Howland Island
Size
Howland is approximately two miles long and about a half-mile wide. It is low-lying and has only scrub brush on it.
Nikumaroro, by contrast, is approximately 4 miles long and about a mile wide, with a bright lagoon, higher elevations, and larger trees.
Correct location of Howland Island known in 1937
Elgen Long claimed that the charts used by Noonan had the wrong coordinates for Howland Island.
- Rollin Reineck, "Review of Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved",
This assumption by Long says that Howland Island was mis-plotted. Long claims that Howland Island was actually six miles east of the plotted position on the charts that Noonan used and Noonan was unaware of the true position of Howland Island.
Long is totally wrong.
In August of 1936, the Coast Guard vessel, the Itasca accurately plotted the Line Islands including Howland. It found that Howland was plotted 51/2 miles west of its real position. Long would like one to believe that this information was CLASSIFIED and therefore not available to Earhart for her Pacific flight.
Ask yourself this question. If this island had been mis-plotted it would have been a hazard to navigation. The United States was not at war at that time and had no declared enemies, therefore why would it be classified?
There is no doubt that this information was made available to all mariners (Notice to Mariners) world-wide. It is inconceivable that Noonan would not have received the information that was discovered almost a year before the Earhart flight. The Coast Guard was fully aware of Earhart's plans to fly around the world and to use Howland Island as a refueling stop. They were charged with providing whatever help they could to make the Earhart flight a success. Withholding such vital information is incomprehensible.
In a recent book about Amelia Earhart titled East to the Dawn, page 408 the author discusses this very point. Ms. Butler says "The chart of the area then in use #1198, Published by the hydrographic office within the Navy, contrary to the assertion that it showed Howland Island wrongly placed, in fact was reasonably accurate. According to the last chart correction made by the U.S. Government dating from 1995, the coordinates to the beacon on the west side of Howland are: latitude 00 degrees 48 minutes north. longitude, 176 degrees 37 minutes west. The chart Fred was using showed Howland within half a mile of those coordinates. When years later, emulating Amelia's world flight, Ann Pellegreno used the latitude and longitude that Fred Noonan had used for Howland. She found they were correct."
Plane wreckage on Howland Island (1944)
On 10 June 1944, a U.S. Navy Martin "Mariner" flying boat, PBM-3-D BuNo 48199, had an engine fire and made a forced landing just offshore from Howland. The pilot intentionally beached the aircraft and the crew escaped unharmed before the aircraft burned. The crew was rescued by the USCG Balsam (the same ship that later took Unit 92 to Gardner Island) and transferred to a sub chaser which took them to Canton Island.
Problems seeing Howland from the air
The Waitt Institute for Discovery has an excellent video on this page that demonstrates how difficult it is to spot Howland Island from the air.
Anne Pellegrino had a hard time finding Howland in her 1967 re-enactment of Earhart's flight plan; the weather conditions Pellegrino encountered certainly added to the difficulty.
Robert M. Stanley, who participated in the air search for AE, flying off the USS Lexington in July 1937, gave a similar report:
- "During the week, during our search to the North and West of Howland Island, the weather followed an unvarying pattern. A strong east wind created high waves and white caps. Frequent rain showers of locally great intensity dotted the horizon in all directions. The sea was flecked with white caps and wind steaks, effectively masking any debris, had there been any. The rain showers were too dense to fly through, but were small enough they could be flown around. Morning, noon, and night, the weather pattern never varied. It was not stormy; merely the normal weather pattern of that part of the Pacific. ... We passed within 5 miles of Howland, but none of the search party ever saw the Island, as we were not searching by air that closely; others had already done so, and our assignment lay further northwest. Nevertheless, even as close as five miles, the island could not be seen from the bridge of the USS Lexington; it was probably hidden by a rain shower" (Earhart’s Flight into Yesterday, p. 60).