As Devine lingered in the shade of the building, a marine officer approached the man in the white shirt and angrily demanded to know why the hangar was off-limits. He then said, “We know Earhart’s plane is in there! Our men laid down their lives on the line and now they won’t even get credit for finding the plane!” The officer, now accompanied by a handful of others who had just walked up, stated that marine major Wallace Greene had determined that it was Earhart’s Electra in the hangar. He was informed that Greene had that very day been promoted to colonel.
The man in the white shirt approached the group and asked the vocal officer for his identification. After writing it down, he turned and walked away. Devine noted that the man had “flattened, pugilistic features, yet was handsome.” The marines decided to go to the administration building to deal with the matter. When they left, Devine walked back over to the jeep to await the return of Liebig.
Devine had not been in his position long before a marine guard walked up and told him he would have to move the jeep. Devine asked the guard whether it was true that Earhart’s plane was inside the hangar. The guard admitted that it was. By this time, Liebig had finished his business, and the two men returned to Camp Obiam.
During the return trip, Liebig and Devine discussed what had transpired outside of the hangar and wondered how Earhart’s plane could be in Saipan when the U.S. Navy had informed the world that it had crashed and sunk near Howland Island two thousand miles to the southeast seven years earlier.
Later that afternoon, Devine encountered two other members of his unit—Sergeant Henry Fritzler and a man whose name he could not remember. Following a brief conversation, the unnamed marine said offhandedly, “They’re bringing up Earhart’s plane.” Devine asked him what that meant, but the marine, believing he was revealing too much information, changed the subject.
A short time later, Devine heard the sound of an airplane approaching the camp. Looking up, he spotted a “twin-engine, double-fin civilian plane.” From his position on the ground, Devine could read the identification number. It was NR16020. Clearly, the Electra either survived the crash landing at Mili Atoll or was repaired by the Japanese after it was recovered and transported to Saipan.
Though the members of the unit were not allowed to leave the camp after sundown, Devine decided to take a chance on a clandestine return visit to Aslito Airfield. He invited a friend, Private Paul Anderson, to accompany him. The two men arrived at a point near the southwest corner of the airfield that contained an extended arm of the airstrip. In his book, Eyewitness: The Amelia Earhart Incident, Devine wrote:
At the southwest end of the airfield, before a roofless hangar, we saw the twin-engine, double-fin plane which earlier had flown above Camp Obiam. It displayed no military insignia. As we drew closer, a photographer stood up from a crouch. He was facing the plane, apparently photographing it, but was too far away to determine if he were military or civilian. I wanted to speak to him, but as I approached, he ran away.
Near the twin-engine plane, Devine and Anderson spotted several containers of fuel. Moving closer, Devine once again saw the same identification number he had earlier seen on the plane flying over the camp. The two men decided to see whether they could enter the aluminum airplane. Nearing one of the propellers, Devine noted that it bore the inscription “Hamilton Standard.”
While trying to determine the best way to get into the Electra, Devine spotted the same photographer again. When the photographer realized he had been seen, he turned and ran away a second time. A moment later, two men emerged from a hangar a short distance away. One was wearing a flyer’s helmet and jumpsuit. The other was the man in the white shirt Devine had seen that morning. He was now carrying a bandolier of ammunition across his shoulders. The two men were walking toward two fighter planes that were idling on a nearby landing strip. Devine and Anderson decided it was time to hasten back to their camp.
After showering and preparing to retire for the night in his tent, Devine heard a “muffled explosion” coming from the direction of Aslito Airfield. A second later he spotted a large fire. Curious, he decided to sneak back to the location to have a look.
According to Devine:
The fire roared as I crouched and crawled toward the airfield. When I could see what was burning, I was aghast! The twin-engine plane was engulfed in flames. I could not see anyone by the light of the fire, but I lay very still and watched the blaze. I dared not move lest the fire disclose my presence to an alert sniper.
Suddenly, I was enveloped by a tremendous noise. A plane had taken off and was directly over me. After a slight interval, a second plane followed. Both of them were evidently headed for one of the aircraft carriers off Saipan.
As Devine watched, the two fighter planes sent a fusillade of bullets into the Electra, igniting the fuel and creating an explosion similar to the one Devine heard back at camp. The explosion and fire completely obliterated the identity of the Electra.
Devine concluded that the fuel canisters he had seen earlier were added to the tanks, nearly filling them. More fuel was likely poured into and onto the Electra. In August 2003, sixteen years after the publication of his book that contained an account of the discovery of the Electra, Devine received a letter from a man named Art Beech. Beech told Devine about his uncle as a member of a task force sent to Saipan to “recover what they could of Amelia Earhart, bring her back if she was alive, and destroy everything if she was dead.” The uncle recovered “her diary and some other papers.”
While on Saipan, according to the letter writer, the uncle saw the Electra in flight on at least two occasions. One day, the uncle was ordered to dump two five-gallon cans of aviation fuel onto and into the aircraft and set it afire. The following day, he watched as a bulldozer pushed what remained of Earhart’s Electra into a dump “containing damaged Japanese planes.”
Devine pondered the events he witnessed at the Aslito Airfield and wondered at their meaning. Obtaining access to a military publication several weeks later, Devine encountered a photograph of the man in the white shirt. It was Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal.
When Forrestal learned of Earhart’s Electra being found in the hangar at Aslito Field, he knew he would have to become involved. A brilliant man and a competent administrator, Forrestal knew immediately that this discovery bode ill for future peace efforts and postwar international relations with Japan, not to mention the damage it could cause to the reputations of President Roosevelt, Morgenthau, and others. Any news of the Electra needed to be suppressed.
Forrestal controlled most of the publicity emanating from the U.S. Navy. Prior to the Aslito Airfield incident, Forrestal had made five well-publicized inspection trips to the Pacific, publicity he generated himself. It should be pointed out that when Forrestal made these trips, he normally dressed in khakis and an unbuttoned white shirt. Significantly, while Forrestal kept a concise and up-to-date diary, he entered nothing during the time he was alleged to be in Saipan. The 1944 trip to Saipan generated no publicity, for it would not have been in the best interests of the U.S. government to do so should the report of the existence of the Electra prove to be true. Such news would have resulted in considerable ill will toward the Japanese.
On returning stateside, Devine submerged himself deep into research regarding Amelia Earhart, her disappearance, and the possibility that the government erred in declaring she “crashed and sank” in 1937. Devine wrote a report of his experience at Aslito Airfield in Saipan and submitted it to the Office of Navy Intelligence. He was in possession of some photographs pertinent to his research that he wanted to submit but was informed by the head of the ONI that he was to send them to the security risk agency at the Hartford, Connecticut, Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Training Center.
The obvious question is why, after twenty-three years, would information and/or photographs related to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart be regarded as a security risk?
• 33 •The Mystery of James V. Forrestal
/> James V. Forrestal died on the morning of May 22, 1949, at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. His death has been referred to as “shocking” and “disturbing.” U.S. Navy officials immediately released the information that Forrestal’s death was a suicide. According to the report, Forrestal walked into a sixteenth-floor pantry, tied one end of the sash from his bathrobe to a radiator and the other end around his neck, and leaped out the window. Skeptics insist he was murdered and that his death was tied to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
Before he had completed two years as Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal was forced to resign by President Harry S. Truman. A short time later, he was taken to the Bethesda Naval Hospital to undergo treatment for “operational fatigue.” Following his admission to the facility, he was diagnosed with low blood pressure, anemia, and exhaustion, along with psychiatric symptoms . . . associated with excessive fatigue,” by military physicians.
Forrestal was placed in a room on the sixteenth floor of the hospital and virtually held prisoner there. He was allowed visits from no one save his wife and two sons, and even these were difficult to arrange. His attending physician, Captain George M. Raines, refused requests from Forrestal to see anyone else, specifically forbidding access to his brother, Henry, his priest, Father Paul McNally, and Monsignor Maurice S. Sheehy. Sheehy, a close friend, was a former Navy chaplain. Sheehy made at least seven trips to the hospital to see Forrestal but was denied each time. No reason was ever provided. A restricted visitation policy such as this seems extreme for someone diagnosed with symptoms of fatigue. Could it be that a decision had been made to isolate Forrestal as much as possible? And could that decision have had anything to do with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart?
After threatening to go to the press regarding the bizarre regulations pertinent to visiting his brother, Henry was finally admitted. He later stated that Forrestal was in good health, “acting and talking as sanely and intelligently as any man I’ve ever known.” Dr. Raines eventually admitted to the family that Forrestal was “fundamentally all right.” As a result, Henry began making arrangements to check his brother out of the hospital. Only a few hours after initiating the paperwork for Forrestal’s release, the former secretary of defense was found dead.
Only moments before Forrestal died, he received a visit from Admiral Husband E. Kimmel. Later, Kimmel was court-martialed and found by a military court to be one of the officers responsible for the lack of preparation relating to the attack on Pearl Harbor. According to records, Forrestal was one of the officers who blamed Kimmel for irresponsibility and lack of preparation related to the disaster. According to the priest who was in attendance on the floor of the hospital, Kimmel ordered the navy corpsman responsible for monitoring Forrestal to leave the room. Kimmel was the last person to see Forrestal alive.
The family of James Forrestal claimed he was not a man capable of committing suicide, that they had made plans to travel to some location in the country to spend time relaxing. Forrestal was looking forward to it and making plans for the trip.
It was later learned that Forrestal, after being removed from his post as secretary of defense, was delivered to Bethesda Naval Hospital under White House orders. There, he was kept in what amounted to solitary confinement, barred from most outside contacts, handled as a patient with an advanced mental condition, and provided “unusual” medical treatment and limited freedom.
In June 1949, Forrestal’s widow sought payment of a $10,000 insurance policy, claiming accidental death. Her attorneys argued for payment, maintaining in spite of the official report that the navy secretary’s death did not involve suicide. The details of Forrestal’s death in 1949 were suppressed by the U.S. government. From 1949 until 2004, they were classified as top secret. Again, these are extreme measures related to someone allegedly suffering from fatigue and related symptoms.
In 2004, after invoking the Freedom of Information Act, a newsman named David Martin was provided access to “the full report of the investigative review board appointed the day after Forrestal’s death.” It was named the Willcutts Report. The report contained the odd conclusion that the U.S. Navy was in no way responsible for Forrestal’s death, a statement that seemed somewhat defensive and unnecessary. A second odd aspect of the report is that, though the government claimed Forrestal committed suicide, the report did not cite suicide as the cause of death. The fact that the government refused to release the contents of the report for forty-five years invites suspicion.
Martin, an investigative reporter and news analyst, conducted his own inquiry into Forrestal’s death. He discovered that the results and witness testimony compiled and reported by the U.S. Navy was kept secret and that the entire event was “replete with deceptions.” From his own investigation, which included interviewing many of the same witnesses as did the government, Martin concluded that Forrestal had been murdered and that government collusion was involved.
An examination of the method by which Forrestal allegedly committed suicide is warranted. The U.S. government press release stated he had tied one end of his bathrobe sash to a radiator, tied the other end around his neck, and leaped out a sixteenth-floor window. This could not have been possible. Providing a generous length of six feet for a bathrobe sash, an experiment conducted on November 6, 2013, revealed that the knots necessary for attachment to a radiator and a human neck would take up approximately four feet of the sash, leaving only two feet. Assuming the radiator was located conveniently beneath the window Forrestal allegedly jumped out of, the two feet of remaining sash would not allow the former Naval officer enough length to stand upright, much less leap out of a window. This entire explanation offered by the government was a lie.
Interestingly, there exist other versions of Forrestal’s death. Earhart researcher and author Thomas E. Devine states that Forrestal “fell” from the sixteenth floor of the naval hospital. Yet another account refers to Forrestal as leaping “from the sixteenth floor window to the third floor bridge that connected the two wings of the hospital.” What this indicates is that there remains a significant amount of confusion related to the mysterious death of James V. Forrestal.
With Forrestal’s death went his version of what might possibly have occurred on the island of Saipan in relation to Amelia Earhart’s airplane.
• 34 •The Electra Mystery
To this day, controversy surrounds the actual airplane manned by Earhart and Noonan on the around-the-world flight. The XC-35 Electra was constructed by Lockheed and test-flown on May 7, 1937, just prior to Earhart’s famous flight. In that year, the XC-35 won Lockheed the Collier Trophy, given for the most valuable contribution to aircraft. The XC-35 represented a significant advancement in flight at the time, but following the disappearance of Earhart on July 2, 1937, production was discontinued. According to author and researcher Joe Klaas, “No record exists today as to what final disposition was made of the XC-35.”
Prior to the commencement of Earhart’s around-the-world flight, she was photographed on several occasions in the cockpit of the XC-35. Close examination of the photographs, however, reveals that they were cockpits of two different airplanes. The instrument panels were markedly different. Among Earhart researchers, there are some who contend that such modifications were made relative to the alleged spy mission.
The notion of there being two XC-35s used by Earhart has also been advanced on the basis of other photographic evidence. In some photographs, Earhart’s aircraft is equipped with fixed-pitch propellers without spinners. In other photographs, “the propellers are hubbed with spinners such as are used to streamline the feathering gear of variable-pitch props.” This has led some researchers to suggest that not one, but two Lockheed XC-35s were associated with Earhart’s flight.
Author Klaas has suggested that one of the XC-35s was the one in which Earhart and Noonan were flying, the one that was allegedly in the vicinity of Howland Island on July 2, 1937. The other, he suggested, was flown by an American man and woman and was rep
orted to have crashed in the bay at Saipan.
Author Klaas argues that Earhart could not have flown from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island in the airplane in which she took off in Miami. It would not fly that fast or that far, insists Klaas. Somewhere between Miami and New Guinea, he says, the XC-35s were switched. With assistance from fellow researcher Joe Gervais, Klaas identified a number of differences between the two planes.
Some photographs of the Electra show the CAA registration number as NR16020. In other photos, it is R16020.
Photographs show different positions for the port and starboard wingtip navigation lights. In some photos, the lights “were located halfway between the leading and trailing edges and well in front of the curved wingtip.” In other photographs, the lights were mounted “jutting out from the forward part of the wingtip.”
In some photos, the Electra manifests painted engine cowlings, but in others, no paint is visible.
Author Thomas Devine has also acknowledged a number of differences in the early-flight Electra and the one photographed during latter stages of the flight. However, he insists that none of the differences (modification for greater fuel capacity, etc.) proves that the aircraft was equipped for a spy mission. In explaining the differences in the serial numbers, Devine explained that the N was not painted on airplanes unless national boundaries were to be crossed.
Based on available newsreel footage of various landings and takeoffs of the Earhart-Noonan flight around the world, including the final liftoff from Lae, New Guinea, it appears that the same plane was employed each time by the aviatrix. However, there may have been a second Electra in the air at the time in the Pacific. According to author James Donahue, there exists a likelihood of another Electra, one “sponsored” by the British and piloted by a man and a woman, flying in the region of Japan’s mandated islands at the same time.
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