I think that Campbell's theory has pretty much been shot to hell the preceding critiques,
which are mostly technical, the best kind. However, one of my biggest problems with these
theories is the way they blithely assume that the Japanese would have made the two flyers
prisoners, and then executed them!! That's quite a claim and one I find totally illogical.
You may be aware that before the war the Japanese air force had inadvertently bombed
an American navy ship in China, killing several American military personnel. The Japanese govt
immediately and profusely apologized and made financial restitution for the victims. I
mention this to illustrate that, in 1937, Japanese/American relations were hardly on a
wartime footing. It would be another 3 years before the Japanese would even become
a member of the Axis and Japan depended upon U.S. oil, scrap iron and steel, which
she could not obtain elsewhere. The incident in China put local Japanese commanders
and officials on full notice that they were not to act independently vis a vis American
nationals. So the idea that a local Japanese official or commander would take the obviously
extreme action of executing a world-famous American woman without higher authorization
is totally ridiculous. And it can be assumed with confidence that the higher authority would
eventually have to be the Emperor Hirohito, and furthermore, that Hirohito would under
no circumstances which I can imagine, have allowed such an execution to take place.
It should seem obvious that the Japanese would return Earhart safely to the Americans
and reap enormous goodwill from the American populace. The preceding I believe to be
a strong argument against any of the "Japs-capture-execute-Amelia" theories. They
blithely assume the (to me) totally implausible.