Earhart's Plane Found?!

[Robert Porter]

witness after witness came forth

Yet aside from two accounts from an author trying to peddle his book, no record of those witnesses exists. No police statements, memoirs, diaries, etc. And there are still many people alive today from that time period and/or their families, and none of those witnesses can be found by any recent expeditions. Most credible authors when interviewing witnesses get a documented and witnessed signed statement from their sources. Yet somehow these two authors did not. And one of those authors was supposedly a trained FBI agent that knows without backing evidence eye witness testimony especially after a great deal of time has passed, is the least credible evidence of all.

 

[Robert Porter]

you continually resort to ridicule when things don't match your preconceived notions.

I am sorry if you perceived that as ridicule it was meant as humor to relieve a little of the built up tension. And my whole point is I don't have a preconceived notion, I don't know what did or did not happen to them, and I seriously doubt the veracity of this and many other stories that have surfaced over the years.

 

[mikewint]

Did I mention that this sort of 'history' programme really grinds my gears

Will agree with you totally PLUS it makes it so much more difficult for anything else to follow this line.

 

[mikewint]

it was meant as humor

One of Plato's objections to laughter is germane here, it is malicious. In Philebus (48–50), he analyzes the enjoyment of comedy as a form of scorn. "Taken generally," he says, "the ridiculous is a certain kind of evil, specifically a vice." That vice is self-ignorance: the people we laugh at imagine themselves to be wealthier, better looking, or more virtuous than they really are. In laughing at them, we take delight in something evil—their self-ignorance—and that malice is morally objectionable.

I don't have a preconceived notion

Your very words and post belie that. I don't know either but I am open to all the various theories finding some closer to possible reality than others. Some I consider to be really out there in left field like Earhart being Tokyo Rose or a New Jersey housewife Irene Bolam.

 

[Shinpachi]

Kim Jong-un might be a good guy.

 

[Robert Porter]

That vice is self-ignorance: the people we laugh at imagine themselves to be wealthier, better looking, or more virtuous than they really are. In laughing at them, we take delight in something evil—their self-ignorance—and that malice is morally objectionable.

I think that is true, if one is being laughed at. However I was not laughing at you at all so I am not sure I follow. However according to modern psychology, humor and laughter are some of the healthiest emotions. Plato was cool, but he is not all that and a box of crackers.

 

[Robert Porter]

Your very words and post belie that. I don't know either but I am open to all the various theories finding some closer to possible reality than others. Some I consider to be really out there in left field like Earhart being Tokyo Rose or a New Jersey housewife Irene Bolam.

Okay, guess I will take your word on that but not sure how you came to that conclusion. Perhaps the same way you came to the conclusion that she was captured by, and subsequently executed by the Japanese. I clearly stated in numerous posts in this thread that I make no claim to any particular belief or story. I find some more believable or at least plausible than others. But not having a specific theory of my own does not mean I have a preconceived idea or notion, in fact at least as I understand the english language and grammatical usage, admittedly poorly, it means the exact opposite?

 

[mikewint]

Kim Jong-un might be a good guy.

His dog wags its tail and licks his hand..

not sure how you came to that conclusion.

I guess I jumped to that conclusion because of your strong anti responses to the capture theory and then your resort to ridicule of the people proposing it. I never felt that any of it was directed at me but why impune the character of an unknown author unless you have direct knowledge of his mendacity. I do understand circumstantial evidence and heresay but in certain circumstances it's all you have and when hundreds of people echo essentially the same story you have to at least begin to wonder.
The Ditch in the Ocean Theory may well be the case and while I don't think that it is correct I have never vehemently opposed it or termed its proponents "nutcases". My major objection to it is her documented fuel load and the "time-in-the-air" it would give her calculated by Art Kennedy, who had overhauled her engines prior to the second attempt, and who calibrated her engines with PRATT & WHITNEY factory test equipment.
Such ridicule bothers me because it closes the door to highly qualified people with reputations to maintain who might otherwise investigate the various theories. It's also the reason so many of the higher echelon witnesses won't commit themselves on paper.
I consider the majority of people on this site to be intelligent, educated, skilled and well above average yet review the tones of their anti-posts: Quod Erat Demonstrandum

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Very true but again base on what is actually documented the 42 gph is reasonable and Yea another assunption. Remember, this issue was discussed at length with Art Kennedy, who had overhauled her engines prior to the second attempt, and who calibrated her engines with PRATT & WHITNEY factory test equipment. His test cell engine records still exist and barring fuel cell leakage and gross mixture control mismanagement, she had between 4.5 and 5.5 hours of fuel remaining after her 20:14 [8:44 am Howland Time] transmission. This calculation was made by Kennedy a man who would know. Secondly, again documented, we can apply the plane's performance during its 2,400-mile Oakland to Honolulu flight in March 1937. Records show that the Electra consumed 617 of the 947 gallons it held during the fifteen-hour, fifteen-minute Honolulu flight, for an average per-hour burn rate of 38.97 gallons. Round that off to forty gallons per hour. At Lae, loaded with 200 more gallons (1,200 pounds) the plane was about 800 pounds heavier, add one gallon per hour for the extra weight (which would decrease with time) and another gallon per hour in consideration of the plane's climb to higher altitudes after leaving Lae. With 1,156 gallons departing Lae, at an average consumption of 42 gph, at 20 hours 15 minutes, she had burned 850.50 gallons of fuel and had close to 6 hours left before fuel exhaustion so dropping that to 4 hours still gives her flight time.
Joe, as a pilot would you ditch in the open ocean given a choice or would you stay in the air as long as possible?

Mike - you make points but IIRC she flew a north/ south pattern in an effort to find Howland and no one knows how long she did that so even with 5 hours of fuel no one could accurately predict where she would wind up. Take her LKP and calculate a 5 hour flight radius (this was shown earlier) and it still puts her in the middle of nowhere and nowhere close to that threatening and evil Japanese garrison hundreds of miles away manning that threatening and intimidating weather reporting station.

Yes, there were, but none trying to over fly a Japanese territory that they had been keeping as totally restricted as possible for years and had denied everyone access. The very reason Roosevelt was so anxious to find out exactly what they were up to in this area. Based on this another theory is that Earhart never intended to land at Howland but intended to "get lost" thus giving the US Navy an excuse to search in restricted areas. Joe, think militarily. If you had asked a superior permission to do something and been denied and then did it anyway what would be the result? As opposed to doing without asking and asking forgiveness afterward? So Earhart ASKING and being DENIED makes any type of overflight so much worse if/when captured.

Mike, US military ships made port calls. If Roosevelt was that anxious to find out what was in this area he could have sent several B-17s with the most advanced cameras of the day to fly all over the area and no one would have ever known they were there.

AND you're missing one huge fact - the Japanese held NO territory over the path of her 1937 flight!

Intercepting the "Rex" > National Museum of the US Air Force™ > Display

Mike, get it though your head, there was no interest in this part of the world by the Japanese in 1937. They had their interest in China and Indo-China.

Yea, it's the "nutcases" that give conspiracy theory a bad rep. I've been called MUCH worse in my time. I do realize that I can be and possibly am wrong but, IMHO the crash land, rescue, in Japanese hands, imprisonment scenario is highly plausible

Mike, I'm pretty open minded but I'm sorry, with a hand full of sketchy and contradicting witnesses, the story doesn't hold water. Ships, transferring through ports, flights on seaplanes, would have left thousands of eye witnesses and despite the discipline within the Japanese military during WW2, if this was indeed true, someone CREDIBLE within the Japanese military would have come forward with the truth after the war.

Mike - in 1937 there was no reason for the Japanese to capture Amelia Earhart. They had everything to gain by helping in her rescue and everything to lose to do her harm, but let's say they did - it again would have benefited the Japanese to come clean in the post war years considering they did so when unit 731 was uncovered.

 

[Robert Porter]

Such ridicule bothers me because it closes the door to highly qualified people with reputations to maintain who might otherwise investigate the various theories. It's also the reason so many of the higher echelon witnesses won't commit themselves on paper.
I consider the majority of people on this site to be intelligent, educated, skilled and well above average yet review the tones of their anti-posts: Quod Erat Demonstrandum

I would tend to agree that ridicule can be a powerful disincentive, however in this particular case several of the key pieces of evidence including the photo, and the ship in use, have been shown to be frauds, purposely and knowingly perpetrated frauds. Therefor not only ridicule but also scorn is appropriate. Anyone truly interested in the truth would not have committed fraud in furtherance of their goal.

And lots of people have come forward to support every major theory in this case, according to the various proponents of each theory. Not to mention that literally hundreds of thousands of people claim to have seen everyone from Elvis, to Hitler, to believing strongly that the world is flat. So numbers of people claiming a thing does nothing in my mind to make it more real.

During the DC Sniper spree, at the first or second shooting, someone "spotted" a white box truck leaving the scene. Within days as the shootings escalated more and more people, in the 1000's, also reported a white box truck leaving the scene. Upon further investigation after the sniper was actually caught the FBI noticed a pattern, people who were not even near the scene were injecting themselves into the investigation with reports and tips that were entirely figments of their imagination out of a desire to be involved. This bit of misinformation, because it was reported and the actual perpetrators heard it reported, they actually began to seek out white box trucks and commit their shootings near them in order to further throw off the police. Time and again stories relayed by 100's of people have been found to be a case of one or two folks that repeated a story over and over and others joined in to feel like they belonged or were a part. The original one or two may have been truthful but the vast majority of the "me toos" were not.

This means to me that I do not actually look at the numbers alone, after all when President Kennedy was shot there were literally 900 direct eyewitnesses and to this day they cannot even agree where they thought the shot came from. Or even how many loud rifle shots there were.

 

[Shinpachi]

American researchers were probably unable to speak Japanese and Japanese journalist who had anti-Japan mind was interested in fame and better income only. Mike, or anybody, have you ever heard of or know anything about this Seikai Maru (or Harumi Maru) ?

 

[Peter Gunn]

I like to think I keep an open mind on (almost) any subject, and the Japanese capture theory has many tantalizing anecdotes. But, none of it is hard, documented evidence and again, and I can't stress this point strong enough... THE JAPANESE HAD NO MOTIVE. I start to dismiss the argument once there is no hard, documented evidence, and the motive has been removed. At that point, I start seeing straw man arguments.

Mike - I get (and respect) your arguments, and I see that you do have an open mind about it all, but I have to respectfully disagree with the one that the Japanese had anything to do with their disappearance in any way. To me it only makes sense if viewed through the lens of 1937 future history. While it may seem plausible to us, knowing what was on the horizon, that's only if we ignore the state of the world as it was in 1937, and not transpose that knowledge of the postwar era onto prewar events.

 

[Robert Porter]

Just to be very clear, Mike absolutely none of my ridicule is aimed at you. I actually respect both you and your obvious intelligence, and have really enjoyed reading your posts and learned a lot from you. This particular topic is one that I have followed on and off my entire adult life, mostly because I truly am curious about what exactly happened to them. And as I read more and learned more my opinions and beliefs changed over time. One thing I am positive of is this event has such a great deal of interest to the general public even today, that there are many many people trying to profit from that interest. So as time passes I have become very skeptical of theory's with little or no hard evidence to support them and eyewitness testimony is not hard evidence.

I spent a year on a Grand Jury panel. We met once or twice a week to hear the prosecutor present evidence that we used to make decisions on if we should or should not indict the person or persons being charged. This experience taught me in a way nothing else could about the rules of evidence and what constitutes reliable evidence. And eyewitness testimony is actually rarely considered reliable, in fact the more witnesses the less reliable it becomes. If the only evidence available is eyewitness evidence we rarely returned an indictment as it is impossible to know the motivations or intentions of the possible witness and for serious crimes like murder it is insufficient for most prosecutors to even bring before a grand jury.

There are exceptions of course, but in general most law enforcement folks as well as officers of the court prefer impartial hard evidence to eyewitness evidence. TV shows would have us believe the opposite is true, in fact how many news stations across the country actually use the word "Eyewitness" in the name of their shows? It is a lot! Yet this myth has been largely perpetrated on us from TV and movie writers not because it is a truism.

So when I hear that the majority of the evidence to an event is eyewitness evidence I immediately stop and look for any supporting documentary evidence and judge the merits of the theory based on the quality and amount of such documentary evidence.

A great example of this is the famous Woodstock concert, which did not actually happen at Woodstock. It was Bethel in the end on a hay field. It was meant to be at Woodstock but no suitable location was found, then they tried White Hill and one other location but lost permits to both before the concert took place. Yet 1000's of people to this day insist they went to Woodstock, the city. In fact people who attended the concert still show up there today and are stunned to find out the location they actually attended is actually a goodly distance away. Another fun fact is how many people still claim they saw XYZ singer or band perform there that never actually performed there.

In conclusion stories like this one, lack all of the main elements we look for to verify a tale. Motive is missing, yes you can sort of make a case for motive but it is only when looking with modern eyes and knowledge at the past that it can be made to make sense. In the context of the time it makes no sense.

Opportunity, well depending on how you interpret their fuel consumption and course you can just barely come up with opportunity but a lot of the existing evidence such as radio calls etc would suggest just as strongly there was no opportunity so that becomes a wash.

Means, well the vessel supposedly used, which has never changed in every telling and even supposedly supplied some of the eyewitnesses to these authors, has been proven to not be in the area at the time. And what little documentary evidence has been found is either open to interpretation or in some cases, like the photo, has been found to be not at all applicable and indeed was even used fraudulently.

So with Motive, means, and opportunity all either missing or weak and open to interpretation, then add the fact that the motives of the author are questionable and that actual intentional fraud has been promulgated by the author and claims made by a supposed highly trained FBI agent are not only heresy but just not something an FBI agent would even entertain in a shop lifting investigation then yes I will ridicule the source.

 

[Shinpachi]

Japanese, and probably Germans too, are familiar with this kind of claims.
Our lesson is "Win the war or don't make the war"

 

[stona]

And what little documentary evidence has been found is either open to interpretation or in some cases, like the photo, has been found to be not at all applicable and indeed was even used fraudulently.

I agree with just about everything in your post, but I don't think the photograph was used fraudulently. I don't think that the programme makers knew it was taken in 1935, so there was no intent to deceive. The fact that they didn't bother to undertake even the most basic historical research to establish the provenance of the photograph, the linchpin of their documentary, illustrates very slapdash programme making and reflects very badly on both the producers and their so called researchers, but I don't think it was done with malice, just with ignorance.
Had they bothered to thoroughly research the photograph, then they would have had no programme! That does raise the possibility of wilful ignorance, in which case you would have a point. The question is whether we believe that the producers were stupid enough to intentionally not look too hard to discover the real provenance of the photograph because they thought it might not support their contention, or whether they were just stupid, shoddy and slapdash in their historical research. In neither case do they come out smelling of roses.

I'm still awaiting an apology from 'History', but I doubt we'll get one. The programme will probably be repeated, unedited, in years to come.

Did I mention that this sort of thing really grinds my gears

Cheers

Steve

 

[Robert Porter]

I agree with just about everything in your post, but I don't think the photograph was used fraudulently. I don't think that the programme makers knew it was taken in 1935, so there was no intent to deceive. The fact that they didn't bother to undertake even the most basic historical research to establish the provenance of the photograph, the linchpin of their documentary, illustrates very slapdash programme making and reflects very badly on both the producers and their so called researchers, but I don't think it was done with malice, just with ignorance.
Had they bothered to thoroughly research the photograph, then they would have had no programme! That does raise the possibility of wilful ignorance, in which case you would have a point. The question is whether we believe that the producers were stupid enough to intentionally not look too hard to discover the real provenance of the photograph because they thought it might not support their contention, or whether they were just stupid, shoddy and slapdash in their historical research. In neither case do they come out smelling of roses.

I'm still awaiting an apology from 'History', but I doubt we'll get one. The programme will probably be repeated, unedited, in years to come.

Did I mention that this sort of thing really grinds my gears

Cheers

Steve

My mistake, I was under the impression that the author of the book also used that photo, in which case it would be fraudulent as even the most basic of fact checking would have turned that fact up.

It grinds my gears as well! Often thought the Family Guy writers should have attempted a spin off of the what grinds my gears!

 

[stona]

I don't ridicule the programme makers, but I am reminded of the message carried to the Dauphin of France by Henry V's messenger, Exeter, in Shakespeare's play. The Dauphin asks what message the English have for him and receives Henry's opinion of him in this scathing reply.

"Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king;..."

He had a way with words that Shakespeare fellow.

Cheers

Steve

 

[mikewint]

none of my ridicule is aimed at you

Robert, rest assured, that thought never entered what's still left of my mind. I do however object to it being used aimed at anyone as a counter to a point of contention.

trying to profit from that interest.

Yea, the American way though again in many cases a legitimate attempt to find a solution. Getting to the "scene of the crime" to do any field work/research/interviews/etc. is very expensive and needs to be underwritten in most cases so now "entertainment value" enters the picture.

no hard evidence

Yea, it would be a wonderful thing if everyone doing anything illegal/immoral would just document/photograph/record it so we could nail them with it at some point in time. Unfortunately so much of this happens sub rosa for that very reason so circumstantial is all you have. We can differ on whether the Japanese captured and held them but I think we could probably agree that if they did they would not want to announce that to the world community from which they were already being marginalized due to their actions in China/Manchuria/SE Asia.

Motive is missing,

THE JAPANESE HAD NO MOTIVE.

Here we depart. The Japanese were absolutely obsessive about keeping outsiders away from the Mandate. It really doesn't matter if or what was going on or if Earhart/Noonan saw or filmed anything the mere fact that they were there and could have was a guilty verdict especially in such a backwater isolated part of the Empire far removed from any type of civilian control. Then once begun backing up and admitting error is to loose face, not something that's going to happen in Japanese culture. Consider Otto Warmbier, he took a POSTER!!! and the N. Koreans jailed him for a year and a half and somehow he ended up in a coma and died after being released AND No One Don't Know Nothing!!! Think any hard official records still exist?
Motive is a very subjective thing. I kill you 'cause you are Christian. Muslim, Jewish, Blond, Female, White, Black, etc. not to mention the old "in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time" motive which was Earhart/Noonan's "crime".

interpret their fuel consumption

I disagree but grant you your point. The amount of fuel loaded at Lea is a hard fact at 1156 gallons. The Electra's fuel consumption from Oakland to Honolulu in March at 38.97 gph is a hard fact. A hard fact detailed engineering report was prepared by a young Lockheed engineer named Clarence L. ("Kelly") Johnson to provide data for the best takeoff, climb and cruise performance with the very heavily loaded airplane. The maximum speed for the Model 10E Special at Sea Level and maximum takeoff weight was 177 miles per hour (284.9 kilometers per hour), a reduction of 25 miles per hour (40.2 kilometers per hour) over the standard airplane. The maximum range was calculated to be 4,316 miles (6946 kilometers) using 1,151 gallons (4,357 liters) of fuel. Hard fact, Art Kennedy overhauled and calibrated her engines using Pratt & Whitney test equipment after which he gave her 4.5 to 5.5hrs additional flight time after her 20:14 transmission to the Itasca. Now that's not a hard fact but a calculation however Earhart at no time reported a fuel leak and she was well aware of proper mixture settings.

Seikai Maru (or Harumi Maru) ?

Shinpachi, one problem we will always face here it trying to translate Japanese written/spoken into English written. As you well know there are a number of methods of rendering Japanese in Roman letters. The Hepburn method of romanization, designed for English speakers, is a de facto standard widely used inside and outside Japan. The Kunrei-shiki system has a better correspondence with kana, which makes it easier for native speakers to learn. It is officially sanctioned by the Ministry of Education and often used by non-native speakers who are learning Japanese as a second language. Other systems of romanization include Nihon-shiki, JSL, and Wāpuro rōmaji. I find a Seikai Maru as a gunboat in the battle of the Coral Sea and the Harumi as an Ocean-going tug.
As to the Log Book it could easily been altered or the captain ordered not to include Earhart/Noonan in it, or even to alter locations and Dates. The captain would not have wanted to disobey the Kenpeitai

she flew a north/ south pattern in an effort to find Howland and no one knows how long she did that so even with 5 hours of fuel no one could accurately predict where she would wind up. Take her LKP and calculate a 5 hour flight radius (this was shown earlier) and it still puts her in the middle of nowhere

Joe as I understand Noonan's DR methods: Cloudy conditions prevent Him from taking a celestial fix that night. At sunrise he has a sun azimuth of 67 degrees True and an LOP of 337-157. He knows his East/west position from the time of sunrise but not his North/South. He draws a 337-157 LOP on his chart and parallel LOP through Howland. Now that it is daylight he can approximate their ground speed and drift and thus determine the time required to fly the distance between his two LOPs. He tells Earhart they will reach his second LOP at 19:00 GMT. To find Howland they must now fly a ladder search North then South then North again the South further and further each time. Eventually she gives up and turns West towards the Gilbert Islands but she is further North than expected and reaches Mili Atoll instead of the Gilberts as was her back-up plan

could have sent several B-17s with the most advanced cameras

Joe, after the crash of the Model 229 the Army cut its order of the YB-17 to just 13 aircraft the first of which flew on 2 Dec 1936. When its brakes fused and it nosed over the Army quickly transferred all Yb-17s to Langley field Virginia to develop safety protocols and heavy bomber techniques. The YB-17A of which there was only one first flew 29 April 1938 so at the time of Earhart's flight the US heavy bomber fleet was 13 YB-17s. Not to mention the the US could not be MILITARILY interested in the Marshalls thus Roosevelt's use of civilians like Astor. I honestly don't think Earhart was trying to spy but was ask to "Keep her eyes open and camera handy"

there was no interest in this part of the world by the Japanese in 1937.

Actually by this point the Japanese were thinking of a Pacific war and had thus begun to militarize the Marshalls. Ostensibly civilian structures they were constructed to military standards for easy conversion. Thus they had begun building air bases on several atolls. The Marshall Islands were in an important geographic position, being the easternmost point in Japan's defensive ring at the beginning of World War II

it again would have benefited the Japanese to come clean in the post war years considering they did so when unit 731 was uncovered.

If only Governments were so straight forward and honest.
Head Priest Nagayoshi Matsudaira, who rejected the Tokyo war crimes tribunal's verdicts, enshrined the Class A war criminals in the Yasukuni Shrine in a secret ceremony in 1978.
The Yasukuni Shrine's museum and web site have made statements criticizing the United States for "convincing" the Empire of Japan to launch the attack on the United States in order just to justify war with the Empire of Japan, as well as claiming that Japan went to war with the intention of creating a "Co-Prosperity Sphere" for all Asians.
On October 2006, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed an apology for the damage caused by its colonial rule and aggression, more than 80 Japanese lawmakers from his ruling party LDP paid visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.
On 2 March 2007, the issue was raised again by Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe, in which he denied that the military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II. He stated, "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion." Before he spoke, a group of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers also sought to revise the Kono Statement (a government study that found that the Japanese Imperial Army had forced women, known as comfort women, to work in military-run brothels during World War II. The Japanese government had initially denied that the women had been coerced until this point.)
On 31 October 2008, the chief of staff of Japan's Air Self-Defense Force Toshio Tamogami was dismissed with a 60 million yen allowance due to an essay he published, arguing that Japan was not an aggressor during World War II, that the war brought prosperity to China, Taiwan and Korea, that the Imperial Japanese Army's conduct was not violent and that the Greater East Asia War is viewed in a positive way by many Asian countries and criticizing the war crimes trials which followed the war.
On 11 November, Tamogami added before the Diet that the personal apology made in 1995 by former prime minister Tomiichi Murayama was "a tool to suppress free speech".

 

[Robert Porter]

I disagree but grant you your point.

I snipped the rest of that part of the reply. But this illustrates part of my point. All of the hard facts you spoke of, actually have zip to do with her last leg. In order for those facts to become hard facts she communicated information at the end of each leg as to how she flew etc. Since she never got that chance we have no idea if she ran lean or rich, or if she had other issues like a strong headwind, or problems maintaining altitude because of icing or cloud cover or what. Literally anything could have happened. So to extrapolate past performance, even recent past performance is at best an educated guess and by no means a hard fact. And if you look over the entire history of her last flights, her GPH burn rate varied a lot! Most of the variance was due to environmental conditions. But the point is we don't really know. And we cannot depend on local weather forecasts for her route as not all the areas of her route were observed in that timeframe. Pacific weather is known for its localized volatility in fact, with downpour and gale force winds in one area, and 10 miles away clear skies and gentle wind.

That is a classic trap that a lot of investigators that are not aviation folks fall into when attempting to figure out the possible endurance of her last leg. And it is something that time and again knowledgable aviators have just shaken their heads and said "we just don't know, for all we know she could have developed a small fuel leak, or lost an engine." (Not a real quote, just an amalgamation of some of the ones I have heard.)

So truly we are left with a good baseline to extrapolate from but no actual hard evidence for her final leg. Or at least not much hard evidence.

 

[Shinpachi]

Shinpachi, one problem we will always face here it trying to translate Japanese written/spoken into English written. As you well know there are a number of methods of rendering Japanese in Roman letters. The Hepburn method of romanization, designed for English speakers, is a de facto standard widely used inside and outside Japan. The Kunrei-shiki system has a better correspondence with kana, which makes it easier for native speakers to learn. It is officially sanctioned by the Ministry of Education and often used by non-native speakers who are learning Japanese as a second language. Other systems of romanization include Nihon-shiki, JSL, and Wāpuro rōmaji. I find a Seikai Maru as a gunboat in the battle of the Coral Sea and the Harumi as an Ocean-going tug.
As to the Log Book it could easily been altered or the captain ordered not to include Earhart/Noonan in it, or even to alter locations and Dates. The captain would not have wanted to disobey the Kenpeitai

I have understood that the researchers didn't check the Seikai Maru.
Thanks.