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Note: this topic is dated 8/18/2002. |
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Posted on 08/18/2002 3:39:33 PM PDT by Hellmouth
Earhart was already an American heroine when, at midnight on July 2, 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan took off from New Guinea on the final 7000-mile leg of their global circumnavigation attempt. Intending to refuel on Howland Island, a narrow strip of land on the halfway mark, the pair made brief radio contact with a US coastguard cutter before communications were lost six hours into the flight.
History tells that the plane -- a Lockheed Electra -- ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean shortly after losing contact with the coastguard vessel, a theory which has fuelled numerous high-profile yet futile attempts to locate the wreakage.
But veteran director Ken Annakin, now 87, is set to shock the world with Yours Truly, Amelia -- a darker interpretation of the mystery.
Annakin, director of such notable productions as The Longest Day, Three Men In A Boat, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, The Battle Of The Bulge, Swiss Family Robinson, and more than 40 others , has already written the screenplay.
'The world has been led to believe that Amelia Earhart just vanished over the Pacific during her 1937 world flight, but that is definitely not so,' he said. 'The American government wanted to know what the Japanese were up to on the island of Truk and asked her to go on a spying mission.
'Amelia hated the idea of war and refused. She was, however, persuaded to manoeuvre the plane into a position from which her navigator, Fred Noonan, could take pictures of secret fortifications.
'They were detected and shot down by a Japanese plane. The pilot is still alive in Tokyo. Earhart and Noonan survived the crash landing, but he was killed when he refused to co-operate with the Japanese.'
Earhart, it seems, saved her skin by being more helpful and there were photographs of her standing on the wing of a plane that the Japanese were testing. She had had useful experience of a similar plane belonging to the famous Howard Hughes.
When the Japanese were losing the war, they sent her to a camp for priests and nuns in North China, from which she was ultimately rescued by the Americans.
The American government did not want it known that such an inspirational citizen had been spying. The miraculous re-emergence of a national hero who was supposed to have been lost would have been difficult to explain, and the Japanese were ready to expose her as a traitor.
The solution was a new identity. After rehabilitation, she was allowed to settle into life in New Hampshire, attended by a minder, Guy Bolam, a former MI6 man from England who became her husband.
Annakin has had the co-operation of the husband's step-brother, as well as an American officer, James Hannon, who came across Earhart in that Chinese camp at the end of the war. There, she was being referred to as 'the Yank' and 'the female Lindbergh', a reference to Charles Lindbergh, the American pilot who made the first solo transatlantic flight the year before Amelia Earhart.
It is a powerful human drama, the veracity of which Annakin is totally convinced. Born in Yorkshire in 1914, it has taken until his eighties for his name to be recognised in his own homeland. Apart from a doctorate from Hull university, Annakin will soon collect an OBE from the Queen. A close friend of Walt Disney and Darryl Zanuck, he is already installed in that hall of fame known as the Disney Legends.
Childhood memories of the 1920s include visits to 11 Downing Street, where his aunt was married to Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the first Labour government. As a cameraman and director he gained a toe-hold in films during the war, working for the Ministry of Information.
But for his next project will prove to be his most controversial. Annakin's elaborate explanations and research are in stark contrast to the theories about Earhart's disappearance put forth by several research teams and the weight of American history. Rival teams are even now scouring a 2000 square mile expanse of the Pacific Ocean for 'the holy grail of aviation', certain that the pilot did crash into the sea.
Sharing that aim, but hunting 1000 miles away on Nikumaroro, a remote atoll in equatorial Kiribati, is The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar). The theory championed by Tighar is that Earhart did not lose power until several hours after losing radio contact, ultimately crash landing on uninhabited Nikumaroro and remaining there as a castaway until her eventual death from illness or starvation.
This version of events only emerged after the discovery in 1988 of a clutch of documents relating to the 1940 discovery of a skeleton on the island, believed to be that of a woman, by a British Colonial Service officer.
For whoever solves the riddle, the rewards will be great. Revenues from a touring exhibition of artefacts are expected to run into seven figures, while the proceeds from documentary footage, books and film tie-ins could rival those of most small industries.
©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved.
I sure ain't no spring chicken.
On the other hand, that allows me to truthfully say that I once saw Amelia Earhart in person.
And she didn't look hardly at all like a Jap spy. Kinda boyish looking, with her hair cut short, but not like a Jap.
It sounds plausible for the era and political situation at the time.
They (the military) could have spun it: that she had been captured by the Japs, her navigator had died of injuries sustained in the plane crash, and Amelia was a POW in China during the war. Earhart could have returned to the country as a hero, and no one (who really needed to know) would be all the wiser.
Plus even if she did help the Japanese, there were extenuating circumstances. Her life was at stake, she was in shock, she's a women, etc. I think people would probably have forgiven her.`
It was a romanticist`era and the love and affection people had for this (second rate pilot IMO) was amazing.
On the other hand, we were executing Japanese sympathizers. Secrets were easier to keep and the press was not a in your face business. The news lag was about a week to 10 days and not 5 minutes it is today.
It is likely that they felt it was the easiest thing to do
This version of events only emerged after the discovery in 1988 of a clutch of documents relating to the 1940 discovery of a skeleton on the island, believed to be that of a woman, by a British Colonial Service officer.
So which is it?
No, it's a way to sell movie tickets. This guy thinks he's Oliver Stone.
I'm sure America will fall for it, and the press will cover it extensively. Fortunately, it's entirely possible that conclusive proof will be uncovered shortly which will prove that this is a lie and a scam. I hope so.
Earhardt was a pretty brave chick, and she doesn't deserve to be cast as a traitor.
From what little I've read of the matter, the consensus seems to favor a slight navigation error, made worse by upper level winds: the sort of thing that sometimes happened to military aircraft during that era..and well up into the WWII era.
Yes, there is a really numerous evidence exists that supports a theory that Earhart may have been captured by Japanese and probably to die in captivity.
But the concept of THIS movie - as it is described here, displaying her as a traitor - is a complete absurd, based on rumors and fabricated stories factually debunked since long ago.
There is absolutely no factual evidence exists that supports this ridiculous stuff; on the contrary, there is a lot of a firm factual arguments proving that something like this never could happen.
Earhart was a really good pilot, who was not a "media created celebrity" but a real record breaker who really set her records. No "media machine" may help you if you are alone over the ocean in an unreliable plane in the night. You can do it - or you can't. She could and did, let's not forget about this.
But she was NOT an aircraft designer, not a radio expert, not a test pilot and not a military pilot.
She simply never had any kind of technical information to help Japanese in any way, even if she would want. Especially in 40s - several years after she could been captured. Even if she would have such a knoweledge - just conditionally - the development of aviation in late 30s was so quick that after very short time after her capture in 1937 all that she WOULD know would became obsolate and useless, and very quickly.
Also, there is absolutely NO any real evidence or any real base to suspect that she would agree to be a traitor - at any conditions. The personal character of Earhart is a not a matter of speculations. It is a matter of credible historical records and numerous and independent evidence. She was simply not such a kind of person who can be a traitor. She had a very certain "sense of the mission" as backbone of her spirit, and for such a person a treason is an absolute MORAL suicide - an obviously impossible thing. Such a people preferes rather to die than to live in infamy - just another type of psychology.
Despite popular beliefs, the history of a Japanese aviation is not a mystery since long ago. A lot of information and authentic documents, records, photos etc. was declassified and published openly since 40s, about all the Japanese wartime and prewar planes and their development and technical history.
Absolutely no evidence supporting the wartime "folklore rumors" - connecting this stuff with Earhart in any way - was ever found.
It will be extremely sad if this movie will be done in such a way as it is described here. In fact, it would mean an attempt to tarnish baselessly a reputation of deservred and innocent person, to confuse and misinform people around the world and poison their mind by a slander, morally unfair and factually incorrect misinformation.
Respectfully submitted -
Alex V.Mandel, Ph. D (aviation and naval historian, Amelia Earhart historian for 22 years)
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Note: this topic is dated 8/18/2002. |
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Just a an hour or two ago someone was going on about how Fletcher Christian from Mutiny on the Bounty fame made his way back to England from Pitcairn Island and lived there incognito. And there are all those stories about Billy the Kid living to a ripe old age somewhere out west. It seems that the more legendary the historical figure and as long as their is a little doubt about the certainty of their death there are always tales of them living out their days in the equivalent of the Witness Protection Program.
Basically these stories always surface and they make for a good read or listen.
>>”Yes, there is a really numerous evidence exists that supports a theory that Earhart may have been captured by Japanese...”
Any military or diplomatic orders asking her to do intel work should be available to research at this point. For some reason, a few years back, the gay community saw her as one of theirs beyond the mere feminist aspect.
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