An additional point to ponder: as we know from the Niku Overflight Video the size and shape of Gardner Island are different from what was depicted on maps in 1937. AE and FN may have been thinking "well it doesn't match what's on the map but hey, it's land! We'll figure out where we are once we're on the ground." ........
Actually, I like this one....as well as not wanting to confuse matters with unverified guesses. Let me throw in this compleatly hypothetical corollary to the notion......
If we assume that Betty's Notebook is accurate and what Betty heard were indeed authentic distress calls (I do, actually)....then all indications are that FN was not of lucid mind most of the time...or at all...after their arrival. And while FN might have known (even in the face of the charting errors) where they were, after their arrival (and the injuries sustained therein) he wasn't in any condition to remember.
I can see where in planning FN would have had Gardner (or maybe not specifically Gardner but 'one of the islands in this group right here' ) in his back pocket as a backup plan, yet not fully discussed every little detail of the matter with AE. Navigation was his department and keeping the airplane upright, running, and pointed in the right direction was hers. All indications seem to be that AE did indeed believe her own press and may very well have dismissed any real trepidation over not finding Howland. Although, there might have been discussion of 'what do we do if we don't find it'....the discussion in her mind may have been something in the neighbourhood of 'we can deviate to this island group here on the chart I am pointing to...surely we'll find one of them'.
Surely FN was not so lackadaisical about such details, but AE didn't seem to be big on minutia...especially on things that weren't her department. Let's face it, this is the person who didn't bother to fully learn and understand the DF radio she was betting their lives on. And that WAS her department. If that wasn't important enough for her to spend time on, then the names of potential backup waypoints probably weren't either. Or at least not enough to commit them all permanently to memory. The fact that Fred had a plan that he was confident in may very well have been enough for her to go on.
Once in flight and not having found Howland, the discussion was probably more concerned with headings, time, winds, and fuel, than the names of places. As Friend puts it 'I'll worry about asking Fred what its called we when we're on the ground." Only....once on the ground, the fellow who knew the name of it now wasn't even capable of counting his toes. And, even with the charts in her hands...her knowledge conceivably may have been limited to 'we're somewhere on one of these islands'.
Just a thought. Utter unfounded speculation, admittedly. (Therefore, worth less than the time I spent typing it.) But, a thought nonetheless.
LTM,
.....twb