AMELIA
EARHART
ON
NORWICH
ISLAND
By Tom King
(Ver. 6.9: 9/12/2016)
© Thomas F. King
For Noah,
Who inspired me to carry on.
Note to Readers (9/12/2016)
This novel is an effort to make imaginary sense of the historical,
archaeological, and other data that The International Group for Historic
Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) and others have collected over the last 27 years
about what we think to have been Amelia Earhart’s and Fred Noonan’s landing
and demise on Nikumaroro Atoll in the Phoenix Islands. It’s a prequel to my
2009 novel, Thirteen Bones.
The
current version has evolved from previous ones, and will continue to evolve as
research continues and alternative possibilities emerge. Subsequent versions of
Norwich Island
Note: The source citations given throughout, except where attached to explicit quotations or describing TIGHAR observations and analyses, are for the most part only examples derived from the very extensive literature surrounding Amelia Earhart (AE), George Putnam (GP) and the World Flight. Although I have read much of this literature and used it to inform the novel, I have not attempted to cite every source.
Thanks
for reading!
TFK
Silver
Spring, MD, USA, 12th September 2016
Come down Amelia come down, and steal me away on a magical
ride.
Over the ocean and into the blue and through to the other
side.
Brendan
Smith: “Amelia.” 2015
“Norwich Island
Summer, 1907, Atchison, Kansas
The
game was called Bogie.
The
cousins – Amelia (“Millie”), Muriel (“Pidge”), Lucy (“Toot”) and Kathryn
(“Katch”) mounted the old carriage in the Otis family barn and launched it on another
mission – as usual seeking the never-reached shining city of Cherryville –
through dark forests and high mountains inhabited by ravening wolves, cannibal
apes, and other horrors.
Since
only boys were understood to have such adventures, they all assumed male
identities – “Jim” and “Bill,” “Jack” and “Harry.” They fought off their
attackers with whips, clubs, and fists, screaming with excitement, getting
coated in dust and cobwebs.
“Oh
heavens!” Harry shrieked. “It’s the red-eyed night-riders! They’re surrounding
us.”
“Knocked
that one down,” Jack said cooly, blowing on her fist.
Harry
bounced in her seat, pointing behind the carriage.
“But
look, Bill, that big one with the red teeth is gaining on us!”
“Ha!”
Bill snorted, wiping a cobweb off her nose, “they don’t know that these horses
can fly! Whip ‘em up, Jim!”
“Yee-HAH!”
July 2nd,
1937, ca. 11 am local time, central Pacific
Behind the sunglasses her eyes were tight and
sore-rimmed, darting between the horizon and the fuel gauges. It was Fred who
spotted the cloud. Pointed at it
silently, raised binoculars to eyes, squinting. She banked, steered for
it. Clouds sometimes formed over
islands.
But they’d chased clouds before, and she wasn’t about to
let this one raise false hopes. She
scanned the horizon through the Electra’s windshield, forcing down the feeling
that there wasn’t much hope left.
Her head ached; her sinuses were acting up again, making
her eyes water. If she got out of this,
it might be time for another operation.
“When I get out of this! When!” Peered over the ship’s silver nose at the
approaching cloud.
Was it wishful thinking, or was there something in the
cloud shadow…?
Fred lowered the binoculars and grinned tightly.
“Land,” he mouthed, unhearable over the engine
noise. She caught his eye and smiled
back, almost choking up.
“Hallelujah!”
It was a small island, but a beautiful one, especially to
eyes starved for land. An atoll -- low,
green, with a turquoise lagoon. Shaped
like an paramecium, its long axis across the set of the northeast trade
wind. Higher and wider toward the
northwest, narrow – almost spindly – to the southeast. A broad reef flat all around, surf breaking
on its seaward edges. She couldn’t help muttering under her breath.
“Oh land, dear - god…land!”
Fred pointed; she nodded.
A good-sized steamship was anchored – no, darn it, not anchored, run
aground on the reef. Rusty, maybe burned
topside. Wrecked, probably long
ago.
How long ago? What
ship? What island was this? She started to curse their lack of charts
covering more than the strip along their intended course. Never mind. The only real questions were, was the island
inhabited, and was there a place to land?
Enough fuel for a fly-around – had to be. She dropped to only
about five hundred feet, Southwest along the lee side. No ships at anchor, no boats, no houses
lining the shore. Clouds of birds burst
from the trees, scattered. Pure white terns, black and white boobies,
grey-brown frigate birds.
Southeast end coming up; she banked around it. A couple of ponds – were they salt water or
fresh? Northwest now, up the long
windward side. The tide was low. An expanse
of reef was exposed almost as wide as the dry land, and it looked fairly
smooth. But that could be deceptive. She’d
walked on reefs, knew about potholes and cracks and tide pools.
Coming up on the northwest end now. Big sandy area at the head of the lagoon,
probably very soft. Imagined the gear
sinking in the sand, the ship stopping suddenly, nosing in.
“Last thing we need is a nose-over.”
She banked over the wooded north tip of the island.
Another small pond there. Nice to splash in, bathe, work out the kinks. She
twisted her stiff neck.
Again over the wrecked steamship, she dropped down low
over the sandy inlet and inspected the lagoon. She could come in low and slow,
put the ship into a stall and set down in the water…..
“But there’d be no getting her out.” And there appeared
to be plenty of coral heads ready to tear out the belly. Like the runway had in
Hawaii
The ocean offshore? Deep water, and the ship would surely
float long enough for them to get off and get ashore in the inflatable raft.
But that would be the certain end of the ship. It would float for awhile, yes, but not long
enough to allow Itasca
to get there, not by any reasonable estimate.
The reef, on the other hand, would be slippery, but
solid. Just weeks ago – it seemed like years
– there was that British crew she’d read about. They’d put down on a reef;
gotten away safely, though they’d lost their plane. A ship not unlike hers.
“I won’t lose the ship!”
She banked around to take another hard look at the
reef. It looked broadest, and quite
smooth and flat, just north of the shipwreck.
The water couldn’t be more than a few inches deep, if that. Maybe not much wetter than a rain-soaked
runway.
On the seaward side, the reef edge had a sheer,
coral-toothed edge, dropping to – to how deep?.
Thousands of feet, probably. Surf
crashing on it. On the landward side the
coral was dry, but looked rough. Lots of
ridges, holes, crevices, boulders. But
the strip in between – almost like a runway – looked smooth.
But slick with water, and what did the water hide?
No option; it was the reef or the ocean.
She pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead and reached
for the radio microphone. Nothing but
static had been coming from the receiver, but maybe the Itasca
“KHAQQ calling Itasca . Come in
please.” She released the transmit
button, heard nothing but static. Tried
again.
“KHAQQ to Itasca . Unsure
of position but think bearing 157 degrees from vicinity of Howland. Over unknown island with lagoon and wrecked
steamship on reef, northwest end.
Landing appears feasible on reef near shipwreck. Critically low on gas, preparing to land.”
She released the button, listened intently. Nothing.
“OK,” she mouthed to Fred. “Going in.”
He glanced at her with a thin smile, nodded tightly,
raising his eyes to heaven. Checked his
seatbelt, tightened it.
She banked again and lined up her approach from the
southeast. Cross-wind landing, couldn’t be
helped. Started throttling back; lowered
the landing gear lever, heard the gear clunk into place. Fred, watching the
instrument panel, gave a thumb up for confirmation, took a firm grip on the
panel. She continued to reduce throttle, eased the flaps down.
On an uninhabited island, they would have to find their
own food and water. Coconuts maybe, and
fish. She hadn’t seen any coconut trees
– or had she? Couldn’t remember.
“Anyway, it won’t be for long.”
Itasca – or someone – would come get them. Thank
heaven – whatever it was, if it was – for something to land on.
“Hang on!”
Unneeded warning; Fred was hanging on with both hands,
eyes fixed on the shipwreck sweeping toward them. Its burned superstructure
flashed beneath their wheels. The reef rose fast.
The fat airwheels touched water, kicked up spray,
sideslipped, gripped solid coral.
Notes: Part 1
Summer, 1907
July 2nd, 1937, 11 am
“Sunglasses.” “To prevent eyestrain… she was planning to take a
‘battery’ of sunglasses made up especially for her” East to the Dawn p. 360.
“But they’d chased clouds before.” “There is no
doubt that the last hour of any flight is the hardest. If there are any clouds about to make shadows
one is likely to see much imaginary land.
I saw considerable territory in the Pacific which California should
annex!” Last Flight p. 17
“If she got out of this, it might be time for
another operation.” Earhart
suffered from sinus trouble for much of her life, possibly resulting from
having contracted the Spanish Flu during the 1918 epidemic. She undertook repeated surgical operations to
relieve the condition. See http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Earhart.html and http://www.biographyonline.net/adventurers/amelia-earhart.html
“Like
the runway had in Hawaii.” This
refers to the accident at Luke Field in Hawaii during the first attempted World
Flight. See Finding Amelia: Chapter Three.
“…get ashore in the inflatable raft.” There is debate over whether the
Electra carried a life raft. I have chosen to accept reports that it did (See
Associated Press July 2, 1937, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0702.html#article.
“Not
long enough to allow Itasca to get
there.” The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter
Itasca was lying
off Howland Island, stationed there to guide Earhart in to a safe landing using
radio direction finding. The cutter subsequently played a major role in the
search for Earhart and Noonan. See Finding
Amelia Chaps 9-21)
“A ship not unlike hers” This was a Croydon
ST-18, piloted by H.G. “Timber” Wood, which landed on Seringapatam Reef in
the Timor Sea in October 1936; the crew was rescued but the plane lost. F.F. Crocombe, the plane’s designer,
published an article on the event in the December 10, 1936 issue of Flight, a journal that Earhart very
likely read. See http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1936/1936%20-%203384.html, http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/64_ReefLanding/64_ReefLanding.htm, and http://tighar.org/wiki/Landing_on_a_Reef:_A_Case_Study
“It looked broadest, and quite smooth and flat, just
north of the shipwreck.” This
is what the reef looks like north of the Norwich
City wreck on the Nutiran shore of Nikumaroro, where we suspect Earhart and
Noonan landed. See the “Aerial Tour of Nikumaroro” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL9FGsvB3E8
for a first-hand look.
“Its burned superstructure flashed beneath their
wheels. The reef rose fast,” The
presumed landing approach is replicated toward the end of the “Aerial Tour of
Nikumaroro.”
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