THAT is interesting. I think there's something fishy going on and what you just said could be meaningful. (Hi--I've been interested in this for decades but never knew much research was going on except that I did read about finding the Cat's Paw size 9 woman's shoe on the island.)
Anyway, I was reading and the Japanese eyewitness who treated the white man with the head injury and bruised knee and saw the white women, said it was on Jaluit Atoll that he treated them. Said that they had been picked up by a Japanese fishing boat and then taken aboard a Japanese ship and brought to Jaluit Atoll.
The pre-WWII photograph features a throng of people on a dock in Jaluit Atoll
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/amelia-earhart-lost-photograph-discredited-spd/
The National Geographic article shows the photograph and talks about the History Channel program. It also states that the history channel's facial recognition expert's new software has identified the man as Noonan, whereas at the time of the documentary, he didn't know for sure. But also, National Geographic doesn't believe this theory and is funding the
Nikumaroro expeditions so if you read their article, be aware of their bias against the Saipan theory.