Amelia Earhart

May 15, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas; the daughter of a railroad attorney, she spent her childhood in various towns, including Atchison and Kansas City, Kansas and Des Moines, Iowa.

“Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke … but enjoys an occasional game of poker. … Dances anywhere a band plays. Says there’s a saying among aviators: ‘Show me how well you dance and I’ll tell you how well you can fly.’” (Keir)

“(Flying) may not be all plain sailing … But the fun of it is worth the price.” (Putnam, The Fun Of It)

When she was 10, she saw her first plane at a state fair … she was not impressed. “It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and looked not at all interesting.”

It wasn’t until she attended a stunt-flying exhibition, almost a decade later, that she became seriously interested in aviation. A pilot spotted her and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dove at them. “I am sure he said to himself, ‘Watch me make them scamper.’” She stood her ground.

Something inside her awakened as the plane swooped by. “I did not understand it at the time,” she said, “but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by.” On December 28, 1920, pilot Frank Hawks gave her a ride that would forever change her life.

“By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground,” she said, “I knew I had to fly.” (California Museum) Learning to fly in California, she took up aviation as a hobby, taking odd jobs to pay for her flying lessons.

In 1922, with the financial help of her sister, Muriel, and her mother, Amy Otis Earhart, she purchased her first airplane. She was the 16th woman to earn her pilot license, receiving it on May 15, 1923.

In 1929, she and a group of other women pilots (a total of 99) formed the Ninety-Nines; she served at its first president. Later, she met and married (February 7, 1931) George Palmer Putnam, a publisher and promoter.

She flew for ‘fun.’ She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932,) the first woman to fly solo, nonstop, across the US from Los Angeles to Newark (1932,) and the first person to fly solo between Los Angeles and Mexico City and between Mexico City and Newark (1935.)

She came to Hawaiʻi twice (December 27, 1934 to January 11, 1935 (to make the Hawaiʻi to the continent) and March 17 through March 20, 1937 (as part of the first plan to fly around-the-world.))

“Over the Christmas holiday (1934,) Amelia Earhart and George Putnam, along with Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mantz, arrived in Honolulu on December 27, having sailed on the Matson liner SS Lurline. Amelia’s Lockheed Vega was secured on the ocean liner’s deck. The group spent two weeks vacationing in Hawaiʻi.” She visited Hilo and planted a banyan tree on “Hilo Walk of Fame.”

Five days after planting the banyan tree, she took off from Wheeler Field, Oʻahu and after 18-hours and 15-minutes, Amelia and “Old Bessie, the Fire Horse,” made a perfect landing at Oakland Airport at 1:31, January 12, 1935, she was engulfed by a cheering crowd of 5,000-enthusiastic supporters.

It was another record flight for Amelia – the very first person, man or woman, to fly solo between Hawaiʻi and the American continent and the first civilian airplane to carry a two-way radio. (Plymate)

A commemorative plaque to honor her trans-pacific solo flight was put up on Diamond Head Road. Documents of that flight were placed in a copper box and inserted into the plaque’s base on March 6. It was dedicated on March 14, 1937.

The last Hawaiʻi visit was part of her planned flight around-the-world. She assembled a team to make an around-the-world flight (navigators Fred Noonan and Captain Harry Manning, as well as technical advisor/assistant navigator Paul Mantz.) It wouldn’t be the first around-the world flight, but it would be the longest, taking an equatorial route.

They set out from Oakland on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17, 1937) and headed for Hawaiʻi on the first leg of their journey. After 15-hours and 47-minutes they landed at Wheeler Field. (From there they would travel on to Howland Island in the South Pacific, and then on to Australia.) The plane was moved to Luke Field for take-off on the next leg.

At 5:53 am, March 20, 1937, she began the take-off roll; suddenly, at the 1,000-foot mark the right tire blew (ten seconds more and the plane would have been airborne.)

The right landing gear broke and the right wing and other parts of the plane were badly damaged (no one was hurt.) Within 6-hours after the aborted take-off, she was heading for San Francisco via ship. The plane had to be shipped back to California for repairs and the round the world trip was rescheduled.

She set out on her second attempt in June, this time with only Noonan to assist her effort. They set again from Oakland, this time flying from west to east, across the continental US to Miami, Florida.

They then flew toward Central and South America before finally turning east and crossed Africa and southern and southeastern Asia before setting down in Lae, New Guinea on June 29, 1937.

Necessary repairs and adjustments were made and the plane was refueled for the big trek across the Pacific to tiny Howland Island – the destination Earhart was attempting to reach on her first around-the-world attempt.

On July 1, she made her way from Lae, New Guinea for Howland Island. A radio report was received from her plane that she was over the ocean with no land in sight, with about one-half hour’s fuel left on board. (hawaii-gov)

They never reached Howland Island; they disappeared July 2, 1937.

Despite an extensive coordinated search carried out by the Navy and Coast Guard with 66-aircraft and 9-ships they were not found. (On January 5, 1939 Amelia Earhart was declared legally dead, in Superior Court in Los Angeles, California.)

In 1938, a lighthouse was constructed on Howland Island in her memory, and across the United States, streets, schools, and airports are named after Earhart. Her birthplace, Atchison, Kansas, became a virtual shrine to her memory.

The search for clues to Earhart’s disappearance continued. It was recently reported on Discovery that a fragment of her lost plane (a patch that replaced a navigational window in her modified plane) has been identified to a high degree of certainty.

New research strongly suggests that a piece of aluminum aircraft debris recovered in 1991 from Nikumaroro, an uninhabited atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, does belong to Earhart’s plane. (The rivet pattern and other features on the 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long fragment matched the patch and lined up with the structural components of the plane.)

The breakthrough suggests that, contrary to what was generally believed, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not crash in the Pacific Ocean, running out of fuel somewhere near their target destination of Howland Island.

Instead, they may have made a forced landing on Nikumaroro’ smooth, flat coral reef. The two became castaways and eventually died on the atoll, which is some 350 miles southeast of Howland Island. Further research is on-going. (Lots of information here is from hawaii-gov, Soylent and Amelia Earhart Museum.)

Amelia Earhart poses in front of her airplane in Wheeler Field, Hawaii, on January 4, 1935-NatlGeographic

Amelia arrives at Wheeler Field aboard her twin engine Lockheed Electra on 1st leg of her east to west around the world flight 3-18-1937.

Amelia Earhart’s plans to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. shipped her plane from Los Angeles on December 23, 1934-NatlGeographic

George Palmer Putnam and Amelia Earhart Putnam

Flower leis drape Amelia Earhart in Honolulu on January 3, 1935-NatlGeographic

Eating pineapple with Duke Kahanamoku-January 11, 1935-NatlGeographic

Pilot Amelia Earhart readies her plane at Wheeler Field, Hawaii, for a flight across some Pacific islands-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart is showered with flowers-the first person to successfully fly from Hawaii to California-NatlGeographic

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Amelia’s Electra following take off accident on Ford Island March 20, 1937.

Banyan Drive Tree-Amelia_Earhart, 1935

Amelia Earhart Memorial on Diamond Head, Oahu, August 1943

Amelia Earhart Memorial -plaque

‘Earhart Light’ on Howland Island-1939

‘Earhart Light’ on Howland Island

March 29, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hui Panalāʻau

Part of the equatorial “Line Islands” and “Pacific Remote Islands,” Baker, Howland and Jarvis Islands were first formed as fringing reefs around islands formed by volcanoes (approximately 120-75 million years ago). As the volcanoes subsided, the coral reefs grew upward forming low coral islands.

Howland Island lies 1,650 sea miles to the southwest of Honolulu, and 48 miles north of the equator. It and Baker Island, which lies about 35 miles to the south and a little east, are located northwest of the Phoenix group, and are 1,000 miles west of Jarvis.

There is evidence to suggest that Howland Island was the site of prehistoric settlement, probably in the form of a single community utilizing several adjacent islands. Archaeological sites have been discovered on Manra and Orona, which suggest two distinct groups of settlers, one from eastern Polynesia and one from Micronesia.

US whaling ships first sighted the islands in 1822. The islands are habitat for birds. Alfred G Benson and Charles H Judd took formal possession of the islands (as well as Jarvis Island) in 1857 in the name of the American Guano Company of New York (consistent with the Guano Act of August 18, 1856.)

The Guano Act stated that “when any citizen of the United States discovers a guano deposit on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same island, rock, or key, it appertains to the United States.”

“The Peruvian Government has monopolized the supply of Guano throughout the United States … on account of said monopoly, the Farmers of this country have hithertofore been obliged to pay for said article about $50 a ton … it is the duty of the American Government to assert its sovereignty over any and all barren and uninhabitable guano islands of the ocean which have been or hereafter may be discovered by citizens of the United States …” (American Guano Company Prospectus, 1856)

“This Company own(s) an island in the Pacific Ocean, covered with a deposit of more than two hundred million tons of ammoniated guano and have dispatched a ship, agent, and men, to maintain possession thereof.” (American Guano Company Prospectus, 1856)

Rich guano deposits were mined throughout the later part of the 19th century, however, the guano business gradually disappeared, just before the turn of the century. Thoughts of and activities on the islands disappeared.

Then, in mid-1930s, the US Bureau of Air Commerce (later known as Department of Commerce) was looking for sites along the air route between Australia and California to support trans-Pacific flight operations (non-stop, trans-Pacific flying was not yet possible, so islands were looked to as potential sites for the construction of intermediate landing areas.)

The United States reasserted its claim to the islands in 1935 (followed by President Franklin D Roosevelt issuing Executive Order 7368 to clarify American sovereignty and jurisdiction over the islands, on May 13, 1936.)

To affirm a claim, international law required non-military occupation of all neutral islands for at least one year. An American colony was established.

The US Bureau of Air Commerce believed that native Hawaiian men would be best suited for the role as colonizers and they turned to Kamehameha Schools graduates to fill the role.

“They looked for someone that had some Hawaiian background. And that’s why they came to Kamehameha Schools to see if they can get someone from the school to participate because of our descendance as part-Hawaiians, that we would be used to the South Pacific or wherever.” (James Carroll, colonist)

School administration selected the participants based on various academic, citizenship and ROTC-related criteria, as well as their meeting specified requirements for the job: “The boys have to be grown-up, know how to fish in the native manner, swim excellently and handle a boat, that they be disciplined, friendly, and unattached, that they could stand the rigors of a South Seas existence.”

On March 30, 1935, the United States Coast Guard Cutter Itasca departed in secrecy from Honolulu Harbor with 6 young Hawaiians aboard (all recent graduates of Kamehameha Schools) and 12 furloughed army personnel, whose purpose was to occupy the barren islands of Baker, Howland and Jarvis for 3-months.

“Once you get there, you wish you never got there. You know, you’re on this island just all by yourself and it’s, you know, nothing there at all. Just birds, birds, millions and millions of birds. And you just don’t know what to do with yourself, you know. It takes you a while to adjust to that, but once you adjust to it, it’s fine.” (Elvin Mattson, colonist)

The American colonists were landed from the Itasca, April 3, 1935. They have built a lighthouse, substantial dwellings and attempt to grow various plants.

Cruises by Coast Guard cutters made provisioning trips approximately every three months to refit and rotate the colonists stationed on each island. Soon plans were put into place to build airfields on the islands and permanent structures were built.

In addition to their basic duties of collecting meteorological data for the government, the colonists kept busy by building and improving their camps, clearing land, growing vegetables, attempting reforestation and collecting scientific data for the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.

In their free time, they would fish, dive, swim, surf/bodysurf, lift weights, box, play football, hunt rats, experiment with bird recipes, play music, sing and find other ways of occupying themselves.

Tragedy struck twice: Carl Kahalewai, a graduate of McKinley High School, died of appendicitis while he was being rushed home for an emergency operation; and on December 8, 1941, when the islands of Howland and Baker were bombed and shelled by the Japanese, Joseph Keliʻihananui and Richard “Dickie” Whaley were killed.

Howland Island played a role in the tragic disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred J Noonan during their around-the-world flight in 1937. They left Lae, New Guinea and headed for Howland Island; the Itasca was at Howland Island to guide Earhart to the island once she arrived in the vicinity – they didn’t arrive and were never seen again. A lighthouse (later a day beacon) was built on Howland Island in Earhart’s honor.

The colonists were removed, following Japanese attacks on the islands in 1942. US military personnel occupied the islands during World War II. The islands have remained unoccupied since that time, but they are visited annually by US Fish and Wildlife personnel because the islands are a National Wildlife Refuge and later part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.

During the 7 years of colonization (1936-1942,) more than 130 young men participated in the project, the majority of whom were Hawaiian; none of the islands were ever used for commercial aviation, but the islands eventually served military purposes. (Pan American Airways used Canton (Kanton) Island for its trans-Pacific flight flying boat operations.)

As early as 1939, members of previous trips formed a club to “perpetuate the fellowship of Hawaiian youths who have served as colonists on American equatorial islands.” Initially they were called the “Hui Kupu ʻĀina,” which suggests the idea of sprouting, growing and increasing land.

By 1946 the group’s name had changed to “Hui Panalāʻau,” which has been variously translated as “club of settlers of the southern islands,” “holders of the land society” and “society of colonists.” (Lots of information and images here are from Bishop Museum.)

July 12, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Wailupe Naval Radio Station

“Navy officials said they received a garbled radio message early today, purported to have been sent by Amelia Earhart, which indicated her plane was sinking.”

“The message received by three navy operators was pieced together as follows: ‘281 north Howland call KHAQQ beyond north won’t hold with us much longer above water shut off.’”

“The operators said keying of the message was poor and they were able only to pick up the fragments of it was received between 4:30 am and 5:30 am Pacific coast time.” (Bakersfield Californian, July 5, 1937)

Reanalysis of the credible post-loss signals supports the hypothesis that they were sent by Earhart’s Electra from a point on the reef at Nikumaroro, about a quarter-mile north of the shipwreck of the British freighter SS Norwich City. (NBC)

The signal was picked up by radiomen at the US Naval Radio Station in Wailupe, O‘ahu.

“The Navy purchased a piece of land at Wailupe for the temporary station and it was very temporary as plans were in the making for a permanent station at Wailupe.”

The temporary station at Wailupe was built around the first part of 1919 and personnel moved there to allow the Kahuku and Koko Head stations to be remodeled. Almost the entire crew of operators at Koko Head was sent to Wailupe.

“There were three booths, more like chicken coops, scattered on the beach. Each booth, of crude construction, had room for two circuits. The roofs leaked and some of the operators had to sit under an umbrella suspended from the ceiling to keep water off the equipment.”

“We stood a three section watch, seven days a week, no rotation of watches, no days off. Straight 8 on and 16 off, and that’s the way it was at the start of NPM (long distance radio station at Pearl Harbor) at Wailupe as a Government and commercial traffic station.” (Phelps)

The station was completed early in 1921. It was a rectangular, one story building on pilings out over the water to provide more land space for the proposed officer’s quarters, two duplex quarters and the single men’s barracks.

The building was divided into compartments or booths, seven on each side separated by a hallway extending the full length of the building. The wireroom had Morse code landline circuits to the Old Naval Station in Honolulu (HU) for transmission of commercial, other government department traffic and press news dispatches for the Honolulu newspapers

One additional set of duplex quarters was built between the two original duplexes. A tennis court, swimming pool and recreation building had been constructed. A diversity receiving station had been built on the hill behind the quarters.

Facilities at Wailupe in 1939 were meager, and an entirely new receiving and control station was under construction. At Wailupe in December 1941 there were seventy-six men operating twelve positions to receive and send naval dispatches.

After the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy realized that the station at Wailupe on the seacoast was very vulnerable to attack.

So, on the morning of December 10, 1941, the District Communication Officer decided to have all radio equipment at Wailupe moved to Wahiawa.

(Wahiawa was originally established in 1940 as a temporary Naval Radio Station and Naval Radio Direction Finder Station, but the need to expand receiving facilities and to separate transmitting and receiving facilities forced expansion at NCTAMS PAC Wahiawa.)

The Wahiawa site was an excellent receiving area arid the best protected radio station of the entire district. Relocation was completed on December 17 without interruption of communications. (Todd)

With the outbreak of World War II, the Coast Guard established a Training Station in early spring 1942 at the former Naval Radio Station at Wailupe. One of the most important schools at the Training Station was the 16-week Radioman School.

There were approximately 20 students per class, with the first class beginning in March 1942. In November 1943, the Coast Guard assumed control of all inter-island communications for the Navy. As a result of the increased traffic, a new primary radio station was constructed on the site of the Wailupe Training Station.

However, the Coast Guard felt “the site of the present District primary radio station at Wailupe is far from satisfactory because of lack of space and the character of the terrain which prevents the proper separation of transmitting and receiving antenna systems.”

During the period of September – October 1958, the receiver site and administrative spaces were moved to Wahiawa. (Coast Guard)

Eventually, the area makai of Kalanianaʻole Highway was transferred and is now Wailupe Beach Park; the Coast Guard maintains housing and recreational facilities, mauka of the highway. (Lots of information and images here are from Phelps, Todd and virhistory-com.)

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John Kriens at Position 5 – 01-46

McVeigh at Position 2 – 01-46

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John Kriens at Position 4 – 01-46

Carter at Position 3 – 01-46

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1919 Radiomen-L-R-EL Harris, WG Tichenor, OH Scott, HB ‘Skinny’ Phelps

Ralph Murph at Position 3 – 01-46

Schmoeger at Position 1 – 01-46

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Wailupe Naval Radio Station-to Koko Head-t4376_dd-map-1928

January 11, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Flying for Fun

“(Flying) may not be all plain sailing … But the fun of it is worth the price.” (Putnam, The Fun Of It)

Five hundred enjoyed Mrs Putnam’s free lecture through the University Extension Service, University of Hawaiʻi – titled, ‘Flying for Fun.”

It was an interesting subject back then, only a few short years after Charles Lindberg first flew solo over the Atlantic. (She repeated the feat on the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh’s solo flight.)

‘Flying for fun’ (sport aviation) is basically flying for some purpose other than transportation or business (relaxation, hobby, competition, racing or thrill.) (CAP)

“I attempted to fly across the Atlantic ocean for my own person satisfaction. My flight added nothing to aviation. Literally hundreds of persons have crossed the Atlantic by aircraft, and one flight adds little to the starting sum total.”

“If my flight interested women to learn to fly as pilots or to fly as passengers on air lines, or to let their husbands and children fly as passengers, or to let their children embark on careers aeronautical engineers, then I think that my flight was worth while.” (Mrs Putnam, Rockford Morning Star, 02-15-1935; Genealogy Trails)

“A charming personality combined with a graciousness and ability in speaking to an audience as well as to the individual are paradoxically the qualities that the pioneering American woman flyer … possesses. In addition to these, her love for beauty is so real that she believes the lure of flying is the lure of beauty.”

She “described vividly and picturesquely her flight over the Pacific ocean, adding to her gift for pantomime a power of description and a true sense of humor that struck an immediate response in her audience.”

She insists “that the only reason for the flights was her own wish to fly. In this connection she said, ‘Women must often do for themselves what men have already done, and I look for the day to come when individual aptitude instead of sex will be the criterion for holding any job.’” (Daily Illini, March 22, 1935)

“I have long been interested in the comparative skills between the sexes. I have watched the flawless coordination of women champion drivers and I have watched the control and precision of women factory hands as they do work no man does (whether this should be ‘can do’ or not, I do not know)…”

“… and I wonder why the creatures who can with training perform these diverse tasks, and a hundred others, so excellently, should be balked by a contraption with an engine and four wheels or one with an engine and a couple of wings.” (Putnam to Wiggam, 1932)

She was rarely out of public view. In the many images of her after 1928, she appears as the epitome of grace and poise. During the years that America was in the grip of the Great Depression, she provided the nation with a sense of hope and optimism about its future.

After discovering the joy of flying, she came to see the airplane as her one true home. There she could escape, challenge herself, break records, and inspire others who longed to lead independent lives.

Although she was a vocal advocate for women’s rights and the future of aviation, she preferred being in the cockpit of a plane to anywhere else. She seemed to be happiest when flying an airplane. (Smithsonian)

At 4:44 pm, January 11, 1935, Putnam took off from Wheeler Field on Oʻahu for Oakland, California on a trans-Pacific flight never made solo before.

It was just one year prior that Commander M. Ginnis led his flight of six seaplanes from the West Coast to Hawaii. Now a woman was doing it in reverse, flying in one airplane, with one engine, and no other person aboard. (hawaii-gov)

A crowd of less than 1,000 was on hand to see the take-off. “Mr. Putnam was worried and perspiring as the plane got into the air. ‘I would rather have a baby,’ he said.”

“Despite the bad weather in the Schofield Barracks area, which included a drizzling rain and a muddy field, (Putnam) decided that conditions for her 2,400-mile cruise which she had planned ever since her arrival here two weeks ago, were right.”

“Everything fine; weather fair,” she radioed to Honolulu. (NYTimes, January 11, 1935)

The scene at Oakland Airport was a contrast to the Wheeler point of departure, as 5,000 people lined the field to offer a tumultuous reception for the first human to fly solo and non-stop over one ocean and 2,000 miles over another.

The West Coast appeared to the pilot twice in error, each time turning out to be cloud shadows on the water’s surface. The third time, however, was land.

Then she sighted the landing field and the hundreds of honking cars. The time was 12:50 pm, January 12, 1935. Some 2,090 nautical miles from Wheeler Field – 18 hours and 15 minutes later – she settled into a perfect landing in the California airport.

A brilliant success, the flight was accomplished by a flyer whose only motivation was the love of flying, and a desire to contribute trail-blazing marks to the world. (hawaii-gov)

Oh … we generally refer to Mrs George Palmer Putnam as Amelia Earhart. Today is the anniversary of her historic solo flight from Hawaiʻi to the continent, the first person, man or woman, to do so.

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