Based upon your post I ordered Fred Groener’s book. Just finished it. Wow! My opinion of Amelia has sure changed. What a phenomenal lady and a true American hero. Clearly she was spying for the U.S. Navy when she crash landed in the Marshall Islands and the two of them were taken prisoner by the Japanese. They, and the airplane, were taken to Saipan where they were held, and interrogated for an extended period of time. They both died there either from torture or physical neglect. The senior US leadership was so embarrassed about the way this went down that numerous agencies covered it up including U.S. Navy, Dept of Interior, State Department and the President of the United States. One of the USMC officers (Wallace T. Greene) on Saipan led a detail that dug up an area outside a grave yard that had two skulls and bone parts. He went on to be Commandant of USMC and when interviewed couldn’t remember a thing about this happening.
I should read that book. A cover-up was very possible. As far as the “digging detail” goes, at least in the early sixties, when I was on Saipan, there were MANY remains still untouched from the battle there, especially on the north part of the island where locals were restricted due to remaining ammo dumps and land mines that had not been located yet. We could go there, and we did and found many remains and artifacts from the war. The Navy was still busy locating ammo dumps and destroying them. The Navy (and others) dumped huge stock piles of munitions that they did not want to take back from the battle.
It was interesting to chat with the small groups that did visit Saipan to see what they could find out about Ameilia and Noonan. Again, nothing, other than some comments from some of the locals about them. Hard to say.
thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.