AE on Norwich Island Part 6

Amelia Earhart on 

Norwich Island: Part 6

July 5^th, 1937

She was up several times in the night to dispose of crabs, and woke groggily to another beautiful day.  The sky turning pink and light blue along the western horizon as the sun rose in the east.  Birds streaming out to sea for their morning fish.  A light breeze out of the northeast.  Sound of the booming surf, bird cries.

Something wrong.

Something different in her view across the reef.  There was the plane, but….

“Oh God, it’s moved.”

Not much, but some.  It had turned a bit; tail more toward the reef edge.  Heart in her mouth, she sprinted toward it, calling over her shoulder –

“Fred!  Fred!  Come on!  The ship’s moved!”

She splashed out onto the reef.  Stumbled, slipped, fell on her face in the water, maybe a couple of feet deep.  Was it coming in or going out?  Regained her feet, forged on, reached the wing, grabbed it.

The ship seemed stable enough – not floating, but it must have floated earlier, since it had moved.  So the tide had been higher……

Fred came puffing across the reef, grimacing. 

“Tide’s going out. It must’ve floated a bit when it was higher, before dawn.” 

Thank God he was coherent.

“Do you think that was Spring Tide?”

“I told you, no way to know.”

“So…. “

“So, next time, it could float again. Or not” 

He leaned into the wing, breathing heavily, head on his arm.

“Next time will be in – what, four hours or so?”

He didn’t look up. 

“Yeah, more like six.  Around noon.”

“We have to keep the ship on the reef.”

He mumbled into the wing. 

“How do you figure to do that?”

“Well, tie it down.  Or put a lot of rocks in it; make it too heavy to float.”

He gave her a look, a crooked grimace, very carefully shook his head. 

“Well, if that would make you feel better, but I doubt it’d do much good.  We’d prob’ly be smarter to unload it, so we don’t…...”

“Lose everything if it goes over?  Fred, we can’t let it go over the edge.  We have to get it back to Burbank, make repairs……”

He looked at her for a long moment, then slammed his hand on the wing. 

“Damn it, Amelia, we’re not going to get it back to Burbank!  Get that out of your head!  How would we even get it off this reef?”

“Fly it! Get its wheel out of the hole, get some gas in it, and away we go!”

“How do you figure…”

“With jacks. Surely the Itasca has jacks.”

“Umm….”

“Or use its winches……”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, opened them. spoke slowly, looking her in the eye.

“Amelia, no coast guard cutter has a boom long enough or strong enough to reach out and pick the thing up, and even if she did, do you think her skipper’s going to lay her up right next to a coral reef to do it?”

“But Itasca can put men ashore, and with jacks or levers we can get the wheel out, and reinforce it if need be for take-off. We could fly to Howland with the gear down, if necessary.”

He put his head down on the wing. She couldn’t see his face. No use arguing with him.

“Well, let’s let the Itasca decide that.  Let’s just take off what we need to be comfortable till they get here.”

“OK, suit yourself.” 

He pushed away from the wing and led the way back to the cabin door.

The heat inside the plane was already intense; they were gasping by the time they pulled their loads of gear through the door and started for shore.  Each of them carried a bag of valuable or potentially useful items – the fishline and hooks, rope and twine, the signal pistol and its precious flares, miscellaneous tools.  Fred was clearly suffering by the time they reached the trees.  He leaned against the trunk of the largest one, breathing heavily.

“Let’s take a break, Fred.  We haven’t even had breakfast.”

“Still…. Stuff we may need….”

“Not too much, and the tide will be out for awhile yet.”  The reef was almost dry.

“Yeah… OK…  Can you look at my head?”

It didn’t look good.  The swelling had increased if anything, and it was still multi-colored.  His skin felt clammy, and despite his tan it had a pasty look.   

“Is the pain bad?”

“Nothing I can’t stand, but – yeah, pretty bad.  And I feel dizzy sometimes.”

“Maybe you should stay here and rest……”

He didn’t reply; just sat looking grimly out at the ship.  She squeezed his shoulder. 

“OK, let’s have breakfast.”

They opened two more cans – pears and mutton – and ate them with a few stale ship’s biscuits and a hog apple apiece.  Sipped a bit of their precious water; she scanned the sky for signs of rain, found none. 

“OK, Fred, you stay here and rest that head.  I’m going to go send out a few more calls, just in case….”

“I’ll go with you.  Might as well bring another load ashore.  Find some things to catch water if it rains.”

“Your head….”

“Isn’t going anywhere without me.  I’ll take care of it.”

Halfway to the plane, he slipped and fell; he was gasping in pain as she helped him up, urged him to go back.  He started to shake his head, stopped, waved her off, stumbled on.  The tide was rising, but as yet only barely touching the bottom of the door.  They crawled in.

It was an oven.  Baking hot; she gasped as she crawled over the fuel tanks to her seat; Fred stayed behind, scavenging around his table.  The instruments swam before her eyes, sweat poured down her face. 

She threw switches, checked gauges.  There was enough power to transmit for awhile.   

“KHAQQ to Itasca.  KHAQQ to Itasca.”

The button stuck, didn’t want to switch back to receive.  She hit it on her palm and it came loose.  Listened, nothing but static.  Pushed the button again.  Why was it so sticky?

“KHAQQ to any station.  Any station, any station, this is Amelia Earhart.”

This time the switch worked all right, but there was no response  Or was there?  Some variation in the static?  Was someone listening?  The sweat poured into her eyes, her hands trembled, her head swam.  She opened the mic again.

“We are on a reef – on an island – uh… 281 nautical miles southeast of Howland Island.  Please help me.  Don’t know exact location but south of Howland.  Navigator hurt.  Water is high and getting higher.”

She had to hit the mic again to dislodge the button.  Listened intently.   Yes!  Hardly more than a carrier wave, but something; someone was trying to communicate!

Fred came slithering over the fuel tanks.  She ripped off her headset, turned an earpiece in his direction.

“Fred!  Here, put your ear to it!  I think I have someone!”

Fred shook his head, his eyes wild and unfocused.  She slapped the headphones back on, clutched the mic.

“This is Amelia Earhart!” 

Wait, these were British islands down here, weren’t they?  They’re so formal… 

“This is Amelia Putnam.  SOS, SOS!”

Fred grabbed the mic, his eyes wide. 

“Stop, Amelia; let me speak…. Unknown caller, search south Howland Island, repeat…” 

He suddenly faded, grabbing his head. 

“Oh, oh – it’s so hot.  Amelia – here, take this; I can’t….” 

He fell back in his seat.

Panic rising in her throat.  The cockpit seemed to be spinning slowly, her vision becoming restricted.  Waves were beating on the plane’s belly, Fred was rolling back and forth groaning. 

“It’s so hot. Can’t you feel it?”

“I can feel it.  You’re right, but…” 

She remembered to hit the mic, dislodge the sticky button, and immediately began hearing something in her headset.  Someone saying his name, and a call sign.

“What?  Say again?  Bob? Is that it, or Bud?”

Fred was struggling up, groping his way toward the hatch.

“Fred!” she called, “come here just a moment; listen.  Somebody calling, somebody called Bob or Bud or something.  Doesn’t sound like Itasca.” 

Back on the mic:  “All stations, this is Amelia Earhart.  We are on the line one-fifty..” God, she couldn’t remember! “Er… one fifty-eight/three-thirty…er… eight south of Howland Island, on an island near a wrecked ship.  Please send us help.  We’re…”

Fred bumped into her as he clambered over the seats toward the hatch.

“Amelia, take it.  I’m passing out.  So hot.  You hear it; I don’t.  I’m going, gotta go…”

She clutched the mic again:  “Person calling; please respond.  We need help.  Help.”

Fred was struggling weakly, trying to reach the hatch.  “I need air.  Amelia, things are going black.  My head, oh my head….”

“Here I come, Fred.  I’ll help you; it’ll be all right….”

“Let me out of here!”  His eyes were wild, his face white under the blood that had started oozing again from his forehead, under her dressing.

She helped him up and through the hatch.  He seemed to gain coherence as he pulled himself up into the air.

“Well,” he gasped, wheezing, “I’m still… suffering, but it’s a different suffering.” 

“OK, you suffer differently.  I’m going back to the radio.”

“Take it away, Amelia!”

Right, right.  Take it away.  Sure.  She grabbed the mic; what was wrong?  Had the button been stuck down?  Had she been broadcasting all this time?  No matter.  She clutched the mic and shouted. For some reason – surely it hurt his head! – Fred leaned down through the hatch and shouted with her:

“We’re south of Howland, on a reef, next to a beached ship.  The Norwich!  Norwich!  Norwich!”

Fred was back, sliding into his seat.  His face was startlingly pale, and a dreamy expression had come over his face.  He smiled wistfully, looking off into the distance through the windshield.

“Marie! Oh Marie.”

Oh God, Marie again!  Who the devil is Marie?  She tried again with the radio. 

“Norwich, Norwich!” 

Felt tears welling up in her eyes. 

“Oh, if they could hear me!  Norwich!  Norwich!” 

Wait, was she expecting the Norwich to hear her?  Was the heat driving her nuts, too?

“Marie…”

Murmuring lovingly, Fred got up again and squirmed aft, over the top of the fuel tanks, back to the navigator’s station.

She concentrated on the instrument panel.  The battery was getting low.  She was going to have to run the starboard engine to gain enough power to keep transmitting.  She held her breath, threw switches; the engine grumbled back to life.

“It’s going….”

“’Bout time,” Fred yelled from beyond the tanks.  “We’ve been at this since 4:30, 5:10, something like that.”

“What?”

“It’s time to leave for the station, Marie!  Come on; I don’t want to be late. Oh…!” 

He slammed the side of the plane as he went out through the side door.

“Oh Fred,” she almost wept, “where are you?” 

Better find him and get him settled someplace while the battery charged, then try again. She slithered up through the hatch.

He was standing in the water about thirty feet toward the beach, looking confused.  He turned as she splashed up to him.

“Uh…. Hi.”

“Fred?  Are you OK?

“Uh – well, I’m not sure.  I’m – uh – not sure how I got here.”

“Do you know where you are?  What’s going on?”

He waved a hand dismissively.

“Sure, I’m standing here in water up to my waist, trying to… to… “

“Do you know who I am?”

“Shit, am I that zozzled?”

“Do you?”

“Of course.  You’re Amelia Earhart.  We’ve flown around the world together.  We’re stuck on an island, trying to get ….. trying to get…. Get someone to come for us…..”

“OK, good.  Now, we’re going back to our camp and you’re going to rest while I...”

He shook his head, stopped and held it.  He said something but she couldn’t hear it over the roar of the surf.

“Come on, Fred.” 

She took his arm and led him toward shore.  They were almost there when he broke free.

“No, damn it!  I have to go back!”

“Fred…” 

But he was gone, splashing back toward the plane.  She followed but couldn’t catch up with him; he seemed to have gained amazing agility, leaping on his long legs like some strange water animal.  He got to the cabin door and jumped in before she was halfway there, wallowing through the rising tide.

When she reached the door, he was standing at the table where he had spread out his charts in flight.  The aft end of the fuselage was filling with water; it was splashing around his knees.  She clung to the doorway.

“Fred!” She reached out a hand, “come to me!  The water’s knee deep; it’s rising!”

Fred ignored her, leaped on top of the fuel tanks, began slithering forward. 

“Let me out!”

He was shouting, wild-eyed again.

“Where are you going?”

“Get out of this thing!  We can’t bail out faster than the water’s coming in!”

Be calm, she screamed silently; Amelia, be calm.  Get him out of the ship and headed back to shore; then she could try to talk with Bud, or Bob, or whoever he was.  She followed him over the tanks, reaching out to him.

“Yes Fred, I see.  Come on, I’ll help you.”

He continued to ignore her, pulled himself up through the hatch, and grabbed his head again.

“Oh, oh, ouch.  Amelia….”

He looked down at her with those wide, mad eyes. 

“Are you so scared – as scared as I am?”

“What?”  She started to respond, but decided against it, squirmed on into the cockpit and grabbed the mic.  Damn that sticky button!  She hammered the mic against the instrument panel till the button slowly released, clapped on her earphones, and at once heard a voice.  Bud seemed to be the operator’s name, and he was asking for their position!

“Fred!”

Wait, he was out of his head, how could he give their position?  How could he even know it?  But…  She looked over at the second chair, where Fred’s maps were still folded neatly.  He’d been scribbling on them as they flew along – it seemed like years ago – looking for Howland.  Maybe…

“Hello, Bud?  This is Amelia Earhart.  We are down on an island south of Howland.  My navigator is hurt.  I’m going to read you what he wrote on his chart before we landed.  Maybe you can make sense of them.  We’re south of Howland, repeat south of Howland, on an island reef next to a wrecked ship called Norwich.  Here are the numbers:  S 391065 E.  Figure 8?  3. 30 500 Z  3E MJ3B. Z 38 Z 13. 8983638.  I don’t know what those mean, but I pray you do, Bud, or somebody.  Please hurry!  It’s now…”

What time was it?  She guessed.

“It’s 3:15 local time; our power’s running low, and the water’s rising; we can’t hold here much longer….” 

She slapped the mic hard and listened intently.

Bud did not respond.  She put her head down on the instrument panel.

“Marie?”  Fred called.  “We’re gonna miss our train.”

Trembling, she could hardly push the mic button, but she had to try, had to try.

“Bud?  Are you there?  Can you hear from me?  Hear from me?”

Silence, static.

This might be her last chance.  Perhaps someone was taking it all down.  She had to think about the public – make sure people knew that she was in command of the situation, and expected to emerge from it triumphant – or at least as triumphant as possible. 

She steadied herself, looked steely-eyed out at the great black hull of the Norwich. 

“Bud, if you hear this, please tell my husband – George Putnam – to bring the suitcase in my closet – it’s all packed with spare clothes – bring it with him when he comes to meet me in Hawaii or California.  I left Lae with only one change of clothes.” 

Silence, static, maybe a carrier wave?

“Bud?  Any station, are you hearing this?”

“Marie!  Hey!” 

Fred came half sliding, half falling through the hatch, coming to rest hard on the battery between the seats.  The battery without which there would be no way to transmit another second.  He grabbed the mic.

“Marie!”

She grabbed it back. 

“This is Amelia Earhart…”

“Hey!” 

He tried to seize it again.  Kicked the battery.

“Watch that battery!”

He looked at her with a befuddled expression.

“What did you tell me to do?” 

His face was turning red; he pulled back his fist as though he was going to hit her.

“SOS!”  she yelled into the mic, turning back to him.  “Fred?”

He shook his head like he was coming out of a dream. 

“Oh, shit, have I been out?” 

He suddenly seemed perfectly lucid.  The blood had dried on his forehead.

“Yes, you’ve been out.  I’ll explain later.  Right now, can you do anything to calculate our position?”

“Uh…”  He was drifting again.

“Will you help me?  We have to let them know where we are.”

“Oh, uh…”

“Will you please….”

“Oh yeah, sure.  Position.  Wait a sec.” 

He popped back up through the hatch, dropped back a minute later and proudly shoved a scrap of paper in her hand.  There were numbers on it.

“That’s our position.”

“All right!”  She looked at the paper and frowned.  “It is?”

“Am I the navigator?” 

He started back through the hatch.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting off this bloody airplane.  Going ashore.”

“OK, I’ll be right there.” 

She looked at the mic, found that she had been transmitting.  Sighed.  The instrument panel began to perform a lazy loop before her eyes.

“OK, Bud, or whoever is out there….. this is our position – says Captain Noonan.  3Q RD 36 J3.  I hope that means something.” 

She gasped, grabbed her head to stop the spinning. 

“We are --  down below – OK, south of Howland – on line we reported – one-fifty…uh…eight three thirty eight, on the reef of an island, next to the wreck of a steamship called Norwich.  Amelia here, signing off for now.”

Head swimming, she clambered up through the hatch.  The kite antenna wire was lying limp on top of the fuselage; she must have forgotten to deploy the kite.  No – well, yes, but – the kite was gone.  She pulled in the wire, hand over hand.  Perhaps thirty feet, the rest gone, with the big yellow kite. She fingered the wire.

“Waves. Surf.”

Scanned the reef.  No kite.  Fred was on his way to shore, staggering and slipping. 

She eased herself down onto the wing – just as a wave struck the plane and caused it to jerk sideways.  She almost fell, grabbed the hatch cowling and wound up flat-faced against the fuselage.  The plane shuddered, twisted, slid, and then stopped abruptly.  When she regained her footing on the wing and could look around, she thought it had pivoted a few degrees toward the reef edge, but seemed to have wedged tight.  Waves were pounding against it, but it wasn’t moving. 

“If it doesn’t get any higher…..”

She dropped down onto the reef; the water was waist-deep.  Clinging to the wing, then to the fuselage, she worked her way back to the door, crawled in and found a tie-down rope.  But the tie-down eyelets were all underwater.  She looped the rope around the port propeller shaft, tied it with two sets of half-hitches, and looked for someplace to tie the other end.  The reef was flat, smooth, with holes and protuberances but nothing she could get a rope around.

“Probably a stupid idea anyway.” 

As if a little rope was going to hold the ship on the reef if the Pacific Ocean decided to take it away.  She stood uncertainly in the waist-deep water with the rope in her hands, then untied it and looped it over her shoulder to carry ashore.

---------------

Notes

“Each of them carried a bag of valuable or potentially useful items…” All items mentioned as coming from the Electra are either listed in the inventory taken after the Luke Field crash that ended the first World Flight attempt (See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Luke_Field.html ), or are mentioned in news accounts or AE’s 1937 Last Flight.

“…the signal pistol and its precious flares...” There is dispute about whether a “Very” signal pistol was still aboard the Electra during the Lae-Howland leg; it is commonly thought that the reference by Lae radio operator Harry Balfour to a “pistol” that AE offloaded there means the Very pistol (c.f. Sound of Wings p. 264). I see no reason to accept this assumption; it seems unlikely to me that AE would discard the signal pistol just before departing on the leg of the flight where she would be most likely to need it.

“KHAQQ to any station.  Any station, any station, this is Amelia Earhart,” (etc.). The dialogue in this chapter contains all the messages recorded by the late Betty Kleck Brown in her school notebook from what she heard on her father’s short-wave radio, with some adjustments to allow for lost segments and what I think are plausible mistaken interpretations by Ms. Kleck. See http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Notebook/notebook.html for the full text.

“…Norwich!  Norwich!  Norwich!” Ms. Kleck repeatedly wrote down “NY,” which she told Ric Gillespie and Joe Cerniglia on separate occasions meant “New York.”  I suspect that what was really said was something unfamiliar to Ms. Kleck but entirely sensible on Nikumaroro – Norwich. Ric Gillespie agrees, but tends to think that Ms. Kleck’s notes explicitly referred to New York/Norwich City. This interpretation is unsupported by the notebook itself, and was denied by Ms. Brown. It's for this reason that I imagine Earhart and Noonan being able to make out "Norwich" on the shipwreck's bow, but not "City."