buffnut453
Captain
"It was substantiated that Miss Earhart met her death on Saipan. The information was given to me directly by General Thomas Watson, who commanded the 2nd U.S. Marine Corps Division during the assault on Saipan in 1944."
"IF" Earhart was indeed captured by the Japanese, the US would have had everything to gain by making this information public, especially if it was discovered before the war's end. The taking of Saipan was bloody and costly and this would have been a huge propaganda coup if proven to be true.
Not only that, but surely efforts would have been made to bring those responsible to justice. Such was the climate of the War Crimes Trials that adding to the list of accused the murderer(s) of 2 American civilians in 1937 wouldn't have been a hard thing to accomplish.
Buff (Mark), I am still somewhat skeptical myself but the vast amounts of circumstantial evidence are hard (for me at least) to totally discount. I am also very much aware of FDR's more realistic appraisal of Japanese motives and intent and his use of civilian resources to avoid a military tie-in. Are you aware of FDR's "Astor Spy Ring"?
Vincent Astor's "job" was forwarding civilian gathered intelligence directly to FDR at least as early as 1933. Most early data concerned general conditions in the Caribbean and Panama Canal Zone, but in 1936 Fred Dearing wrote Roosevelt from his post in Peru that Astor planned to cruise off the Pacific coast of Latin America. "I understand that Vincent Astor is going back to the Galapagos Islands again with a few visitors, but I expect he might pick up some scraps of information for you while he is there." Though anxious to have Astor check rumors that Japanese ships were surveying the Galapagos to locate a site for an advanced base, Roosevelt was more concerned to learn what the Japanese were doing on their far distant islands in the South Pacific held since World War I as League of Nations mandates. Conveniently, Astor and Kermit Roosevelt planned a scientific expedition to the Marshall Islands as a cover for other investigations.
Astor made elaborate preparations, including establishment of a recognition code word for the Nourmahal, a 41 foot yacht built for multi-millionaire Astor in 1928 at Krupp Iron Works in Kiel, Germany, to tie in with the United States Navy radio network and a briefing by Director of Naval Intelligence Ralston S. Holmes. "Admiral Holmes (O.N.I.) told me he believed the Japs had a lot of Radio stations in the islands," Astor advised FDR. "I should think that it would be interesting to know their exact location," and "Nourmahal has a Radio Direction Finder."
In early 1938 Astor sent a lengthy report to the president reviewing his voyage with Kermit Roosevelt to the South Pacific. "On my return, I shall of course make a proper report to O.N.I.," he explained. "However in the remote possibility of trouble between now and then, you might consider the following conclusions of mine concerning the Marshall Islands worth forwarding to Naval Operations & O.N.I." In his message to the president, Astor admitted that when the Japanese refused to grant permission to land he had become a bit of a coward and had left the area. However, through intercepted radio messages and interviews with British intelligence people on the nearby Gilbert and Ellice Islands he had gathered some important data. Astor observed that Eniwetok, not Jaluit or Wotje, seemed to be the principal Japanese naval base, since large docks, fuel stores and ships had been observed there for several years. Bikini Atoll, Astor confided, abounded in suspicious activity and was off-limits to local natives. In addition, Roosevelt's man had learned that trucks and tractors worked to clear an air strip on Wotje, while six Japanese submarines lurked in a nearby lagoon. Astor performed one valuable service by correcting the common impression in Washington that Japan had fortified the Marshall Islands, insisting that the concrete platforms on one island comprised floors for warehouses not emplacements for guns. "I feel moderately certain that there are none [forts] in the Marshalls," he wrote FDR. The Japanese protested vehemently to the U.S. State Department, and one Japanese press report indicated that the U.S. Navy had sent "warships" into the Marshalls and was forming a task force for an attack. Astor had caused a storm with Japan, but his mission was unknown in America.
However, the Japanese while ostensibly building "civilian" structures had built them to heavier, thicker, stronger standards making them easily convertible to later military usage. The U.S. had long believed that Japan was violating that treaty in the Mandated Islands, but could not prove it. The U.S. had countered on Midway and Wake Islands through cooperation with Pan American airways by building "civilian" air fields there, and now Earhart would become the civilian reason or cover for building a landing strip on Howland. To further disguise the Howland venture, President Roosevelt diverted funds from the civilian Works Progress Administration, an obfuscation tactic he had used several times before.
So IMHO, Earhart and Noonan surviving the crash would answer many post-crash questions like the radio messages heard by many official and un-official radio operators. Were Earhart and Noonan spies in the traditional sense, No, but collecting "White Intelligence" I think Yes. Would this infuriate the Japanese, IMHO, Yes. The Japanese Kenpeitai answered to no one and their brutality well known. Would the Kenpeitai consider this White Intelligence spying? again I think Yes. Earhart and Noonan were already thought of as dead and under torture who knows what Noonan may have confessed to, so execution was the easy way to make the problem "go away".
Unpopular? You bet, to the extreme. One only has to look through the replies to these postings to see how many members, whom I would have expected more of, have resorted to Adpellatus Illudere posts View attachment 377765
So...in 1937, Earhart and Noonan are executed for spying but in 1938, Astor isn't despite bobbing around in a boat for weeks and clearly asking to go to places that are off-limits, resulting in a diplomatic storm in Japan? Again, where's the logical consistency here? Having a few submarines or large ships in a lagoon doesn't really count as a major secret (IMHO) and those things (per Astor) were clearly visible to vessels visiting the Marshalls throughout the period in question. Why single out Noonan and Earhart and why use aerial reconnaissance when it was apparently easy to get civilian ships to the area? I still come back to the fundamental question of what could they possibly have seen that was so secret?
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