New Guinea - Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan, en route to Howland Island, 2 July 1937

[Richard]

.... Speaking of Nikumaroro, anyone seen this (non-TIGHAR expedition to examine the “Taraia Object”)

The image appears to be a boat dock. It certainly isn't an aircraft.

The constant references to Nikumaroro by various groups over the years get more doubtful each time. If the objective is to raise money for further expeditions, then perhaps their speculations and "finds" are successful.

But to-date, not a single piece of valid evidence has been found to substantiate a Nikumaroro landing by Amelia and Fred.

There have also been numerous stories about finding her airplane here or there - or finding some corroded part that Might have been from her plane. None of which have panned out - except perhaps to keep the story alive and in the news.

 

[Richard]

A second batch of documents regarding the search for Amelia has recently been released.

It includes a request by Eleanor Roosevelt for the radio logs of the Itasca, correspondence between the US Secretary of State and Japan's Ambassador to the US, and a statement from President Roosevelt on the cost of the search.

 

[Richard]

What has been released recently is information and documents which have been declassified from whatever origional classification(s) they were assigned. It is likely that other documents are being reviewed for similar declassification prior to release.

 

[Richard]

The Imperial Japanese Military was extremely cruel in their treatment of prisoners throughout World War II - which started ( for them) in July 1937 with their invasion of China.

Chinese and others were tortured and murdered wholesale. Torture and maltreatment of POWs, denial of food and medicine were common, even when available to the Japanese captors. These war crimes are well documented.

A number of Marshallese, Chamorro, and Saipanese islanders stated that they knew of a white woman pilot, and an injured white man who had been held as prisoners of the Japanese military at several places between Mili atoll and Saipan in July 1937. Some accounts claim that they died of illness or were executed on Saipan.

While solid forensic evidence or corroberating Japanese documentation is lacking to support those accounts, they are very consistent with what is well known about Japanese practice and policy of the era.