Chronology of known visits to Gardner Island after wreck of SS Norwich City
• February 15, 1937, HMS Leith visited to erect a flagpole and placard proclaiming the island property of His Majesty the King.
• July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan may have landed on the reef (posited).
• October 13, 1937, Maude, Bevington and 19 Gilbertese “delegates” explored the island.
• November 30, 1938, New Zealand Pacific Aviation Survey Expedition team of 15 men arrived.
• December 21, 1938, Maude and Gallagher dropped off a work party of 10 Gilbertese settlers.
Photo taken by NZ Survey Expedition shows 1st Camp in state of disarray. You would suppose then that at some time after the rescue of the SS Norwich Crew that the camp was disturbed by?
Sailors from HMS Leith looking for keepsakes
AE/FN caster ways looking for survival items
Other unknown visitors
Local fauna
Island colonists
Maude and Bevington make no mention of the first camp, does this mean that it has now disappeared into the jungle or that they just missed it?
Maude and Bevington do make reference to a sign of recent habitation that could be the remains of the other Norwich City camp(s) or possible Arundle workers planting. In a TIGHAR interview these were described as low mounds.
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.htmlIf the first work party found the camp or camps then with no presence of Maude or Gallagher then it may have missed official records.
http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_61_1952/Volume_61%2C_No._1_%2B_2/The_colonization_of_the_Phoenix_Islands%2C_by_H._E._Maude%2C_p_62-89/p1?page=0&action=searchresult&target=Knowing the bureaucratic detail of the PISS operation it would be likely that had Gallagher been aware of the camp and its contents then there would have been an official report on its finding.