I found an interesting page about Leo G. Bellarts and his thoughts about what happened that day.
It might be interesting to add some foot notes to the transmission page to capture is later statements.
Example:
“Earhart stated: ‘Want bearing on 3105 KCS on hour, will whistle in mike’. That came in at 0614 hrs. She said on the hour and here it was 14 minutes after the hour. One minute later she comes on an said we’re about 200 miles out approximately and she was not whistling. I put down whistle, because she said she was whistling, actually it was audible sound (yells). That’s what she was doing. As to the log I didn’t put the word approximately in the correct spot. She said she was approximately 200 miles out and I just typed about 200 miles out approximately. I reversed the English on her”.
http://www.wingsoverkansas.com/earhart/article.asp?id=955Interesting quotes from the page:
Sometime during the search, items were being taken out of the radio shack. The Executive Officer, Lieutenant Commander Baker ordered Chief Bellarts to lock up the Earhart log plus any other information he deemed pertinent. But, sometime prior to this the original 3 pages of the Earhart Log were retyped and were added to the other official logs/messages that were turned over to the Coast Guard upon completion of the cruise. These were later submitted to the National Archives in Washington D.C.. The major problem is that this retype made two typing errors: (1) at 0818. GA WID 3105 was omitted, and (2) at 0843, AS was typed instead of S5 (Radio Strength level 5) as on the original log.
Chief Bellarts kept the first three pages of the Earhart Flight Log plus other messages and pertinent information under lock and key. Upon arriving at his homeport (San Diego, California) Chief Bellarts removed these documents thinking that there would be some type of investigation by higher authority and he would be called to testify. But this never happened. Thus, these papers, including the three pages of the original Earhart Flight Log, remained in his possession until his death in 1974. His two sons, Leo Jr. and David Bellarts donated these papers and other items concerning Amelia Earhart in 1975 to the National Archives in Washington D.C.
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When Cipriani finally returned to the ITASCA on 18 July, he brought the D/F back on board. During the trip back to Hawaii Chief Bellarts took the unit apart and discovered that the wires were all tangled and broken off at the terminals. The D/F was operated by rotating a loop in an oscillating (side to side) manner to try to determine the direction of a radio signal. The oscillating movement was necessary because there were wires attached to the underside of the loop, which would break if the loop was rotated continuously in either direction. Later models had slip rings added to prevent wires from breaking. After repairing the D/F, Chief Bellarts said nothing about it. He knew Cipriani hadn’t received any training on how to run the device and it would have served no purpose to get him in trouble. The D/F was an experimental model and came from the Navy and was loaned to the ITASCA by District Radio Electrician H.M. Anthony, in Honolulu. It was a small unit, less than one watt in power and used dry batteries, just small enough that it could be carried under one arm and didn’t weight as much as a small TV set.
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Gun Batteries for the D/F on Howland: “I was not aware the batteries ran down during the night. In fact that is incorrect. Don’t recall exactly which gun battery we used, but they were all OK until after she apparently “went in”. Some one is guessing and they haven’t guessed the correct answer, which will remain with me”.
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Earhart’s Voice: “The last time we heard her voice it was so loud and clear that you could hear her outside the radio shack. We heard her quite a few times, but that last time, it sounded as if she would have broken out in a scream if she hadn’t stopped talking. She was just about ready to break into tears and go into hysterics, that’s exactly the way I’d describe her voice, I’ll never forget it”.