Ric, Andrew, and Randy....
When I first saw this navigational chart...I was in question about Williams plotting out two different courses on this map. One going from Howland Island to Lae, New Guinea and the other going from Port Moresby to south of Howland Island. Was this mainly used as a back up plan in case she had to turn around and go back or do these marking indicate something else. Very curious to know. Also, in relation to what Noonan knew about their location, one wanders how much knowledge he had about the charts. If the charts he were using from Pan American...one might speculate that these would be accurate and precise. As a navigator, you would assume that he's been over these waters before...which something tells me he has. Also, with Noonan's knowledge of using the sextant, would he be able to tell the difference in position from the map to the sextant? Say for example the 6 mile difference from Williams map to the current location as noted on Google?