Amelia Earhart on Norwich Island
Part 32
Epilogue and Bibliography
EPILOGUE:
FACT AND FICTION
Of course, Norwich
Island is a work of fiction. All specific events, to say nothing of
Earhart’s state of mind and the activities of ghosts, psychologist birds and
talking crabs, are the products of my imagination. However, the novel is
grounded on, and reflects, the recorded facts outlined below:
1. Amelia
Earhart and Fred Noonan, flying their Lockheed Electra 10E in an attempt to
circumnavigate the globe near the equator, vanished near Howland Island in the
central Pacific on July 2nd, 1937.
2. Over one
hundred radio messages were received by various stations in the Pacific and
elsewhere after Earhart and Noonan disappeared. Some of the texts that I’ve
imagined Earhart transmitting are based on these receptions (See Gillespie
2006:Chapters 12-19).
3. The events
and transmissions reported for July 5th represent my effort to
make sense of complex, fragmentary messages recorded by the late Betty Brown,
then Betty Klenck, of St. Petersburg, Florida (See Gillespie 2006:Chapter 17).
4. Corsair
float planes from the battleship USS Colorado flew over Nikumaroro on July 9th,
1937, and reported seeing “signs of recent habitation,” but flew on after
“diving and zooming” failed to elicit a response from anyone on the ground (See
Gillespie 2006:Chapter 20)
5. With three
exceptions, the island of Nikumaroro, in 1937 known as Gardner Island, is and was as it
is described in this novel, based on published literature and eleven visits (as
of 2016) by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), on
six of which I have participated as senior archaeologist. The three exceptions
are these: I have not personally experienced ghosts, psychotherapist boobies,
or talking crabs. However, I can easily imagine them. Obviously.
6. On November
29, 1929, the S.S. Norwich City ran aground on Nikumaroro’s
northern reef, exploding and burning; eleven men were killed. The survivors
camped nearby until December 4th, when they were rescued. The
remains of their camp were viewed and photographed by a party from New Zealand
who surveyed the island in 1939. Records indicate that the survivors and their
rescuers left a cache of surplus supplies in case anyone else were cast away
there in the future. Apparently their campsite was on the land later called
Nutiran, near the wreck site, but their extraction point was some distance to
the south, and it was there that the cache was left (See http://tighar.org/wiki/SS_Norwich_City).
7. On October
13th, 1937, the schooner Nimanoa hove to in
Nikumaroro’s lee and sent a party ashore to assess the island’s potential for
colonization (See Maude 1968:315-42; Bevington 1990:16-22). The party was led
by colonial officers Harry Maude and Eric Bevington, and included Koata, an
elder of Onotoa in what would become the Republic of Kiribati (and was then the
Gilbert Islands part of the Crown Colony of the Gilbert and Elice Islands), who
would later serve as the Nikumaroro colony’s leader; he figures heavily in my
previous novel, Thirteen Bones.
8. In his
journal (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html), and then
in an interview with Gillespie and Patricia Thrasher of TIGHAR, Bevington
reported seeing what appeared to be the remains of someone’s “overnight
bivouac” at a location southeast of Bauareke Passage. Maude described these
remains to me as small mounds of debris. Excavation in this vicinity by TIGHAR
in 1991 yielded parts of a woman’s and man’s shoes, the top of an Alka-Zane
jar, and a broken sling psychrometer (See Earhart's Shoes:123-8).
9. From
offshore, probably on departing the island, Bevington took a photograph of
the Norwich City wreck. Caught in the extreme left corner of
his image, presumably by accident, is an anomaly that forensic imaging experts
have identified as consistent with the upended landing gear of a Lockheed
Electra (See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/57_Bevingtonphoto/57_HidinginSight.htm and https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate/69_BevingtonObjectUpdate.html).
10. Nikumaroro
was colonized in 1939 by immigrants from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now
Kiribati and Tuvalu). In 1940, they found a partial human skeleton near the
southeast end of the island. Various contemporary documents indicate that
nearby they found signs of a campfire with bird and turtle bones, parts of a
woman’s shoe and a man’s shoe, a sextant box, a sextant’s inverting eyepiece, a
Benedictine bottle, and small corks on chains, possibly from water bags (See
King et al 2004:206-34). It is this discovery, and its aftermath, that form the
core of Thirteen Bones (King 2009).
11. Archaeological
surveys and excavations by TIGHAR at what we believe likely to be the site of
the 1940 discovery have revealed the remains of multiple campfires and
substantial deposits of bird, fish, and turtle bones and clam shells (some of
the latter broken in ways that suggest efforts to pry them open with pieces of
steel barrel rim, found nearby, others of which appear to have been smashed
with rocks, while others are undamaged). The fish heads were apparently not
eaten, and a few baby turtles apparently were (See https://www.academia.edu/25994228/Nikumaroro_Atoll_Archaeology_Seven_Site_Fishbone_Analyses_to_2016).
12. Excavations
at the site (known as the Seven Site – here called Freshwater Camp) have also
revealed a number of artifacts apparently dating from the 1930s. These include:
a.
Three glass fragments comprising a
small footed glass jar, which chemical analysis shows contained a mercury-based
substance; it is similar to American freckle crème containers used in the
1930s;
b.
Pieces of thin, flat, beveled glass,
fragments of thin metal, and pieces of what appear to be rouge, interpreted as
the remains of a cosmetic compact;
c.
A fragmentary bone-handled
jackknife, manufactured by Imperial Cutlery of Providence, Rhode Island;
d.
Fragments of a Mennon skin product
e.
Fragments of what was probably a
pharmacy-formulated skin lotion;
f.
A “Talon” autolock zipper slider
manufactured by the Hookless Fastener Company of Meadville, Pennsylvania, in
the mid-1930s (See https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Expeditions/NikuV/Analysis_and_Reports/Zipper/Zipper.html);
g.
Drafting or drawing leads;
i.
The probable remains of a small
electric battery;
j.
In one of the charcoal deposits left
by burning, hundreds of small fragments of badly rusted thin ferrous metal and
some that is thicker, curved, and ridged on the edge, interpreted (by me) as
the remains of a dutch oven;
k.
Next to the same fire feature was a
rectangular deposit of oxidized thin ferrous metal 40 cm. on a side, roughly
the size of the larger, metal first-aid kit reported to be aboard Earhart’s
Electra; and
l.
In another fire feature was a snap
matching one on a wooden first aid kit held by TIGHAR that is similar to
the smaller kit reported to have been aboard the Electra (http://ameliaearhartarchaeology.blogspot.com/2016/05/earharts-first-aid-kits-at-seven-site.html).
m. Also
in that fire feature, two bottles – one a brown beer bottle dating from before
World War II, the other apparently a St. Joseph’s liniment bottle – whose bases
were mostly melted and whose tops were shattered, along with a piece of wire
whose ends may have been wrapped around the bottles.
13. On October
13th, 1937, during the Nimanoa’s visit, Colonial
Cadet Officer Eric Bevington and several of his Gilbertese colleagues hiked
around the island; although Bevington’s published account (Bevington 1990:17-18)
doesn’t quite agree with his journal (https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html), they seem
to have walked inshore from the beach at least part of the way down the lee
side of the island, then trudged (unhappily; they found it a rather grueling
trip) up the windward beach. They must have passed close to the Seven Site.
I hasten to add that there
are ways to account for just about everything we’ve found on, and learned
about, Nikumaroro without assuming that Earhart and Noonan landed and died
there. But doing so requires imagining a great many remarkable coincidences. On
balance, as I wrote a few years ago in a summary article (King 2012):
To
this author and to TIGHAR, it seems more efficient to account for (what we’ve
found) by concluding that Earhart, Noonan, and their Electra ended their world
flight on Nikumaroro.
Bibliography
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Jean L.
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R.M.
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Bevington,
Eric
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Susan
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Amelia
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Ric
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Thomas F.
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Press
__________,
Randall S. Jacobson, Karen R. Burns & Kenton Spading
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Muriel E.
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___________
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