The Benedictine bottle is a unique case. Gallagher apparently never saw it. He arrived to take up residence on Gardner in late August or early September 1941. Native Magistrate Buakee Koata left the island to get medical attention at the Central Hospital on Tarawa about that time, probably on the same ship that brought Gallagher.
• Some time after arriving but before September 23, Gallagher heard about the skull that was buried, went to the site and found the partial skeleton etc. Somebody told him that Koata had found a bottle at the site and had taken it with him to Tarawa.
• On September 23, Gallagher wired David Wernham, the Acting Administrative officer in Tarawa, asking him to intercept Koata when he arrived. "Grateful you retain bottle in safe place for present and ask Koata not to talk about skull which is just possibly that of Amelia Earhardt.(sic)"
• The same day Gallagher wires the Resident Commissioner on Ocean Island notifying him of the discovery. He mentions the bottle but not what kind of bottle.
• A week later (Sept. 30), Wernham wired Gallagher, "Koata has handed to me on benedictine bottle."
• The next day, October 1, the Resident Commissioner notifies the High Commissioner in Fiji of Gallagher's discovery but he does not mention the bottle.
• The same day, the Resident Commissioner wires Gallagher with a series of questions including, "Is there any indication as to contents of bottle?"
Gallagher now knows what kind of bottle it was and replies in a telegram to the Resident Commissioner on October 6, " 'Benedictine' bottle but no indication of contents."
That's the last mention of the bottle. The High Commission in Fiji never knew about it and apparently nobody ever collected it from Wernham.
So what do we know about the bottle?
• We know Koata had it before Gallagher arrived.
• We know Gallagher believed it was found near the skull.
• We know Wernham was able to identify it as a Benedictine bottle. Benedictine bottles have the name embossed into the glass so Wernham could know what it was even if the label was missing.
How might it have gotten to the island?
• On Norwich City? Possibly, but nobody intentionally brought it ashore. When the ship caught fire and the lifeboats were either wrecked of capsized, everybody had to swim for their lives.
• Was it among the cache of provisions brought ashore by the rescue party from SS Trongate? Possibly. Those provisions might have included a bottle of Benedictine as "medicinal brandy." The provisions were intentionally left on the island for future castaways.
• On USS Bushnell? Possibly, but it's not the sort of thing you'd expect a navy survey party to have.
• Flotsam and jetsam wash up. Possibly.
• Brought ashore from the Electra by Earhart or Noonan? Possible, but there is no indication that there was ever alcohol aboard the airplane.
Of the possibilities I can think of, the cache left for future cutaways seems like the most likely source.
How might it have gotten to the castaway site?
• Brought there by the work party that found the skull? No, it was the work party who found it.
• Brought by a Bushnell surveyor staggering through the bush, too drunk to notice the skeleton or the skull, who polished off the last of his liqueur and threw away the bottle? Possible but not likely.
• Brought there by the castaway to whom a bottle of any kind was of great value? That's the only rational explanation I can think of.
Gallagher said he had "no indication of contents." The bottle appears in the Floyd Kilts story as "Beside the body was a cognac bottle with fresh water in it for drinking." We found what appears to be a system the castaway had for purifying collected rain water.
• Collect water with a concave fallen leaves and bolls in tree roots using a small bottle. (We found such a bottle, dated 1933.)
• Boil the water in larger bottles standing in a fire. (We found the fire, the bottles, and the twisted wire that appears to have been used to hold the bottles upright.
• Put boiled water in a storage bottle. Maybe the Benedictine bottle was the storage bottle.