it leaves me wandering how much structural damage did the Electra suffer when she ground looped in Hawaii.

The damage is well documented in photos and the Lockheed repair orders.

What drives me to curiosity is did the back two windows suffer damage or pop out when she came down hard.

No, they did not.

Another thing that I'm led to believe after reading Ric's update is the elusive patch served as an emergency exit the second time when she landed at Gardner Island (Niku). If this be the case, it would have served as a fast means of exiting the plane had the tail end of the Electra landed in water, and the plane door on the other side of the plane was badly damaged!

There was a hatch over the pilot's seat.

After reading excerpts from Betty's notebook....you wander if this is true beings how Fred was in a panic to get out of the plane. All you had to do was one swift kick and the patch would fall off the plane.

One swift kick wouldn't do it.  Even if the bottom edge failed due to flexing of the weakened empennage, the other edges remained firmly riveted ti the aircraft.  It's looking more and more like Earhart and/or Noonan removed the patch, probably to increase ventilation, but it was not an easy process.

Its late and like most Earhart enthusiasts and researchers we find these late hours and nights as ways to fuel our desire of wanting to know the what if's and the what not's. After reading Ric's recent update of the patch analysis and film scanning...its like sneaking under the Christmas tree Christmas morning wanting to know what you got. The anticipation... the long await. That's what it feels like!!! The excitement!!! and finally the answer we've all been waiting for. After reading his followup update...it leaves me wandering how much structural damage did the Electra suffer when she ground looped in Hawaii. What drives me to curiosity is did the back two windows suffer damage or pop out when she came down hard. Another thing that I'm led to believe after reading Ric's update is the elusive patch served as an emergency exit the second time when she landed at Gardner Island (Niku). If this be the case, it would have served as a fast means of exiting the plane had the tail end of the Electra landed in water, and the plane door on the other side of the plane was badly damaged! After reading excerpts from Betty's notebook....you wander if this is true beings how Fred was in a panic to get out of the plane. All you had to do was one swift kick and the patch would fall off the plane. If the patch pans out to be a true piece of evidence and history in the making...we all have to take this as our elusive smoking gun. Like many...we may never know exactly what became of the plane...but we have documented evidence to prove that she indeed landed there if the patch is the one item that came off the Electra. In regards to the person who filmed Amelia at Lae...they are exactly right....Landing on Howland would take alot of skill and knowledge...Landing on Gardner Island (Niku) was luck and guts. As for those that have the theory that she was taken captive by the Japanese...I highly believe that to be untrue. If the Americans couldnt find her...how in the heck did the Japanese find her! The stories from the rescue of the Norwich City crew, and those of you who've been to Niku for days...leaves no doubt that Gardner Island was no picnic area. It may be a tiny atoll or reef, but it also served as a grave yard. I'm really excited for Ric and Jeff in the coming days. It might end the final chapter or the start of a new journey. Anyway...need to hear more from all you guys out there...Good Luck Ric and Jeff!!!

I'm not sure why you're asking about Norwich City, unless you think Amelia might have mistaken her for a moving ship and tried to signal her.

Not only was the Norwich City stationary, she arrived at that location by being off course. I often imagine with a shudder what it was like to hit that reef in the dark and stormy night when they didn't even know it was there. And if they'd been just a smidgen to the left of that course, they'd have missed it entirely and probably never known what a close call they'd had.

As far as Amelia was concerned, there's no indication she had ever heard of the Norwich City before the flight. There are, of course, credible radio messages in which she may be attempting to have listeners identify her location by giving the name of the shipwreck. This also supports the likelihood that neither she nor Fred knew much, if anything, about Gardner Island in advance of landing on it.

LTM,
Don

One thing that was mentioned was she would search for ships below and fly back several miles and line herself with the ship. At times she would fly low enough and tip her wings to let them know she was there.

She did write that in Last Flight and it's a good example of how naive and uninformed she was.  If she saw a ship she would have no way of knowing its intended destination so flying back several miles to line herself up with it would make no sense.  To fly low enough and tip her wings to them would involve descending and then making a fuel-expensive climb back to her economical cruising altitude. There is no evidence that she ever did that.

If this be the case..would there be any navigational charts for ships in the area such as the Norwich City, that would indicate a path taken?

Navigational charts don't show shipping routes.

Over the weekend while searching for Syd Marshall stuff..I ran across several things of interest. One thing that caught my eye was from Amelia's own words in her book "Last Flight". This was mentioned in an Austrailian newspaper found on the net. In the article she mentions about "dead reckoning" and how she would get herself back on course if by chance she was off course. One thing that was mentioned was she would search for ships below and fly back several miles and line herself with the ship. At times she would fly low enough and tip her wings to let them know she was there. If this be the case..would there be any navigational charts for ships in the area such as the Norwich City, that would indicate a path taken? Also, in the newspaper article Syd mentions the time that Amelia made a surprise visit. He said it was very neat to watch her approach the airport. He mentions that while she was there she spent alot of time working on the Electra.

Thanks Don.  I've registered and submitted a query on that forum.

I wonder if someone on this forum (if it still exists) could point us in the right direction to find Sid's film?

https://www.pprune.org/pacific-general-aviation-questions/455115-sid-marshall-s-dh-89-a-2.html

There's a mention in this forum of some of Sid's films in a 9th Dec 2011 post from 'sixtiesrelic' that's kind of interesting.

All "home movie" or "amateur" size films -- which were 8mm and 16mm -- were on acetate "safety" base even in the 1930s. My grandfather made 8mm movies in the 1930s (my relatives still have them, and I have his camera) and these were on acetate base. It does deteriorate, but it doesn't become an explosive the way nitrate base does (nitrate as in nitrocellulose or "gun cotton," nitroglycerine, etc.). Apparently the continuing use of nitrate base film in 35mm commercial movies was not because acetate wasn't available, but because nitrate was considered to have desirable characteristics that made the risk of fire worth it, when handled by professionals presumed to know what they were doing. The deterioration of nitrate base was either not yet known (since it takes time to happen) or not considered important, since the movie companies did not usually think that their films would have value after their initial runs. The current desire to preserve every moment of everything forever was not part of their view. This in part may come from the relative newness of the ability (back then) to preserve performances. Performers themselves were oriented toward live performance, and didn't tend to think of recordings or films as preserving for posterity -- performing artists expected their work to die with them. This didn't change until much later. Nor did any movie company anticipate that their products could still have commercial value decades later.

The whereabouts of the original Last Takeoff film is turning out to be quite a mystery.  The collections manager at the National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA) has searched under every imaginable subject, category, and title - but no joy.   I asked if there is a chance that the film might have been of the old and dangerous nitrate variety and was destroyed rather than transferred.  he replied, "It's true that most, if not all films in the National Library of Australia's (NLA) collection were transferred to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), after the NFSA was established in 1984. Some foreign nitrate films were repatriated to overseas archives in the 1990s, but these are still listed on our database and it would be improbable that a film shot in New Guinea would have been repatriated. Besides, it's highly unlikely that this film would have been shot on nitrate stock as to the best of my knowledge all nitrate film is 35mm, so if it was 16mm, it would have been acetate or safety stock. Like Amelia Earhart herself, the disappearance of the film is a mystery, but will let you know if I get any leads."

My next step will be to go back to the NLA and ask if there are records that might confirm that the film was once in their collections and, if so, where it went.