Unfortunately, there is no way to know.
Ric. I think your words are the operating principle for any exercise in this context! That said, I had this thought. The Coast Guard got the info it sent to
Itasca on the 4th, the same day that Dana reported having heard AE. That makes me think from the
primacy perspective that the "reef southeast of Howland Isl." component is what Dana heard and reported to the C.G., or more likely to the party that contacted the C.G. (Do we know who that was? Dana's father?)
You can imagine what Dana's experience created in the Randolph family and the neighborhood. I can see maps coming out and many fingers pointing at Howland sitting there
just above the equator. But SE of Howland there was nothing written about a "reef;"and how many people know that reef and island atoll are a peas in a pod expression anyway? What I am saying is that reef southeast of Howland may have morphed into the simpler, barebones description of, "Dana heard her say that she's on a reef south of the equator." And with enough repetition, that is what Dana recalled three days later when the paper interviewed him.
I hear you regarding the implication of Dana hearing "
a ship" (
Norwich City on Gardner) versus "[my] ship" as per the Electra. I put it to scholars more knowledgable about AE minutiae than I: did AE regularly refer to aircraft as ships? (I think I recall seeing that somewhere). Well, if she did, then that, in conjunction with what Dana recalled, probably swings the odds over to AE meaning her aircraft was on a reef SE of Howland Island, which isn't a bad consolation prize!
Guthrie