Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance [With DVD] [Hardcover]

Ric Gillespie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2006

In the seventy years since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan during a flight over the Central Pacific, their fate has remained one of history's most debated mysteries. Dozens of books have offered a variety of solutions to the puzzle, but they all draw on the same handful of documents and conflicting eyewitness accounts. Now, a wealth of new information uncovered by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) allows this book to offer the first fully documented history of what happened. Scrupulously accurate and thrilling to read, it tells the story from the letters, logs, and telegrams that recorded events as they unfolded. Many long-accepted facts are revealed as myths. Author Ric Gillespie, TIGHAR's executive director, draws on the work of his organization's historians, archaeologists, and scientists, who compiled and analyzed more than five thousand documents relating to the Earhart case. Their research led to the hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan died as castaways on a remote Pacific atoll. But this book is not a polemic that argues for a particular theory. Rather, it presents all of the authenticated historical dots and leaves it to the reader to make the connections. In addition to details about the Earhart's career and final flight, the book examines her relationship with the U.S. government and the massive search undertaken by the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy. For serious students of Earhart's disappearance, an accompanying DVD reproduces the documents, reports, and technical studies cited in the text, allowing instant review and verification of the sources.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ric Gillespie is an internationally recognized authority on the Earhart disappearance whose writings have appeared in the Naval Institute's Proceedings and Naval History and in LIFE Magazine. He has led eight archaeological search expeditions to the Pacific.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 276 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press; Har/DVD edition (September 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591143195
• ISBN-13: 978-1591143192
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #512,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( E ) > Earhart, Amelia

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59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched, but with occasional unnecessary diversions, November 26, 2006

By 

Anon E. Mouse (SEATTLE, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance [With DVD] (Hardcover)

Those of you with an interest in the fate of Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, probably are aware that there are three credible competing, though not necessarily mutually exclusive, theories:

(1) They simply ran out of gas over the Pacific (probably to the northwest of Howland Island, her intended target), landed in the drink, and fell to the bottom. Absent any other information, this is the most logical (and least interesting) conclusion, and is the one favored by Elgen and Marie Long (see their book "Amelia Earhart - The Mystery Solved" ISBN 0684860058). Nauticos, a deep sea salvage firm, has looked for the Electra (her plane) on the ocean floor but has not found it. This theory is based in part on radio signal strength indications aboard the Itasca (stationed at Howland Island awaiting her arrival), which they used to determine her approximate location, and which Gillespie references indirectly only once in this book.

(2) They were captured by the Japanese (either it was planned this way in advance or the Japanese just took advantage of the situation when it arose). Before you roll your eyes and put this in the crop circle/bigfoot category (as I did when I first heard it), be aware that there is credible evidence supporting this, some of which Gillespie mentions in this book (although he never once mentions that the Japanese might have captured her). For example, in the book he mentions that Fred Noonan's wife said the most likely thing Fred would have done would be to backtrack to the nearest known island, which would have been in the Marshall Islands (under Japanese control at the time), and the Amelia Earhart Foundation also believed she backtracked (see page 235). Other evidence, not presented in this book, includes many eyewitnesses in the Marshalls and Saipan (most of whom did not know each other, and most of whose testimony does not conflict, and many of whom are credible people). Books exploring the Japanese angle (which generally suppose that she, Fred and the Electra wound up in Saipan after a stop or landing in the Marshalls) include "Amelia Earhart - The Final Story" by Vincent Loomis (ISBN 304531014), "Witness to the Execution" by T.C. Buddy Brennan (ISBN 1558381082), "Age of Heroes" by Henri Keyzer-Andre (ISBN 0803893515) and "The Amelia Earhart Incident" by Thomas Devine (ISBN 0939650487).

(3) She crash-landed on Nikumaroro (then known as Gardner Island) in the Phoenix Island group (southeast of her intended target), and eventually perished. This is the theory clearly favored by Gillespie, although he is very careful not to say so explicitly (why, I don't know). Prior to the publication of this book, he appeared on some television programs advocating this possibility, displaying a sole of a shoe recovered from Nikumaroro that was the same size as Amelia's shoe size and probably made circa 1937, and also a piece of aluminum that could have been the Electra's kickboard. Gillespie is the executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Rescue (TIGHAR), which has sponsored 6 expeditions to Nikumaroro and plans another for July 2007 (the shoe, kickboard and prior expeditions curiously are not mentioned in the book, nor does he ever refer to Gardner Island as Nikumaroro). See their web site for more more direct assertion that Amelia and Fred landed on Nikumaroro.

I really have to take my hat off to Gillespie. He poured over an amazing amount of documentation, more or less resolving conflicting evidence by the two radio operators aboard the Itasca and the Itasca's commander, Warner Thompson. This gives us an very thorough and nearly exhaustive minute-by-minute account of what took place and why things went down the way they did. This clearly lays out the reasons for her disappearance (a confluence of poor planning and communication, basically). Especially invaluable is who knew what and when they knew it. For example, nobody aboard the Itasca knew that Noonan was aboard the Electra until well after they went missing.

Some of the more compelling evidence he presents for the Nikumaroro theory includes: (1) Nikumaroro is on the same 157/337 degree arc from Howland that Amelia said she was on in one of her last transmissions, (2) it makes sense that they would have turned south after failing to find Howland, because there were nearby islands south but not north of Howland, (3) the majority of bearings on the radio transmissions received after her disappearance intersect at or very near Nikumaroro (one of the other bearings that did not was unreliable), (4) some of the radio transmissions were clearly made by turning the radio on and off to produce Morse code-like dashes (not by pressing a button, as any hoaxer almost certainly would have assumed, as nobody knew Amelia's radio didn't have the button but could only make dashes by switching the radio on and off), and (5) the Electra necessarily had to have been on land (not in water) in order to transmit a signal.

I do have a few problems with the book. It starts out with the requisite background information, which is not thrilling but is necessary for understanding what follows. However, about a quarter of the way through the book he really gets bogged down in describing coordination of weather information (which mostly turns out to be irrelevant) and radio communication (volumes of pages easily could have been condensed into a paragraph or two without losing any relevant information). It's as if he wrote this just to demonstrate that he had done his research (boring us in the process). It got so boring I nearly gave up on the book. Later on, he gets sidetracked with useless details about equator-crossing hazing and other trivial pursuits. I contemplated giving the book a 4-star rating based on these problems.

On page 193, he criticizes Thompson for "selecting and interpreting the ones that seemed to fit his theory and rejecting others," apparently without a hint of irony! For example, he portrays as credible reported ham radio receptions by Dana Randolph of Wyoming, even though he heard the transmissions at 16,000 kilocycles, which is not on a harmonic (integral multiple) of 3,105 kc, which is the frequency Amelia reported she would use, and therefore is unlikely to have been Earhart. He also spends much time reviewing the transcripts of Betty Klenck of Florida, even though the probability (as reported by Gillespie) that she could have received the signals is less than 1%. Also unanswered is why nearly all of the possibly authentic radio reports from the mainland heard Amelia speak her name, while none of the supposed transmissions received by the government (Coast Guard, Navy, etc.) or Pan Am or any other reliable source ever heard her or Noonan's name spoken.

In the end, though, I can't fault his biases. It is a well researched project and definitely worth the read if you're at all curious about the fates of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. The added resources of the included DVD back up all of his assertions and make a nice bonus.

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fact-Based Theory About Amelia's Last Flight, September 10, 2006

By 

Patrick D. (Southern California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance [With DVD] (Hardcover)

Unsolved mysteries are a surefire way to get published and possibly turn a fast dollar or two. All it takes is a theory about what happened, bolstered by assertions presented as facts and some talent for writing the story. That's why the market is saturated with books that promise the reader "the True Story".

Amelia Earhart's disappearance on one of the last legs of her 1937 round-the-world flight is no exception. Theories, books and True Stories abound. What is exceptional and noteworthy is the approach Ric Gillespie and the organization he heads, TIGHAR, takes to solving this mystery. The TIGHAR approach is refreshingly, relentlessly fact-driven. Over the course of more than a decade, Ric and TIGHAR's members have laborously chased down primary sources of information about the flight, and and have carefully constructed a theory based on these facts that unravels -- minute by minute -- what happened. The TIGHAR theory is that Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, couldn't locate their destination (a tiny speck of land in the Central Pacific, Howland Island) and used their emergency fuel reserve for a flight to an alternative landing site, fetching up on an uninhabited tropical hellhole named Gardner Island. This theory is detailed on TIGHAR's Web site, and in the book "Amelia Earhart's Shoes" by Thomas F. King (also highly recommended as a companion volume to "Finding Amelia").

In "Finding Amelia", Ric provides the thoroughly-researched story of the Coast Guard and US Navy search for Amelia that took place over the entire month of July, 1937. The first part of the book covers the whole history of George Putnam's (Amelia's husband) and Amelia's attempts to organize her World Flight, including several neverbefore-told stories about the relationship they cultivated with the Roosevelt Administration and the government assistance that they received gratis -- your tax dollars at work. Along the way, questions you probably never thought of about Amelia's World Flight are answered in detail (for instance, why did the US Government decide to build a landing strip and refueling station out in the middle of nowhere, on Howland Island? Just in time for Amelia's flight! And who knew how to get a state-of-the-art US Coast Guard cutter pulled from regular duties and sent thousands of miles into the depths of the Central Pacific to be the World Flight's support team? As a courtesy to Mrs. Putnam, of course.). This part of the book ends with a description of the 20 hour flight from Lae, New Guinea to Howland, and the events of the morning of July 2.

Then begins the book's main story; of the Coast Guard-Navy search and rescue operation. Ric uses analysis of the original radio traffic -- including Amelia & Fred's post-loss messages, heard all over the Pacific and across the United States in the days following the loss -- to let this part of the story unfold. And if you really want to dig deep into the primary material supporting this story and the Gardner Island theory, the book includes a DVD with files and Web links containing the original documents, photos, film clips and maps. This DVD alone is easily worth the cost of the book.

"Finding Amelia" makes a persuasive case that Amelia's loss (and probably wretched death) is an example of how many small human errors, omissions and miscommunications can cumulate in an unnecessary, avoidable catastrophe. If it had been possible for Amelia and the Coast Guard personnel at Howland to communicate in real-time for even a few minutes, they undoubtably could have created a plan that would have guided the plane to a safe landing. If either Amelia or Fred had been more familar with the communications equipment that they carried -- instead of assuming that everything would come together when needed -- they could have worked around the problems that arose and made contact with Howland. And if those responsible for the post-loss search operation had taken a systematic look at the facts that they had in hand, this story might have ended with an exciting rescue rather than trailing off into self-serving reports that "everything that could be done had been done".

"Finding Amelia" is a great piece of historical detective work. Anyone who has an alternative theory to TIGHAR's Gardner Island scenario will be severely challenged to assemble the same depth of primary information in support of it. Definitely 5-stars & highly recommended to anyone who enjoys the deconstruction of a good mystery with hard facts.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars non-scientists beware, September 10, 2007

By 

Dr. Jennifer (claremont, california) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance [With DVD] (Hardcover)

This highly technical read is not for the mere curious reader or fan of this great American woman. This book contains a vivid picture of the search for America's sweetheart of 1937,Amelia Earhart and her navigator ,Fred Noonan. An intricate compilation of radio transmissions provides a picture of an overwhelmed search party, miscommunicated information and an under skilled pilot. This is not the whole picture and if one seeks a glimpse into the woman behind the incident this is not the book for you