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[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Hi folks - I've missed you!  Congratulations to the Tighar team for all the excellent new discoveries and analysis this past year!

Welcome back!

I whacked out this Google map today - I'm sure it's been done a million times over, but because so many island/atoll names come up when cross-referencing AE's last flight with the Navy's prep for WWII, I found it helpful and enlightening to have a visual.  Posting just in case someone else finds it useful.

It's very nice.

If you have a .kmz file of those locations, other people can play with them in Google Earth, too.  The .kmz file saves others a lot of retyping.

There is a whole thread devoted to collecting Google Earth .kmz files. 

[Sheila Shigley]

'K folks, my first attempt at a .kmz

All suggestions welcomed!  I haven't figured out how to make it collaborative yet.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

'K folks, my first attempt at a .kmz

All suggestions welcomed!  I haven't figured out how to make it collaborative yet.

For reasons I do not understand, your file downloads as index.php.  And yet its contents are, in fact, the .kmz file you intended to send.

I'm uploading it with hyphens instead of spaces, along with a screen capture of the output.

Edit: There is a bug in Firefox Beta 8.0.  My version of your file also downloads as index.php.  Firefox beta testers who want to use this file should right-click the link and save the file with a .kmz extension.  Then it should open in Google Earth. 

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Downloads to my Mac now as kmz (assuming you guys must have fixed it?)

I was wrong about the location of the bug.

It's in Firefox Beta 8.0, not in SMF.

Chrome and IE work OK with the attachments.

I have learned that attachments are not visible to people who are not logged in.  Who knew?  I'll see if I can open that up for our lurkers.

[Sheila Shigley]

Mention of another aviation-related Bob Wemple, in the Ocala Star-Banner - Aug 1, 2007, p. 6:

Bob Wemple, the city's aviation director, and Rupert Caviness of the city aviation board reported to the Ocala/Marion County Chamber of Commerce Directors on the airline service hearing before the Civil Aeronautics Authority in Washington in mid-1939.  They were enthusiastic about the possibility of getting commercial service for Ocala.  [FL]

[Sheila Shigley]

At this point I'm tempted to start a "who the heck was Bob Wemple??" thread, but at any rate, the U. of Wyoming's collection of papers on Roscoe Turner (award-winning aviator, 1920s-30s) contains a document on a Robert Wemple.

From the Wyoming site:

The  Roscoe Turner Papers,  1897-1972, contain valuable information  about the evolution of  the aviation industry in the United  States from 1920 to 1970.

Index of the collection gives:

Series II.  Business Endeavors, 1926-1969.
Subseries 6.  Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation, 1939-1969
Box: 100  Folder: 13

WEMPLE, ROBERT                                1948

[Sheila Shigley]

Whoa!

Wayne Green recalls Bob Wemple being famous for marrying Miss Philadelphia in a plane over the city, and that he was a "short, sandy-haired chap with a waxed mustache and a limp."


Robert G. Wemple, Jr. and Florence Bogar, Miss Philadelphia-1928

Note the cane!

http://valentinovamp.tumblr.com/tagged/Robert_G._Wemple_Jr.

[Edit 20 Oct '11:  this photo is reversed - thanks to Chuck Varney for correction. See "Who was Bob Wemple?" thread for corrected photos.]

[Sheila Shigley]

Looks like Wayne Green's dad, W. Sanger Green, did indeed know Bob Wemple.

From The Daily News, Huntington, PA, Feb. 8, 1930:

Pair Wed In Plane As It Flies Over Camden

Camden, N.J., Feb 8---While flying in an airplane 2000 feet over Camden yesterday, Robert G. Wemple, Jr., of this city and Miss Florence Bogar, of Philadelphia, became man and wife. Wemple piloted the plane while the Rev. George F. Finnie, of Camden, performed the ceremony in the presence of three other persons in the plane. They were E. J. Fincke, an operator of the U.S. Weather Bureau Air Service, who was best man; Mrs. Catherine Stryker, the bride's sister, and W. Sanger Green, general manager of the Central Airport in Camden. The flight lasted fifteen minutes. The bride was Miss Philadelphia in 1928. Wemple is operation manager of Central Airport.

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FlashViewer/FreeArticles.aspx?img=103009194

[Sheila Shigley]

And here he is.  In an ironic twist, it appears the "G" stands for Gardiner.

Robert Gardiner Wemple (1901 - 1955):  Born in New York, USA on 1901 to Robert Gardiner Wemple and Lillie Renner. Robert Gardiner married Florence Bager. Robert Gardiner married Patricia Dunn. Robert Gardiner married Living Cooper and had 2 children. He passed away on 9 Jan 1955 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

http://tinyurl.com/3ra6qat

He attended Brooklyn Polytechnic College Brooklyn, NY. Over the years, he also attended the following schools and courses: Northeast Airlines School/CAA Standardizing Center/Advanced Aerobatics Course/Army Air Corps Basic Training Center, Randolf Field, TX/CAA Standardizing Center for Instrument & Multi-Engine Course.

Among his many pursuits in earning a livelihood, he was a barnstormer pilot, a plantation manager in Jamaica, British West Indies; Manager of the Flight Training Division, Pitcairn Aviation Inc.; Survey Pilot for Pitcairn and assisted in the design of the Pitcairn Mailwing airplane; Operation Manager, Central Airport, Camden, NJ; associated with Wood Aerial Surveys, Philadelphia; Director of Aviation, Ocala, FL; District Flight Supervisor, Florida; with CAA/Regional Principal Flight Supervisor, CAA Fort Worth, TX; Civilian Pilot Training and War Training Service flight training Schools; associated with J.M. West, Houston capitalist, in forming West Central Airlines, Inc.; Field Representative & Technical Correspondent, Air Review Publishing Company, Dallas, TX; Personal pilot for E.B. Fletcher, independent oil producer, Dallas, TX. GJW

http://tinyurl.com/3vhxpel

Note: I'm not hell-bent on proving he modded AE's plane, but his (if only casually) discussing such a thing seems within the range of possibility.

[Sheila Shigley]

From what appears to be the newsletter of the company today known as Keystone Aerial Surveys:

Propwash, Oct. 29, 1938



http://keystoneaerialsurveys.com/propwash/PW1938-OCTOBER_29.pdf

[Don Dollinger]

In 1936 Bob Wemple, a good friend of my dad’s and Amelia's chief mechanic, came out to dinner at our house and explained that he had just outfitted her Lockheed with larger engines and extra gas tanks so she could, on her around-the-world flight make the hop from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island by way of Truk Island so she could take spy pictures of the Japanese installation there for President Roosevelt, who had earlier been the Secretary of the Navy. The Navy wanted to know what the Japanese were doing there.  With the more powerful engines she would be able to make the trip to Howland Island via Truk in about the same time as she would have been able to do it flying direct with her standard engines. Bob said these pictures were the whole reason for her flight.

A spy mission would definately be a classified mission.  Classified information would only be released to those who need it on a "need to know" basis and even then only the specific information that is needed is supplied.  In other words, very few people would know the whole story.  In its entirety the information, although classified, would specify more powerful engines needed to be installed it would not specify for what reason it needed to be accomplished, just that it had to be accomplished because that is all an aircraft mechanic needed to know.

Another thing that kinda points to the fact that it is a bunch of bunk is already he's blabbing the information to anyone who will listen at a dinner party.  At best he is labelling his good friend Amelia as a spy, at worst he is breaking the law by revealing classified information. 

The true test would be to find out if there is proof, in fact, that she had more powerful engines then what was supplied by Lockheed.  As Ric stated that this would have had to have been on the first attempt due to the date, thus is there anyway to positively identify the exact engines that were on the Electra from either documentation or photos from when she ground looped it in HI.

LTM,

Don

[Ric Gillespie]

is there anyway to positively identify the exact engines that were on the Electra from either documentation or photos from when she ground looped it in HI.

Yes. Bureau of Air Commerce Inspection Reports both before (11-27-36) and after (5-19-37) the rebuild following the Luke Field accident list the aircraft's engines as Pratt & Whitney R1340 S3H1, serial numbers 6149 and 6150.  Those are the same engines the airplane was delivered with in July 1936.  Photos of the airplane in Lae of course don't show serial numbers but they do show that the plane still had R1340 S3H1 engines. 

Allegations that bigger engines were installed are ludicrous.  The R-1340 S3H1 was the biggest engine the airframe could carry.  It was actually almost too big.  The 10E tended to be a bit nose-heavy.

Besides, installing bigger engines - even if that was possible - might make the airplane fly a bit faster but not farther. 

[Don Dollinger]

Besides, installing bigger engines - even if that was possible - might make the airplane fly a bit faster but not farther. 

Excellent point.

LTM,

Don

[Sheila Shigley]

Another thing that kinda points to the fact that it is a bunch of bunk is already he's blabbing the information to anyone who will listen at a dinner party.  At best he is labelling his good friend Amelia as a spy, at worst he is breaking the law by revealing classified information.

To be fair, he may just be telling his boss--whether or not he should have been, and granted, in the presence of his boss's kid and possibly wife.  Wayne (the kid) recalls Bob "coming over for dinner" that day.  Not sure that implies a party, but I agree we can't know for sure. 

I'm also not sure that her agreeing to help her country would have been considered a shameful thing (personally, I would consider it patriotic).  If she were asked by a bad guy to spy on a good guy, I guess that could be shameful; but assisting ones own government shouldn't have been considered shameful--thoughts?

I am curious why his boss wouldn't have already known--Bob was Ops Manager at Central Airport, but W. Sanger Green was General Manager.  I guess I may have wrongly assumed that airport officials kept track of everything happening in their hangers--I supposed if private individuals rented hangers, it wasn't really the officials' business what they did as long is it didn't interfere with airport ops.  And the story doesn't actually tell us if the alleged mods took place at Central at all--Wayne Green (the kid) has said Amelia kept her plane(s) at his dad's airport; I had perhaps wrongly assumed the alleged mods took place there. 

[Don Dollinger]

I'm also not sure that her agreeing to help her country would have been considered a shameful thing (personally, I would consider it patriotic).  If she were asked by a bad guy to spy on a good guy, I guess that could be shameful; but assisting ones own government shouldn't have been considered shameful--thoughts?

I read somewhere (believe it was the Amelia website) an article written about her by her best friend and she stated that Amelia was a pacifist.  The very reason she stated that was to refute that very notion of if she thought the spying/captured by the Japanese Theory held any water.  I would think that a pacifist would find spying objectionable and not want anything to do with it.  But I must admit that in the past I have seen friends do thing that I never thought they were capable of doing due to their morale compass.

I am curious why his boss wouldn't have already known--Bob was Ops Manager at Central Airport, but W. Sanger Green was General Manager.  I guess I may have wrongly assumed that airport officials kept track of everything happening in their hangers

That would go back to the basics of classified information.  Why would the General Manager of the Airport need that information?  He wouldn't, his duties end at managing her home airport where she maintains and stores her personal aircraft thus "he didn't have a need to know".

LTM,

Don