Lt. John O. Lambrecht

Senior aviator in the flight of three aircraft from U.S.S. Colorado that searched Gardner Island from the air on July 9, 1937.

• Lambrecht's Report.
• Forum discussion of the Lambrecht search.

The observers

"Two were regular enlisted observers and one was the ship's Assisstant 1st Lt. and Damage Control Officer. The 'trained observers' were not trained in aerial searching. The mission of the battleship's planes was to act as forward observers to adjust the fire of the big guns."

The planes

Three Vought Corsair 03U-3 biplanes were launched during the Colorado search.

• Vought 03U-3 Corsair photo gallery.

The Lambrecht Photo

This U.S. Navy photo is the only picture known to have been taken of Gardner Island during the 1937 search for Amelia Earhart. The photographer is unknown, but this print of the photo, obtained from an archive in New Zealand, is inscribed “U.S. Navy (pilot) July 9, 1937” on the reverse. The "North" arrow is not geographically accurate; see Maps of Nikumaroro for the correct N/S orientation of the island.

Google Earth Gallery

These images reflect efforts of members of the Forum to determine the point of view from which the Lambrecht photo (shown above) was taken.

I just noted that some of the TIGHAR members tried to match Google Earth with the Lambrecht photo. I did the same too some weeks ago and included the Google Earth kmz from which I derived the following: (see Lambrecht combined JPG). I tried to match the picture as good as possible, and strangely, could not match as good when having the island centered in GE (only when Niku left in left pane). The Lambrecht picture seems level (horizon) but I have some reservations.

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  .kmz for Google image