have been made to AE's aircraft in the tail  area because of the specific mission to be flown?  For example: a) The aircraft was to be operated at max (or above) gross weight, for a standard L10E, necessitating a stronger tail wheel surrounding structure, b) The addition  of the long range tanks may have required strengthening of the underfloor structure, c) The addition of the navigator's station in the rear of the  aircraft may have required structural changes, etc.?  Remember, this plane  was specifically built for AE and was not just a L10E taken off the line  and modified for her.

I am looking for something that would give us a clue as to why this piece  of sheet metal may have been unique to AE's aircraft and therefore helping to explain why a fit can't be made against a standard production model.

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

>1)  Have we determined what force e.g. pounds per square inch, would
>be required to pull the sheet metal through the #3 and #5 rivets (and
>still  leaving the "hinged" portion in place)?

No, but it would be an interesting number to have.

>2)  Do we know of any potentially explosive assembly that may have
>been mounted in the tail area of AE plane - such as a standby battery, an
>oxygen  tank, a hydraulic accumulator, any other vessel capable of storing enough
>energy to cause an explosion, etc.?

There was an auxilliary battery on the floor against the starboard cabin wall but it was not above where 2-2-V-1 seems to fit best. Besides, I doubt that the force exerted by an exploding battery would be sufficient to destroy the 3/4 inch plywood flooring AND blow a section of .032 skin out of the belly.

>3)  Can we see from photos of the 1st attempt crash if any damage was
>done in the tail area of the plane? Or alternatively, do we know of any
>structural modifications that may have been made to AE's aircraft in the tail  >area because of the specific mission to be flown?  For example: a) The
>aircraft was to be operated at max (or above) gross weight, for a standard L10E,
>necessitating a stronger tail wheel surrounding structure, b) The
>addition  of the long range tanks may have required strengthening of the >underfloor structure, c) The addition of the navigator's station in the rear of 
>the  aircraft may have required structural changes, etc.?  Remember, this
>plane  was specifically built for AE and was not just a L10E taken off the
>line  and modified for her.

Any changes in the structure that deviated from the certificated design would require new engineering drawings that were specifically approved by the Bureau of Air Commerce.  there are, in fact, four such drawings and approvals that involve structural changes made during the repairs the followed the Luke Field wreck.  All of the changes, however, involve beefing up the landing gear attach points and have no impact on the aft fuselage structure.  We do, however, know from the Lockheed Repair Orders that the belly skins on the right hand side of the airplane and eight inches worth of skin on the left hand side going back as far as Station 293 5/8 were replaced.

>I am looking for something that would give us a clue as to why this
>piece of sheet metal may have been unique to AE's aircraft and therefore helping
>to explain why a fit can't be made against a standard production model.

That's easy.  Lockheed documents show that section of the airplane where 2-2-V-1 fits best was subject to extensive repair following the Luke Field crash and numerous photos  of the airplane while it was under repair show that it was not put back into the original fuselage  construction jig (impossible once the fuselage has been mated to the centersection) thus raising the realistic possibility, if not probability, that the repaired structures might not have been precisely "on spec".  We also don't know how much distortion 2-2-V-01 may have suffered when it failed.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:08:47 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: MCW?

Ric wrote:

> I'll be happy to forward Greg your email address but I think you're
> doing exactly what you accuse us and the conspiracy crowd of doing -
> jumping to unwarranted conclusions based on faulty reasoning.

Absolutely not. You obviously haven't read my post carefully.

I said:

> We cannot in the least reach the conclusion that the set as
> modified had no MCW capability!

And I still stand by this statement. I am not jumping to a conclusion for the simple reason that I drew no conclusion whatsoever. I did not state that the set did indeed have MCW capability but merely that it was not possible (on the basis of a schematic drawn for a production radio) to conclude that it did not. And without doubt that is true.

> As
> you'll see from Mike's posting below, saying that Tinus' anecdotal
> recollection of having modified Earhart's WE13C to have MCW capability
> is accurate is a bit like saying that he modified a refrigerator to be
> a dishwasher.

I don't agree at all. First I never said the recollection was accurate. Secondly one cannot pretend that anecdotal evidence is meaningless. It may be wrong, it may be tenuous, it may be unprovable, it may have little value  - that is all true - but in the absence of any evidence to the contrary it is evidence nonetheless. Let's not forget that Tighar quotes anecdotal evidence in support of the Tighar hypothesis. More importantly, whilst any witness can certainly have a lapse of memory after a long time period and as a result give an erroneous impression of a situation, here you are trying to suggest that not only did Tinus forget the modifications he had made (which I am quite ready to agree is possible) but made an obviously preposterous statement in that the modification he said he had made was next to impossible - ie he had made a "refrigerator into a dishwasher". Even if Tinus had forgotten the details of the modifications he could hardly forget his immense experience as a radio engineer and I do not believe that he would claim to have done something he knew was impossible. If of course you have evidence that Tinus was delusional or senile at the time he made the statement - I would be interested to hear it. Certainly the logic of and amount of technical detail in his letter suggests that he was entirely in command of his faculties.

Mike says:

>NOT so, with AE's rig.  It definitely could not operate break-in.

Once again Mike you are making categoric statements about something for which there is insufficient evidence to draw a firm conclusion.

> If
> anyone wants "details" I suggest you take a look at the diagram;

Ah yes - the diagram that was not the one for AE's set.

> And, for Angus, yes, the diagrams I had access to are the ones in the
> Morgan book.  I stand behind my position that these diagrams document
> work originally carried out on AE's rig.

On what evidence - guesswork??

> I don't have a copy handy at
> the moment but am almost 100% certain that Morgan gives their source as
> Western Electric.

Anyone making categoric statements should indeed be 100% certain. And just because they came from WE has no bearing whatever on whether they relate specifically to AE's transmitter. In fact we can be quite sure they do not, since the WE13CB did not even exist in July 1937.

Regards Angus.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Let's accept that we can't know for sure that Earhart's transmitter was not modified to permit the sending of MCW.  Let's say there is a possibility that her transmitter was modified so that it could send MCW.  How would she take advantage of that capability without a sending key?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:26:15 -0400
From:         Alfred Hendrickson
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

In response to Ted Campbell's question: "Have we determined what force e.g. pounds per square inch, would  be required to pull the sheet metal through the #3 and #5 rivets (and still leaving the 'hinged' portion in place)?"

First, to be technically precise, forces are expressed in pounds. Pressures or stresses are expressed in pounds per square inch.

A theoretical value for the failure strength of a single-rivet connection could be established by calculation. Alternately, a series of tests could be run, and an average tested value could be established. No doubt such data already exists, as rivets are/were very common. However, a group of fasteners will exhibit a strength value very different from the sum of the individual fastener's strength. The line of action of the force, relative to the rivet, is important, too. Any given fastener has a tensile strength and a shear strength. However, if the fastener is loaded in both tension and shear, the failure strength becomes more difficult to establish. We have certain tension-shear interaction formulae that we apply when we design fasteners, but, design-level loads are very different from failure-level loads. At failure, the appropriate strength of the fastener or fastener group would, in my opinion, be very difficult to reliably establish. There are other variables, too. Too many to list. Even if we could accurately establish it, what would the force value tell us?

In my opinion, trying to determine the cause of failure, or trying to tie the artifact to NR16020, by determining the magnitude of the force that caused the failure would be a fruitless endeavor. There are so many variables, that I don't think we could accurately conclude anything.

I'd be happy to hear others' thoughts on this, on-forum or off. My e-mail is indicated below.

LTM, respectfully,

Alfred Hendrickson, PE
TIGHAR Sponsor Member #2583
alfred@whittenborges.com
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:12:19 -0400
From:         Bob Sherman
Subject:      Re: MCW?

Ric:   Just curious.  Would having MCW, or not having MCW,  make any difference in where AE may have landed/crashed ?  Exactly what difference would it make in any aspect of the search for AE?; .. then, or now.

Cheers,   RC
*************************************************************
From Ric

It could be a factor in the credibility of some of the alleged post-loss radio signals.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:17:04 -0400
From:         Tom Strang
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

For my clarification was the separating force applied to the interior or exterior side of 2-2-V-1 panel, removing it from the supporting structure you believe it was fastened to?

Sorry I'm having a time keeping the ducks in a row on this subject.

Respectfully:

Tom Strang # 2559
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Don't feel bad.  It's a very complex subject.

It was the opinion of the NTSB and a prominent FAA accident investigator that the interior surface of the skin was struck by a powerful fluid force thus blowing the fragment outward.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:31:06 -0400
From:         Don Iwanski
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

The picture of this skin section which I pulled off the WOF Bulletin, it shows a vertical length of 17 inches.  If the rivet pitch is one inch and using this as a guide, it makes the space between the center of each frame 4 inches.

You said there was etching on the interior side of the skin.  What was the width of that etching, or, how wide were the frames?
************************************************************************
From Ric

I don't know what you're looking at.  There is no picture of 2-2-v-1 in the WOF Bulletin. The maximum overall length of the artifact is 24.25 inches.  There are five parallel rows of rivets holes.  From the row of #5s along one edge (which failed along that rivet line) to the first row of #3s is a distance of 3.5 inches.  The distance to the next line of #3s is 4.5 inches at one end but only 4.25 inches at the other.  To the third line of #3s is 4.25 inches at one end and 4.06 inches at the other.  To the fourth line of #3s is, again, 4.25 inches at one end and 4.06 inches at the other.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:54:31 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re; MCW?

Ric wrote:

>Let's accept that we can't know for sure that Earhart's transmitter was
>not modified to permit the sending of MCW.  Let's say there is a
>possibility that her transmitter was modified so that it could send
>MCW.  How would she take advantage of that capability without a sending
>key?

I can certainly agree with both you and Angus that we may not be 100% certain of AE's radio capability, what the radios were or what modifications  were or were not made. I also am not seeing certain evidence she did NOT have a key. I have gone back in the Forum archives and read several comments from Mike and Vern in regard to Joe Gurr's letter to Goerner and in neither case did they  mention Gurr having AE's second key although one might guess it was possible.  That's not good enough. What I DID read indicated to me that it was not likely  her radio was capable of MCW but I saw nothing to indicate to me she did not  have a key.

Here are a few of my understandings of their comments which I will reproduce after mine. I may well have misunderstood and with all the back and forward on the radio subject what I'm posting may have been corrected, changed or revised later on. Please set me straight on this.

1. Her radio was modified to have 500kcy capability to overcome the removal of the trailing wire antenna.

2. 500kcy was used only for CW not voice.

3. Question - what would be the purpose of that modification if she wasn't going to have a key?

4. Mike indicated the radio would not function at all without the key assembly unless the assembly was bypassed and we have no evidence that was done.  It seems to me the two modifications would be at cross purposes.

Comment: there was a radio check made by Gurr indicating the radio was not that great and around 400 miles out was poor.

Here is Mike's and Vern's postings from 2000.

Alan
*****************
9/5/00
From: Mike Everette

I stated that it would have been no problem for AE to leave the telegraph key behind if all she wanted was voice transmission; just unplug it and remove it from the cockpit.

Well... that's not right.

Indeed, it is not possible.

The "key" in this setup was more than just a morse key. It was part of a subassembly, a control unit. The unit contained the key and a switch. The switch, a double-pole double throw type, had two positions, labeled "CW" and "PHONE." Like I said last night, throwing the switch to "CW" closed the push-to-talk line (like the mic switch would do  on voice) and made the rig READY to transmit. The "keying" was through an added relay. This relay actually followed the operator's key.

To RECEIVE on CW, it was necessary to throw the switch on the controller containing the key BACK to "PHONE." Potentially confusing.

The bottom line:

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE FOR AE TO USE THIS RADIO AT ALL, EVEN ON VOICE, WITHOUT THE TELEGRAPH KEY UNIT CONNECTED TO THE TRANSMITTER. The switch  in the key unit had to be in the circuit....

UNLESS, and we may never be able to completely resolve this... some sort of modifications were made to the radio in Miami, to bypass this switch. All it would have taken, was a "dummy" connector plugged into the transmitter where the  key unit was connected... if Pin 4 of this connector was jumpered to ground,  that would complete the keying relay circuit. Of course, an internal mod to the  transmitter's wiring could have accomplished the same thing.

I had forgotten the Gurr connection with the telegraph key. It's been a while since I last read over his letter to Goerner.

Joe Gurr could have very easily made the necessary mods to the radio to jumper the switch function and therefore keep the radio in "Phone" mode. But! Here is a reason why he would NOT have done so, and one that raises credibility issues.

Gurr was trying to "help" AE (yeah, right)preserve her transmitting capability on 500 KHz, by reconfiguring the dorsal antenna to serve on 500 instead of using the much more efficient trailing wire. AE apparently wanted the trailing wire removed, and radio operation simplified, after Harry Manning bolted from the second flight attempt... Manning was to have been the radio operator, and one of his jobs would be to manually reel out and in the trailing wire (as well as to throw the antenna selector switch, located in the aft section).

So, AE knew (we believe) that she needed to preserve the 500 Khz capability. In those days, 500, or "600-meters" (wave length) was the only emergency universally guarded by ships.... and she would be over water quite a bit.

NOBODY used voice on 500! It was then, and continued so until the mid 90s when the regulation requiring ships to guard it was phased out, a CW frequency only. Even Joe Gurr would have known this. He would have come on very strong to  AE, I think, about this and the necessity for keeping her CW key.

9/9/00
From: Vern Klein

On a trial flight out to about 400 miles, Gurr operated the radio equipment while other checks of the aircraft were being done. Radio performance was not good at that distance but got better as they got closer on the way back. "I was able to take bearings on broadcast stations using the belly antenna, and then switching over to the loop." Note that he says "switching over" not "switching in." I think he used the belly antenna only to get a station tuned in  with that more efficient antenna, then "switched over" to the loop to take a bearing -- an ambiguous bearing except that he knew the station was up ahead, not behind.

To me, this suggests that the belly antenna was the receiving antenna and the "V" on top was the transmitting antenna. The T/R relay in the transmitter was not involved and the transmitter could have been heard by the receiver -- if  it was not totally "blocked" by the strong signal.

************************************************************************
From Ric

I may be remembering wrong that it was Gurr who supposedly had the second key but I'm quite sure that both keys were accounted for.  Maybe somebody wants to go back and dig that information out.

Your impression of the situation with regard to 500 kcs is not correct. The WE13C transmitter came from the factory with a provision for three crystal-controlled frequencies.  Prior to the first World Flight attempt Earhart's transmitter was set up with crystals for 3105 kcs, 6210 kcs, and 500 kcs. It is true that 500 kcs was useful only for code and required a trailing wire antenna for effective propagation but for the first World  Flight attempt the aircraft carried a navigator/radio operator (Harry Manning) who was adept at code and the Electra was equipped with a trailing wire antenna. Both Manning and the trailing wire were absent for the second World flight attempt.  Gurr had lengthened the dorsal vee antenna in an attempt to provide a modicum of capability on 500 kcs but all he really accomplished was screwing up 310 5 and 6210. There was no reason for Earhart to carry a morse-sending key on the second attempt.  She had no real capability on 500 kcs and neither she nor Noonan could send or read morse anyway.