Earhart's Plane Found?!

[mikewint]

Thanks for the history lesson, but that does not shed any light on the theory of Amelia Earhart's disappearance.

Depends, Shinpachi's earlier post portrayed the Kenpeitai in a positive light, a slap on the hand, a tsk-tsk, a don't do that no more, and released and on your way. By overwhelming evidence the Kenpeitai made the Gestapo look like the BSA . My point has been throughout this thread that once Earhart/Noonan were in their (Kenpeitai) hands, especially in an isolated backwater part of the Empire their fate was essentially sealed. Higher authorities would have reacted differently but by the time they were informed they had been presented with a fait accompli and had no choice but to "save face" and bury the evidence. Historically one has only to look at the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Three colonels and a major staged the incident and began the invasion. At Dalian in the Kwantung Leased Territory, Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army General Shigero Honjo was appalled that the invasion plan was enacted without his permission. The Japanese principle of Gekokujo was very much a part of the Japanese military.

a lot of that is Cut-N-Pasted from a Listverse article.

Yes, cut-and-pasted, and mixed, to be illogical.

Viking, yes indeed as NONE of this is new. It's old, well documented history. There is no way to portray organizations like the Kenpeitai in a positive light. A former member of the Kempeitai would later tell the New York Times: "Even crying babies would shut up at the mention of the Kempeitai. Everybody was afraid of us. The word was that prisoners would enter by the front gate but leave by the back gate, as corpses."
Shinpachi, ILLOGICAL?? In what way or sense? As above there is no way to portray the Kempeitai positively. Now in 1937, in large cities, where their activities were supervised by higher authority and subject to international exposure they were forced to be more judicious in their behavior toward foreign nationals. Saipan was not such an area

Everyone is entitled to an opinion on this. Remember, nobody has the answers for this....

Absolutely true Michael. In simple terms, that whole second attempt was a disaster just waiting to happen. A Cluster Fork if there ever was one! We can look at what little "hard" facts remain and try to surmise/project/extrapolate but in the end there is no way to know what went on before/during/after that flight unless and until DNA or serial numbered aircraft parts are recovered

 

[Shinpachi]

Yes please, would be very interested!

There are 14,526 records relating to the Kenpeitai like the rules, manuals and activities. 489 of them are official reports written by it, which cover battles with communists and spies.

 

[mikewint]

they were on a north south meridian, and were aiming for some land.

844: "WE ARE ON A LINE OF POSITION 157/337. WE WILL REPEAT THIS MESSAGE ON 6210 kc. RUNNING NORTH AND SOUTH."
At 20 hours and 14 minutes after lifting off from Lae, Amelia Earhart transmitted her last officially acknowledged radio message. The true meaning of the above words "LINE OF POSITION 157/337" is debatable and there seems to be colossal differences over the true meaning of the phrase.
I too find that Gardner island is a distinct possibility. It all depends on whether Earhart had drifted North or South of Fred's planned flight path. Earhart's stated back up plan if she could not find Howland was to turn west towards the Gilberts. If she was North of the flight path there are no Islands to find and she would have then turned west and reached Mili Atoll. If South then the 157/337 line could have brought them to Gardner and a nice flat reef to land on. Many post radio "messages" if from Earhart seem to confirm this theory

 

[Shinpachi]

Shinpachi, ILLOGICAL?? In what way or sense?

Because your post denies the police organization itself.
Good or bad, it's necessary for the nation.
Speechless.

 

[stona]

Depends, Shinpachi's earlier post portrayed the Kenpeitai in a positive light, a slap on the hand, a tsk-tsk, a don't do that no more, and released and on your way. By overwhelming evidence the Kenpeitai made the Gestapo look like the BSA . My point has been throughout this thread that once Earhart/Noonan were in their (Kenpeitai) hands, especially in an isolated backwater part of the Empire their fate was essentially sealed.

Firstly, I don't think that was the intention of, nor the effect of Shinpachi's post. The fate of others caught taking photograph's in restricted areas is surely relevant. I doubt they were as well known as Earhart.

The fate of Noonan and Earhart was only sealed when they fell into the hand of the Japanese if it happened immediately, or at least quickly. Nobody so far has argued for this. Even in your account they were transported across the Pacific in an unidentified Japanese vessel (it can't be the one proposed in the documentary). Other accounts have Earhart succumbing to dysentry and Noonan executed, though this is as fanciful as everything else in this theory.
It is inconceivable that two lost celebrities who the Japanese government was either offering to help search for or actively helping to find could be captured by any Japanese organisation (Kempetai or any other), be transported to another destination, imprisoned and executed by some kind of rogue element. Writing it down, it looks ridiculous. Someone, somewhere and at some stage of the operation would surely have contacted a higher authority, not least to say "we've found them, what do you want us to do?" The reason there is no evidence or record of any of this preserved by the Japanese is because none of it ever happened.
There is no evidence, that is ZERO evidence to support any hypothesis predicated on the capture of Earhart and Noonan by the Japanese.

Cheers

Steve

 

[mikewint]

Good or bad, it's necessary for the nation.

Nothing on God's green Earth can justify an organization like the Kempeitai OR their methods.
Tojo Hideki was head of the Kempeitai in Manchuria from 1935 to 1937, where he made his reputation by effectively transforming the Kempeitai into the arm of a police state. The extent to which the Kempeitai thereafter became a law unto itself, rather than ruthlessly executing the policies of the Japanese Army leadership, remains unclear.

The civilian counterpart to the Kempeitai was the Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu (Tokko in short) or Special Police, known popularly as the "Thought Police." Though the Kempeitai were better known to Westerners, due to their jurisdiction over prisoners of war and civilian internees, the Tokko more closely resembled the Gestapo and other secret police organizations. However, by 1941, Japan had become a military dictatorship, and the Kempeitai often asserted jurisdiction even in Japan itself, on the grounds that they were responsible for enforcement of conscription laws and counterespionage. As a result, they sometimes clashed with the Tokko. The Navy had its own military police in areas under its control, the Tokkeitai, which was created in part to protect Navy personnel from the excesses of the Kempeitai but was equally brutal towards conquered peoples.

The Kempeitai had a relationship with the Japanese criminal underworld, sometimes using gang members as informants. This reflected the older samurai practice of hiring gangsters to terrorize peasants.

The organization and methods of the Kempeitai resembled those of other historical secret police organizations. A Kempei was empowered to arrest personnel of rank up to three grades greater than his own. In wartime Japan, there was no concept of habeas corpus and the Kempeitai could arrest whoever they liked and hold them for as long as they pleased. There was also no presumption of innocence under Japanese law; the burden lay on the one charged with a crime to prove his innocence, rather than on the Kempeitai to prove his guilt. The Kempeitai held their own trials (gunritsu kaigi, "martial law proceedings") at which the defendant had no right to mount a defense and was sometimes not even told the nature of the charges against him. There was no explicit legal authority for these trials, which differed from the regular courts-martial (gunpo kaigi) prescribed by Army regulations.

The Kempeitai made frequent use of torture. The methods most commonly reported included suspending a suspect by his wrists in a way that partially dislocated his shoulders or forcing a suspect to kneel and putting a heavy timber on his calves on which the interrogators stood, partially dislocating the victim's ankles. Other forms of torture included water torture, burning, and electric shock. Beatings were frequent. Kempei were encouraged to be creative in developing new methods of torture. A Kempeitai handbook on torture stated (Hoyt 1993):
Methods of procedure
(a) Torture
This includes kicking, beating, and anything connected with physical suffering. This method is only to be used when everything else has failed as it is the most clumsy. Change the interrogating officer after using torture and good results can be obtained if the new officer questions in a sympathetic manner.
(b) Threats
(1) Hints of future physical discomforts, for example: torture, murder, starvation, solitary confinement, deprivation of sleep.
(2) Hints of future mental discomforts, for example: not to be allowed to send letters, not to be given the same treatment as others and (for prisoners of war) to be kept back last in the event of an exchange of prisoners.

Australian lieutenant Rod Wells described his treatment by the Kempeitai at Sandakan (AWM 2010):

The interviewer produced a small piece of wood like a meat skewer, pushed that into my left ear, and tapped it in with a small hammer. I think I fainted some time after it went through the drum. I remember the last excruciating sort of pain, and I must have gone out for some time because I was revived with a bucket of water. Eventually it healed but of course I couldn't hear with it. I have never been able to hear since.

The Kempeitai sometimes planted evidence of crimes against suspects. A British civil engineer was held for over three weeks in a wooden cage measuring 10' by 20' that held up to 42 other prisoners. Interrogations were frequent and food was limited to an inadequate quantity of boiled rice. However, he was relatively fortunate; although he could hear the screams of other prisoners being tortured, and many of the Chinese prisoners kept with him were dreadfully ill, he was eventually repatriated.

During the occupation of Singapore, the Kempeitai erected iron stakes outside the YMCA and Cathay Building, on which they periodically impaled the severed heads of persons executed for anti-Japanese activity.

How can you say this was NECESSARY?

 

[stona]

What's any of that got to do with Earhart? We have already established the fate of others caught taking photographs in restricted areas, which is relevant.
I'm not going to defend the actions of the Kempetai any more than Nazi Germany's Einsatzgruppen, but neither is pertinent to the hypothesis being debated.

Cheers

Steve

 

[vikingBerserker]

Nothing, he just likes to Cut-N-Paste and claim it as his own.

 

[stona]

The problem is that this is the sort of obfuscation so beloved of conspiracy theorists. They love to throw in a few red herrings to muddy the waters.
There is no evidence that the Japanese ever captured the two. I've never seen any evidence that the Kempetai was even present in these areas of the Pacific in 1937, though if it was I'll gladly hear where and in what numbers. Now we have the pair not only falling into Japanese hands but into the hands of the Kempetai. Moreover this is not just any unit of the Kempetai, but a rogue unit, prepared to execute (or allow to expire due to bad treatment) two famous aviators who have been transported on a Japanese vessel, which has conveniently not reported their presence, despite the international hullabaloo generated by their disappearance.
Did I mention that just writing it down makes it look ridiculous?
Cheers
Steve

 

[Shinpachi]

Reading your post would be a torture for me if it was double length.
Go on, Mike.

 

[mikewint]

I'm sure most of you will Poo-Poo this too but:

When CNN came out with their denunciation of the Earhart/Noonan/Jaluit Dock Photo I was curious, what book was this from? They said a "Travelogue Book". Well, wait long enough and guess what, it wasn't a book - that no photo was dated, and that somehow CNN and others managed to overlook those details.
First of all, "the book" cited was not "published in 1935." It's a portfolio of photographs that are tied together with string. Not a book by any stretch of the imagination - books are bound, printed and published. Not this photo album.

The "book" is a photo portfolio, a photo album in effect AND none of the photographs in this portfolio are dated.

In addition there are no dates in the book, other than a stamp at the back of the book by someone who put it into this library. A Librarian. So a librarian did the stamp, not a copyright office.

So to sum it all up, this is NOT a published book, it's a photo album - and the librarian obviously made a mistake with the date, because according to the Official Marshall Island letter, there was no dock in Jaluit harbor in 1935.
There do exist Dated Photos from the 1930's and there is no dock in the photos of Jaluit in the 1930's, but definitely a dock by those who were there in 1937 and those who stood on the dock in 1937. The Marshallese confirm the dock didn't exist in 1935. It was built in 1936.

So CNN should have said "a photo album that bears an imprint of a librarian's stamp that says 1935." But clearly, if the dock wasn't built until 1936 - the stamp was wrong.

 

[stona]

No, but I'd like some solid evidence. "Jabor dock was built in 1936. The events of this period are still recalled by our eldest citizens." is not such evidence, particularly as the difference is just one year. I grew up in a country where the vast majority of people over 30 (in the 1960s) could not tell you which year they were born in, a constant source of annoyance to the British who had only recently relinquished their colonial powers and still largely ran the civil service in an 'advisory' role.

Someone will be able to confirm when exactly the dock in question was built and whether that was before 1935 or not.

I can't read Japanese so I can't comment on the stamp. The person who originally dated the portfolio as being from 1935 was Japanese.

Are we now to believe that whoever stamped the item into the national library used the wrong date stamp, or that the recollections of some of the 'eldest citizens' of the Marshall Islands might be out by a year or two? Occam's razor again.

If the date is confirmed I'll be waiting for a chorus of "the photo could have been added later" !

Cheers

Steve

 

[mikewint]

f the date is confirmed I'll be waiting for a chorus of "the photo could have been added later" !

Actually was going to post that earlier. Again, NOT a bound book but a photo album of UNDATED photos tied together with string. Be almost impossible to add a page

 

[Robert Porter]

I would tend to agree, if it is an string tied album, and none of the individual

Actually was going to post that earlier. Again, NOT a bound book but a photo album of UNDATED photos tied together with string. Be almost impossible to add a page

Eh? It would be dead simple to add a page. Not sure what you meant there?

 

[mikewint]

Robert you should know me by now, I'm a

and was being FACETIOUS

 

[Robert Porter]

 

[Shinpachi]

Hope this helps.

 

[wuzak]

My point has been throughout this thread that once Earhart/Noonan were in their (Kenpeitai) hands, especially in an isolated backwater part of the Empire their fate was essentially sealed.

That word is the problem with your statement. It should read IF.

 

[Robert Porter]

Hard to understand how a book (or binder) could be marked as received 2 years before an object it contains a picture of was built. Unless the photo was added after the book was received, however I am more prone to believe the Marshall Islanders were interested in keeping the controversy alive.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I'm sure most of you will Poo-Poo this too but:
View attachment 378554

Why isn't that press release signed by an official?

Here's the link at the bottom of that page. RMI Washington D.C. Embassy - Press Releases

and more

RMI Washington D.C. Embassy - Minister of Foreign Affairs

Something doesn't seem right!