Here is a fresh sample of the kind of anecdote that keeps the Japanese capture theories alive.
Letter to the Editor: "Look here," Mariannas Variety, Thursday, December 30, 2010.
Emphasis added--MXM."... Here is a piece of information that might be of interest to all such researchers and others interested in the Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan mystery: Even if others have looked here before, try again looking on Saipan if you are looking for their remains. A very close relative of mine recalled a first-hand account to me several times that seems to have some thread of truth to it. He told me and others that as a young man in 1937 on Saipan, he and a group of others saw a White (American) woman and a male companion taken prisoner by the Japanese authorities. As the two were brought down from the ship and into plain sight, he and the other observers were under armed guard. The Japanese Troops ordered all of them to 'bow low' and avert their eyes and not to look at these 'secret' prisoners.
"Human nature being what it is, he glanced time and time again at this most unusual sighting of two Americans being led under guard on Saipan Island. He saw them clearly.
"He was 23 at the time and working at the Japanese seaport (now the CPA Saipan Seaport) moving drums of water for a Japanese company that took water from the spring to the port. That dock area is where he saw the two white people under guard.
He couldn’t say that the Americans he saw were Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. He couldn’t say for sure what happened to them. But
it makes sense to me that the prisoners, whoever they were, were either killed here on Saipan or sent on to Japan for questioning.
If killed here, their remains might still be found. Where did they bury prisoners during that time?
"So bring your researchers and your squads of investigators and mystery detectives to Saipan and take a look for the remains here. Wherever they crashed, they
would have been brought to the main headquarters of Imperial Japan here on Saipan. Maybe they can put the Earhart mystery to rest once and for all.
Or maybe not."
REP. STANLEY MCGINNIS TORRES
17th CNMI Legislature
Here are the kind of questions that spring to mind immediately:
- What is the name of the 23-year-old?
- Is he alive today?
- Did he document the sighting in 1937?
- Did anyone else confirm his story in writing?
- How many European, half-European, or Eurasian women were taken captive by the Japanese?
- Where did the Japanese bury prisoners on Saipan?
- Are there burial records?
- Are the graves marked?
- How many graves or grave sites are there?
- How much would it cost to exhume all the graves?
- How much money is Rep. Torres willing to invest in doing the research?
Since neither Rep. Torres nor his informant know whether the woman prisoner died on Saipan, it could well be that opening every grave and testing every set of remains would turn up negative. While it is true that this would be a very scientific enterprise that might have the chance of proving conclusively that AE and FN were not buried in any of the graves that were exhumed, it seems like a pretty expensive proposition for that kind of finding--no matter how much scientists love to falsify hypotheses.
None of these questions suggest that the Japanese capture theory is false. They do show why I am personally not inclined to accept Rep. Torres' invitation to go search Saipan.