I have looked hard and found no dialogue on this subject. Decided this was best place to put it. It is a discussion about maps, grids, and Datums. This is important to understand how to visualize errors in maps and resultant plotting, navigating, and location errors.
I start with the conviction that you can go to Howland with your handheld GPS and find coordinates that do not match any given in historical records for the island. This is perfectly expected and explainable.
Start with Datum and work our way to grid. Think of the Datum as the model of the Earth's surface. In a perfect world it is a perfect sphere. In reality it is not. More like a grapefruit. Imperfections abound. It is also always changing. We became very aware of this when we started to use GPS with extreme accuracy but found we were still off, especially trying to drop that bomb accurately on GPS. The quality of the coordinates is critical and it isn't all about how many digits right of the decimal point. There have been many models of the Earth, Clark 1866, North American Datum 1927 (NAD27), World Geodetic Survey 1984 (WGS84), etc. Look on a map and you will find the Datum. The difference between these Datums could be zero or a lot depending on where you are looking.
Then we take a grid system and overlay it on that model of the Earth. It could be Lat/Long or another system. For this discussion will stick to LL.
So where something (Howland) is in relation to you is always the same but where it is on your map will vary depending on the Datum and it's accuracy. I have no idea what Datum was used on FNs maps of S Pacific but I can guarantee it was not as accurate as the new WGS Datums used by GPS.
To this point I have only discussed grid/Datum errors. Add plotting errors and you can see how you might draw a line on a 1937 map, plot the course, and not arrive at your destination even with the best nav. Where an island was plotted in 1937 probably was not very accurate so the deltas add up. All that being said, the error was usually within the navigational error of the day. Ok if you are looking for USA or even Hawaii. Harder when you are aiming for an island the size of the terminal at Atlanta IAP.
So, 20 hours of flight, 1937 quality nav, unknown WX with good potential for rain squalls that could hide your tiny island for hours. Having no options other than looking till you run out of gas is found in my dictionary under STOOPID. I don't think FN was.
That's my technical assessment.
TWW
JB