June 29, 2009 • 24 mins
In 1937, famous aviator Amelia Earhart attempted to circumnavigate the globe via airplane. However, she disappeared over the Pacific and was never seen again. Listen in to learn more about the mystery in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candace Keener, joined by fellow editor Katie Lambert's
Helen Candice. Hi. There, Katie, I conducted some very surprising
(00:23):
research this week. Was it on Lady Lyndy, Queen of
the Air. It was Amelia Earhart, who I think most
of us hold in our minds as an iconic figure
in American history and world history. Really of um, of
a very strong and determined and capable woman, the sixteenth
(00:44):
woman in the entire world. We granted her pilot's license
in fact, and I learned that there are some factors
which may explain her disappearance that color her in a
slightly different light. And that's not to say that we're
not going to celebrate him early air heart, because we
certainly are. But I think you'll learn a thing or
two just like I did. So maybe we'll start at
(01:05):
her beginnings, which were rather humble. Um. She was a
Kansas girl born in Her father was a lawyer for
the railroad. Um. She ended up being a nurse's aid
and a military hospital in Toronto, and she was actually
primed for a while at Columbia, which surprised me because
who knew, but she was only there for a semester.
(01:26):
When she was just ten years old. She was at
a state fair when she really had her interest kindled
in flying, watching the planes swooping overhead and rushing past
her and staring up the wind. She realized that she
wanted to do that too, and that ambition was cemented
in her mind in December of nineteen twenty when the
pilot Frank Hawks invited her on his plane for a flight,
(01:49):
and she thought, this is it, this is what I'm
going to do. So she bought her first plane in
nine It was yellow and she named it Canary, and
she had flying lessons from Nita Snook, who was also
one of the foremost female aviators of the day, because
there weren't many. And a critic has said that here
(02:10):
was a turning point for the Amelia It hurt story
for me at least, was that Snook I didn't think
that Amelia was necessarily skilled enough to become a pilot.
Perhaps her ambitions and enthusiasm outweighed her skill, and in
some cases that certainly compensates, and it makes up for
something you're not entirely good at but for an activity
(02:31):
as precis is flying, of course you need to have
all of your little ducks in a row. So Snook
maybe thought she had the drive but not the talent exactly,
but that didn't stop her from trying now. And her
first lesson, I like this fact was twenty minutes long
in Snooks World War one canuck um, and she charged
her seventy five cents per minute Snooks connect. You really
(02:52):
can't make this gun up yet. Early in her career
she established her prowess in the sky by setting record
for speed and altitude, and she became very slowly but
truly a huge celebrity in the aviation world. She was
the first female passenger on the Fokker Friendship. They flew
(03:13):
from Newfoundland to Wales, and it was a big deal
because a publicist named George Putnam was the one who
had set her up for this, and originally he had
been looking for someone else, but that woman ended up
not being able to take her place, and Amelia was
totally gung ho to go for this trip. And also
in nineteen it was a big year for her. She
was the first woman to make a solo return transcontinental flight,
(03:38):
and as far as her position on the friendship flight
with Walmer Stoltz and some Gordon. For them, it was
old hats this type of transatlantic voyage, but Putnam was
a publicist as much as a publisher, and he was
trying to put a new spin on it. It was
the first time that a woman was on board, and
she was given the title commander to lend her sense
(04:00):
of prestige. But Amelia was always very clear and very
adamant about the fact that she didn't do anything on
this flight. She was merely there for company, and one
could guess too that she was watching and observing and
learning what exactly people do to conduct themselves on these
long flights. And later when she would do solo trips,
she would remark that the company she kept where the
(04:22):
celestial bodies in the sky. It was some of the
most beautiful things she'd ever seen. And I think she
also felt a little bit guilty about getting so famous
for something where she wasn't really doing anything, and that
gave her the urge to prove herself exactly, and not
only the urge, it also gave her a bunch of
endorsement deals because she needed money to continue on with
her flight career. Lucky strikes cigarettes for one for one. Uh.
(04:46):
She went on to add another impressive feat to her resume,
and that was helping to organize the Woman's Air Derby
and becoming a founding member in president of the ninety nine.
And the ninety nine was a woman's aviation group, and
this was sort of a post suffrage effort to get
women to organize and explore their other interests. And as
(05:08):
women were gaining ground in the aviation industry, they found
they didn't have a lot of support from their male cohorts.
It was seen it was seen as a men's world,
and they wanted in and so by offering each other
support and sharing industry news, they could better gain ground,
get a better foothold. And one of my favorite things
that the ninety nine did, and I should mention too,
(05:30):
that the name ninety nine was Amelia's idea because when
they put out a call for interested parties, women answered anyway.
They campaign to overturn the government proposal that would ban
women from flying when they were menstruating. Fair enough, yes,
And I'm just gonna leave it at that. Just a
fine historical fact for everyone they're still around for the record,
(05:52):
I think have more than five thousand members today and
they note on their website that most women who have
achieved great things in aviation have been a member of
the ninety nine. So during this time with her involvement
with the ninety nine and her speaking engagements, she was
also writing for Cosmopolitan magazine and for other publications, and
she was actually the aviation editor or aviation writer for Cosmo,
(06:16):
And I'm I don't think we have that, No, I
don't think so. I think it was a much different
uh iteration of the magazine back in that day. But
in nive she was appointed to a consulting position at
Purdue University. More women were starting to have careers of
their own, and she became an advisor to them, which
I think is really significant. And it's interesting to note
(06:38):
that despite her own ambitions, Amelia Earhardt was also and
approachable and disarming enough woman that other young woman would
feel comfortable seeking her counsel. I think that speaks a
lot about her character, and at this point, I think
too she was also a bit of a style icon,
and I know we always like fashion throughout history. That
(06:58):
she had the leather jackets close cropped hair, um silk
ties and scarves, and people thought she was she was sassy.
She was. You can see pictures on the official Amelia
air Heart Museum website and plenty of other fan websites
out there of her wearing her her tight fitting pants
and her boots and the scarf tied around her neck.
(07:19):
She was really really classic. I think she even had
a clothing line. I know she had a luggage line. Wow,
I did not know that. But in the meantime, even
before perdue, in nineteen thirty two, she was the first
woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She landed in Ireland,
and I think that's when she finally felt like, yeah,
she'd really done something. And she also got the Distinguished
Flying Cross that year, and she was also recognized by
(07:42):
President Herbert Hoover with the National Geographic Society Gold Medal.
So attention and awards and praise is being showered upon her.
And she's nearing her fortieth birthday and at this time
she's actually married to George Putnam. She rejected him six
times for the record before they ever got married. We
(08:05):
should know too that he was actually married when they
began touring together and helping to endorse her career together,
but he was granted divorce in so by thirty one
he and Amelia were an item, and he wrote her
a very interest She wrote him, excuse me a very
interesting letter, where she said, I shall not hold you
to any medieval code of faithfulness um to me, nor
(08:27):
shall I consider myself bound to you similarly, and then
went on to say that if she thought they were honest,
they could avoid any difficulties if one or the other
of them became too attract it to someone else. So
she knew what she was getting into. She did, and
she called the marriage a partnership with dual control and
kept her own name. She did, and George recognized that
(08:48):
for her to keep her celebrity index high, she needed
another big flying stunt, and nearing her fourtieth birthday, she
was ready to become the first woman to fly solo
around the world. And flying solo around the world had
already been accomplished by Charles Lindbergh, but she wanted to
(09:09):
show that a woman could do it too, and as
a matter of fact, she chose a course that wrapped
as tightly around the equator as possible, which extended the
journey just a bit, and also took it through some
more difficult to rain the Pacific Islands in particular as well.
Soon learn we're quite challenging navigate. So she started in
(09:30):
nineteen thirty seven on this trip and flew from California
to Hawaii, but a tire blue when they landed in Hawaii,
which sort of put their plans on hold for a
little bit. The plane had to be shipped back to
California to be fixed. And we should mention that this
plane was the Lockheed Electra. She had formerly used a
Lockheed Vega, but the Electra was better suited for long
(09:52):
distance flying, and she'd been flying in the Lockheed Vega,
but switched to the Lockheed Electra, which is better suited
for long di stints flying. They had to restart her
journey in Miami. They decided instead they just go the
totally other way this time, since they had already publicized
it well, and plus the winds were more favorable in
the opposite direction exactly. But they didn't want anyone to
(10:13):
know that they were actually having to fly there repaired
plane from California to Miami, so they just didn't make
any announcements on that right, and looking back now with
the historian's I you know, you could say it was
it was a prophetic bad start, and that you know,
this maybe was one clue, because there are some sources
that say that it was her handling of the plane
(10:35):
that caused it to scrape its belly across the runway
into crash. And even though there wasn't a fire, it
was very badly damaged. Perhaps it was nerves, I don't know.
But she also had on board a man who, again
some critics say, was not the best navigation advisor. This
was Frederick Noonan, and he'd formerly worked with Pacific Flight Navigation,
(11:00):
but had reportedly been let go from his previous job
for being a little bit too drunk at work. Sometimes again,
some of this is based on historical hearsay, but a
lot of historical sources do say that his method of navigation,
which was to your celestial positioning, couldn't be relied upon
entirely for and around the world flight. Imagine using just
(11:23):
the heavens and the sky to guide you. Well, what
do you do when it's cloudy? Exactly? And you'll see
that was a big downfall, and so pictures were back
in Miami we've got we should be feeling a little
bit nervous at this point with that background, and we've
already had an accident on the trip. We've got Fred
Noonan who were not entirely sure about and they take
off and eventually end up in New Guinea on June
(11:45):
twenty nine. And we should note that despite these omnus factors,
they've been doing swingly, I mean absolutely great. This was
a trip that was going to be about twenty nine
thousand miles and they only had seven thousand left to go.
They knocked out a substantial amount of the mileage. I
mean we're talking about crossing over South America and Africa
and India and Asia Australia, and it was very carefully
(12:09):
charted as to where they would stop and refuel. And
their next stop was Howland Island. Howland Island, which is
more than I think miles away from where they were,
and Helen Island is more of a toll than an island.
The teeny tiny's teeny tiny, uh it's about a mile
and a half long half mile across and she wasn't
(12:33):
even going to be able to uh get to the
island exactly without the help of the U S Coastguard,
So she had plans to meet this US Coastguard cutter
named the Itasca nearby, who would help give her exact
coordinates and refuel her and allow her to rest for
a while. So they take off on July two for
the Howan Island, and that's when things start to go terribly,
(12:57):
horribly wrong. The last positive siding of them was over
the New Kumanu Islands by the Atasca, and the Atasca
was attempting to communicate with Amelia and Frederick with a
two way radio. Amelia didn't know Morse code, she wasn't
comfortable using it, and furthermore, she didn't necessarily have all
(13:18):
the equipment that she did need. She had an antenna,
and she had radio equipment that operated on a certain frequency,
but the frequency she was using wasn't the same one
necessarily that the Coast Guard was using. And even when
they did get on the right frequency, they didn't seem
to be getting each other's messages. She couldn't hear them,
and her last message to them, I think um or
(13:40):
what's usually recorded as the last message, said we must
be on you, but cannot see you, but gases running
low have been unable to reach you by radio. We're
flying in a thousand feet and the coast Guard couldn't
get her to switch to Morse code, which they preferred
to communicate. It was much more exact because he's she
didn't have the capability to get the message, it didn't
(14:03):
have the right equipment. So essentially the two parties are
in communicado. At this point, conditions are incredibly overcast, so
noon isn't able to help guide them. And then nothing,
absolutely nothing. We're not quite sure what happened, but of course,
you know, the United States went into a bit of
(14:24):
a panic because here was their aviation Darling gone either
drowned at sea or washed up on some remote beach.
And there was a very very extensive rescue attempt undertaken,
the biggest one yet. Yeah, four million dollars, and it
covered about two square miles in ocean, and it was
(14:45):
called off in July ninety seven. And here's the real
kicker for me. This is so interesting because Amelia Earhart
was officially declared dead on January five, nineteen thirty nine,
and Noonon was declared dead in June. We didn't want
to give up, hope, they didn't right they really didn't
want to let her go. And there was the Golden
(15:06):
Girl right and putnam to I mean, that was his
wife out there, and she had written to him before
she even left on this monumental voyage. Please, now, I
am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do
it because I want to do it. Women must try
to do things as men have tried. When they fail,
their failure must be but a challenge to others. So
(15:27):
that brings us to what exactly did happen to Amelia Earhart?
And there are several theories out there, and some of
them are are much more conspiracy theory like than based
in some sort of evidentiary fact. And we're going to
cover as many as we can and as many as
we were able to happen upon no part intended there.
(15:49):
One of the most famous is probably that she was
captured by the Japanese and that she was taken to
Saipan and put to death, and that she was actually
a spy for the Japanese. Actually, that was quite a
common rumor at the time, because you have to remember
to put it in context that this is when there's
very much a policy of isolationism and people not wanting
the United States to get involved in World War Two,
(16:11):
So there was a lot of controversy over that, and
the idea that she was flying halfway across the world.
Well maybe she was by and some have even gone
as far as to say that she was captured by
the Japanese and she became Tokyo Rose. Isn't that interesting?
And her husband George listened to recordings of Tokyo Rose
and said that the voice was not Amelia's. And one
(16:33):
of the other theories um was that she survived the crash,
she and Noon and both and just went to live
on one of the islands until they starved to death,
which it's very sad to think about, but it was
likely more possible than becoming Tokyo Rose, right precisely. Other
reports say that she was living in a disguised type
(16:54):
of retirement after all of these supposed admissions for the
government or else, trying to find out a graceful way
to back out of this very celebrated career. And she
was either in Chicago or she was in New York.
Under the pseudonym Irene Bolom, and his name is significant.
It was supposed to represent I believe the latitude and
longitude where she was supposed of the name of a
(17:17):
beach where she was supposed to have landed. I don't
even quite understand how that works. But um, poor Irene Balm,
she swore up and down, no, I am not Amelia
Earhart and sued them eventually. Right, they were publishers who
put together a book based on this theory, and Bolm
was having no part of it. And a lot of
people thought in general that it was a staged accident,
(17:40):
that that was her point all along, and it was,
you know, her way out of that way of life, right,
And so her sister actually stated, uh, this is Muriel
Earhart Morrissey. That she inquired directly to the Japanese government,
do you have my sister? And the answer was a
very strong no, we don't. And she held the belief
(18:02):
that the plane just simply ran out of fuel and
it crashed under the bottom of the ocean. And that's
the most accepted theory now, the crash and sink theory,
I believe they call it, which is pretty self explanatory, right,
And it is believable to think that her plane crashed
and that a four million dollar search effort at the
time could not recover the wreckage because in order to
(18:25):
find the wreckage they would have had to have searched
about seventeen thousand feet deep in the ocean. And keep
in mind, if she's around the Pacific Islands, there would
have been debris from other ships from World War Two.
So in order to identify Amelia Earhart's plane, not only
would wreckage have to be located, but search crews would
(18:46):
have had to have found the exact serial number that
matched her playing and so hard search and rescue efforts
at the time were very They weren't based on as
much science as we have now. I mean, you'd have
to be thinking about stuff like currents and the weather
conditions at the time. And to be fair, they weren't
even entirely sure where she was going. They think she
(19:06):
got knocked off course, um by a few by several
miles actually, but who knows. They just have that last
radio transmission, So there were several hours between then and
probably when she crashed. There are two interesting academic theories
that I wanted to discuss because both of them come
with a lot of evidentiary support and they're pretty interesting,
(19:26):
and they suggest that the plane went down in different locations.
And the first is from the International Group for Historic
Aircraft Recovery, who thinks that after she couldn't get in
touch with the Atasca, she turned her plane southeast and
flew toward Gardner Island. And this is a considerably larger
tract of land right, and it's pretty topographically distinct. There's
(19:47):
a large lagoon in the middle and an interesting landmark
too erect freighter. So she could have seen this island
and thought maybe that was the Atasca. Well, there you go,
and there plenty of room to land, so she could
have brought her plane safely down on the beach. And
if the plane went down on the beach and she
(20:07):
and Noonan walked inland just a little bit, it would
explain some strange radio messages that were picked up that
came at hours intervals of each other, and it was
a voice that sounded similar to Amelia's trying to help
give some geographical bearings and trying to give some directions
to where she could be found. And if they came
(20:29):
hours apart, that might be because as the tide came
in on Gardner Island, the plane would get covered by water,
and in order to power the radio from the plane's
right engine. She had to wait for the tide to
go out, which makes perfect sense, I think, and it's
a really interesting theory it does. And a search of
the island and turned up airplane debris, a skeleton and
(20:53):
a woman's shoe, and the skeleton was examined and at
first I was identified as uh An older pollen Asian man, no,
not Amelia, but then another inquiry said that it was
probably a European man, and then the skeleton was lost,
but an examination of the notes said that it was
(21:15):
actually a Tallish woman of European descent, somewhere between about
five ft five five ft nine that actually could have
been Amelia. And then other searches turned up cigarette lighters
which Noonan smoked so it could have been his, a
man's shoe, and plexiglass debris that matched era herts planes windows.
(21:36):
You have to wonder what happened to that skeleton. I know,
I know well, and this information seems pretty convincing. So
I was pretty much sold on Gardner Island. And then
I read about and so I read about this other theory,
which is that in five Australian soldiers on the island
of New Britain were tracing through the jungle and they
found record of a plane and it was practically overgrown
(21:58):
by all the foliage. It was so done so they
could barely get to it, but they managed to get
a piece of the plane and a map that they
found near it, which had some numbers written on it,
sip as three H one c N ten fifty five.
And these numbers actually correspond to the construction horsepower and
number of engines on air Hurts plane, which I don't know.
(22:24):
I don't want to make a judgment. I'm not here
to analyze. I'm here to offer the facts because we
don't know the answer. And that's the cool thing. They're
all these fascinating loose ends that may never actually be
solved for us historical mystery for sure, but also it's
it's nice to remember Amelia not just for her disappearance,
which is certainly spawned a number of salacious conspiracy theories,
(22:48):
but for the fact that she was a very important
figure and early feminist movement. Her beliefs about women being
capable of great feats and being able to try and
accomplish and even do better things that men had done first.
These are still relevant concerns and one of my favorite
quotes from her, it's pretty simple, but to me it
pretty much sums up Amelia Earhart is that flying may
(23:10):
not be all planes sailing, but the fun of it
is worth the price. And she was never walking into
any of these flights thinking that it wouldn't all be fine,
you know. She she knew it was dangerous when she
undertook that last flight, she knew it was dangerous when
she took her other flights. She'd even croushed a plane before,
I believe with Nita Snook, But she wanted to do
in any ways because it was worth it to her exactly.
(23:31):
And I think that's important advice to look by for sure.
And if you want to learn more about Amelia Earhart
in the history of flight, be sure to check out
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Stuff you missed in History Class blog on the how
stuff works dot Com home page
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candace Keener, joined by fellow editor Katie Lambert's
Helen Candice. Hi. There, Katie, I conducted some very surprising
(00:23):
research this week. Was it on Lady Lyndy, Queen of
the Air. It was Amelia Earhart, who I think most
of us hold in our minds as an iconic figure
in American history and world history. Really of um, of
a very strong and determined and capable woman, the sixteenth
(00:44):
woman in the entire world. We granted her pilot's license
in fact, and I learned that there are some factors
which may explain her disappearance that color her in a
slightly different light. And that's not to say that we're
not going to celebrate him early air heart, because we
certainly are. But I think you'll learn a thing or
two just like I did. So maybe we'll start at
(01:05):
her beginnings, which were rather humble. Um. She was a
Kansas girl born in Her father was a lawyer for
the railroad. Um. She ended up being a nurse's aid
and a military hospital in Toronto, and she was actually
primed for a while at Columbia, which surprised me because
who knew, but she was only there for a semester.
(01:26):
When she was just ten years old. She was at
a state fair when she really had her interest kindled
in flying, watching the planes swooping overhead and rushing past
her and staring up the wind. She realized that she
wanted to do that too, and that ambition was cemented
in her mind in December of nineteen twenty when the
pilot Frank Hawks invited her on his plane for a flight,
(01:49):
and she thought, this is it, this is what I'm
going to do. So she bought her first plane in
nine It was yellow and she named it Canary, and
she had flying lessons from Nita Snook, who was also
one of the foremost female aviators of the day, because
there weren't many. And a critic has said that here
(02:10):
was a turning point for the Amelia It hurt story
for me at least, was that Snook I didn't think
that Amelia was necessarily skilled enough to become a pilot.
Perhaps her ambitions and enthusiasm outweighed her skill, and in
some cases that certainly compensates, and it makes up for
something you're not entirely good at but for an activity
(02:31):
as precis is flying, of course you need to have
all of your little ducks in a row. So Snook
maybe thought she had the drive but not the talent exactly,
but that didn't stop her from trying now. And her
first lesson, I like this fact was twenty minutes long
in Snooks World War one canuck um, and she charged
her seventy five cents per minute Snooks connect. You really
(02:52):
can't make this gun up yet. Early in her career
she established her prowess in the sky by setting record
for speed and altitude, and she became very slowly but
truly a huge celebrity in the aviation world. She was
the first female passenger on the Fokker Friendship. They flew
(03:13):
from Newfoundland to Wales, and it was a big deal
because a publicist named George Putnam was the one who
had set her up for this, and originally he had
been looking for someone else, but that woman ended up
not being able to take her place, and Amelia was
totally gung ho to go for this trip. And also
in nineteen it was a big year for her. She
was the first woman to make a solo return transcontinental flight,
(03:38):
and as far as her position on the friendship flight
with Walmer Stoltz and some Gordon. For them, it was
old hats this type of transatlantic voyage, but Putnam was
a publicist as much as a publisher, and he was
trying to put a new spin on it. It was
the first time that a woman was on board, and
she was given the title commander to lend her sense
(04:00):
of prestige. But Amelia was always very clear and very
adamant about the fact that she didn't do anything on
this flight. She was merely there for company, and one
could guess too that she was watching and observing and
learning what exactly people do to conduct themselves on these
long flights. And later when she would do solo trips,
she would remark that the company she kept where the
(04:22):
celestial bodies in the sky. It was some of the
most beautiful things she'd ever seen. And I think she
also felt a little bit guilty about getting so famous
for something where she wasn't really doing anything, and that
gave her the urge to prove herself exactly, and not
only the urge, it also gave her a bunch of
endorsement deals because she needed money to continue on with
her flight career. Lucky strikes cigarettes for one for one. Uh.
(04:46):
She went on to add another impressive feat to her resume,
and that was helping to organize the Woman's Air Derby
and becoming a founding member in president of the ninety nine.
And the ninety nine was a woman's aviation group, and
this was sort of a post suffrage effort to get
women to organize and explore their other interests. And as
(05:08):
women were gaining ground in the aviation industry, they found
they didn't have a lot of support from their male cohorts.
It was seen it was seen as a men's world,
and they wanted in and so by offering each other
support and sharing industry news, they could better gain ground,
get a better foothold. And one of my favorite things
that the ninety nine did, and I should mention too,
(05:30):
that the name ninety nine was Amelia's idea because when
they put out a call for interested parties, women answered anyway.
They campaign to overturn the government proposal that would ban
women from flying when they were menstruating. Fair enough, yes,
And I'm just gonna leave it at that. Just a
fine historical fact for everyone they're still around for the record,
(05:52):
I think have more than five thousand members today and
they note on their website that most women who have
achieved great things in aviation have been a member of
the ninety nine. So during this time with her involvement
with the ninety nine and her speaking engagements, she was
also writing for Cosmopolitan magazine and for other publications, and
she was actually the aviation editor or aviation writer for Cosmo,
(06:16):
And I'm I don't think we have that, No, I
don't think so. I think it was a much different
uh iteration of the magazine back in that day. But
in nive she was appointed to a consulting position at
Purdue University. More women were starting to have careers of
their own, and she became an advisor to them, which
I think is really significant. And it's interesting to note
(06:38):
that despite her own ambitions, Amelia Earhardt was also and
approachable and disarming enough woman that other young woman would
feel comfortable seeking her counsel. I think that speaks a
lot about her character, and at this point, I think
too she was also a bit of a style icon,
and I know we always like fashion throughout history. That
(06:58):
she had the leather jackets close cropped hair, um silk
ties and scarves, and people thought she was she was sassy.
She was. You can see pictures on the official Amelia
air Heart Museum website and plenty of other fan websites
out there of her wearing her her tight fitting pants
and her boots and the scarf tied around her neck.
(07:19):
She was really really classic. I think she even had
a clothing line. I know she had a luggage line. Wow,
I did not know that. But in the meantime, even
before perdue, in nineteen thirty two, she was the first
woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She landed in Ireland,
and I think that's when she finally felt like, yeah,
she'd really done something. And she also got the Distinguished
Flying Cross that year, and she was also recognized by
(07:42):
President Herbert Hoover with the National Geographic Society Gold Medal.
So attention and awards and praise is being showered upon her.
And she's nearing her fortieth birthday and at this time
she's actually married to George Putnam. She rejected him six
times for the record before they ever got married. We
(08:05):
should know too that he was actually married when they
began touring together and helping to endorse her career together,
but he was granted divorce in so by thirty one
he and Amelia were an item, and he wrote her
a very interest She wrote him, excuse me a very
interesting letter, where she said, I shall not hold you
to any medieval code of faithfulness um to me, nor
(08:27):
shall I consider myself bound to you similarly, and then
went on to say that if she thought they were honest,
they could avoid any difficulties if one or the other
of them became too attract it to someone else. So
she knew what she was getting into. She did, and
she called the marriage a partnership with dual control and
kept her own name. She did, and George recognized that
(08:48):
for her to keep her celebrity index high, she needed
another big flying stunt, and nearing her fourtieth birthday, she
was ready to become the first woman to fly solo
around the world. And flying solo around the world had
already been accomplished by Charles Lindbergh, but she wanted to
(09:09):
show that a woman could do it too, and as
a matter of fact, she chose a course that wrapped
as tightly around the equator as possible, which extended the
journey just a bit, and also took it through some
more difficult to rain the Pacific Islands in particular as well.
Soon learn we're quite challenging navigate. So she started in
(09:30):
nineteen thirty seven on this trip and flew from California
to Hawaii, but a tire blue when they landed in Hawaii,
which sort of put their plans on hold for a
little bit. The plane had to be shipped back to
California to be fixed. And we should mention that this
plane was the Lockheed Electra. She had formerly used a
Lockheed Vega, but the Electra was better suited for long
(09:52):
distance flying, and she'd been flying in the Lockheed Vega,
but switched to the Lockheed Electra, which is better suited
for long di stints flying. They had to restart her
journey in Miami. They decided instead they just go the
totally other way this time, since they had already publicized
it well, and plus the winds were more favorable in
the opposite direction exactly. But they didn't want anyone to
(10:13):
know that they were actually having to fly there repaired
plane from California to Miami, so they just didn't make
any announcements on that right, and looking back now with
the historian's I you know, you could say it was
it was a prophetic bad start, and that you know,
this maybe was one clue, because there are some sources
that say that it was her handling of the plane
(10:35):
that caused it to scrape its belly across the runway
into crash. And even though there wasn't a fire, it
was very badly damaged. Perhaps it was nerves, I don't know.
But she also had on board a man who, again
some critics say, was not the best navigation advisor. This
was Frederick Noonan, and he'd formerly worked with Pacific Flight Navigation,
(11:00):
but had reportedly been let go from his previous job
for being a little bit too drunk at work. Sometimes again,
some of this is based on historical hearsay, but a
lot of historical sources do say that his method of navigation,
which was to your celestial positioning, couldn't be relied upon
entirely for and around the world flight. Imagine using just
(11:23):
the heavens and the sky to guide you. Well, what
do you do when it's cloudy? Exactly? And you'll see
that was a big downfall, and so pictures were back
in Miami we've got we should be feeling a little
bit nervous at this point with that background, and we've
already had an accident on the trip. We've got Fred
Noonan who were not entirely sure about and they take
off and eventually end up in New Guinea on June
(11:45):
twenty nine. And we should note that despite these omnus factors,
they've been doing swingly, I mean absolutely great. This was
a trip that was going to be about twenty nine
thousand miles and they only had seven thousand left to go.
They knocked out a substantial amount of the mileage. I
mean we're talking about crossing over South America and Africa
and India and Asia Australia, and it was very carefully
(12:09):
charted as to where they would stop and refuel. And
their next stop was Howland Island. Howland Island, which is
more than I think miles away from where they were,
and Helen Island is more of a toll than an island.
The teeny tiny's teeny tiny, uh it's about a mile
and a half long half mile across and she wasn't
(12:33):
even going to be able to uh get to the
island exactly without the help of the U S Coastguard,
So she had plans to meet this US Coastguard cutter
named the Itasca nearby, who would help give her exact
coordinates and refuel her and allow her to rest for
a while. So they take off on July two for
the Howan Island, and that's when things start to go terribly,
(12:57):
horribly wrong. The last positive siding of them was over
the New Kumanu Islands by the Atasca, and the Atasca
was attempting to communicate with Amelia and Frederick with a
two way radio. Amelia didn't know Morse code, she wasn't
comfortable using it, and furthermore, she didn't necessarily have all
(13:18):
the equipment that she did need. She had an antenna,
and she had radio equipment that operated on a certain frequency,
but the frequency she was using wasn't the same one
necessarily that the Coast Guard was using. And even when
they did get on the right frequency, they didn't seem
to be getting each other's messages. She couldn't hear them,
and her last message to them, I think um or
(13:40):
what's usually recorded as the last message, said we must
be on you, but cannot see you, but gases running
low have been unable to reach you by radio. We're
flying in a thousand feet and the coast Guard couldn't
get her to switch to Morse code, which they preferred
to communicate. It was much more exact because he's she
didn't have the capability to get the message, it didn't
(14:03):
have the right equipment. So essentially the two parties are
in communicado. At this point, conditions are incredibly overcast, so
noon isn't able to help guide them. And then nothing,
absolutely nothing. We're not quite sure what happened, but of course,
you know, the United States went into a bit of
(14:24):
a panic because here was their aviation Darling gone either
drowned at sea or washed up on some remote beach.
And there was a very very extensive rescue attempt undertaken,
the biggest one yet. Yeah, four million dollars, and it
covered about two square miles in ocean, and it was
(14:45):
called off in July ninety seven. And here's the real
kicker for me. This is so interesting because Amelia Earhart
was officially declared dead on January five, nineteen thirty nine,
and Noonon was declared dead in June. We didn't want
to give up, hope, they didn't right they really didn't
want to let her go. And there was the Golden
(15:06):
Girl right and putnam to I mean, that was his
wife out there, and she had written to him before
she even left on this monumental voyage. Please, now, I
am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do
it because I want to do it. Women must try
to do things as men have tried. When they fail,
their failure must be but a challenge to others. So
(15:27):
that brings us to what exactly did happen to Amelia Earhart?
And there are several theories out there, and some of
them are are much more conspiracy theory like than based
in some sort of evidentiary fact. And we're going to
cover as many as we can and as many as
we were able to happen upon no part intended there.
(15:49):
One of the most famous is probably that she was
captured by the Japanese and that she was taken to
Saipan and put to death, and that she was actually
a spy for the Japanese. Actually, that was quite a
common rumor at the time, because you have to remember
to put it in context that this is when there's
very much a policy of isolationism and people not wanting
the United States to get involved in World War Two,
(16:11):
So there was a lot of controversy over that, and
the idea that she was flying halfway across the world.
Well maybe she was by and some have even gone
as far as to say that she was captured by
the Japanese and she became Tokyo Rose. Isn't that interesting?
And her husband George listened to recordings of Tokyo Rose
and said that the voice was not Amelia's. And one
(16:33):
of the other theories um was that she survived the crash,
she and Noon and both and just went to live
on one of the islands until they starved to death,
which it's very sad to think about, but it was
likely more possible than becoming Tokyo Rose, right precisely. Other
reports say that she was living in a disguised type
(16:54):
of retirement after all of these supposed admissions for the
government or else, trying to find out a graceful way
to back out of this very celebrated career. And she
was either in Chicago or she was in New York.
Under the pseudonym Irene Bolom, and his name is significant.
It was supposed to represent I believe the latitude and
longitude where she was supposed of the name of a
(17:17):
beach where she was supposed to have landed. I don't
even quite understand how that works. But um, poor Irene Balm,
she swore up and down, no, I am not Amelia
Earhart and sued them eventually. Right, they were publishers who
put together a book based on this theory, and Bolm
was having no part of it. And a lot of
people thought in general that it was a staged accident,
(17:40):
that that was her point all along, and it was,
you know, her way out of that way of life, right,
And so her sister actually stated, uh, this is Muriel
Earhart Morrissey. That she inquired directly to the Japanese government,
do you have my sister? And the answer was a
very strong no, we don't. And she held the belief
(18:02):
that the plane just simply ran out of fuel and
it crashed under the bottom of the ocean. And that's
the most accepted theory now, the crash and sink theory,
I believe they call it, which is pretty self explanatory, right,
And it is believable to think that her plane crashed
and that a four million dollar search effort at the
time could not recover the wreckage because in order to
(18:25):
find the wreckage they would have had to have searched
about seventeen thousand feet deep in the ocean. And keep
in mind, if she's around the Pacific Islands, there would
have been debris from other ships from World War Two.
So in order to identify Amelia Earhart's plane, not only
would wreckage have to be located, but search crews would
(18:46):
have had to have found the exact serial number that
matched her playing and so hard search and rescue efforts
at the time were very They weren't based on as
much science as we have now. I mean, you'd have
to be thinking about stuff like currents and the weather
conditions at the time. And to be fair, they weren't
even entirely sure where she was going. They think she
(19:06):
got knocked off course, um by a few by several
miles actually, but who knows. They just have that last
radio transmission, So there were several hours between then and
probably when she crashed. There are two interesting academic theories
that I wanted to discuss because both of them come
with a lot of evidentiary support and they're pretty interesting,
(19:26):
and they suggest that the plane went down in different locations.
And the first is from the International Group for Historic
Aircraft Recovery, who thinks that after she couldn't get in
touch with the Atasca, she turned her plane southeast and
flew toward Gardner Island. And this is a considerably larger
tract of land right, and it's pretty topographically distinct. There's
(19:47):
a large lagoon in the middle and an interesting landmark
too erect freighter. So she could have seen this island
and thought maybe that was the Atasca. Well, there you go,
and there plenty of room to land, so she could
have brought her plane safely down on the beach. And
if the plane went down on the beach and she
(20:07):
and Noonan walked inland just a little bit, it would
explain some strange radio messages that were picked up that
came at hours intervals of each other, and it was
a voice that sounded similar to Amelia's trying to help
give some geographical bearings and trying to give some directions
to where she could be found. And if they came
(20:29):
hours apart, that might be because as the tide came
in on Gardner Island, the plane would get covered by water,
and in order to power the radio from the plane's
right engine. She had to wait for the tide to
go out, which makes perfect sense, I think, and it's
a really interesting theory it does. And a search of
the island and turned up airplane debris, a skeleton and
(20:53):
a woman's shoe, and the skeleton was examined and at
first I was identified as uh An older pollen Asian man, no,
not Amelia, but then another inquiry said that it was
probably a European man, and then the skeleton was lost,
but an examination of the notes said that it was
(21:15):
actually a Tallish woman of European descent, somewhere between about
five ft five five ft nine that actually could have
been Amelia. And then other searches turned up cigarette lighters
which Noonan smoked so it could have been his, a
man's shoe, and plexiglass debris that matched era herts planes windows.
(21:36):
You have to wonder what happened to that skeleton. I know,
I know well, and this information seems pretty convincing. So
I was pretty much sold on Gardner Island. And then
I read about and so I read about this other theory,
which is that in five Australian soldiers on the island
of New Britain were tracing through the jungle and they
found record of a plane and it was practically overgrown
(21:58):
by all the foliage. It was so done so they
could barely get to it, but they managed to get
a piece of the plane and a map that they
found near it, which had some numbers written on it,
sip as three H one c N ten fifty five.
And these numbers actually correspond to the construction horsepower and
number of engines on air Hurts plane, which I don't know.
(22:24):
I don't want to make a judgment. I'm not here
to analyze. I'm here to offer the facts because we
don't know the answer. And that's the cool thing. They're
all these fascinating loose ends that may never actually be
solved for us historical mystery for sure, but also it's
it's nice to remember Amelia not just for her disappearance,
which is certainly spawned a number of salacious conspiracy theories,
(22:48):
but for the fact that she was a very important
figure and early feminist movement. Her beliefs about women being
capable of great feats and being able to try and
accomplish and even do better things that men had done first.
These are still relevant concerns and one of my favorite
quotes from her, it's pretty simple, but to me it
pretty much sums up Amelia Earhart is that flying may
(23:10):
not be all planes sailing, but the fun of it
is worth the price. And she was never walking into
any of these flights thinking that it wouldn't all be fine,
you know. She she knew it was dangerous when she
undertook that last flight, she knew it was dangerous when
she took her other flights. She'd even croushed a plane before,
I believe with Nita Snook, But she wanted to do
in any ways because it was worth it to her exactly.
(23:31):
And I think that's important advice to look by for sure.
And if you want to learn more about Amelia Earhart
in the history of flight, be sure to check out
the website at how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com and be sure to check out the
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