Amelia Earhart

by W. C. Jameson

  During the conversation, Gervais noted that hanging around Mrs. Bolam’s neck was a silver medallion and pinned to her dress were a miniature major’s oak-leaf insignia and a miniature metal replica of the red, white, and blue ribbon which is worn only by winners of the American Distinguished Flying Cross.

  Gervais asked Mrs. Bolam whether she was a pilot, and she replied in the affirmative. He asked her whether she ever flew with Earhart, and she said that she had. Nervous and unsure how to proceed with his questioning of Mrs. Bolam, Gervais turned toward Mr. Bolam, who was from England, and asked him what business he was in. Bolam replied that he was in communications. More conversation ensued, during which Gervais elicited the response from Mrs. Bolam that she and Amelia Earhart had flown “together quite a bit.”

  Unsure about how to continue his questioning, Gervais asked Mrs. Bolam whether she would provide her address so that he might write to her sometime in the future. She glanced at her husband, whose “eyebrows lifted just a touch.” Finally, he shrugged and acquiesced. Mrs. Bolam withdrew a card from her purse, wrote something on it, and handed it to Gervais.

  Then Gervais held up the camera he was carrying and inquired whether he could take a photograph. Mrs. Bolam demurred and glanced at her husband. Mr. Bolam appeared concerned, hesitated, and said, “I don’t know . . .” Before he could finish the sentence, however, Gervais snapped the shutter. Mrs. Bolam appeared quite uncomfortable, and Gentry looked concerned.

  Gervais turned to Mrs. Bolam and asked her whether she was a member of the Ninety-Nines. She said she was. When he inquired whether she was a member of the Zontas, the feminist sorority that Earhart had belonged to, she replied that she was. At this point, Guy Bolam interrupted and led his wife away. Gervais turned to Gentry and asked her to confirm that Mrs. Bolam was a member of both the Ninety-Nines and Zontas. Gentry replied that she was.

  Gentry excused herself to tend to other guests and left Gervais to mingle with the crowd. That afternoon, Gervais presented his talk to the Early Flyers Club. It dealt with his expedition to Truk Lagoon. During the presentation, he noticed that Mr. and Mrs. Bolam were not present—they had departed the premises. Following Gervais’s talk, there ensued a short ceremony wherein his wife, Thelma, was presented the Amelia Earhart Award for Outstanding Contribution to Research in the History of Aviation. The award was presented to her for her assistance to her husband in his ongoing research into Amelia Earhart. The award was a bronze replica of a silver medallion that had once been awarded to Earhart by the city of New York following her first successful flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Gervais noticed that the medal hanging around his wife’s neck was the same as one of those he had seen earlier hanging around the neck of Mrs. Bolam.

  That evening, Gervais and his wife returned to their room at the Sea Spray Inn. Shortly after arriving, Gervais received a phone call from Mrs. Bolam, who invited him and his wife to join her and her husband at their home for dinner the following evening. She expressed a desire to speak with him about his research into Earhart. As Gervais had already made plans to fly out the next afternoon, he explained and made his apologies. Mrs. Bolam told Gervais that she “would very much like to talk to you,” and the disappointment in her voice was manifest. Gervais asked her what she wanted to discuss, and she replied she wanted to talk about his “investigation into Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.” Gervais, again offering apologies, asked whether he could return another time. Mrs. Bolam told him to come and visit her the next time he came to New York.

  Before hanging up, Gervais asked Mrs. Bolam whether she believed Amelia Earhart was dead. She replied, “I believe Amelia Earhart will live as long as people remember her.”

  Gervais returned home and eventually to his Earhart research. On a hunch, he wrote letters to Zonta International and to the Ninety-Nines, two organizations in which Earhart had been visible and active. He inquired about the claimed membership of Mrs. Bolam. In the process he learned that Irene Bolam’s name prior to marrying her current husband was Irene Craigmile. Both groups responded with past and present membership lists. No one named Irene Bolam, Mrs. Guy Bolam, or Irene Craigmile had ever been a member of either organization. Furthermore, subsequent research has revealed that while Earhart and the original Irene Craigmile may possibly have met in the past, the truth is, they had not “flown together quite a bit.”

  In June 1967, Gervais, while on a trip to New York, attempted to arrange another visit with Irene Bolam. He called the number she had provided him but received no answer. He drove to the address in Bedford Village, but it was clear the house had been unoccupied for some time.

  Gervais went to the home of a next-door neighbor and inquired about the Bolams. The neighbor, Mrs. Rakow, said she barely knew Guy Bolam and only saw him when he picked up his mail at the box near the curb. When Gervais asked her whether she knew Mrs. Bolam, Rakow responded with surprise and explained that she was unaware that Mr. Bolam was married.

  Gervais called the phone number of Guy Bolam Associates, Inc. in New York City. The information was on the card Mrs. Bolam gave him at the meeting of the Early Flyers Club. He received no answer. Gervais asked a friend who lived in the city to obtain some information about Bolam Associates. The friend replied that the company was apparently involved with some kind of financial or investment activity but was not listed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

  Gervais decided to visit the office of Guy Bolam Associates. It turned out to be part of a suite of several offices that shared a common receptionist. When asked, the receptionist stated she knew absolutely nothing about Guy Bolam Associates and that the suite had been empty since she had worked there.

  Gervais went to each of the offices to see whether anyone knew anything about GBA. Most of the offices had been assigned to a variety of foreign legations. The secretary at the Icelandic mission told Gervais she might be able to help him. She said she was acquainted with a Mrs. Burger, who was Bolam’s secretary. She provided Gervais with a phone number for Burger.

  It was later learned that Guy Bolam once claimed to have been employed by Amalgamated Telephone and Telegraph. When contacted, however, AT&T said they had never heard of him. In addition, the British-born Bolam has been linked to the Council on Foreign Relations and may have once served as an agent for MI6, the British equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency. The presence of Guy Bolam in the Amelia Earhart saga adds yet another layer of mystery, and it remains odd how such a man possessing a somewhat impressive, perhaps distinguished, as well as clandestine background of some level of national importance became associated with Irene Craigmile, who was identified as a “typical middle class housewife with a less than impressive flying record.”

  Gervais dialed the number that was answered by Burger. He asked for Guy Bolam. Burger said Bolam was in Europe on business and would not return for ten days. When he inquired about Mrs. Bolam, Burger said she was “staying at the residence of her nurse and companion, Peggy Salter, in Sanford, North Carolina.” Burger provided the telephone number in North Carolina. Burger explained that Mrs. Bolam had been suffering from shingles.

  When Gervais called the North Carolina number, Mrs. Bolam answered. Following a few minutes of small talk, Gervais told Bolam he would like to visit with her “about the old days and Amelia Earhart.” Bolam replied, “Oh, I can’t see you in this country. If I meet with you at all it can’t be in this country.” As Gervais was puzzling over this rather odd statement, Bolam went on to explain that she had once had a career in flying and an accompanying public life and that she had removed herself from all of that now. The truth is, the real Irene Craigmile never had a career in flying, nor had she an accompanying public life.

  Finally, Gervais was able to make arrangements for the two of them to meet on June 23 at 7:00 p.m. in the lobby of the Laurentian Hotel in Montreal. Gervais began making plans for the trip, anticipating that at long last he would learn the truth about Irene Craigmile Bolam.

  • 38 •Enter William
Van Dusen

  In the evening following his telephone conversation with Mrs. Bolam, Gervais made arrangements to have dinner with a man named William Van Dusen at his home. During his earlier research of Earhart, Gervais had encountered Van Dusen’s name and was curious to see whether he could shed some light on the Earhart/Bolam mystery. As it turned out, Van Dusen, who at the time was a vice president with Eastern Airlines, established contact with Gervais. Specifically, Van Dusen expressed curiosity about what kind of information Gervais had uncovered regarding his research on Amelia Earhart.

  During the meal, Van Dusen said to Gervais that he had heard he was going to Montreal in the morning. Surprised, Gervais asked him how he could possibly know such a thing since the only other person who was aware of his plans was Irene Craigmile Bolam. Van Dusen didn’t answer, only smiled. During their conversation, Gervais was struck by what he regarded as an uncanny resemblance between Van Dusen and Fred Noonan. At one point, Van Dusen mentioned that he and Earhart had been good friends. When Gervais attempted to probe the depth and kind of friendship, Van Dusen “adroitly changed the subject without really answering the question.”

  At another point during the conversation, Van Dusen’s wife said to him, “Why don’t you tell Major Gervais what he wants to know?” For a moment, Van Dusen’s mood darkened and he aimed a strong comment at his wife. With the passage of another minute, he had regained his composure and resumed the conversation with Gervais but continued to be evasive about Fred Noonan.

  During the conversation, Van Dusen produced a silver cigarette case and offered Gervais a smoke. Gervais declined, and when Van Dusen placed one in his own mouth, Gervais noticed that the inscription on the case was to Fred Noonan for his service to Pan American Airlines. When Gervais asked his host where he had obtained the cigarette case, Van Dusen replied, enigmatically, that “Fred must have left it here or something.” When Gervais pressed for information on the cigarette case, Van Dusen once again changed the subject.

  The above is a telling encounter. When could Fred Noonan, who disappeared nearly three decades earlier, possibly have left a cigarette lighter at the home of Van Dusen? Further, there exists no information relative to the notion that the two men had ever met, much less that they were friends. Unless, of course, Van Dusen was Noonan.

  Later, when Gervais was leaving the Van Dusen residence, he looked back to wave and saw his host standing next to his wife. His pose and posture, according to Gervais, was exactly like what he had seen in a photo of Fred Noonan.

  Gervais had done some background checking on Van Dusen. He learned that, according to information released by Van Dusen himself, he was born in Toledo, Ohio. Later, when Gervais initiated a search for a birth certificate, however, none was to be found. Nor was Fred Noonan’s.

  • 39 •Reenter Irene Craigmile Bolam

  On the afternoon following his conversation with William Van Dusen, Joe Gervais arrived at the Laurentian Hotel and asked the desk clerk whether a Mrs. Guy Bolam was registered. He replied that she had a reservation but had not checked in yet. Gervais signed in for his room and decided to wait in the lobby for the arrival of Mrs. Bolam. He waited for hours. Finally, at 1:00 a.m. the next morning, he gave up and went to his room. At sunrise, he called down to the desk to find out whether Bolam had arrived. She had not.

  After waiting for twenty-four hours, Gervais finally caught a plane back to New York. He had Bolam paged every hour at the Laurentian and called the Bolam telephone number in Princeton, New Jersey, as well as those in New York City and North Carolina. No answers. In desperation, he called the secretary, Helen Burger, again to inquire whether she had any current information. Burger expressed surprise that Bolam did not make the Montreal appointment and told Gervais that she was still in North Carolina waiting for Mr. Bolam to return from Europe.

  Gervais called the North Carolina number again. Peggy Salter answered and told him that Mrs. Bolam could not come to the phone, explaining that she was ill. When Gervais insisted, Salter grew irritated, told him not to call anymore, and hung up. He called Burger back and requested that she have Guy Bolam call him on his return from Europe.

  Several days later, Guy Bolam, who had returned to New York, called Gervais. He seemed not to be bothered at all when Gervais explained how Mrs. Bolam stood him up in Montreal and extended an invitation for Gervais to fly to North Carolina on June 29 and meet with Mrs. Bolam then. They agreed to meet at the Newark Airport for the 4:00 p.m. flight to Raleigh. Gervais checked with the airline to see whether Guy Bolam did, in fact, have a reservation. The clerk assured him that he did. When the plane lifted off on the afternoon of June 29, however, Guy Bolam was not on board.

  At Raleigh, Gervais rented a car and drove to the Sanford address forty miles away. A gardener working in the yard informed him that a short time earlier the Bolams had loaded their luggage into a vehicle and driven away. He did not know their destination.

  Two days later Gervais called Burger again for information on the whereabouts of Mr. and Mrs. Guy Bolam. She had no information for him but suggested he try the Bolam’s Jamesburg residence and gave him a phone number. When Gervais called, Mrs. Bolam answered and demanded to know where he got the number. Gervais explained his problems related to keeping appointments with her and her husband. She asked him why he was going to all of this trouble to talk with her and he told her he wanted to visit with her about her early days of flying. She replied that she had “left all that.” After more discussion, Bolam told Gervais to “put exactly what you want from me in writing and send it to me. If I want to discuss it with you I may invite you to lunch at the Wings Club.”

  With the assistance of fellow researcher and author Joe Klaas, Gervais drafted a multipage letter in which he explained that he kept “turning up facts which indicate that Amelia Earhart is alive” and stated that he believed it was possible that she, Irene Bolam, was Amelia Earhart. He stated, in fact, that he was trying everything in his power to prove she was not Earhart but that it was difficult. He requested background information from Mrs. Bolam to assist him in proving that she was not the aviatrix.

  Bolam replied two weeks later. She provided Gervais with the names of two individuals who could verify that Amelia Earhart and Irene Bolam were two different people: Viola Gentry and Elmo Neale Pickerill. Gervais was suspicious. He had met both Gentry and Pickerill at the same gathering where he met Irene Bolam, at the Early Flyers Club on Long Island. He was aware that both were close friends of Bolam and suspected they would do anything she asked of them. He wrote anyway. Gentry responded that Irene’s maiden name was O’Crowley, that she had married a man named Craigmile, was widowed, and then married Guy Bolam. Pickerill said he had known Mrs. Bolam for thirty years. In between the death of Mr. Craigmile and the wedding to Bolam, he said, Irene married Al Heller, and the two had a son. Irene, he said, learned to fly under the instruction of Heller.

  Gervais submitted requests to the Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Commission, in Oklahoma City seeking information about pilot licenses issued to Amelia Earhart, Viola Gentry, Jacqueline (Cochran) Odlum, Irene Heller, and Irene Craigmile.

  The response from Eddie H. Kjelshus, Chief of Airman Certification Branch, Flight Standards Technical Division, revealed that no license was ever issued to an Irene Heller but that a private license, number 28958, had been issued to an Irene Craigmile on May 27, 1933.

  Gervais decided to obtain a copy of Irene Craigmile’s pilot’s license. He received one: license number 28958, issued to Irene O. Craigmile, age 31. The license was unsigned, in contrast with the information provided by the FAC, and dated May 31, 1937. To further complicate matters, that date was crossed out, and penciled above it was June 1, 1937. The address on the license was Brooklyn, New York. Not only did it not contain Craigmile’s signature, the required signature of an officer of the Bureau of Air Commerce was nowhere present. The unsigned license had been placed in the files and was never picked up. If someone named Irene Craigmile ever fl
ew an airplane, she did so without a license.

  Technically, then, there was no evidence whatsoever that a license had been provided to Irene Craigmile in 1933 as indicated in the earlier response from the FAA. June 1, 1937, incidentally, was the day Amelia Earhart took off from Miami, Florida, on her attempt to fly around the world. Coincidence? Author Joe Klaas advanced the question: Did Irene Craigmile/O’Crowley/Heller/Bolam begin to exist only as Amelia Earhart set out on her journey?

  Gervais and Klaas collaborated on another letter to Mrs. Bolam. In it, they explained that they were working on a book that was intended to tell the true story of Amelia Earhart. He asked for her “indulgence in helping us prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not indeed she.” Gervais stressed to Mrs. Bolam that he wanted to give her “every opportunity to clear up any mistakes at all we might be making.”

  There was no response to the letter. Later, Viola Gentry visited Gervais and informed him that Mrs. Bolam had departed for Paris and that he would never see her again. During their conversation, Gervais told Gentry that “there were a lot of people interested in this case . . . and that it would be worth a lot of money to find out what really happened . . . on July 2, 1937.” In an odd reply, Gentry said, “That’s what Amelia says.”

  If the woman going by the name Irene Craigmile Bolam was not Amelia Earhart, it would have been a simple and uncomplicated matter to meet briefly with Major Gervais and provide him with the pertinent documentation. Instead, Mrs. Bolam remained evasive, inconsistent, and contradictory, thus providing reasons for suspicion. She went to great lengths to avoid meeting with the researcher. Gervais’s research appeared in the book Amelia Earhart Lives, authored by Joe Klaas. Published by McGraw-Hill, it was released in 1970. In it, Klaas provided for the possibility that Irene Craigmile Bolam and Amelia Earhart were the same person.