Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 14:23:30 EDT
From:         William Webster-Garman
Subject:      Re: communications

Ric wrote,

>  I agree with
> Tom King that Foua Tofinga is probably our best source to
> clear this up.

Still fairly convinced that Gallagher was using some sort of paper tape
device to "code" his messages into morse before transmission, I agree that
Foua Tofinga should be able to tell us what the term "coding" meant.

william 2243
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 14:29:28 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Crates

Crate? Interesting. The Dutch call it a "kist", which is in fact the Dutch word
for a "crate". And the Germans call it "eine Kiste", which is exactly the same.
The Brits refer to it as a "kite" and strangely in Belgium Flemish speakers
call it "een vlieger" in colloquial language, which means exactly the same as "a
kite" in English.

French flyers usually refer to their plane as a "bac", which again means "crate".
It looks like everybody agrees on one thing : using their own words to describe
the  same thing while refraining from calling it an airplane.

****************************************************************
From Ric

Fascinating.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 14:40:17 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Ships and planes

All this is exciting ! That explains why hovercraft are something everybody
agrees on that they don't know what they are or in what category to put them.
They are plying between the UK and the European continent, linking Calais and
Dover. Yet they are considered neither boats nor airplanes. They come under
maritime law as vessels, yet it takes a pilot's license to fly them. If you ever
cross the Channel in one of them you'll discover that crossing the Channel in one
is like crossing in a flying boat trying to take off without succeeding... When
the bouncing stops, you've arrived at the other side...
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 14:44:14 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: long range helicopters

If you want to use a heavy lift helicopter like the Skycrane you may be
interested to know that the Russians rent these things to anyone willing to pay.
There are several Western European companies providing Russian heavy lift
helicopters that are based on a Western European airfields on a  permanent base.
All you have to do is to pay the air fare for the pilots to come over from
Russia (and then pay the hourly rate for the  helicopter of course).
But what's wrong with the good old PBY ? There are quite a few still around.
They are not fast but they are very sturdy, have reliable engines and are good
platforms for aerial photography.
*****************************************************************
From Ric

It's not impossible to fly to Niku - Skycrane, Russian helo, PBY, Grumman
Albatross, probably other types as well.  It just costs far more than going
by ship.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 14:45:18 EDT
From:         Tet Walston
Subject:      Underrated Pilots.

Whilst I agree that Eric Brown has a super record, let's look back to the
time of Amelia. How many of you know of Jean Batten?

She broke many records, and did not need a navigator! Nor did she get lost.
I would also name Jimmy Doolittle, famous though he was, the aviation world
seems to have forgotten that he was the pioneer, inventor
perhaps, of Instrument Flying. He introduced the very instruments which
made this possible, and at great risk to himself, learned their use, and
taught others.

I was lucky enough to have met him, way back in 1976. He was a very
unassuming person, but had a great sense of humour.

So, all considered, for female pilots, Jean Batten, for male pilots, Jimmy
Doolittle, at least that's my opinion.

LTM, Mother knows best.

Tet Walston
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 14:48:55 EDT
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: communications

Jones, the administrator at Hull in 1937, complained vociferously to his
company or the British (I forget at the moment)  about the Lambrecht landing
and later, a visit by the USCG.  He also used coded messages, but apparently
were intercepted by the US and decoded easily.  We have those transcripts in
the National Archives.  There were many schemes for coding in those days, and
most were not changed except once per year or two.  Many words were coded
into 5 digit sequences, and all one needed was the code book on each end.  I
suspect this is what was meant by "coding".  But then again, I could easily
be wrong.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 14:54:49 EDT
From:         Ric
Subject:      Re: communications

<<Jones, the administrator at Hull in 1937, complained vociferously to his
company or the British (I forget at the moment)  about the Lambrecht landing
and later, a visit by the USCG.  He also used coded messages, but apparently
were intercepted by the US and decoded easily.  We have those transcripts in
the National Archives.  There were many schemes for coding in those days, and
most were not changed except once per year or two.  Many words were coded
into 5 digit sequences, and all one needed was the code book on each end.  I
suspect this is what was meant by "coding".  But then again, I could easily
be wrong.>>

But, of course, in 1937 Jones was not working for the WPHC.  He was an
overseer for Burns Philp South Seas Company.  Do you recall who he was
protesting on behalf of?
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 15:02:14 EDT
From:         Vern Klein
Subject:      Gardner Communication

Saturday night.  By Monday there will be another dozen postings like this!

I feel sure that radio communication on Gardner Island was done in the
normal way:  International Morse code transmitted and received "on the fly,"
as some have put it.  It works so well that there would be no point in
considering  anything else.  It ain't that difficult, and CW provides good
communication under conditions such that voice transmission wouldn't have a
chance.

If there was no designated radio operator among the first on Gardner, then
Gallagher must have done it.  It was probably in his job description.  That
seems only reasonable.  Would you send people off to a places like that
without a means to communicate?

Incidently, the "teletype" stuff with keyboards, typewriter-like printers,
and paper-tape punches and readers, is more akin to our modems and computer
terminals than to telegraph technology.  It used a start bit, five data bits
and a long stop bit, and it was all electro-mechanical -- mostly mechanical.
A speed of 300 baud was considered pretty fast.

Western Union used teletype for years and years.  They quit using telegraph
sometime before WWII.  Of course, there was a period when they used some
sort of printing on a paper strip and pasted cut up strips on the telegram
forms.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 15:03:47 EDT
From:         Christian D
Subject:      Re: contingency plans

Actually the Kiribati Govt has a Patrol Boat, donated and supported by
Australia, if I remember correctly. They do occasionally visit the Phoenix;
one of the reasons there is a big supply of diesel on nearby Kanton.  Of
course Kanton also has a bunch of bureaucrats in great need of semething to
do; they have a representative of most Branches of the Govt, like Customs and
a couple of cops...

I don't think it far fetched to think they might put a few people on shore at
Niku, to safeguard a major find. For many years the Kiribati Govt has been
eager to find something useful to do with the Phoenix.  Also: the Govt
freighter servicing the  Line Islands stops at the Kanton dock every few
weeks, and detouring it to Niku would not be such a great expense. And they
are experts at landing people and supplies with surfboats; that's what they
do for a living at Wahsington Island which doesn't have a harbor or a lagoon
either.

Regards.

Christian D.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 15:05:23 EDT
From:         G. Thomas
Subject:      pilot of the century

Apologies for some minor imperfections and a slight error or two from my
original message. Please accept this revised message.

My vote  for best pilot ever, and most underrated ,would be for Eric Brown
of the RAF/RN , a WWII test pilot,  universally recognised the world over as
the most experienced pilot, having  flown over  1,500 different aircraft and
helicopter types , including the secret and experimental German WWII
aircraft which he tested after the Germans surrendered, at various airfields
stretching from Norway to the  Baltic, including the Comet and ME 262, and
the secret new float planes.  He  is still alive , having an unblemished
flying record, a truly naturallly gifted pilot, whose contribution to war
aviation  and post war aviation was immeasurable, as , apart from
successfully solving many problems with the fighter planes and early jets
(incuding the German ones , namely the Comet which had killed so many
pilots, ) where other  British test pilots were tumbling to their deaths, he
was also instrumental in the original concept and design  of the angled
flight deck and the signalling mirror system , and was the first pilot to
land a twin-engined aircraft on an aircraft carrier, and the first to land a
jet on an aircraft carrier, at the first attempt , without the need to go
around again.

One major episode that clearly demonstrates  his wonderful natural
abilities, is when, towards the end of WWII, the Yanks dumped a crate on
the runway at Farnborough containing the newly fangled Sikorsky helicopter,
but without a flying instructor or a mechanic /engineer to even assemble
it. Although they had never even  seen one before, Eric and his local
British lads assembled it from the manuals that were left behind, and after
reading the flying instructions he promptly flew it around the aerodrome
for a few minutes to test it out  before flying it directly to Croydon.

He is the best by a long way.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 15:11:16 EDT
From:         Don Neumann
Subject:      learning morse

For what it may be worth, during the mid-50's, the U.S. Army's
Intermediate Speed Radio Operator's school at Ft. Jackson, S.C., taught
Morse code by sitting us in a small booth (headset on) listening to
pre-recorded tapes of 'keyed' Morse code, for 8 hours a day, (chow break
only) copying encrypted code groups of 5-letters each, at ever
increasing speeds.

We learned Morse 'phonetically", that is by the 'sound' each letter in
Morse code made when it was 'keyed' & they even taught us a hand 'speed'
printing method, (a faster way to print each letter of the alphabet)
since we copied the encoded letter groups by hand, directly from the
keyed Morse code on the tapes.

We had to encode messages we were sending into coded 5-letter groups, by
hand, using a little 'metal monster' encoding machine with usually 'well
worn'  code wheels that constantly 'jammed-up' & had to be changed each
day (only to keep us from 'cheating' to speed things up, not because of
any top secret information we were transmitting) & then we'd have to
reverse the process for the messages we would be receiving. (Rather
boring & tedious process to say the least!)

Incidentally, when we were on 'in-the-field' exercises we used keys
strapped to our leg & a partner operated a hand-cranked generator (no
batteries) to provide the power for our transmitting the messages.
Naturally, as the fatigue factor set in on the person cranking the
generator (especially on long messages) the speed of our transmissions
began to 'drag' accordingly, resulting in many 'send-agains' from the
other end, as nothing was more difficult for the person receiving the
message than to have the 'rhythm' of the sender's key interrupted or
slowed down.

Our instructor insisted that during our lifetimes, there were two things
we would never forget, our service numbers & morse code.  Unfortunately,
some 40 odd years later, I can no longer remember either one, so I guess
I was a very inept student & soldier!

Don Neumann
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 15:16:45 EDT
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      lagoon passage depth

There is a reason behind what is going to sound like a stupid question.....
How deep are both passages into the lagoon?  Obviously not deep enough for
the expedition ship, and I assume "dry" at low tide.  But at High tide is
there a reasonable depth of water in either or both of them?

RossD

****************************************************************
From Ric

Even at low tide there is about ten feet of water in each passage, although
the main passage has many coral heads just below the surface.  The problem is
the outer portion of the reef which is dry at low tide and roughly four feet
deep at high tide.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 15:22:41 EDT
From:         Andrew McKenna
Subject:      underrated aviators

How about Santos Dumont from Brazil?  First guy to pilot a lighter than air
ship around the Eiffel Tower, and later in 1906 went on to invent several
controllable heavier than air craft without knowlege of the Wright Bro's 1903
accomplishments.

He is a hero in Brazil, but hardly known elsewhere.

A McKenna 1045
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 May 2000 15:23:45 EDT
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Crates and Kites

From Ric:  Actually, my favorite is the World War One term "crate."

Or the World War Two British monicker, "kite."  What a peaceful and
gentle sounding word, conjuring up serene visions of slow and playful dips
and slides among "the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds" -- all the while
mounting eight .50-caliber machine guns and a  20mm cannon or two trying to
kill someone.  Yes, the irony of our language.

LTM, who split a cloud or two in her time
Dennis O. McGee #1049CE
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 09:43:18 EDT
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re: lagoon passage depth

So you could feasably take a large catamaran into the lagoon, should one be
available..  Most of them draw a couple of feet for about 38ft length..

RossD

*****************************************************************
From Ric

Yes, and a cat might be a good platform from which to do the sand bar
exploration.  We'd probably have to tow the thing to Niku, which would be
okay as long as the seas stayed friendly, but there's never a guarantee of
that.  Or, if it could be broken down it might go aboard Nai'a.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 09:48:16 EDT
From:         George Mershon
Subject:      GPS

Although I'm usually not political let's have three cheers for the President.
 Tonight at midnight the "Scramble" has been taken out of GPS (Global
Position System).  This means that this $95.00 instrument will be about ten
times more accurate in telling us where we are on this shrinking Earth.  I
for one am very grateful for any help I can get in finding myself !

George Mershon

****************************************************************
From Ric

Hallelujah!  That's great news for all of us who wander in the wilderness.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 09:57:37 EDT
From:         Bob Lee
Subject:      Re: communications

I know this is a stretch but is there any chance that Americans military
intercepted messages from Gallagher.  If they did would there be any records
in the national archives.

Regards
Bob Lee

***************************************************************
From Ric

Gosh - was the U.S. monitoring British colonial administrative radio traffic
in 1937?  Not that I know of, but we wouldn't necessarily know, would we?
Are there volumes and volumes of intercepted traffic in the National
Archives?  Not that I know of, but I'm no expert on what is and isn't
archived.

Off the top of my head, the best indication we have that nothing like that
happened is the fact that nobody on the American side of the equation seems
to have had any idea that the Brits had found bones suspected of being
Earhart's.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 10:01:33 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Santos Dumont

I'm all in favor for Santos Dumont as well. He was flying around in his
personal "dirigeable" airship, visiting friends, mooring it to their house when
visiting them and using his ship as a personal transport long before the Piper Cub was
invented, but he did pioneer heavier than air flying as well. However Brasilian
he may have been, he is considered a Frenchman by French aviation historians
becausehe lived in France. What counts with me is not that he was Brasilian or
French, but that he flew.

Herman

*****************************************************************
From Ric

Wilbur Wright spent a considerable amount of time in France in 1909
demonstrating his flying machine.  I guess that makes him French.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 10:03:22 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: pilot of the century

I agree with Eric Brown. He was a true "total aviation person" as one Brit
aviation publication would call him. He also wrote down his experience with
all these airplanes in one or two books.

Can anyone tell me if these are still available ? For if they are, Id like to
buy them. I saw one when it was first published, failed to buy it and ever
regretted it.

Here is one guy who had a lot of experience with a lot of airplanes and
survived them all and is still around to tell their story.

If anyone knows where I can get his books, please let me know.

Herman
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 10:17:32 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Passage depth

<< Even at low tide there is about ten feet of water in each passage,  >>

Huh?  We've waded both passages.

LTM (whose legs are not ten feet long)
TKing

***************************************************************
From Ric

Where some of us have waded has been across the reef just outside the
entrance of the passages.  The lagoon passages themselves, both Tatiman and
Bauareke, stay quite deep.

Last summer we ferried back and forth across Tatiman every day commuting to
and from work.  It's deep and tricky, with a strong current flowing at all
time except at "slack water" between tides.  Coral heads are numerous and
John Clauss, Master Pilot, had to back the launch across by turning the
outboard around so that he could navigate around the obstacles that lurked
just below the surface.

We've never had occasion to plumb the depths of Bauareke Passage.  It's much
narrower and it's easy to just walk around it on the reef, but I've stood on
the shore many times and you can't see the bottom in the passage itself.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 10:31:46 EDT
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: communications

I checked my files for the exact circumstances of Jones' coded transmissions,
and here is what I found.

On May 4, 1939, the USS Pelican and Bushnell were surveying Hull Island.
Harry Maude had also just arrived, and he and Jones went aboard the Pelican
to protest the overflights of Hull.  After being informed by the Commanding
Officer that everything was taken care of in DC, "they left the ship all
smiles and full of 'cheeri-o'".  The Pelican monitored the British
transmissions on 43 meters wavelength whenever possible, and copies two coded
messages that Hull sent under "Urgent" classification right after Jones went
ashore.  In the letter from Paul Morrison (of the Pelican) to Capt. Whiting
he states: "My own efforts to break them [the coded messages]] have failed
thus far.  If the Governor here at Samoa hasn't a cryptographer who can turn
the trick I'll bring them home for Walstron to play with."

Jones is identified by this time as being a Deputy Administrator, somewhat
similar in position to Fleming on Canton Island.  It appears that the British
were indeed using coded morse code of some sort, as the Americans could not
decipher the messages.  Note that the date of May 4, 1939, is very
contemporary of Gallagher's messages and coding.

Hope this helps.

LTM, who loves Cheerios.
*****************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks for checking that out.  That makes more sense.  It was not Lambrecht's
landing in 1937 that Jones was protesting but the Pelican's mapping flights
in 1939, by which time Jones was working for the British government.

I agree that if Jones had some form of encryption available to him at Hull in
May of 1939, it seems likley that Gallagher would have similar capability at
Gardner in October of 1940.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 May 2000 10:33:55 EDT
From:         Dan Postellon
Subject:      Re: communications

Bob Lee asked:

<<I know this is a stretch but is there any chance that Americans military
intercepted messages from Gallagher.  If they did would there be any records
in the national archives.>>

There is a misconception that all government paperwork is archived.  A lot
is thrown away.  Some is classified, and not accessible.  The toughest part
of locating something in the national Archives is in knowing if it is there,
then finding it.  There are a lot of records that are not indexed.
Dan Postellon TIGHAR 2263
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 May 2000 13:53:43 EDT
From:         William Webster-Garman
Subject:      Re: communications

Randy Jacobson wrote,

> I checked my files for the exact circumstances of Jones'
> coded transmissions...

Of course, an urgent, encrypted message sent off by a British administrator
on Hull while a US military vessel is anchored nearby, mapping the area,
does not indicate that encryption was routine for Gallagher on Gardner, but
does make it appear that encryption would have been available to him.

I still have a hard time imagining Gallagher pounding out encrypted morse by
hand on a routine basis: Time consuming, and prone to error. It'll be
interesting to solve this one.

william 2243
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 May 2000 14:23:29 EDT
From:         Mike Muenich
Subject:      Re: communications

It appears from this mornings posting that messages, at least part of them,
were in code.  As I had assumed in my first posting about "another means of
commuication", I thought that messages about the strictly confidential or
"strictly secret" discovery of the "bones" would not be broadcast across the
Pacific for anyone to hear.  I also note that Gallagher's 9th progress report
carries a note "Enclosure No. I. in Western Pacific despatch Confidential of
23rd October, 1941".  Assuming this is accurate, is there any possibility
that this material, and possible the bones themselves were brought under the
British Official Secrets Act.  I have read that there are many items, even
pre-dating WWII that the Brits claim are still covered under the Act, and in
most situations, if they are covered, no one will talk about them or disclose
the files or their contents.  To what agency was the "Western Pacific
despatch" forwarded to?  Was this in anyway diplomatic traffic that the
British Foreign Office would have classified?

*****************************************************************
From Ric

Very sharp eyes Mr. Muenich.  My compliments.  Knowing what we know now, that
little notation does look very suspicious but, fortunately, we do have a copy
of the confidential despatch sent to London on 23 October 1941.  It is
addressed to "The Right Honourable, the Secretary of State for the Colonies"
and reads as follows:

My Lord,

With reference to the Assistant High Commissioner's Confidential (2) despatch
of the 2nd May I have the honour to forward progress reports for the quarters
ended 31st December, 1940, and 31st March, 1941, on Colonial Development
Scheme No. 531 - Phoenix Islands Settlement - submitted by the late Mr. G.B.
Gallagher, the Officer then in charge of the Scheme.

2.  These reports reveal some small setbacks to the progress of the
settlement scheme, due to abnormal weather conditions and difficulties of
shipping, which are, however, not of any serious nature; but it is
particularly unfortunate at this stage that the scheme should have been
deprived of the wise and energetic guidance of the late Mr. G. B. Gallagher
whose tragic death has recently been reported to Your Lordship.

I have the honour to be,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient, humble servant
H. C. Luke (signature)

It does not appear that Sir Harry ever let the matter of the bones get beyond
his own jusidiction.  None of the files that we eventualy found in England
was ever classified in any official sense.

LTM,
Ric
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 May 2000 14:44:30 EDT
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: Radio Monitoring

Bob Lee asks if anyone (CIA!) was monitoring Gallagher. Maybe a better
question is did the Japanese monitor Itasca-Amelia and if so are there any
radio messages in the archives hidden below Tokyo? The Japanese Navy
certainly was out and about in the area at the time and surely must have
heard that traffic. Maybe there is "secret" radio stuff re Amelia's postion
and subsequent "capture". A daunting task for those forum members in Japan to
review naval traffic. How do you say "running low on gas" in Japanese? Would
any of there ships been capable enought to get a DF. RAdio experts please.
***************************************************************
From Ric

I've yet to see anything to indicate that the Japanese Navy was out and about
in the area at the time.  There is a huge misconception fostered by the
Conspiracy Crowd that the Central Pacific was a hotbed of IJN activity in
July 1937.  It has even been alleged that Earhart was shot or forced down by
aircraft from the carrier Akagi (which was in drydock for refit all through
that period).  In response to an official U.S. request for help, two IJN
vessels - the survey ship "Koshu" and the seaplane tender "Kamui" (usually
incorrectly cited as the "Kamoi) were supposedly sent to the Marshalls to
search for any sign of Earhart but that wasn't until weeks after the
disappearance.  We're not sure about the Koshu but the logs of Kamui show
that she was way back near Japan in early July.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 May 2000 14:49:08 EDT
From:         Paul Chattey
Subject:      Re: communications

Dan Postellon's excellent summary of the task of finding records in the
National Archives is both perfectly accurate and blissfully short.  I can
only add that research at the archives is an amazingly specialized task, not
difficult, just complicated by learning to decipher what is and isn't there,
finding where to look, and asking the right questions.  There is,
fortunately, a staff of professional archivists and each has developed a
thorough awareness of what is in at least one group of records. I was last
there to research buildings at Fort Huachuca, AZ, founded in 1877.  I met
with one such archivist who asked "how long do you have for this?"  "Two
weeks," I said, to which he instantly replied, "you'll need twice that!"
Sure enough, I soon had everything I could want and spent a small fortune
making copies.  What made it worth while was that the post didn't have any
of the records I was given (it had been closed twice and re-opened three
times) so my clients were delighted to regain their history of Apache
scouts, buffalo soldiers, and WPA architecture.  Hmmm, their web site has a
very good search engine, I think I'll do a little searching now for these
messages.

Paul Chattey
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 May 2000 14:51:47 EDT
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re: lagoon passage depth

I'm suggesting something around 38ft, sail and diesel powered.  The kind of
yacht you sail round the world.

A catamaran could sail to Niku, hang around outside waiting for the ideal
weather, then make its way through the entrance (avoiding coral heads) and
be the HQ for the operation.

Beats the hell out of a monohull in the tropics.

For what TIGHAR has spent on hiring a ship, they could have bought an ocean
going cat, used it for expeditions, chartered it out in the off times, and
sold it once the proof or otherwise of Earhart's fate was found..

RossD

****************************************************************
From Ric

I'm not about to sail to Niku in a 38 ft anything.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 May 2000 14:52:59 EDT
From:         Tet Walston
Subject:      Nomenclature

As my old mate Bill Shakespeare wrote "That which we call a rose, by
any other name would smell as sweet"

Yes, we Brits  (I'm a WW2 Veteran -- Spitfire pilot, no less) and we called
our flying machines "Kites". However, the official noun used was "Aircraft",
which I think is much more appropriate than "Airplanes". One of the delightful
changes in our reporting came after the United States became involved in the
War. We used the term "U/S'" meaning  UNSERVICEABLE. and had to change it to
"Repair Required". The expression "Most" meaning just that, became clouded by
the U,S. meaning "Most" which was a corruption of AL most.

And yet, we won the War!!
LTM, who was bi-lingual!!
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 May 2000 14:55:39 EDT
From:         Max Standridge
Subject:      ships and airships

"...My grandparents were early aviators
(back when homebuilt was the only way to fly one) and the mystery of "ship"
was explained to me.  Back then, the "flying boats", as they were called,
were an enigma and no one knew how to regulate them.  Since they landed on
water and were often much more seaworthy than airworthy, in most countries
maritime law ruled ruled them: hence, they were called "ships".  Aircraft
remained a confusing mode of transport that took many years to figure just
how to categorize them"

Well, never forget, too, that back then AEROPLANES were mere TOYS compared
to their huge "relatives" the rigid (dirigible) airships. I mean, up until
just not long before Amelia's demise, if you planned to fly around the
world, you hopped a lighter-than-air SHIP, where you could gracefully look
down through the bottom level windows and watch the world go by, possibly
sipping brandy, maybe dancing--but hopefully NOT lighting up a smoke (end
of world: see Hindenburg disaster of 1937, Amelia's bad year, too).

Back then, approaching any dignified gentlemen about aerial travel would
have brought a response along the lines of "AEROPLANES?! Surely
not--AIRSHIPS--now, there's the way to travel. Comfort, luxury, grace."
Indeed, Amelia was bucking more than one tradition about flying around the
world being possible in an aeroplane. Noisy, rickety, landing like a jeep
rides...much nicer to gracefully lift into the air with hydrogen gas to see
you through. Though again--don't light up a smoke!

LTM (who isn't a gas bag herself),

Max Standridge
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 May 2000 10:18:20 EDT
From:         Terry Ann Linley
Subject:      Security

The November 1999 issue (Vol. 48, No. 11) of Skin Diver magazine gave an
excellent summary of TIGHAR's efforts on Niku.  This summer (June/July 2000),
the owner and crew of Nai'a will conduct an underwater diving/research
expedition of the Phoenix Islands (including Nikumaroro).   What happens if
they find hard evidence of AE/FN?  Are they free to present their find to the
world - thereby taking credit for solving the world's greatest aviation
mystery - or does TIGHAR have an agreement with Nai'a Expeditions?  Just
curious.

LTM (who likes credit given where it's due!),
Terry Ann Linley (0628)

*****************************************************************
From  Ric

It's a fair question. The owner and crew of Nai'a are our friends and some
are TIGHAR members.  They understand the security issues and have no desire
to steal anyone's thunder.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 May 2000 10:34:21 EDT
From:         Mike Muenich
Subject:      radio reports

Without trying to raise your blood pressure beyond 160 points, Goerner's
book, page 308 quotes a US Navy message in the Earhart "file" which states:
"At 1030, the morning of the diappearance, Nauru Island radio station picked
up Earhart on 6210 kcs saying, 'Land in sight ahead.'"

Is this a valid message which has been confirmed and if so, does it fit
within the time/distance calculations for TIGHAR's hypothisis for arrival at
Nikumaroro?

*****************************************************************

From Ric

I dearly wish I could say that the "Land in sight ahead" message reported by
Goerner is legitimate but that does not seem to be the case.  Goerner later
elaborated on that message in correspondence.  He said that he and an
associate saw it in classified Navy files they were permitted to see, but not
photocopy, in the 1960s.  Later, after the files were declassified, the
message was gone.  He speculates that someone reviewing the file prior to
declassification assumed that the message was a corruption of the "ship in
sight ahead" message reported heard by Nauru the night before, and deleted it
from the file.

Unfortunately, that explanation doesn't wash.  All of the transmissions heard
by various stations and thought to possibly be from the lost flight were
reported in multiple formats.  Purging one particular message would not be a
matter of changing one document, but several documents.  For example, the
intercepts reported by Nauru appear independently in the Itasca radio log,
Thompson's "Radio Transcripts Eahrart Flight, the radio transcripts of the
14th Naval District, and in a separate telegram sent to the State Department.
 None of these make any mention of a "Land in sight" message nor do the
original documents show any sign of having been altered.

LTM,
Ric
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 May 2000 15:39:20 EDT
From:         Roger Kelley
Subject:      Re: GPS

Re: GPS accuracy.

I took 1/2 mile a walk through my neighborhood with my GPS and noted a EPE of 3
ft.  Previously the EPE was between 50 and 200 ft depending how many satellites
were locked onto and how fast I was moving.    During this exercise, I locked
onto satellite  #05, 06, 10 & 24 and was moving at 3.2 mph.

When the track screen was set at 0.1 mile, I received a good, solid track which
was easy to trace returning home.  With an EPE of only 3 ft. and out in the
wilderness, coming and going foot prints would be almost on top of each other.

When in a fixed position, the elevation averaging  is now  + -  40 ft. However,
the evelation appears to be reading on the low side about -20 or -30 ft.

A little off topic, but interesting.

LTM, (who seldom really knows where she is)
Roger Kelley #2112
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 May 2000 15:44:19 EDT
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: Radio Monitoring

In 1937 the Japanese government (less than a year old, after the 1936 coup)
had their hands full on mainland Asia. They had not yet turned any real
attention to the Pacific Islands. The purpose of the 1941 raids on Pearl
Harbor and Cavete (Philippines) was to cripple the U.S. naval presence in
the region before expanding into Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. At
any rate, I have some contacts in the JMSDF (Japanese Maritime Self Defense
Force), I can at least find out what kind of archival material exists and
how accessible it is. I doubt anything still exists here in Japan that the
occupation boys under MacArthur hadn't seen or that was destroyed before
they had a chance to.

LTM
Kerry Tiller (2350)
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 08:44:21 EDT
From:         Christian
Subject:      Re: shallow draft vessels

>  I'm not about to sail to Niku in a 38 ft anything.

If 38ft is too small for the whole crew, make it 45ft, and have two of them.
Supporting two different locations on Niku...

If getting there in a 45ft anything is not OK, have the cats based in Kanton,
and have most of the Tighar crew fly to Tarawa or Xmas, and then ride the
Kiribati Government freighter to Kanton...

?!?!?!

Just a few thoughts...

Christian D.
*****************************************************************

From Ric

And how would you get the cats to Kanton?  And how would you get the rest of
the team and gear to Tarawa to catch the Kiribati freighter (whose schedule
is almost as unpredictable as air service to Tarawa)?  Our expeditions can
not run on "island time."  Our people have lives and jobs they can't be away
from indefinitely.  The operation has to click.

I realize that there are people who sail all over the Pacific in little tiny
boats, but we are not sailors and we're not out to have adventures.  When we
run an expedition to Niku the first priority is always safety (Old TIGHAR
Saying No. 427 "It is never worth hurting live people to search for dead
ones.")  The second priority is getting the work done efficiently, which
means keeping the team as comfortable, clean and well fed as possible.  Those
priorities are best served by the biggest, most comfortable boat we can
reasonably afford.

*****************************************************************
From Simon #2120

Ric wrote:-

>I'm not about to sail to Niku in a 38 ft anything.

Well, Long et al. would have us believe Amelia "sailed" in a 38ft "boat"

:-)

*****************************************************************
From Ric

Yeah, and he doesn't think it turned out very well.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:04:38 EDT
From:         Mike Muenich
Subject:      Lagoon Passage

I have read with interest the recent postings on the depth of the two
channels into the lagoon.  If I understand correctly Tatiman Passage may be
as much as 10 feet deep and Bauareke Passage approximately 4 feet, although
the latter is not as important to this theory

Depending on how it is measured, the S.S. Norwich City appears to be
about 1/2 mile to the Northwest of the passage.  From the recent postings it
appears that the reef area occupies most of this distance and at some point
as you enter the passage, the water depth suddenly drops off anywhere from
six to ten feet.

I noted in Gallagher's 9th report that a severe storm(s) came in the
fall/winter, out of the northwest.  I also believe that I have read various
postings  which indicate that the prevailing weather is from the Northwest
during the fall/winter period.  I also note that Gallagher states the
Nov./Dec. storms of 1940 were strong enough to cause "A small area of  land
[to be] washed away and the course of the Southern lagoon passage altered.".
I presume this refers to Bauareke Passage.  I also note that Gallagher states
"the greater part of the damage . . . . was caused by the exceptional tides
which were swept into the lagoon by the high winds. . . .".

If the storms are severe enough to eventually dimantle the S.S. Norwich
City, they would be strong enough to "roll" ("sweep") heavier aircraft parts,
i.e. engines, spars, landing gear, etc. along the reef until they "fell" off
the reef into the passage.  Being heavy however, they would not continue to
"float" along to come at rest in the lagoon, the sandbar, or other distant
areas, but should sink immediately into the depths of the passage itself,
much like the debris that accumulates at the base of a waterfall.

It would appear that this is an area that should be carefully examined
upon the next expedition.


*****************************************************************
From Ric

I agree with your description and analysis up to a point.  The model provided
by the Norwich City clearly shows that debris is driven by major weather
events from NW to SE and thence into the lagoon passage.  The distance a
particular piece of wreckage travels seems to be inversely proportional to
its mass,surface area, and buoyancy (if any).  In other words, a heavy
concentrated chunk like the anchor capstan doesn't go far at all.  There's a
big section of the hull which, although it must weigh several tons, also
presents a large surface area to the waves and has, therfore, been driven far
down the beach toward the passage.  Objects such as tanks which actually
float were driven through the passage and into the lagoon and are now at
varous points along the lagoon shore.

The passage itself is like a venturi.  If you'll look at the map you'll
notice that its shape resembles nothing so much as the classic NACA air
scoop for an aircraft.  Aerial photos show that the bottom in this area is
scored by striations, probably caused by material (natural or otherwise)
being swept into the lagoon.  The forces in the passage itself are
considerable during normal tidal cycles.  What they must be like during storm
events can only be imagined.  We had divers in the passage at slack water
last summer.  Not surprisingly, it's clean as a whistle.

LTM,
Ric
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:09:20 EDT
From:         Bob Lee
Subject:      Re: dado

Re plane interior:  Is there any information related to who did the interior
work on the Electa 10 models?  Did Lockheed do the work or were the planes
taken to an interior specialist?
Bob Lee
*****************************************************************
From Ric

As far as we know, all of the work was done by Lockheed.  The airplane was
signed off after the repairs were completed at Burbank on May 19.  The very
next day AE and FN began the second world flight attempt.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:20:02 EDT
From:         David Evans Katz
Subject:      Re: Radio monitoring

Disregarding any conspiracy theories, does anyone out there know if any of
the Japanese ships (i.e., the Koshu and Komui) picked up any of AE's
pre-20:13 transmissions, and if so, did they log them?  I wonder if they may
have heard any post 20:13 transmissions.

David Evans Katz

****************************************************************
From Ric

As we've said, we know of no Japanese ships in the area at the time of
disappearance.  If ships were present, in order to have overheard anything
they would have had to be monitoring those specific frequencies at those
particular times.  If by any chance they did hear anything they didn't report
it to the Americans and, unless I am greatly mistaken, the prewar daily radio
logs of Japanese ships have not been archived.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:22:11 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: pilot of the century

Thanks to the many on the forum who reacted to my enquiry about Eric Brown's
book "Wings on my sleeve". The nearest shop has now been located and the book
ordered. I understand it's on its way already.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:28:09 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Off-topic Lockheed

Is there anyone who wants to buy Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra ? The
airplane is for sale, believe it or not. Well, it's not THE Lockheed
10E, but a look-alike (and smaller) 12A that was used in the 1970 film
about Amelia Earhart. The airplane was also used in a film on Howard
Hughes and in Warner Bros' "Doc Savage".

It is a rare bird and it is special because it has played a major role in
WW II history for it was used for cladestine reconnaissance flights by
Sydney Cotton (the guy whowas a forerunner of the U-2) in flights over
Germany and Italy in 1939.

It was the third 12A built and was initially delivered to the
Continental Oil Company in Oklahoma on October 3, 1936. It was then sold
to Sydney Cotton and shipped to on the SS Aquitania in April 1939 to be
re-assembled at Eastleigh (Southampton) where it had two extra 70
(Imperial) gallon fuel tanks added for better range  Secret fuselage
hatches were installed fiding two F.24 camera's at Heston. The aircraft
was registered G-AFTL to British Airways (not the British airline of
that name today but a pre-WW III namesake). On June 14 G-AFTL left
Heston for Malta to make secret photographs of military targets in
Sicily and later in Italian Somaliland. Back in Heston on July 15, new
Leica camera's were installed in the wings and flights were made to
Germany. During some unsuspecting German VIPs were carried and shown
interesting sights of their country... Back came Sydney Cotton with film
of Hamburg and Berlin. The airplane was damaged by a German bomb in
September 1939 and was sent back to Lockheed Burbank for repairs. After
the war it had several owners and was used in several Hollywood films.
The historic Lockheed is currently registered N12EJ and is owned by one
Steve Oliver.

Should any AE fan on the forum be interested : contact
pepsiteam@aol.com. Or call  Steve Oliver direct (001) 303 697 9440
between 0900 and 2100 (American Mountain Time).

****************************************************************

From Ric

It does sound like an aircaft with an historic past but it is by no stretch
of the imagination related to Amelia Earhart and is totally off-topic for
this forum.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:31:29 EDT
From:         Ric
Subject:      comic relief

Tom King passed along the link to this cartoon.  Enjoy.

http://cgi.dnai.com/~fillmore/cgi-bin/sviewer.pl
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:38:28 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Review of "The Shadow of Wings"

June Knox-Mawer's Earhart book, THE SHADOW OF WINGS (Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
London, 1995) is a romance novel, and an entertaining read.  It's of interest
to Earhart researchers for a couple of reasons:

1. Knox-Mawer lived in Fiji for a number of years in the twelve years in the
50s and 60s, and she provides a fairly detailed portrait of the expatriate
community there at the time.  This was a time when the mysterious bones from
Nikumaroro may well have still been hanging around somewhere, and it's
interesting to have a view of the situation from the standpoint of the
community that's most likely to have known something about them.

2. Knox-Mawer creates a story about Earhart's disappearance that's
technically accurate (for example in its representation of the radio traffic
between Earhart and Itasca) and that (amazingly) manages to reconcile
virtually ALL the various hypotheses about the disappearance.

The novel's central character is Laura Harrington, a BBC correspondent who as
a child was whisked away from her birthplace, a remote atoll in Kiribati, in
advance of the Japanese invasion.  She's grown up in England while her
father, a WPHC District Officer now renowned as a Pacific historian, lives in
Fiji; the two have little contact, and all Laura knows of her mother is that
she died before the Japanese invaded.  Laura travels to Fiji to meet her
father and try to find out what happened to her mother -- and to rendezvous
with her lover, the lawyer scion of a grand old expatriate planter family.
Along the way she also has a romantic interlude with a Fijian political
leader who I think is probably modeled on President Ratu Mara.  Her father --
whose background (but hardly character) seems to be derived from a sort of
combination of Harry Maude and Maude's mentor Sir Arthur Grimble-- turns out
to be a truly evil person, who obviously has something to hide.  Most of the
book is about Laura's discovery of the truth.  Which, of course, is that her
mother is Earhart, who is still alive in a Kiribati convent, and that her
father isn't the awful Dr. Harrington at all but George Putnam.

So how does Knox-Mawer account for the disappearance and fill in its
aftermath?  Thus:

1. Earhart (who is pregnant and deeply regretful about her poor knowledge of
Morse and her decision to discard the trailing antenna) and Noonan (with the
smell of whiskey on his breath) are unable to establish radio communication
with Itasca, and can't see Howland in the glare of the rising sun.

2. Noonan tells Earhart to fly north along the LOP, but Earhart is exhausted
and rebellious and flies south.

3. Noonan says OK, we'll aim for the Phoenix Islands, and they do, but they
run out of gas and crash and sink.  Noonan is killed.  BUT they crash and
sink very close to Niku, where Earhart is washed up.  She has completely lost
her memory, but survives, crawling up into the Scaevola (or something) and
creating a "bivouac" a la Bevington.  Oh, she's lost a shoe by this time, too
(Knox-Mawer's book was written after TIGHAR's shoe discovery but before
Gallagher's telegrams turned up).

4. Scouting the islands for PISS colonization, the evil Harrington and his
trusty I Kiribati assistant come ashore on Niku and find Earhart.  Harrington
has been out in the islands a long time and is nuttier than your average coco
plantation; he decides, in essence, to keep Earhart as his sex slave.

5. Which he does, until the Japanese invade, whereupon he abandons her,
concocts the story of her death, and -- YES, she's captured by the Japanese!
After some difficult times she's befriended by an American-educated Japanese
officer (who eventually commits hara-kiri as the Americans invade) and lodged
as a lay sister in a Catholic nunnery.

6. Where she lives on, still amnesiac though fascinated by electric fans and
strangely frightened of overflying aircraft, until Laura finds her.  Laura's
lover then flies to the island in a small yellow airplane, and voila, memory
is restored, Laura goes back to Fiji and confronts her non-father, etc. etc.

OK, so she doesn't get Earhart to Saipan, or Mili, or the Philippines, New
Jersey, or the Delta Quadrant, and the British connection is not quite as
Donahue portrays it, and of course she doesn't account for the skeleton under
the Niku ren tree, but hey, reconciling the Crashed and Sank, Nikumaroro,
Japanese Capture, and Survival on an Island hypotheses -- not to mention
Pregnant Earhart and Alcoholic Noonan -- is an accomplishment not to be
sniffed at.  And Harrington's rest house, like Gallagher's on Niku, even has
a "thunderbox" bathroom.

The book's hard to get in the U.S.; Amazon.com found it for me used (I don't
know about sleepless) in Seattle.  It will become a part of the TIGHAR
library at TIGHAR Central in Wilmington.  And Knox-Mawer, who
obviously did a lot of research for the book and seems to have some very
interesting contacts -- is someone we'd very much like to find and talk with.


LTM (who's a sucker for romance novels)
Tom King
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:44:26 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      More from Knox-Mawer

I just received another June Knox-Mawer book, this one a slim paperback
published in 1986 entitled "Tales from Paradise: Memories of the British in
the South Pacific" (Ariel Books 1986).  It's derived from a series that K-M
did on BBC in the same year.  I've only flipped through it; besides
encountering some old friends (Eric Bevington, Sir Leonard Usher), I see with
considerable interest that one of her major sources of information was Sir
Ronald Garvey -- to whose Acting Resident Commissionership Sir Harry Luke
proposed to second Gallagher in 1941.  Here's her (p. 132) summary on him:

Sir Ronald Garvey, KCMG, KCVO, MBE.  Born 1903.  Joined Colonial
Administrative Service 1926 as cadet, attached to Western Pacific High
Commission, Suva.  District Officer Solomon Islands 1927-32.  Assistant
Secretary WPHC1932-40.  Acting Resident Commissioner, Gilbert and Ellice
Islands Colony and New Hebrides Concominium.  Governor and Commander-in-Chief
Fiji 1952-8.  Author of "Gentleman Pauper."

The bibliography lists "Gentleman Pauper" as having been published in1984 by
Anchor, Bognor Regis.

A quick skim has revealed nothing directly pertinent to Earhart, Niku, or the
bones, but here's something:

"Ronald Garvey was sent by government to Ocean Island to put the Gilbert
andEllice colony 'on a wartime footing', and in December 1941 he found inself
in the firing line right at the opening of hostilities.

'It was the day that the Japanese attacked the fleet in Pearl Harbour.  By 8
a.m. two or three planes were coming down from the Japanese mandated islands
tothe north.  Having spotted Ocean Island, and I suppose the Union Jack
flying in front of the Residency, they decided they'd betterbomb it.  They
pattern-bombed my residence with about eighteen bombs.  I escaped with a
superficial wound.  I think I was the only person who ever shed a drop of
blood in the dayswhen I was in charge of Ocean Island, before we had to
evacuate it.'

Anyhow, when the Japanese planes had left we walked round the residency,
which was a sorry sight.  The upstairs was blown downstairs, and the
downstairs was blown upstairs, butthere was one thing which tremendously
impressed all the natives. In the dining-room hung a large portrait of King
George VI, and whatever else the Japanese bombs may have achieved, that
picture was on the wall utterly and absolutely intact.  Right from the start
this gave the local people the firm impression that nothing would defeat the
King"  (p. 101).

I imagine that Sir Ronald has passed on, but he may well have left papers.
I'll see if Sir Ian Thomson has any leads on where these might be, but some
of our British colleagues might want to see what they can find in the
meantime.  If he was Assistant Secretary in 1940, he may well have known of
the bones discovery, and might be the source of K-M's association of Earhart
with Niku.

LTM (who sadly acknowledges no relationship to George VI)
TKing
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:46:17 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: GPS

Archeologists all over are cheering the improvements in GPS.  For comparison
with the results some Forumers are getting, here's a piece from American
Cultural Resource Association (ACRA) list.  It sure looks like this is going
to make life easier on Niku.

LTM
Tom King

Subj:    GPS after dithering

Now that Selective Availability has been eliminated from civilian
signals, our GPS units are more accurate, but how much more accurate?
I've taken 10 sets of readings over the past few days and will be taking
others; I thought that ACRA-lytes would like to know my initial results.
By way of comparison, just before the change I took a set of
measurements indicating that in practice, the average on-the-ground
position error for a non-differential GPS reading was 30 meters.

So far, it looks like occasional oddball readings are still possible,
but that about 95 percent of your readings will get you within 18.0
meters of your true position. You will be 9.0 meters or less from that
position, two-thirds of the time.

For those who have a Garmin with the averaging function, as I do, there
is other good news. That function didn't seem to work well when SA was
on, but with SA off and averaging on (and eliminating my one oddball
reading) the on-the-ground position standard deviations are 5.5 m/67%
confidence interval and 11.03 m/95% confidence interval.

These are preliminary numbers and a very small sample, but so far there
does seem to be reason to celebrate. In practice you will probably get a
reading within 10 meters of your true position, more often than not,
without differential corrections.

Dave Phillips
Albuquerque, NM
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 09:47:44 EDT
From:         Ron Bright
Subject:      Re: Radio Monitoring

To Kerry Tiller,

I ran across a masterfully researched book on the history of Japanese
submarine warfare activities from c. 1936 to Pearl Harbor,including the
various Japanese attacks on US mainland on the West Coast. Although not at my
hands at this message, the author describes a lot of activity from the
Japanese in the Marshalls,Gilberts etc, I shall go back and forward anything
of value re radio capabilities, activities, codes, etc that may,altho
doubtful, apply to Amelia flying from Lae to Howland. Sounds like the US navy
was kept out of that area during this period. Who knows what danger lurks in
the heart of the Pacific.

Ron Bright Tighar #2342
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 10:01:46 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Word from Sir Ian Thomson

I thought others on the Forum might enjoy the following transcript of a hand
written aerogramme dated 19 April 2000, just received from Sir Ian Thomson.
Sir Ian was Sir Harry Luke's Aide-de-Camp.

TK

Dear Dr. King,

Many thanks for sending to me with your letter of 3 April a copy of your
journal "TIGHAR Tracks" Volume 15, which I found most interesting.

There are very few people alive to-day who have set foot on Nikumaroro, and I
count myself fortunate to have been one of them.

I am glad to note that you have been in contact with Michael Luke, and I wish
you well with the examination of Sir Harry's official papers in St. Anthony's
College, Oxford.

I note in "TIGHAR Tracks" that Sir Harry has been described as "redoubtable."
 Yes, he was a valiant man as well as being kind, generous, and learned.  He
ranks in the "Top Ten" of the people with whom I have been associated in the
course of my life.

I was with Sir Harry when he stood by Gerald Gallagher's grave to pay his
respects and to honour his (G's) memory and work.  I think that I mentioned
to you in an earlier letter that Gerald had stayed in Government House, Suva,
shortly before he died.  Unfortunately, I have no recollection of the
conversations that I had with him at that time, save that I remember him as a
pleasant and conscientious fellow, who was clearly devoting himself to the
task of assisting the islanders' resettlement in the Phoenix Group from the
over-populated Gilbert Islands.

It may be unfashionable to-day to be praiseworthy about British colonial
policies and practices, but for those of us who chose to be involved in such
administration, I can say with a clear conscience that it was not imperialism
that dictated our actions.  It was, in fact, the desire to assist the
indigenous people in their efforts to improve living standards by developing
the country and economy without disturbing the social fabric and customs, and
encourage them to live peacefully by the rule of law, promoting the use of
dialogue in place of martial confrontation to solve problems with neighbors.
Gerald Gallagher was in that mould.

I send you and your TIGHAR team my congratulations on your efforts so far,
and I wish you all well as you plan for your next visit to Nikumaroro in 15
months time.

Sincerely,
Ian Thomson
****************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Tom.  It's genuinely touching when we connect with those who were
there.  Maude, Bevington, Thomson, all good men.  As Sir Ian says, although
now much derided, many did heed Kipling's call to

"...send forth the best ye breed.
Go, bind your sons in exile
to serve your captives' need."
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 10:04:08 EDT
From:         Bill Moffet
Subject:      Early women pilots

The following arrived from http://www.rootsweb.com  It's in their "Missing
Links, Rootsweb's Genealogy Journal" vol. 5, No. 18, 3 May 2000:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

For a book on the 1929 Women's Air Derby, which will be the basis for a major
exhibit on women and aviation at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in the
summer of 2003, I am researching the lives of these women pilots:  Florence
Lowe "Pancho" Barnes, Marvel Crosson, Amelia Earhart (Putnam), Ruth Elder
(Moody Womack Camp Gillespie Thackeray King -- aka Susan Thackeray), Claire
Breeden (Adams) Fahy, Edith Magalis Foltz (Stearns), May (aka Mary) Hayes
Haizlip, Opal Logan Giberson Kunz, Jessie Maude "Chubbie" (aka Mrs. Keith)
Miller, Ruth Nichols, Blanche Wilcox Noyes, Gladys O'Donnell, Phoebe
Fairgrave Omlie, Neva Finlay Paris, Margaret Gilbert Perry (Cooper Manser),
Thea Rasche, Louise McPhetridge Thaden, Bobbi Trout, Mary Elizabeth von Mach,
and Vera Dawn Walker.  I would most appreciate hearing from anyone who is
related to, or knew, these pilots, and am very interested in obtaining
letters, diaries, memorabilia, photographs, unpublished manuscripts or any
other material pertaining to them or their families.

        Jayne Loader  loader@earthlink.net or ejl@mediaone.net

        21 Ellsworth Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Ric, I'm simply passing this on for whatever use/interest it may be to you or
TIGHAR. Is this the roster of the original 99's?  Really wonder how
'Gillespie' got into Ruth Elder's pedigree.  Did she have 6 husbands?

LTM (who apparently had lots of girl friends)

Bill Moffet  #2156

*****************************************************************
From Ric

I never laid a hand on her.  i swear.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 10:06:52 EDT
From:         Vern Klein
Subject:      Lae takeoff film

Does anyone have any idea how I might print a few frames from RealPlayer?
I have AMELIA_3.RM downloaded.  It runs fine and I can pause it anywhere for
a still image.  But RealPlayer offers no opportunity to print or to save in
any fashion.  It seems it should not be difficult to print what is static on
the screen -- like, print from display memory.  Too bad "print screen"
doesn't work in WINDOWS.  I would like to print perhaps a half-dozen frames
showing how Fred was "poured into the plane" that morning.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 10:12:18 EDT
From:         LF
Subject:      Fred Noonan, Secret Agent

You know:  everybody always talks about Amelia possibly being on a spy
mission.  Maybe she wasn't, and Fred was and never informed her.  Remember,
he was the one informing her of their locations.  Maybe he lied to her when
they neared Howland and that is why no one could find them on the line of
location that she said they were running North and South.  Remember, she had
been flying all night by this time and was surely near the point of
exhaustion.  Want he sent up to her, probably didn't register to her as
"being sightly off the path".  One will never know.

LF

****************************************************************
From Ric

We're not reaching everyone.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 16:28:14 EDT
From:         Jon Watson
Subject:      Re: Lae takeoff film

This is for Vern:  if you have Paint Shop Pro (or, I assume, one of the
other good graphics programs), they do have an image capture function which
will allow you to capture what's actually on your screen.

Ric, I've been meaning to mention this for a long time, but never got around
to it, and besides, somebody else probably already has and I just missed it,
but in the "photographs" section of the website, in the aerial picture of
Niku, in the lower left part of the picture, isn't that AE's ghost's face
looking into the camera?  Seems like a "sign" that Niku's the right place to
me!  (Unbelievers will probably think it's just a reflection in the airplane
window).

ltm,
jon 2266
****************************************************************
From Ric

I see what you mean.  Pretty spooky.  It's either AE, Linda Finch, or Emperor
Hirohito - I can't be sure which.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 16:29:09 EDT
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Early women pilots

To Bill Moffett

I suggest you contact the new International Women's Air and Space Museum (IWASM)
at Burke Lakefront Airport, Cleveland, Ohio. There is a elaborate article on it
in the May issue of AEROPLANE. They should be sitting on the information you're
looking for. By the way, the museum keeps a hairlock of Amelia Earhart and also
has (one of) her flying suit(s)n plus memorabilia of dozens of women flyers. I
don't know if they have a website. Should expect so but haven't tried it. Should
all fail, then try and send a fax to Lydia Matharu. She is in charge of General
Enquiries at AEROPLANE. The number is : 44-20 7261 5668. If anyone can help you,
can I suppose.
Good luck !
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 16:31:53 EDT
From:         Mark White
Subject:      Re: Lae takeoff film

One way to "Print screen" in Windows (95/98/NT) is to copy the screen to the
clipboard.  This is done by pressing Control-Alt-Print Scrn keys
simultaneously.  Then open an accessory included with windows such as Paint.
Do an Edit paste and that takes the info from the clipboard.  Now you use
Paint to print.

BTW... While Ctrl-Alt-Print Scrn copies the active window to the clipboard,
Control-Print Scrn without the ALT copies the Whole screen to the clipboard.

LTM

Mark White #2129
*****************************************************************
From Frank Westlake

If you are using MS Windows you can copy a bitmap image of the current
application into the clipboard by pressing ALT-PRINTSCREEN. After doing
that switch to an application that can use bitmaps (Word Perfect, Word,
Paint, etc.) and select Paste|Special and choose the bitmap.

Frank Westlake.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 16:33:36 EDT
From:         Birch Matthews
Subject:      Post-loss Radio Transmissions

From Birch Matthews

To Bob Brandenburg

I was just reviewing my copy of "Tighar Tracks," Volume 15, 1999, and note
that under hypothesis 3, one of the supporting pieces of evidence refers to
your report on radio propagation. Two questions come to mind and I wonder if
you would comment.

1. The post-loss signals were heard on 6210 kc. Why would these signals be
heard when none were heard on this frequency during the assumed flight from
Howland to Gardner?

2. Do you happen to know if aircraft radio specifications of 1936-1937
vintage included shock and vibration requirements? My perception is that any
controlled or semi-controlled landing would impart one or more relatively
high g loads to the vacuum tubes in the radio.

Best regards,
Birch Matthews
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 May 2000 16:46:10 EDT
From:         Mike Muenich
Subject:      Artifacts

Again reading, in more detail, vol. 15 of TIGHAR Tracks, p. 36, I note the
reference to the recovery, in 1996, in the location of the carpenter's shop,
"two lengths of what appears to be pre-war American radio cable with
connectors of a type used in aviation applications.".

Could we have some details and specifics please, i.e. type of conductor
wire, insulation, and possibly a photo of the connectors.  Would these be the
type of cables used to connect microphones, keys, etc to radio equipment and
do we have any informantion as to the type of this equipment, if any, on the
Electra?

*****************************************************************
From Ric

Mike Everette, our esteemed Radio Historian, has done a ton of work on the
cables.  I'll leave it up to him to provide a description and we can
certainly throw a photo up on the website, but the bottom line is that
they're a "could be" but there's no way to be sure.  The construction of the
cables is the right vintage, as are the connectors, and both were used on
aircraft radios- especially Bendix (we know that AE's DF loop and coupler at
least were Bendix).  However, we have not been able to eliminate the Loran
station as a possible source and, in fact, we're never going to prove
anything that way.  The cables are just not distinctive enough.  For what
it's worth, it's interesting to note that we dug up the cables at what's left
of the carpenter's shop - and who was the island carpenter in 1940?  Emily's
father.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 May 2000 08:54:48 EDT
From:         John Buontempo
Subject:      Re: Fire Extinguisher

Here's an off-the-wall question!  What does the "wobble pump" actually do and
what does it look like?

Could the "fire extinguisher" actually be the "wobble pump" from NR16020?
Please elaborate.

John B. (hopefully a future TIGHAR member)
******************************************************************
From Ric

A wobble pump is a hand pump for transferring, or in AE's case, stripping
fuel from a tank.  It's a little handle in the cockpit that you work (wobble)
back and forth.  I'm afraid that it looks nothing like fire extinguisher.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 May 2000 09:05:51 EDT
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      Re: Artifacts

>> The construction of the cables is the right vintage, as are the
connectors, and both were used on aircraft radios- especially Bendix (we know
that AE's DF loop and coupler at least were Bendix).<<

--No  doubt you have already searched the connector shells for any
number markers stamped onto or into them.

I  would think that if one could make a sketch of the pinout (pin
pattern and size) you would be well on the road to determining
the category of original use.

Manuals for the WE aircraft radios exist somewhere, (not in my collection),
but Bendix manuals are plentiful and one  could rule Bendix in or out, i
believe, by the pin config. As to the possibility of the connectors being
from the USN LORAN station, the types of equipment used for their
communications link (non-LORAN) equipment, that equipment is still
around and there are people (radio nuts)  who still  like to operate
such gear. IMO they could be relied on to rule in/out any connection
to US military equipment. What would be needed is photos or sketches
of the connector shell (hull), size, and pin configuration and especially
if the pins or sockets have numbering scheme numbers close to the
pins.

I think the LORAN connection is the easiest to make a judgement on,
honestly. Re:

>>we have not been able to eliminate the Loran station as a possible source
and, in fact, we're never going to prove anything that way.<<

>>The cables are just not distinctive enough<<

--cables, no, but connectors yes.

Hue Miller

*****************************************************************

From Ric

There are no numbers on the connectors.  They are Howard P. Jones Type 101
single pin connectors and they were used in many different applications by
several differnet manufacturers.

To eliminate the LORAN station as a possible source, what's needed is for
someone who is knowledgable to take the time to visit the Coast Guard Radio
Museum at Cape May, NJ and research what kind of connectors were used on the
equipment in use on Gardner.  If no such connectors were used by the Coast
Guard it still does not prove that the cables came from NR16020.

I think we need to focus our energies on avenues of research that have the
potential for producing conclusive proof.  I don't see how the cables have
that potential.

LTM,
Ric
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 May 2000 09:07:29 EDT
From:         John
Subject:      Re: Review of "The Shadow of Wings"

Excellent review Tom..
                      Thanks, John ( who isn't a sucker for romance novels
BUT is still curious)
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 May 2000 09:09:44 EDT
From:         Vern Klein
Subject:      Re: Lae takeoff film

My thanks to Frank, Jon and Mark for your help with my image printing problem.
I cut my teeth, at a very late date, on DOS and know just enough about
WINDOWS to prowl the Internet and run a few other things that won't run any
other way.  With your help, maybe I'll get it done!

*****************************************************************
From Ric

Or you could just buy a Mac. <G>
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 May 2000 10:11:49 EDT
From:         Cam Warren
Subject:      Re: Artifacts

att: Hue Miller  -

You said "Manuals for the WE aircraft radios exist . . . ." Where??
All I've seen are some reprints of a page or two.

But, most important "Bendix manuals are plentiful . . . ."  I'd
 be thrilled and delighted  to learn of a source, especially for the
RDF-1 and RDF-2. The National Archives people indicate
(verbally) that such material is "still classified" - they think.
The successor to Bendix, Allied Signal, says they have NO
historic Bendix material.

Any help you can provide would be appreciated.

Cam Warren
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 May 2000 10:14:38 EDT
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      adventure

> I'm not about to sail to Niku in a 38 ft anything.

Well THAT should stop those people in their tracks who accuse TIGHAR of
being just "adventurers"..  lol

RossD

****************************************************************
From Ric

Old  TIGHAR Sayings Nos. 539 and 540:

"Adventure is what happens things go wrong."

"People who go looking for adventure rarely find anything else."
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 May 2000 10:19:54 EDT
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      Re: island communications

[ Forwarded for your general interest. Feel free to use all, any, or none of
it as you choose. Mr. MacKinnon has given permission for me to forward
this as i see appropriate. --Hue Miller ]

From: Colin MacKinnon
To: Hue Miller
Subject: Re: Islands radio question
Date: Saturday, May 06, 2000 1:25 AM

Sorry for the delay in responding - I've been in hospital with a broken leg
after falling off a ladder and had to have a complete hip replacement.

You pose some interesting questions.

1    If the island was under British or Australian control it would have had
English or more likely, Australian wireless equipment. Amalgamated Wireless
Australasia (AWA) was formed in 1914 as an amalgamation of Marconi and
Telefunken interests in Australia. After WW1 it became 51% owned by the
Australian govt. and was given monopoly responsibility for all wireless
communications around the Australian/British Pacific colonies. I'm not sure
how much area this covered because India also had some responsibility
further north. British Marconi would have been the supplier of equipment
outside the AWA area of responsibility.

2    If AWA was responsible the radio equipment would most likely have been
the precursor of the AWA 2B and 3B etc sets which were used a coastwatch
sets. It is important to remember that individual radio types did not
suddenly appear, they were usually an evolution from existing sets over a
period of time. Around the 1935 - onwards era the receivers were standard 5
valve domestic sets. Later, circa 1937, dual wave sets were introduced to
take advantage of short wave propagation. Transmitters were British style,
simple (even pathetically obsolete!) and developed for inter-island
communications, govt. departments, eg. police, councils, outback offices
etc. They used 2A3 valves etc until around 1940 when AWA introduced the 807
as a final output, with maybe 50 watts out.

3    The power supply was most likely batteries, with a petrol charger. Even
in 1937, 240 volt power was tenuous at best and most outback and colonial
electricity was generated in-house with 32 volt petrol generators. Some
Australian farms still used 32 volts till well into the 1950's. It was very
common practice for the wireless equipment to be run from 6 volt batteries
with a vibrator power converter. Because they used battery valves, the
consumption was not all that bad. I have also seen a pedal generator being
demonstrated by an island native circa 1937, but suspect this was for
portable use.

4    Note that I said 6 volt batteries. They did not use 12 volt supplies
till much later when 6 volt filament valves came in. They would have had a
number of 2 volt or 6 volt cells in series/parallel with a petrol charger or
float charger to maintain charge. Because of the importance of
communications, they would probably have some sort of back up in case of
primary failure, ie an extra set of batteries. The battery cells would have
been industrial grade and expected to have several years life (not like
today's vehicle batteries, guaranteed to fail one day after the 12 month's
warranty period!) Such batteries were very expensive so would have been
carefully maintained by the operator. They would not have been discarded
until absolutely stuffed! AWA was known to be "cheap" so they would have
wanted to get the maximum value out of them. It is most unlikely that a
passing ship would swap batteries or provide charging facilities - too prone
to catastrophe. The ship would have brought in adequate petrol and oil.

5    A warning light could be powered from the battery supply and would be
more convenient and efficient than a flame. It would be interesting to know
what the voltage was for the light bulb that was found. If it had a thick
filament it was possibly 32 volt.

6    I've just remembered something. AWA did not sell receivers/transmitters
to the islands, plantations etc. They rented them at an exorbitant fee.
However they had a govt. backed monopoly and control of the wireless patents
so could dictate what they liked. They probably provided a rented radio
setup and employed an AWA operator for the installation on Gardner Island.
When WW2 commenced many plantation owners had to flee leaving the radios
behind or smashing them so the Japs couldn't use them. AWA then issued bills
for the lost rental and loss of the equipment and threatened legal action
against the poor planters! Nice company.

In conclusion I don't have confirmed data on Gardner Island and all the
above is based on general knowledge of the era and practices. I hope it is
helpful.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 May 2000 10:24:35 EDT
From:         Vern Klein
Subject:      DOS v Windows v Mac

>Or you could just buy a Mac. <G>

Lawd no!  It's bad enough I have to have WINDOWS on an otherwise respectable
computer!

But the "screen print" thing is going to work.  Jus' gotta tinker with it a
bit.

LTM  Whose machine powers-up to the DOS Prompt... C:\>

*****************************************************************
From Ric

I suppose if you're into arcaneness for its own sake it's hard to beat DOS.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 11:21:42 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: island communications

Mr. MacKinnon's data certainly help put things in context.  I don't recall
seeing anything that looked like generator parts around the wireless station,
but the place had been pretty well cleaned out, and we've certainly found
plenty of petrol drums all over the place.  But there are several sources for
these, too.  The main thing I see in Mr. MacKinnon's report is confirmation
that wireless communications were quite fragile.

LTM (who's fragile but communicative)
Tom King
***************************************************************************
From Ric

Petrol drums?  What petrol drums?  There are steel drums (or what's left of
them) all over the place and we found some drums down near the old Loran
station that said "JP4" on the side but those are almost certainly from the
1975 USAF helicopter visit.  I know of no drums that are known to have once
contained gasoline.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 11:42:38 EDT
From:         William Webster-Garman
Subject:      Re: DOS v Windows v Mac

Windows9x  (the offspring of DOS) is more configurable than a MAC and is
cost effective if the user needs really wide latitude in use and is willing
to spend time on tech issues (for routine use this need isn't as great as in
the past). I have lots of complaints about Windows but it works well for my
specialized apps, partly because of the wide range of hardware available for
Wintel platforms, and because I can configure so radically. Also, one of the
secrets of Win9x is the immense power and speed of its DOS command line
functionality, which is hidden from most casual users. However, MACs are
excellent, well-built and elegant machines and user support is definitely
less of an issue with them.

william 2243

***************************************************************************
From Ric

Although wildly off-topic, I started this thread so I can't complain.
The fundamental advantage of a Mac is the operating system.  Windows is a
program that runs DOS and translates it into something that looks sort of
like the user-friendly Mac system.  With a Mac you're working directly on the
operating system.  With Windows you're always speaking through an interpreter.
I've never heard of a Mac user converting to PC and liking it, but stories of
frustrated PCers finding peace, fulfillment and enlightment in the Macintosh
world are legion. <G>

***************************************************************************
From Vern

>From Ric
>
>I suppose if you're into arcaneness for its own sake it's hard to beat DOS.
******************************************************************
From Vern

DOs would seem arcane to one who had not learned it.  Just as some hot-shot
programers say "machine language" is "black magic."  But it's what I learned
first. Before there was DOS to make things easier! It's writing in the only
language the microprocessor actually understands.  Pretty arcane, that!

I like DOS because it's so much easier and faster than WINDOWS, for all
computer operations and certainly for Internet access, providing I'm not
interested in fancy, slow-loading, pictures etc.  Often I'm only interested
in text.  DOS and a good "comm" program are great for the search engines --
fast.  Fast to check what is on a site and possibly grab the URL if it's
interesting.  I don't have to wait while all the advertising and other
graphic stuff loads.  And the access is free!  True, I have to go to WINDOWS
to see graphics and for e-mail.  I wish there was a free-standing (no
windows) e-mail handler, but that's not going to happen.

Someone will find a way to block that kind of Internet access!  But Maybe if
I'm the only one doing it....

LTM: Cracking whip impatiently, "Back to sifting the sands of Niku!"
**************************************************************************
From Ric

Esperanto seems arcane to those who have not learned it.  If you ever get a
chance, take a crack at a 500 mghz Mac G4, but wear a seatbelt.

*************************************************************************
From Dave Porter

"...DOS is hard to beat if you're into arcaneness for it's own sake..."

Yup, in fact, to do better would take something along the lines of an
internet discussion of what type of batteries powered pre-WWII wireless sets
in obscure British colonies in the Pacific.  <G>

LTM (love the mundane)

Dave Porter, 2288
**************************************************************************
From Ric

Touche.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 11:44:54 EDT
From:         George Mershon
Subject:      Re: adventure

There is an old saying " If at first you don't succeed, don't go sailing!"

George Mershon

*************************************************************************
From Ric

Words of great wisdom.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 11:58:41 EDT
From:         Margot Still
Subject:      timelines

Has anyone ever taken the evidence collected up to this date and placed it on
a timeline?  Sometimes you see interesting things when you do that, as well
as think of questions that never occurred to you before now.  It is a slow
and tedious process, but in some cases can be very productive.

Also, in looking again at the Lambrecht Photo, has it ever occurred to anyone
that maybe the N arrow might be indicating something other than direction?  I
don't know what it might be, but the thought crossed my mind.

LTM, (fresh from the Derby with other GRITS, who know it is the place to see
and be seen)

MSTILL #2332
**************************************************************************
From Ric

Timelines R Us.  I've done dozens, and you're right, they can be very
revealing.  I can't see that we've ever tried to put everything we've learned
on one timeline but the one linked to the Bones Chronology on the website is
pretty good.  You can go directly to it at
http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Documents/Bonestimeline.html

Is the erroneous north arrow on the Lambrecht Photo something other than an
erroneous north arrow?  Worth thinking about.  Both the arrow and the "N" are
hand drawn.  If it's not some bozo making an assumption about the orientation
of the photo, what else could it mean?
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 12:03:35 EDT
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      Manuals

Cam Warren asked:

>You said "Manuals for the WE aircraft radios exist . . . ." Where??
>All I've seen are some reprints of a page or two.

--Time for me to put up or shut up. I've put out inquiries re the early,
2-number WECo aircraft radio. Any specific models?

>But, most important "Bendix manuals are plentiful . . . ."

--Well, I sort of misspoke here. The WW2 era Bendix manuals
are plentiful. RDF-1 i have put out inquiries on. The ONLY
RDF-1 nomenclature i have ever encountered is seen in the
Squadron Signal book, "TBD Devastator In Action".  A factory
photo of the radio-gunner position, before equipment was
installed, has positions labled, and there is one position marked
"RDF-1". No one i know personally, has ever seen a "RDF-1",
and in fact all the TBD's we are aware of actually used a Navy
type DU df-adaptor. This was a little tuner box about 6x6 inches
by about 5 inches tall, topped by a fat, circular loop antenna
about 12" tall. This thing sat right inside the plane and you can
see it just ahead of the radio gunner's head, totally inside the
canopy, in photos of such planes as SB2C.  The tuner part
tuned the loop from 200 kcs thru 1600 kcs and then fed the
output right to the antenna connection on the ship's communication
receiver. On the COM receiver, you tuned in the station you
needed to df on (this using the ship's wire antenna), then switched
from COM to DF, tuned the adaptor for best signal with the same
station, then rotated the loop for a null on that station. The null
of course points to the station, or 180 degrees away from it.

I can get a copy of the DU manual, which will also apply to the
DW, if requested, and you think it would somehow help this
investigation.

I don't think this thing would work inside a metal enclosed cockpit
with only a few windows i.e. the 10E location. There was another
version of the same adaptor, type  DW, used on larger patrol
craft, that had a longer neck or stem between the tuning
unit and the loop, a stem of about 3 ft., so the adaptor could
sit on the radio shelf, and the neck extended up thru the hull
with the actual loop outside. However, photos of AE's plane
don't seem to show any external loop, right?

I am wondering if the RDF-1 (Navy) is the same as the
RDF-1 (re Bendix and 10E) and if this nomenclature was a
prototype nomenclature for what became the Navy type DU.
Could this have been the origin of the supposed "secret" or
"classified" status of the RDF-1, its military origin? Otherwise,
there's absolutely nothing in its technology so radical or
original as to justify any "classified" status. Technical details
of the military radio equipment of the time, were routinely
rated "restricted" even when commercial models of the same
class of equipment were freely available on the market.

> be thrilled and delighted  to learn of a source, especially for the
> RDF-1 and RDF-2. The National Archives people indicate
> (verbally) that such material is "still classified" - they think.

I think we can safely assume the mystery Bendix RDF-1 df
adaptor had to be pretty similar in design to the Navy DU or DW.
If you don't see a visible loop antenna how this equipment could
have been working on AE's 10E is a mystery to me.The belly wire
antenna that was possibly scraped off could only df - position with
the A-N type radio-range airfield beacon stations, but were there
any in the Pacific at this early date, I doubt it, and anyway that
system does not require any adaptor or loop. As for any CLASSIFIED
status still applying to such historic, lowtech stuff, that indicates
incompetence.

>The successor to Bendix, Allied Signal, says they have NO
>historic Bendix material.

--Yes, i found that out myself years back. That's the rule
rather than the exception.

>Any help you can provide would be appreciated.

--I am looking.

Hue Miller

*************************************************************************
From Ric

>>However, photos of AE's plane don't seem to show any external loop, right?

Wrong.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 12:05:32 EDT
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re: island communications

The references to 32V power tie in with my earlier speculation on the
subject of the light / power situation on Gardner (and the references to our
own 32V power and lighting).  However I still believe they would have used
Kerosene and Candles extensively as well.

AWA is no longer I believe.  I was trying to track down more info regarding
the "Ultimate" radio as that was an AWA distribution, however I got side
tracked by work.

RossD
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 12:14:28 EDT
From:         Mike Rejsa
Subject:      Re: DOS v Windows v MAC

>From Ric
>I suppose if you're into arcaneness for its own sake it's hard to beat DOS.

We have Unix for that, Ric. :)

Actually one of the things that has impressed me with the basic DOS 6.2/WIN
3.11 package is it's ability to confound any of the recent virus's that need
Visual Basic, Outlook, etc. to survive. They just go "Huh?" on this machine.
ILOVEIT.

mike rejsa

**************************************************************************
From Ric

Macs are not only immune to most viruses but actually track the trail back to
the original perpetrator and detonate their monitor the next time they power
up.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 12:17:57 EDT
From:         Mike Muenich
Subject:      Statistics

There is a point in "connecting" the cables, if not to AE's aircraft, to a
circa 1937 use.  I don't know if the subject of statistics has ever been
discussed on the forum, but I am sure that a person/university schooled in
the subject to draw some interesting conclusions based upon a statistical
anaylsis of the artifacts found or discussed to date.  While any one of the
artifacts is not a "smoking gun", all of them, taken together with some form
of statistical anaylsis, may "prove" the theory to a statistical probability.
 Tying the cables to the Electra, even if not exclusively,  increases the
statistical probability that the Electra was on or near the Island.

***************************************************************************
From Ric

We've talked about that but so far no one has come up with a candidate with
the right expertise who would be willing to take on the job.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 May 2000 12:24:12 EDT
From:         William Webster-Garman
Subject:      Re: DOS v Windows v Mac

Ric wrote,

>Windows is a
>program that runs DOS and translates it into something that looks sort of
>like the user-friendly Mac system.

Well, actually with Win95 and beyond, the Win OS was given a new kernel with
some backward compatibility with DOS, and a DOS command line function. The
"translation" to the GUI (the user-friendly interface that we see onscreen
on both MACs and Wintel systems) also occurs on MACs.

The old DOS system wasn't arcane to those of us who learned it and used it.

MACs are easier to maintain and use because they provide fewer configuration
options (that is, it's harder for the user to erroneously change a setting
and crash or disable the machine).

Wintel machines are highly configurable and cost effective in terms of
hardware, at the expense of much more difficulty with user support issues.
Heavily used Win9x machines are also notorious for crashing and requiring a
reboot more than once a day. Both systems are very powerful, both have
shortcomings. While I prefer the Wintel platform for my own needs, I'm happy
to see that Apple is making progress in the market again: Competition =
progress.

Windows NT, by the way, is deeply stable.

I'll bet AE would have preferred a MAC, but I suspect FN would have been a
Wintel man.

(<Grin> How's that for an inflammatory, utterly useless, off-topic remark?)

william 2243

***************************************************************************
From Ric

Pretty good.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 May 2000 08:41:27 EDT
From:         Frank Westlake
Subject:      Re: DOS v Windows v Mac

> From Vern
>
> I wish there was a free-standing (no windows) e-mail handler,
> but that's not going to happen.

So that this is not off topic I'll relate it by suggesting that
participation in this forum requires an e-mail interface and that the
user should be comfortable with that interface. :)

For a DOS based e-mail application look in one of the Simtelnet archives
under msdos/. I think the subdirectory 'mailnews' may have what you're
looking for. Here's the URL for the archive I checked:
<ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/micro/pc/simtelnet/msdos/mailnews/>.

Frank Westlake
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 May 2000 09:01:24 EDT
From:         Margot Still
Subject:      Lambrecht Photo

The "N" and arrow bother me very much.  I find it hard to believe such an
obvious error could be made and cannot help but wonder if we're missing
something right on the end of our nose.  It keeps coming up in my dreams, in
odd situations, which usually means I'm missing something obvious.

MStill
**************************************************************************
From Ric

It's worth remembering that we don't really know who took the Lambrecht Photo
except that it was one of the six people who were in the air over Gardner
that day.  It's a poor quality photo and maybe not an "official" U.S. Navy
photo at all.  More likely, somebody happened to have a personal camera along
and snapped a photo and the Navy decided it would like to have a copy.  It's
not hard for me to believe that somebody just wanted to be helpful by putting
a north arrow on the print but screwed up the orientation.

By way of comparison, a very similar photo from almost the same perspective
was taken by the Brits in December 1938.  That photo has several hand-drawn
arrows on it, but they point downward toward specific geographical features
such as the main lagoon passage and the shipwreck.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 May 2000 09:23:23 EDT
From:         Mike Muenich
Subject:      Post-Loss messages

Has the report by LCDR Brandenburg analyizing post loss messages been
published or posted for review?

**************************************************************************
From Ric

LCDR Brandenburg's report will be part of the 8th edition of the project book
which Lt. Gillespie has not yet finished writing, assembling, editing and
laying out.  We're doing asbestos we can.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 May 2000 09:39:11 EDT
From:         Mike Muenich
Subject:      Survivors camp

Has the survivors camp of the crew of the S.S. Norwich City ever been
located?  If so, where is it in relation the the vessel itself?  Has there
been a detailed site examination if located?  Is one planned for IIIIP?  I
note the reference in Vol. 15, p.55 to the photo of the New Zealand survey
team depicting the site in "disarray" as opposed the Capt. Hamer's reference
that "all provisions, etc. were placed in the shelter", seeming to indicate
some care to protect them for future use.

If located near the grounded vessel it would also be near, a presumbably
visable, to the Electra (TIGHAR hypothesis 2), if it were visable to the
survey crew approximately one year later.  If used by AE and Noonan (placed
in disarray), then abandoned upon Noonan's death and AE's departure to other
points on the Island (TIGHAR hypothesis 5) there may well be items from the
Electra that were originally salvaged, then abandoned up AE's departure,
either because she couldn't use or couldn't transport everything.

Has there been any analysis/enhancement of the 1938 survey crew's photo
to "look" for such objects?  Material salvaged by Noonan/Earhart would be a
likely source of salvage for the new settlers and easily found in 1938 and no
longer present.  Its also possible that "goodies" remain that the settlors
felt were of little value and left.

***************************************************************************
From Ric

All excellent points.  No, we not have located the Norwich City survivor's
camp.  There were, in fact, three temporary campsites along that shoreline
just off the bow of the ship.

1.  the December 1929  shipwreck survivor's campsite
2.  the October 1937 campsite of the Maude/Bevington expedition
3.  the December 1938 - February 1939 New Zealand survey campsite

Unfortunately, that shoreline gets pounded by major weather events that may
or may not have reached far enough inland to wipe out signs of a camp.  We
know where the New Zealanders camped but that site is close enough to the
shore so that it probably got overwashed repeatedly.  Farther inland there
was a lot of clearing and planting activity in the latter part of the
colonial era (1949-1963), so that's a problem.  As you suggest, a close look
at the 1938 aerial photo is warranted to see if we can spot anything that
might be a campsite, but since we know that it was back under the trees, it's
a long shot.

Some really focussed on-the-ground work during Niku IIII seems worthwhile for
the reasons you mention.

LTM,
Ric
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 May 2000 09:41:29 EDT
From:         Christian D.
Subject:      Re: island communicatins

>  From Tom King
>
>  Mr. MacKinnon's data certainly help put things in context.  I don't recall
>  seeing anything that looked like generator parts around the wireless station,

How about a spot heavily stained with engine oil?  May be a short distance
from the wireless station?  May be with a small cement foundation?  And
traces that there was a small shed over it at some point?  May be next to the
battery dump?

By the way: 32Volts systems usually are made up of four 8Volts batteries...
Is there lots of 4-celled batteries lying around?

Regards.

Christian D.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 May 2000 09:45:03 EDT
From:         Christian D.
Subject:      Re: island communicatins

>From Ric
>
>  Petrol drums?  What petrol drums?  There are steel drums (or what's left of
>  them) all over the place and we found some drums down near the old Loran
>  station that said "JP4" on the side but those are almost certainly from the
>  1975 USAF helicopter visit.  I know of no drums that are known to have once
>  contained gasoline.

Well! Now that I think of it: paraffin used for lights is usually a more
refined grade than kerosene used for fuel.  Anybody knows if in the 30's and
40's lamp oil was ever packaged in big drums, as opposed as in one or 5
gallons cans? Ross?

If that was the case, then the drums are more likely to have contained petrol!
Although the village wasn't shut down until the 60's, so *at some time*, for
sure, there was a supply of petrol, for an outboard and generators (at least
for the Govt station)...  Niku was just beginning a quarter century evolution
when AE vanished.

I guess now we need to date them drums!   :-)

"On topic", but how worthwhile?

Christian D.
*************************************************************************
From Ric

Exactly.  There are hundreds of fascinating questions about how the colony
functioned but we have to stay focused on the question that brings us there
in the first place.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 11 May 2000 10:39:01 EDT
From:         Ric
Subject:      Ae article

Patrick Gaston passes along this address for an article about the "race" to
recover Earhart's plane.

http://www.insightmag.com/archive/200002054.shtml
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 11 May 2000 10:40:35 EDT
From:         William Webster-Garman
Subject:      Re: Lambrecht Photo

Ric wrote,

>>it was one of the six people who were in the air over Gardner
>>that day

I've missed something--?

william 2243
*************************************************************************
From Ric

Three airplanes, each with a pilot and observer.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 11 May 2000 10:43:17 EDT
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: Lambrecht Photo

A possible clue to the Lambrecht photo arrow and the reason it was taken was
that the map of the island showed a much different configuration than what
was actually there.  My suspicion, and it is only that, was that it was taken
as evidence for the Navy Hydrographic Office so that their maps could be
updated or at least marked as probable error in size/shape.  As for the N
arrow, it must have been marked after the picture was taken (time for
development  - duh!) and perhaps the annotator had forgotten actual course of
the plane at the time of the picture, and just guesstimated.  In fact, the N
arrow could have been added months if not years later.
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 11 May 2000 10:49:52 EDT
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re: island communications

> Anybody knows if in the 30's and
> 40's lamp oil was ever packaged in big drums, as opposed as in one or 5
> gallons cans? Ross?

It is unlikely that "lamp oil" was used.  Lighting back then (in colonial
times) was almost entirely kerosene or candles if electricity was not being
used.  Kerosene came in distinctive drums of about 4 imperial gallons (5 US
gal I think) and these drums were often converted to other uses once empty.
They were used as water buckets, camp ovens, meat safes, and even as
cladding for dwellings (after being flattened out).  With a few holes
puunched in the bottom they were suspended from a tree and held just
sufficient water for a decent shower.

Because a lot of these drums went on to another life (original recycling?)
there are not many of them around today.

Here are some references to the tins and their uses from contemporary early
literature.

As great good luck would have it, they had some dirty clothes on to boil in
a kerosene tin - dish-cloths or something.

I ran to the creek with the big kerosene-tin bucket and got it full of cold
water and stood it handy.

his eye was caught by the glare of an empty kerosene tin lying in the
bushes,

Eggs were not a constant price and during the low price season they were
tapped to test for cracks, and the sound ones were smeared with Ovaline or
preserved in kerosene tins with Nortons Egg Preserver.

but she filled the four gallon kerosene tin which was used to carry the
lunches with sandwiches and scones, and they were sent out to the men.
and boil it in a four-gallon kerosene tin, inside the room

n old kerosene tin or 4 gallon drum pierced to allow plenty of air holes,
makes a good brazier for a charcoal fire.

greasy-feeling water from a cut-down kerosene tin which I sneaked from the
cook and hid under my bunk

Not exactly "on topic" but may suggest a reason for any lack of physical
evidence of kerosene tins lying around on Niku...   Oh, they were not
usually painted, and did rust..

RossD
=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 11 May 2000 10:53:10 EDT
From:         Denise
Subject:      A Missing Tooth?

In the telegram from Gallagher describing the bones found on Nukumaroro, he
says that the skull had FIVE teeth.

However, in the report from Hoodless in Suva, he says the skull had FOUR
teeth.

What happened to the missing tooth?

Sincerely,
Denise

(Sorry if this subject has already been dealt with in detail, but I'm new to
this forum.)

**************************************************************************
From Ric

We don't know, but it's not hard to imagine a tooth shaking loose and getting
lost sometime between when the mandible was origianlly found and the time
seven months and 1,000 miles later when Hoodless examined the bones.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 08:58:20 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: island communicatins

<< I know of no drums that are known to have once contained gasoline. >>

All right, we have no drums with "petrol" marked on them, but we have a whole
lot of drums, and although we know the Coasties brought drums of fuel ashore,
I don't see any reason to assume that they were the only ones.  However, I'll
admit you've got me, Ric; we don't KNOW that any of the drums we've seen had
gasoline in them.

TK
*************************************************************************
From Ric

The New Zealand survey party brought lots of drums containing water and even
empty drums for marking out the lagoon (we have photos).  As you note, the
Coasties had drums and drums of diesel fuel.  We see the rusted remains of
steel drums scattered about and we have presumed they were used as makeshift
cisterns.  If they were originally used for fuel transport (gasoline or
diesel) I'd sure want to scrub them out well before I used them for drinking
water.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 08:59:38 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: island communications

Ross says:  However I still believe they would have used Kerosene and Candles
extensively as well.

I think that's very likely.  As recently as the 1970s when my wife was living
in a village in Chuuk, kerosene "hurricane lamps" were the major source of
light.  I'm reading June Knox-Mawer's "Tales from Paradise," which is all
about the WPHC and the islands under its jurisdiction in the 1930s through
50s, and there are repeated references to hurricane lamps.  I have the
nagging feeling, too, that we've seen the remains of such lamps in the
village, but never taken note of them because they obviously weren't from an
Electra.

TKing
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 09:01:07 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: island communications

I don't know about oil stains, Christian.  It just wasn't the kind of thing
we were looking for, or taking the time to record.  Maybe somebody else on
one of the expeditions noticed something like that in passing, but I didn't.

Tom King
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 09:23:37 EDT
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      Sad story of confusion

I have been rereading the radio logs at
"logjam.html" site and the more i read, the
more moved i am by how sad a story
of confusion this is.

AE's Bendix, RDF adaptor apparently included
an innovation included in the U.S. Navy's  'next
generation' of df-adaptors ( series 'DU' ) : HF
(shortwave) coverage. Unfortunately, she was
under the impression this equipment was
standard, including USCG ships. She had tried
it out unsuccessfully at Lae.

William Donzelli tells me he read some Navy
text stating that the HF-df feature of this later
appearing model adaptor (DU),  was found simply
not to work, and was dropped in later production
of this model. So all those RDF efforts were simply
a waste of precious attention and time.

I also wonder if this innovative feature was
somehow linked with the talk about the 10E's
RDF equipment being secret or classified.

AE could have homed successfully on Itasca,
using the same RDF, but the Itasca would have
had to transmit on the conventional DF bands-
200 kcs to 1600 or so. The ship certainly had
equipment to do this, as all seagoing ships
had equipment covering at least 400 - 500
kcs with a few hundred watts power. If AE
were to send df signals to the Itasca, on the
other hand, she would have needed that trailing
antenna to be able to use the lower frequency.

I wonder: if AE had all along been unaware
that Itasca could not send voice on 7500,
did she simply not hear the toneless rushing
pulses of cw til she was quite close and
the signals were stronger, quite strong? What
I am wondering is, expecting voice on 7500,
did she fail to have the receiver switched to
CW on the CW/VOICE switch? Out a few
hundred miles, with cabin noise, and electrical
noise from the 10E engine, and atmospheric
noise, it could be difficult to hear the the cw
signals unless the receiver, via this switch,
was set to reproduce them as sounds with
an audio pitch. ( The receiver is usually tuned
so the "CW note" is somewhere in the range
500 - 1000 cycles. )  BTW, the conventional
wisdom was that CW was "10 times as
effective" as voice, so IF the propagation &
skip path allowed, you would certainly think
the Itasca's 7500 kcs cw signals would
have gone the distance, at least of a few
hundred miles.
allowed

Also, i do not agree that AE at the last switching
to 6210 was a fatal mistake.  20:00 hours is
still early enough that this "day" frequency is still viable,
and since you do not know the location of the aircraft,
you do not know if the "skip zone" of either frequency
favors or disfavors communication.

I am thinking that all along, there should have
been more knob-twisting to arrive at the best
frequency. I am also a little puzzled as to why
a wide divergence in frequencies used by the
2 parties, over most of the flight: I would think
the best one would be the best one both ways.
Also, it kinda surprises me the USCG cutter
didn't have equipment to specifically talk to
aircraft - if the Itasca's voice equipment topped
out in the 6000 kcs band, that sounds like
it was the usual medium wave ship voice
radio, usable about 1600 to 6000 and some kcs.
But this was 1937, still pretty early in the
communications game.

( re radio log and commentary:

http://www.tighar.org/TTracks/12_2/logjam.html.

and

http://www.insightmag.com/archive/200002054.shtml

an Insight magazine article which summarizes the theories,
including the far-out "Japanese capture" one, and the
focuses of the different search organizations. )
DE KA7LXY K    (Hue Miller, who may be all wet)

***************************************************************************
From Ric

If, indeed, the Navy was modifying the "new" Bendix RDF adaptor for HF use
(but it didn't really work), this could clear up the confusion about whole
7500 kcs mess.  Suppose it was one of those units that Earhart received.
That could be the source of Joe Gurr's comment that a "radio" arrived for
installation in the Earhart plane in a box marked "U.S. Navy."  That could
also be why Earhart, in good faith, believed that she would be able to home
on a 7500 kcs signal.

Earhart's switch to 6210 was not made in the early evening as you seem to
suggest. It was just after 20:13 GCT which was 08:43 local time.

The Insight magazine article, by the way, is full of the usual inaccuracies
and distortions of the TIGHAR story.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 09:28:40 EDT
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: island communications

<< If they were originally used for fuel transport (gasoline or
diesel) I'd sure want to scrub them out well before I used them for drinking
water. >>

I would too, but the fact is that such drums are routinely used all over the
islands for rainwater catchers under the eaves of houses -- including on
islands where there's enough fresh water to make it unlikely that anyone's
brought it ashore in drums, and where there are or were lots of military
facilities producing cast-off fuel drums.  If we really wanted to pursue this
(I agree, we don't), there are probably public health reports that deal with
the problem of misusing fuel drums in the Pacific.

TK
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 12:04:42 EDT
From:         K. Matthew Victor
Subject:      Re: DOS v Windows v Mac

NUTS!!!   All of you! Try Linux and you'll see what we penguins' mean at
"Winblows". As to the Intel versus Motorola proc. debate, Jet Prop. Lab. uses
and has done so for quite awhile, the G4 on Wind River Canyons' real time O. S.
for space flight. Recently the same architecture is been run on R.T.Linux for
flight systems. So, have cake and eat too.
K. Matthew Victor

*************************************************************************
From Ric

Nice to see that passion is still alive on the Forum.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 12:07:35 EDT
From:         Andrew McKenna
Subject:      Re: Missing Tooth

> From Ric
>
>We don't know, but it's not hard to imagine a tooth shaking loose and getting
>lost sometime between when the mandible was origianlly found and the time
>seven months and 1,000 miles later when Hoodless examined the bones.

Maybe we can run a joint venture with Nauticos and get them to search the
Pacific between Niku and Tarawa for the missing tooth with their
sophisticated sonar equip.  They should be able to pin it down in no time.

LTM (who likes looking for needles in haystacks)

A McKenna
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 May 2000 12:13:58 EDT
From:         Dan Postellon
Subject:      Niku from space

There is a not too detailed satellite photo of Nikumaroro at:
<http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/iams/images/earth/STS075/lowres/10150756.jpg>
Dan Postellon  TIGHAR 2263
***********************************************************************
From Ric

Yup, there it is.  Right down there.  Pretty interesting really.  Very
typical cloud pattern.  I'll betcha that if you had a similar view of Howland
(smaller, no lagoon, and less distinctive in shape) it would be hard to tell
it from the clouds.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 13 May 2000 06:44:20 EDT
From:         Frank Westlake
Subject:      Re: Niku from space

> From Ric
> I'll betcha that if you had a similar view of Howland
> (smaller, no lagoon, and less distinctive in shape) it
> would be hard to tell it from the clouds.

In response to Ric's comment, here is the page that covers the quadrant
that Howland Is. is in. The first two links are for Howland/Baker, but
good luck spotting them.
<http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/utilities/imagemap.exe/sseop/clickmap/m
ap16.map?45,662>

This page covers the Phoenix Is. quadrant. I haven't looked at it yet.
<http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/utilities/imagemap.exe/sseop/clickmap/m
ap24.map?183,49>

A clickable map of the world that let's you zoom in on a section.
<http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/>

Neat stuff! Thanks, Dan.

Frank Westlake
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 13 May 2000 06:45:54 EDT
From:         Jon Watson
Subject:      Re: Niku from space

Here's Howland Is. - except no clouds.  Unknown on scale of the photo...

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/photo.pl?mission=STS61A&roll=51&frame=
88&UID=SSEOP&PWD=sseop

ltm
jon  2266
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 13 May 2000 06:49:34 EDT
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Off topic closure

We need some off topic closures here. This computer thread is the only one
still active (and since my Power Mac is 2 generations behind Ric's G4 I'll
keep my 2 yen to myself). So, do we have a consensus on the most under rated
aviator (Doolittle?) and what nick name does Ross like the best?

More on topic (barely), re; pre war Imperial Japanese Navy archives; the
JMSDF boys here in Yokosuka think anything like that that has survived would
be at Etajima (the Japanese naval academy near Kure). I know a former
instructor there who now works in the building in front of mine. I intend to
pick his brain next week. That will probably include a few beers at the
Irish pub across the street from the base.

LTM (who has never been in an Irish pub)
Kerry 2350
**************************************************************************
From Ric

Executive decisions:
Doolittle is most underrated aviator
Ross is WOMBAT
The word on computers is "To each his (or her) own."
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 13 May 2000 06:51:48 EDT
From:         William Webster-Garman
Subject:      Re: island communications

Ric wrote,

>>I'd sure want to scrub them out well

I don't care what others might have done in the past, drinking water out of
a container that contained a flammable hydrocarbon is a good way to shorten
one's life.

william 2243
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 13 May 2000 06:52:45 EDT
From:         William Webster-Garman
Subject:      Re: DOS v Windows v Mac

K. Matthew Victor wrote,

>>> NUTS!!!   All of you!

Actually, Matthew is correct. In my dreams, the world adopted Unix with a
graphical interface 12 years ago. The only reason I don't use Linux now is
applications that are only available on Wintel.

<grin>

william 2243
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 May 2000 14:18:41 EDT
From:         Frank Westlake
Subject:      Re: Niku from space

Regarding my last: Howland Island is clearly visible in the picture from
mission STS61A which is linked at the bottom of the page I identified as
the Howland/Baker quadrant.

Frank Westlake
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 May 2000 14:29:00 EDT
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      Re: Sad Story.....and USCG bungle

"We have that report of all those wireless messages and everything else,
what that woman -- happened to her the last few minutes. I hope I've just got
to never make it public," says Morgenthau. As Treasury secretary he was in
charge of the Coast Guard.

After reading the radio log, it's clear the above quote has nothing to do
with any spy mission, Japanese capture, etc., but is a comment on the ineptitude
of the Coast Guard radio personnel on the Itasca. What an awful showing.

And that comment's even without, most likely, him knowing the details of
the direction-finder tangle: You receive a current-model piece of radio
equipment (the RDF loop adaptor ) in a box marked U.S. Navy - how is
an untrained appliance operator to know that it's experimental, and
that it might just as well NOT work?

Hue Miller

***************************************************************************
From Ric

While I agree that there was clearly no spy mission, I think that
Morgenthau's concern was for Earhart's reputation - not the Coast Guard's. 
Thompson's report on "all those wireless messages" (which was Morgenthau's
principal source of information) was a whitewash that exonerated the Itasca
of any negligence while roundly condemning Earhart. We don't know what Earhart
did or did not know about whatever she received from the Navy (if anything).
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 May 2000 14:40:55 EDT
From:         John B.
Subject:      Re: island communications

If the Coasties had vehicles on Niku during their stay in the middle
1940s, what did they use for fuel for the jeeps and trucks?  I don't
think that everything ran off diesel fuel, at least I don't think the
jeeps and trucks had diesel engines.

John B.

**************************************************************************
From Ric

The Coasties had at least one "weapons carrier" (sort of like a pick-up
truck) which, I would guess, was probably gasoline powered.  They also had a
D6 Caterpiller bulldozer which was almost certainly diesel.
Whether the Coasties had drums of gasoline is really not at issue.  The
question has been whether the villagers routinely used a gasoline powered
generator to recharge batteries.  And I can't, for the life of me, imagine
why it makes any diffrence to our investigation.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 May 2000 14:45:52 EDT
From:         Ron Dawson
Subject:      Most Rev. Egan

Who has the nerve to ask the new papal appointee to  Archbishop of New York,
Rev. Egan, if he is related to Fred Noonan's mum?  His excellency was born
near Chicago, however, Egan apparently was a very common Irish name.

Smooth Sailing,

Ron Dawson 2126
**************************************************************************
From Ric

According to her death certificate, Helena C. Egan Noonan was born in England
(but of course, that doesn't mean that she wasn't "Irish.")
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 May 2000 14:56:59 EDT
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      Bendix adaptor

This photo shows a Navy WW2 aircraft receiver setup
as used in many 2 and 3 place scout and bomber planes
in WW2, for example the TBM and SOC2.

http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/greenradio/MRCG2000/p18.jpg

To the left side is a type DU direction finding adaptor.
This is an "inside loop", to be placed inside the cockpit
canopy and was manually rotated by the radio operator.
An "outside loop" had a long stem to extend to the loop
outside the airframe. a smaller number were built that
had totally separate, powered rotation loops.
The small unit connected to the loop just below, is
a preamplifier to boost the weak signal strength from
the small loop. Its output goes via one single wire
to a connection on the front of the receiver.
In operation, the operator has to tune the control
on the the loop amplifier for maximum signal, then
rotate the loop for a minimum - the "null".

I don't know anyone who has actually seen the type
RDF adaptor as used on AE's plane, unless it was
so similar to type DU or such that we simply mistook it.
Military electronics built in the interwar years and before
the rearmament of 1940 on, was built in quite small
numbers. When this gear was made obsolete by newer
equipment, it could make its way to some surplus
disposal channel - or be taken apart for parts or for
training purposes in military schools, or simply be
discreetly carried off to home by some interested party.
Attrition seems to have been high enough that some
equipment from the interwar years is quite rare -
the RDF is a good example. In any case, the DU
would be similar in its components, operation, and
basic appearance to the RDF set.

Hue Miller

*************************************************************************

From Ric

The unit in the picture is, as you say, a WWII unit.  There is good
photography of the Bendix unit that went into NR16020 taken at the time of
installation (first week of March 1937).  There is also at least one good
contemporaneous (1937) magazine article that describes the new Bendix adaptor.
We can get this stuff up on the website but it will have to wait for a couple
of weeks due to workload.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 May 2000 15:00:15 EDT
From:         Vern Klein
Subject:      Earth from space

There are some interesting views of a few portions of the earth from the
"Shuttle Radar Topography Mission," at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/image_products_list.html

So far I've seen nothing of the Phoenix Islands.  I'm concerned that they
say the radar was turned off when over the oceans to conserve power.  So,
will they have covered the Phoenix Islands?

This appears to be a real "foliage penetrating" radar!  There is no trace of
the vegitation we know is there in some of these images -- right down to
bare dirt.
Resolution is far short of what would be useful to us, but it's getting close.

The images released thus far are all from "C" band data -- no "X" band so
far.  That might offer an improvement by about a factor of two -- Shorter
wavelength, about 0.4 that of "C" band.

The perspective views are pretty but I like the "shaded relief images" for a
good look at what's there.  Note that you can download high resolution image
files.

Although scarcely tropical, Saint Pierre and Miquelon Islands are
interesting in that they approach the size of the Niku.  It gives some feel
for what Niku might look like in a "C" band image.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 May 2000 15:12:25 EDT
From:         Denise
Subject:      Re: Missing Tooth

Look, let's get serious for a moment about this missing tooth.

Maybe it did shake loose in the seven months period, somewhere between
Nikumaroro and Suva, but - for heavens sake - it was inside a presumably
closed wooden box.  A loose tooth would have been something Hoodless would
have found it IN the box, surely.

So, if it wasn't there - and we can safely assume that both Gallagher and
Hoodless could count - then it had to have gone missing during the times
when the box was opened.  We know Issacs/Verrier opened it in Tarawa. We
know Varkass and company opened it in Suva. Can we rule out a tooth maybe
falling out and getting lost or being taken on either of these occasions? Is
there some sort of record of what happened here?

And when else was the box opened? And who else opened it? Did anyone open
the box aboard ship? Either officially or unofficially? You know, sneak a
peek inside, and maybe pocket a piece as a souvineer?

So where on the ship was the box stored? Was it sealed? And, if so, how was
the sealed? Who had access to it?

If the tooth was pocketed aboard ship, it may be possible to find out who
did it. A ship is a closed environment. People don't just walk in and out.
So, is it possible to get the names of all the people aboard? Maybe talk to
a few of them? Find out if maybe one of them has a tooth souvineered from
the box?

Since I believe the bones won't be found, maybe this tooth is the only way
you're going to be able to track down a sample for DNA testing.

It needs to be considered.

Denise

***************************************************************************
From Ric

Everything we know about the travels of the box of bones is in the
correspondence that is on the website.  Although we know, in a general sense,
where it went and when -  we have no idea and no way of knowing exactly who
did what.  Off the the top of my head, I'd say that the most likley place and
time for the tooth to go missing was when Isaac looked at what he called the
"wretched relics" in Tarawa.

Honestly, I think that chasing that tooth is an exercise in futility.  I
think our best shot at getting a tooth is finding the hole the skull came out
of and looking there for teeth that may have fallen out.
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