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Author Topic: Benedictine bottle  (Read 10990 times)

Ric Gillespie

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Benedictine bottle
« on: October 29, 2018, 12:48:00 PM »

The Benedictine bottle is a unique case.  Gallagher apparently never saw it.  He arrived to take up residence on Gardner in late August or early September 1941.  Native Magistrate Buakee Koata left the island to get medical attention at the Central Hospital on Tarawa about that time, probably on the same ship that brought Gallagher.
• Some time after arriving but before September 23, Gallagher heard about the skull that was buried, went to the site and found the partial skeleton etc.  Somebody told him that Koata had found a bottle at the site and had taken it with him to Tarawa.
• On September 23, Gallagher wired David Wernham, the Acting Administrative officer in Tarawa, asking him to intercept Koata when he arrived. "Grateful you retain bottle in safe place for present and ask Koata not to talk about skull which is just possibly that of Amelia Earhardt.(sic)" 
• The same day Gallagher wires the Resident Commissioner on Ocean Island notifying him of the discovery. He mentions the bottle but not what kind of bottle.
• A week later (Sept. 30), Wernham wired Gallagher, "Koata has handed to me on benedictine bottle."
• The next day, October 1, the Resident Commissioner notifies the High Commissioner in Fiji of Gallagher's discovery but he does not mention the bottle.
• The same day, the Resident Commissioner wires Gallagher with a series of questions including, "Is there any indication as to contents of bottle?"
Gallagher now knows what kind of bottle it was and replies in a telegram to the Resident Commissioner on October 6, " 'Benedictine' bottle but no indication of contents."

That's the last mention of the bottle.  The High Commission in Fiji never knew about it and apparently nobody ever collected it from Wernham.
So what do we know about the bottle?
• We know Koata had it before Gallagher arrived.
• We know Gallagher believed it was found near the skull.
• We know Wernham was able to identify it as a Benedictine bottle.  Benedictine bottles have the name embossed into the glass so Wernham could know what it was even if the label was missing.

How might it have gotten to the island?
• On Norwich City?  Possibly, but nobody intentionally brought it ashore.  When the ship caught fire and the lifeboats were either wrecked of capsized, everybody had to swim for their lives.
• Was it among the cache of provisions brought ashore by the rescue party from SS Trongate?  Possibly.  Those provisions might have included a bottle of Benedictine as "medicinal brandy."  The provisions were intentionally left on the island for future castaways.
• On USS Bushnell?  Possibly, but it's not the sort of thing you'd expect a navy survey party to have.
• Flotsam and jetsam wash up.  Possibly.
• Brought ashore from the Electra by Earhart or Noonan?  Possible, but there is no indication that there was ever alcohol aboard the airplane.

Of the possibilities I can think of, the cache left for future cutaways seems like the most likely source.

How might it have gotten to the castaway site?
• Brought there by the work party that found the skull?  No, it was the work party who found it.
• Brought by a Bushnell surveyor staggering through the bush, too drunk to notice the skeleton or the skull, who polished off the last of his liqueur and threw away the bottle? Possible but not likely.
• Brought there by the castaway to whom a bottle of any kind was of great value?  That's the only rational explanation I can think of.

Gallagher said he had "no indication of contents."  The bottle appears in the Floyd Kilts story as "Beside the body was a cognac bottle with fresh water in it for drinking."  We found what appears to be a system the castaway had for purifying collected rain water.
• Collect water with a concave fallen leaves and bolls in tree roots using a small bottle.  (We found such a bottle, dated 1933.)
• Boil the water in larger bottles standing in a fire. (We found the fire, the bottles, and the twisted wire that appears to have been used to hold the bottles upright.
• Put boiled water in a storage bottle.  Maybe the Benedictine bottle was the storage bottle.
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Don White

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2018, 08:11:07 PM »

The Benedictine bottle has seemed to me a less likely Earhart artifact. There's no known record of alcoholic beverages on board the Electra. It might once have been postulated to have been brought on board by that notorious drunkard Fred Noonan, but he's been rehabilitated and is no longer considered to have been that much of a drunkard (no more so that was usual for American men in the 1930s). And would weight-conscious Amelia have given up the weight of some more fuel for a bottle of booze?

Navy regs about alcohol on board ships being what they are, the USS Bushnell also seems an unlikely (though not impossible) source.

That leaves the Norwich City camp, and they did say they had some 'brandy' and that they left the supplies in the camp for some other unfortunate future castaways to use.

LTM,
Don White
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2018, 08:18:15 PM »

That leaves the Norwich City camp, and they did say they had some 'brandy' and that they left the supplies in the camp for some other unfortunate future castaways to use.

Where did they mention having some brandy? (I’m just being lazy and not looking it up myself.)

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Matt Revington

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2018, 06:58:49 AM »

Not the Norwich City camp but this written account from the New Zealand Pacific Aviation Survey  Expedition mentions drinking a bottle of "medicinal" brandy on the Island
"Christmas was drawing nigh and we were wondering what we had to celebrate with. I had two bottles of brandy in the stores — for medical purposes but we decided that we would break out one bottle for X’mas day. On that day the cook excelled himself and he produced a meal of turtle steak and lobster. We all got slightly tiddly on the brandy and considering our isolation we had a very good day."

https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Hay_Journal/hayjournal.html

I found a  link about  Benedictine where it is mentioned as originally being considered a medicinal liqueur.
https://magazine.winesworld.net/medicinal-liqueurs-benedictine-chartreuse/3928/

« Last Edit: October 30, 2018, 07:10:05 AM by Matt Revington »
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2018, 07:24:38 AM »

That's pretty good but, assuming that:
• The Kiwi's medicinal brandy was Benedictine.
• They finished it off in their Christmas celebration.
• They left the empty bottle behind when they left in February 1939.

That still doesn't explain how the bottle got to the castaway campsite at the other end of the island.  The Kiwis were never there and the first time the Gilbertese were there was in April 1940 when the skull, and presumably the bottle, were found.

The best explanation seems to be that the bottle was in the Norwich City cache in 1929 and that the cache was subsequently found by the castaway.  That hypothesis is supported by the next topic - the "small corks with brass chains" found with the bones.
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Bill Mangus

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2018, 08:44:40 AM »


The best explanation seems to be that the bottle was in the Norwich City cache in 1929 and that the cache was subsequently found by the castaway.  That hypothesis is supported by the next topic - the "small corks with brass chains" found with the bones.


There's another, perhaps less likely option.  Read what the Bushnell survey crew found when they explored the wreck of the Norwich City

https://tighar.org/aw/mediawiki/images/0/0a/Bushnell_Part_2.pdf

(Start about 2/3 of the way down at their Part IV VI Items of Interest, on page numbered 21, which is the 11th page of the PDF file)

They do say the wreck was gutted by fire but "crockery and old silver pieces" seems to have survived.  Perhaps the captain of the NC had a bottle of Benedictine in his cabin that AE/FN could have found if they also explored the wreck
« Last Edit: October 30, 2018, 07:54:33 PM by Bruce Thomas »
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Don White

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2018, 02:30:00 PM »

My fault. I didn't look it up either -- I remembered a mention of brandy in connection with the Norwich City rescue and didn't bother to look up the reference.

Don White
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2018, 08:17:51 AM »

Correction:
In puzzling over the origin of the Benedictine bottle I acknowledged that it could be one of the "two bottles of brandy" the New Zealand survey party consumed in their Christmas celebration. 
But, "That still doesn't explain how the bottle got to the castaway campsite at the other end of the island.  The Kiwis were never there..."
We don't actually know that the Kiwis were never there.  We do know that the focus of their activity was the NW end of the atoll which they surveyed in detail to determine its suitability for the construction of a landing strip, and the lagoon where they laid out and marked a safe area for flying boat operations. There is nothing in the record to suggest they explored the rest of the island on foot (which would take weeks). Information about the rest of the island was obtained primarily from the aerial photos taken by a Supermarine Walrus launched from HMS Leander. 
It is possible that one of the surveyors, hiking through the bush at the far end of the island and, for some reason, carrying a Benedictine bottle, happened to drop it in the vicinity of the skeleton without noticing the bones or the skull.  It doesn't seem likely, but it didn't seem likely that the sextant box would turn out to be from the Bushnell survey. 
One can always speculate that events for which there is no evidence may have occurred.  Such speculation is meaningless unless supporting documentation is found.
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Kevin Weeks

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2018, 08:38:24 AM »

actually, the kiwis were there. the report says they did a detailed survey of the NW corner then did a survey of the island perimeter so that puts them in the vicinity at some point. also of note, one of the crew on the boat that brought the kiwi's was a scotsman who drank heavily and was known for his ability to handle extreme amounts of alcohol. Mentioned on the trip to gardner was a storm they encountered where the scotsman "could barely get the bottle to his lips". this was not a military ship or crew so it's harder to tell what may or may not have made it ashore.
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Matt Revington

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2018, 10:16:40 AM »

One minor point is that Benedictine is a liqueur not  brandy.  According to the wiki page Benedictine and Brandy (B&B) was developed in the 1930s although I don't see details as to when and where it was first marketed.  As far as I can see the initial reports refer to a benedictine bottle although the regular benedictine and the B&B bottles looked very similar so they could easily have been confused.
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Kevin Weeks

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2018, 11:41:29 AM »

it is also possible the bottle came ashore during the wreck and rescue of the norwich city. there was plenty of time to load the lifeboats with supplies before they abandoned ship and also, there were supplies sent ashore by the rescue ships. aside from actual rations none of the supplies are listed.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #11 on: November 01, 2018, 12:01:42 PM »

actually, the kiwis were there.
 

Depends on how you define "there."

the report says they did a detailed survey of the NW corner then did a survey of the island perimeter so that puts them in the vicinity at some point.
 

A map of the perimeter survey is shown at the end of Part II.
The little circles are survey points.  It looks like they plotted the position of most of the points by taking bearings on one of the three 80 ft towers they erected. There are no lines shown connecting the towers to points at the southeast end, probably because those points were too far way to see the towers.  The position of those points were probably plotted by taking celestial observations with a sextant.  The closest circle to the castaway location is on the ocean beach roughly a mile away.
If you haven't been there, it can be hard to appreciate how remote and isolated the castaway campsite is.  The spot where the bones were found is 80 meters of dense vegetation from the beach.  If you're there, a brass band could march past on the beach and, due to the ambient noise of wind in the trees and surf on the reef, you'd never know it.
 
also of note, one of the crew on the boat that brought the kiwi's was a scotsman who drank heavily and was known for his ability to handle extreme amounts of alcohol.

"The crew of the Yanawai consisted of the Captain named Bray who always had a bible with him, Mad Mac McGregor, a Scotsman famous throughout the Pacific as a navigator and his colossal capacity for strong drink and a half-caste Fijian named McFadjen [?] as mate."

As a Scot, I'll take that as a compliment, but Mad Mac was the navigator on the chartered vessel Yanawai. The ship left after dropping off the survey party and returned later to pick them up.

It still seems most likely that the Benedictine bottle was delivered to the castaway site by the castaway, but there's no apparent connection between a bottle of Benedictine and Amelia Earhart so it's a moot point.
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Kevin Weeks

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #12 on: November 01, 2018, 12:33:11 PM »

my definition was loose, which is why I said "in the vicinity"

the kiwis had no such towers, those were erected by the bushnell crew. not sure how the kiwis did the perimeter survey, but their report states it.

yes, it took them 10 days to unload the supplies from the yanawai... 700 gallons worth of water hauled onto shore in 44gallon drums via the norwich city... must have been a big job. there was obviously alcohol on the boat.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #13 on: November 01, 2018, 12:53:36 PM »

the kiwis had no such towers, those were erected by the bushnell crew. not sure how the kiwis did the perimeter survey, but their report states it.

You're right.  I got the two survey's confused. My bad.
The New Zealanders didn't describe how they surveyed the perimeter but the castaway site is not on the perimeter of the atoll, so there's no evidence that the Kiwis were there.

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Kevin Weeks

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Re: Benedictine bottle
« Reply #14 on: November 02, 2018, 08:04:50 AM »


You're right.  I got the two survey's confused. My bad.
The New Zealanders didn't describe how they surveyed the perimeter but the castaway site is not on the perimeter of the atoll, so there's no evidence that the Kiwis were there.

speaking of which, the broad island survey map they did has several notes on it that I cannot read. any chance you have a copy that is legible? It looks like they made notations about portions of the wooded areas not directly in the aerodrome location. this may indicate further explorations. I do remember reading the journal of one party member that stated how bored they were, to the point that they were wading into the water and shooting sharks to watch them attack each other.

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