I was watching the History Channel on TV the other night and there was a program about various “mysteries” that hadn’t been solved over the years. One story that got its fair share of the one hour program was about Amelia Earhart. She kind of became famous by becoming lost and never found, but she really had a pretty interesting life. Most of the stories I’ve read about her over the years indicated she was an outstanding pilot, and at the time, being female made her even more amazing. She did become an inspiration to women everywhere, although just how good a pilot she was is debatable.
In 1928, a friend of the New York publisher George Palmer Putnam approached Amelia Earhart with an idea. Putnam wanted to finance a flight that would make Earhart the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. After the flight, she’d write a book about it and he’d publish it.
Admittedly, she’d only be a passenger, but Putnam thought that, seeing as how it was only 1928, even that would be newsworthy. Earhart, who was 31 at the time, already had some experience as a pilot, but not enough — so the job of flying the plane, a trimotor Fokker called “Friendship,” was given to Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. Amelia was given the title “commander,” but there wasn’t really anything to command.
On June 18, the Friendship took off from Nova Scotia, heading for Ireland. On the other side of the ocean, bad weather forced them to land in South Wales — the fog had gotten bad and there wasn’t much fuel left, but they landed safely in Europe. Amelia had made a name for herself. She had also made a friend in Putnam — actually, more than a friend. And since Putnam was married, people started talking. In 1929, Putnam’s wife went to Reno to get a divorce. Putnam and Earhart were married in 1931. Soon afterwards, her book, 20 Hours, 40 Minutes, was published. Amelia’s new husband worked hard to keep her name in front of the public. At his urging, she flew solo from the East coast to the West coast where she attended the National Air Races in California, then returned to do a lecture tour to promote her book.
Amelia organized the first air race for women pilots, which the papers dubbed a “powder puff derby.” That same year, Earhart and 98 other women pilots founded “the Ninety-Nines,” an organization of woman pilots.
Five years to the day after Lindberg’s flight, on May 20, 1932, Earhart flew solo across the atlantic. When she landed in Londonderry in Northern Ireland she’d broken two records: not only was she the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, at the time she also was the only person to have crossed the Atlantic by plane twice.
With the Atlantic under her belt, she turned to the west. Her next solo flight crossed the Pacific, flying from Hawaii to California. After that, she wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world.
On her first attempt at an around the world flight, as she and her navigator, Frederick Noonan, were taking off, Amelia made an error in judgement, and overcompensated for a dipping wing. The plane crashed, but Earhart and Noonan survived. They tried again two months later.
After 22,000 miles — with only 7.000 miles to go — they landed at Lae, New Guinea. When they took off again, it was the last time anyone ever saw them.
Nineteen hours and 30 minutes after leaving Lae, broadcasting on a strong signal, Amelia radioed, “We must be on you but cannot see you… gas is running low.” One final voice transmission followed, the last position report. Then nothing.
The Coast Guard began the search. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered nine Navy ships and 66 aircraft to join the effort, but no trace of the flyers or their plane was found. After the official search was called off, George Putnam instigated a further search, but no luck.
There are lots of theories — some of them wacky — about Earhart’s intimate fate. The most reasonable, but unlikely, is that she was on a spy mission for the U.S. Another just as unlikely scenario is that she purposely committed suicide. One popular rumor even claimed that Earhart was the voice of the infamous “Tokyo Rose,”
Some physical evidence recovered on an uninhabited Pacific reef points to a possible landing there, but even if true, it doesn’t account for the remains of the pilot and her navigator.
The tabloids still report the uncovered “truth” of Earhart’s fate. Until the real truth comes to light, I imagine they’ll go on claiming that she was on a secret mission or is still alive on a remote Pacific Island — probably living with Elvis.
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