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[Randy Conrad]

Good Morning! Just wanted to take this time and say thank you to all you armed forces veterans out there who have served your country well. Yesterday, with it being Veterans Day weekend I had the opportunity to watch the new movie "Midway". I didn't know what to expect, except I was really moved by the movie and the role it played being told by actual servicemen who were actually at Pearl Harbor and Midway. It was like it put you exactly in that place and time. As I watched the film, I started to wonder with the date December 1937. For some reason, I started wondering if indeed Amelia fell prey to a cover up or if the Japanese found her in those few days she was making contact from the island. The thing is...if Amelia was to have landed on Gardner...which most likely she would have...then the Japanese would have found the Norwich sailors before they would have found her. Afterall, the survey team showed no signs of a plane...Your bunch on a recent expedition, with the helicopter flying over couldnt spot anyone..so how could the japanese see anyone. I did have the chance to read the article Ric on the Micronesian Islands with the Japanese overtaking all the islands in the Pacific. It was a very good read. With watching the movie and reading the article it makes you wonder how much information the Japanese Empire knew of Amelia's World Flight. However, everytime I ponder on certain questions...it brings me right back to Niku. As much as the theology of the Japanese capturing her and Fred Noonan...its not enough to say they were captured...or they were caught. Its just not enough.
  In the recent National Geographic film of Robert Ballards Expedition, one thing that did catch my eye was Fred Noonan walking up the wing preparing for the last leg of the World Flight! Okay...thought you were the navigator Fred...Why didnt you just open the back door and stay in the back. So if Fred was hurt as many of us to believe...then the front right half of the plane must have taken a beating when she came in for a landing.
  Another thing that caught my eye was how Amelia and Fred went off course from her descent into Africa by 163 miles. How does one make that valuable of a screw up? Overall, the movie shed some light into that period in time and took you further into the Pacific at Midway. Anyway, would like some response on this topic.  thanks

[Randy Jacobson]

I don't think that the offset going to Africa was a screw-up, but rather deliberate.  The curve of the coastline when they first crossed provided the perfect set of geography such that by turning left, they could find their target very easily if they were on the proper LOP, simply by flying over land and reaching the coast the second time their destination would be right there.  You need to see the reconstructed map from FN's notations to understand how elegant this navigation was.

[Ric Gillespie]

I plan to see Midway, but any discussion of the movie should take place on the Extraneous Exchanges section.
Randy Conrad: "For some reason, I started wondering if indeed Amelia fell prey to a cover up or if the Japanese found her in those few days she was making contact from the island. The thing is...if Amelia was to have landed on Gardner...which most likely she would have...then the Japanese would have found the Norwich sailors before they would have found her."
The mind boggles.  The NC survivors were rescued in 1929.  The notion that one of the sailors presumed drowned somehow survived and became the castaway found by Gallagher is grasping-at-straws speculation unsupported by any evidence.  What possible motivation could the Japanese have to travel over a thousand miles into British territory in peacetime to kidnap an American celebrity?

Randy Jacobson:  "I don't think that the offset going to Africa was a screw-up, but rather deliberate."
I think Noonan faced the same problem on the flight to Africa as he faced on the flight to Howland.  Bad weather prevented celestial observations and forced him to rely on Dead Reckoning until he was close to the destination. He discovered he was north of his intended course but over-corrected and ended up hitting the "hard" LOP of the coast of Africa south of Dakar.
Noonan was not the brilliant navigator of legend.