The reason I'm asking these questions is to see if this critic's arguments are valid. Both the ideas that the skeleton is of a Norwich City sailor and the bones of other ship victims were found all over the beaches are points he uses to discount a key element of TIGHAR's hypothesis. So let's look at each claim in greater detail...
1) The skeleton (presumably found at the 7 Site) was a Norwich City sailor: In searching the site, I'm not seeing anything to refute the idea of the bones being a sailor. The most compelling argument seems to be the rumor about women's shoes being found on or near the skeleton, but this rumor seems to come solely from the
Floyd Kilts story which contains a number of inaccurate or at least dubious details.
A fellow named
Herman De Wulf had an interesting idea to search the English registry on sailors to see if data existed on the Norwich City victims that could eliminate them as sources for the skeletal remains. Alas, not much luck...
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 10:13:32 EST
From: Herman De Wulf
Subject: THE MISSING ARABS
I tried to make myself useful and did some research for TIGHAR in the Public
Records Office in London and help Kenton Spading identifying the bones
on Gardner Island and to establish whether any of the missing Arab sailors
on the S.S. Norwich City had the size to fit them. I sent the result of my
search to Kenton but I think the forum might also be interested in my findings.
All sailors on ships leaving England had to be registered as seamen and are well
documented. The P.R.O. has their files on film. The files contain their names,
date and place of birth, their nationality and the nationality of their father,
a description and a picture of the man and information that can be of help to
identify him on complexion, the color of their hair, the eyes and, which is important
to TIGHAR, of height. We know the names of the Arab sailors missing in S.S. Norwich
City. But the records at the P.R.O. in London show no trace of Redman Yousef, Saleb
Ragee, Said Metana, Ayed Naif and Ahmad Hassan. There are plenty of Redman but none
called Yousef, plenty of Saleb but none called Ragee, plenty of Said but none called
Metanna, plenty of Ayed but no Naif and heaps of Ahmads but none called Hassan. I
took a whole day to check them one by one to see whether there was any mention of S.S.
Norwich City on their file. None had anything to do with the vessel. I was surprised
to see how many Salebs, Saids and Ahmads there were. One had his name changed and I
found he couldn't read nor write. This as written on his file. He signed it with x,
and apparently learned to write his first name on the left and his last name on the
right of it and had this signature recorded by the British consul. I studied their
heights and it seems all these Arabs from Aden were between 5 ft. 2 and 5 ft. 7,
with most around 5 ft. 3 or 5 ft. 5. One Ahmad Hassan was 5 ft. 6 but there was
no mention of him being in S.S. Norwich City and the dates were wrong. He is definitely
a namesake. I think the heights I found must have been typical for Arabs from Aden.
But as I said, none were on the S.S. Norwich City. I also checked the heights of the
some English sailors. T.E. Scott and and F. Summer were 5 ft. 9 1/4 and 5 ft. 3
espectively, according to the Central Register. I went to see the historians of the
P.R.O. about the missing Arabs. They had no idea why they would not be recorded.
The only explanation they could think of was that they were not registered seamen.
Normally seamen sailing from England were registered. However, it could be that
the five we are looking for were not registered as they did not sail from England
and hence there is no information on them. If any records were ever kept on them
they may have been on board the S.S. Norwich City, in which case I strongly believe
they were lost with the vessel. The historian I talked to asked the P.R.O. computer
if he could find any files on S.S. Norwich City but the machine only produced a file
number, MT9/1967, which he thinks refers to an inquiry. I gathered that the Central
Register (C.R.) cards only contain information on seamen. Mention was made on some
of them of a G.R. This, the historian thought, may refer to the General Registry
when British subjects are concerned. Since the missing Arab seamen were not British
nationals it is my guess that they would not be recorded in the General Registry
records since they were not registered seamen either.
LTM
Herman #2406
2) Shoreline covered with bones from Norwich City victims: Above, I linked the reports of the New Zealand survey party which do not support the claim of bones being found all over the beach. However, there are accounts from the native Pacific Islanders who lived on the island supporting this claim after all.
Emily Sikuli and Bauro Tikana both makes references to bones from multiple people being discovered along the shoreline as well as around the ship and/or possible airplane wreckage:
Sorting out the bones associated with the shipwreck is more difficult. Emily told Tom King of
“Maybe 10 different people whose bones were found along that area.”
(near the shipwreck). She is quite clear that these bones were found on land.
“You would come up on the reef, then the beach comes up where the island shrubs start to grow. That is where the bones were found.”
Emily’s account is consistent with the recollections of Gallagher’s clerk, Bauro Tikana, who wrote in 1991 “When we first arrived I saw the ship wreck and asked Mr. Gallagher about it. He told me that it was Norwich City. Later when the laborers were cleaning (clearing) the land they told me that they found bones near the ship. I do not know if Mr. Gallagher knew about the bones as I did not tell him about it. The laborers also told me they found bones at the other end of the atoll.”
Mr. Tikana marked a map showing that bones were found on shore near the shipwreck, but to show where the “other bones” were found he could only circle the entire southeast portion of the island.
We know that there were eleven men lost in Norwich City disaster in 1929 and that three bodies washed up and were buried by the survivors. If the burials were not very deep and were on or close to the beach, it seems possible that they may have been uncovered by storms in the ensuing ten years or so. It’s also possible that other bodies from the wreck washed up after the survivors were rescued. However, if a body from the airplane wreck (Noonan?) also washed up or was buried on that same beach it could be indistinguishable from the shipwreck bones.
Bottom line is both the critic's arguments have merit, which I was hoping would not be the case!