CRUISE VIGNETTES 20, Enna G

AMELIA EARHART
During that week we visited a Garapan Prison where Amelia Earhart and her navigator had been imprisoned, according to an old lady who lived nearby. It seems that each year new stories are written about Amelia, and in response to a story in the Los Angeles Times in March 1992, my letter was published beneath a picture of her.

“It’s interesting to read another solution to the Amelia Earhart mystery. About a dozen years ago, while we were marooned for a week on the Island of Saipan waiting for repairs to be made to our freighter, my wife and I thoroughly explored the island. One day we found the remains of an old prison. There were large trees growing in the roofless cells that had only walls remaining. While we looked here and there, we were joined by an elderly lady who said she had lived in a nearby house for many years.

She took us to the largest prison cell where she said the “lady” had been imprisoned, and indicated a smaller cell a few doors away where the “man” had spent his time. If I understood correctly, the man died some time before the lady disappeared. There was no doubt in her mind (story) that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were in that prison, she often visited them in their cells. Who knows!”

My letter was published in two newspapers, and I received a bunch of phone calls from Vets (including my brother, an officer on a destroyer) who had been at the Saipan invasion, and they all had heard about the grave of the white lady that was found there. Funny — ironically funny that is — that no one else (especially government officials!) knows that, isn’t it. I have read about this prison in a book, but others deny Amelia was ever on Saipan.

Google says that history records that the French Consul in 1938 sent a telegram to the U.S. State Department advising that aviatrix Amelia Earhart was a prisoner of the Japanese in Saipan. The locals still insists that she died in captivity and buried on the island. So why is there still all this question as to where Amelia landed, and what happened to her?

There is some interesting information about Saipan and Amelia that can be found here.

Trivia: We have a desk in our home, called “Louis XV Rococo Revival Desk with Chair.” We have a "snapshot" from a Video of a TV program showing Amelia Earhart sitting at this exact desk, or at least a copy. The desk is unique enough, and the video is plain enough—there is no doubt, but it also doesn’t matter beyond trivia.