Notes on Visit of Leith to Phoenix Island Feb 1937

[Matt Revington]

I found a link to this document on the University of Adelaide site, I searched and could not find this particular document previously on the Tighar site, " Notes on Various Islands of the Phoenix Group Visited in HMS Leith February 1937" ( I apologize if it has been posted before)
link: https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/79868/1/Notes%20of%20Pheonix%20Islands...%20visited%20in%20H.M.S.%20Leith.%20February%201937.pdf

Nothing really new here but a more detailed description of what they saw on Gardner.

[Ric Gillespie]

Thanks Matt.  I don't think that has ever been posted or put on the website but we've had a copy of it since early in the project.  Leith's visit was, as far as we know, the last human contact with the island before the Earhart disappearance five months later.  The question is, where was the "flag planted and board erected close to the edge of the scrub about 50 yards south of the landing-place in the centre of the bay between Reef Point and South West Point."?  The landmarks clearly refer to the map produced from the 1935 survey by HMS Wellington.  The location described is roughly where the landing channel was later blasted.  Could the flag and board be the "signs of recent habitation" seen by Lambrecht?  If Lambrecht had seen a flag pole, with or without flag, it seems like he would have said so.  He later recalled that what he saw was "markers of some kind." Would he call a flag pole "markers of some kind"?  November to March is storm season in the Phoenix Group (ask me how I know).  Anything erected on the beach in February could easily be gone by July.

[Jerry Germann]

  November to March is storm season in the Phoenix Group (ask me how I know).  Anything erected on the beach in February could easily be gone by July.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/huge-quake-hits-solomon-islands-tsunami-alert-lifted/ar-AAljFIj?li=BBnb7Kz

Here goes another one.