Hull Island

One of the Phoenix Islands. Now known as Orona.

Ric Gillespie, Forum.

Hull is Orona (named for Harry Maude's wife Honor) and Sydney is Manra (named for I-don't-remember-what) and, of course, Gardner is Nikumaroro (named for the legendary home of Nei Manganibuka).

Around the time of Earhart's disappearance, Hull and Sydney were being worked by Tokelau laborers under contract to Burns Philp Company and under the supervision of their employed manager John William Jones who was in residence on Hull (and was interviewed by Lambrecht when he landed in the lagoon). Jones had recently pulled his workers off Sydney, leaving behind the huts that Lambrecht saw and, apparently, the letters in the sand. I like the explanation that they were not some cryptic message but just another example of the islanders' well-known fondness for carving their names in anything in sight.

I don't see how it tells us anything about events on Gardner. Randy Jacobson has said that Jones visited Gardner on the way to Hull but I haven't the paper on that.