Forensic Analysis, Amelia Earhart & Irene Craigmile Bolam

"The admiral wanted me to say to you he thinks you should continue your investigation, and I want to add to that, don't you ever give up. You're onto something that will stagger your imagination."

Quote of U. S. Naval Commander John Pillsbury in 1962 the day he retired. He intimated his opinion and that of U. S. Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz to Fred Goerner, concerning Goerner's 1960s Earhart disappearance investigation.

From: The Search for Amelia Earhart by Fred Goerner, Doubleday Books, 1966.

Admiral Nimitz quote from the same book: "Now that you're going to Washington, Fred, I want to tell you Earhart and her navigator did go down in the Marshalls and were picked up by the Japanese." In a 1966 letter to Amelia's survived Sister, Muriel... Goerner also mentioned Admiral Nimitz conveyed it was "known and documented in Washington" how Earhart did end up existing under the auspice of Japan after she was reported 'missing' in 1937.

NOTE: Just as former India Nationalist leader, Subhas Chandra Bose was said to have died in a plane crash at sea while fleeing Japan after VJ Day--so too had former OSS Lieutenant James Hannon offered how he understood a survived Amelia Earhart may have died in a liberation plane crash just after VJ Day. Such could have been the misleading intelligence drift Nimitz was also aware of, meant to bring Earhart's untold ordeal to a final closure for all but a select few. So it may be no irony how in the years following WWII, many people in India to include Gandhi himself, expressed an awareness of how Chandra Bose actually made it back to India and lived there after taking a new name. It can also be considered, had Nimitz been aware of Earhart's survival as a new person in the U.S. in the 1960s, he never would have offered the assistance he did to Fred Goerner. Consider this Admiral Nimitz quote: "I don't understand why they (the U. S. Government) still won't let people know what happened." Nimitz to Goerner, 1965 tape recorded quote about the Earhart controversy.

Two Photo Blend...

Of the 1945-1982 Identified Irene Craigmile Bolam and Amelia Earhart.

"All day I've been thinking about Amelia Earhart." "I do like her and I'll miss seeing her if she's gone but perhaps she'd rather go that way. Life might not have held such a happy future for her." The words of Eleanor Roosevelt, a friend and confidante of Amelia's, found in a letter the First Lady wrote on the day Amelia was reported missing.

Of the year-long period before Amelia vanished Jackie Cochran wrote "I was closer to Amelia than anyone else, even her husband, George Putnam." From Jackie Cochran's autobiography by Maryann Bucknum Brinley.

NOTE: Jackie Cochran was the first American woman to enter Japan after VJ Day. She was green-lighted over there via Guam and the Philippines with red carpet treatment, received by top military brass and military Vicar General, Archbishop Francis Spellman, (who was later Cardinalized by the Catholic Church) and she later claimed to have retrieved "several files on Amelia Earhart" from the Dai-Ichi Building while in Tokyo. She also met with Pope Pius XII in Rome on her way home, and was credited eight years later for helping to get Dwight David Eisenhower elected as President, Eisenhower, who would later have his own guest quarters at the Floyd Odlum, Jackie Cochran Ranch near Palm Springs, California where he enjoyed playing golf during his reitrement. No coincidence, in 1991 Monsignor James Francis Kelley, who knew both Cardinal Spellman and Irene-Amelia well, admitted he had been part of the Catholic Church alliance with Jackie Cochran that helped to secure Amelia's post war era identity as 'Irene Craigmile' in the United States. Cochran, when later pressed about the 'Amelia files' she claimed to have found in Tokyo, tried to dismiss them as 'old newspaper clippings.' But in the context of her 1954 book The Stars at Noon said 'Earhart files' were mentioned separately by her. The reference appeared in her book this way: "I did, however, find numerous clippings and photographs about Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Doolittle and other American pilots, including myself. There were several files on Amelia Earhart."

COMBINE the above information with the 1972 U. S. State Department 'leak' involving information forwarded to famous Earhart investigator, Joe Gervais. It was not made public until 1997 by Brassey's of Washington DC and London, and then only in a downplayed manner with important facts misconstrued. Yet the unveiled 'leak' was that of 1970s State Department employee, Arthur Dewayne Gibson of Verdunville, West Virginia. Mr. Gibson had read the 1966 Goerner book and the 1970 Klaas book, both of which were inspired by the Amelia Earhart investigations of Paul Briand, Joe Gervais, and Bob Dinger. Arthur Gibson decided to reach out to Gervais after quietly doing 'some State Department digging' among war time era 'still classified' material. He and Gervais commenced a phone and letter writing relationship after that, with Gibson sharing what he'd learned with Gervais, after Gervais assured him his confidentiality. Their private arrangement led Gervais to eventually contact Tokyo, Japan's immigration department. Reason being, Mr. Gibson indicated a Nipponese naturalization request date of 8/19/39 made by Earhart included in a file marked "Special War Problems; Earhart, Amelia."

The following is the exact worded query from the letter written by Joe Gervais on June 11, 1975 to the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, Tokyo, Japan:

"Dear Sir,
Can you inform me who would be authorized to obtain information from the record of a naturalized citizen of Japan. All I wish to know is the precise date Mrs. G.P. Putnam became a citizen of Japan, probably sometime between July and September of 1939 after completing the required twenty-four months residence in the Nipponese Imperial Islands of the Pacific."

The following is the complete July 3, 1975 reply from Japan's Naturalized citizens division to Gervais. The sender was labeled Fifth Division Civil Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Justice, Tokyo Japan:

"Sir,
This is to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of inquiry dated June 11, asking us whether Irene Craigmile or Mrs. G. P. Putnam was naturalized to Japan. It is to our deep regret however, that we are not in a position to answer any inquiry as to whether a certain person was naturalized to Japan, as a general rule, the records of naturalized persons being closed to the public."

NOTE: Gervais did not include the name "Irene Craigmile" in his query, yet somehow it appeared in the reply sent to him from Tokyo. Again, Joe Gervais based his request on the "U.S. State Department leak" previously afforded him by State Department employee Arthur DeWayne Gibson. As for the date of 8/19/39, Germany's invasion of Poland did not occur until a short time after that, and of course Pearl Harbor would not happen for another two years. (NOTE: BELOW THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH SEE TRANSCRIBED EXCERPTS FROM ONE OF ARTHUR GIBSON'S LETTERS TO JOE GERVAIS.)

Another curious 'find' came from Machine Gunner Robert E. Wallack of 'D' Company, 29th Marines during his WWII experience. As Part of the U.S. occupation of Saipan in 1944, Wallack and his fellow Marines blew open a safe they had found in a bombed out Japanese building. He described what happened afterward in this manner: "After the smoke cleared I grabbed a brown leather attache' case with a large handle and a flip lock. The contents were official looking papers all concerning Amelia Earhart; maps, permits, and reports apparently pertaining to her around the world flight. I wanted to retain this as a souvenir, but my Marine buddies insisted that it may be important and should be turned in. I went down to the beach where I encountered a Naval officer and told of my discovery. He gave me a receipt for the material and said that it would be returned to me if it were not important. I have never seen the material since." From Randall Brink's Lost Star; The Search for Amelia Earhart, W.W. Norton, 1994.

"She stated she was turning north and they continued to hear her at intervals, her signals becoming fainter each time received..." Col. H.H.C. Richards, Air Liaison Australia, U.S. O2 Intelligence memo, 11/1/1938

"...we have the report of those wireless messages and everything else...," "I hope I've just got to never make it public." United States Secretary of the Treasury, Henry P. Morgenthau Jr. responds to request for Earhart-loss information from Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Cochran, 5/13/1938. Morgenthau also referenced Amelia Earhart as having "disregarded all orders" before she vanished. The inference of 'what happened' played off the rumor of Earhart and Noonan having been shot down by Japan as they entered its controlled air space near the Marshall Islands. Said notion was later considered as 'highly doubtful' by ardent researchers. A few felt more inclined to believe Amelia had free-willed her own choice. She had specified it was her 'last flight' after all, and mentioned to at least one reported on acquaintance of hers that she 'wasn't coming back.' As well, and though it may seem a stretch to some, one might also consider how the long held rumor of a pre-fame out of wedlock child she had in 1924, (who she managed to privately remain in limited touch with through the family that took the child after Amelia became famous in 1928) may have had something to do with Amelia's enigmatic personna and her 'perpetually moving' existence during her nine fame years. (A run that ended just shy of her fortieth birthday.) Noticed was her curiously intense privacy, her steadfast unpredictability, and her decision making processes that eventually became geared, perhaps, towards such a described 'public-life exit.' A fantastic notion to be sure, then again, by itself the Irene-Amelia conveyance is fantastic. Also recall, Amelia never really sought fame. Although she was a rare woman pilot, she was a mere Social Worker in charge of children ranging from toddlers to teens, when in 1928 she received a phone call at work asking her to replace the woman scheduled to become the first female passenger to fly in an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean. Having successfully done that, Amelia was greeted by a ticker-tape parade in New York upon her return to the United States. She embraced her newfound fame, although as 'just a passenger' she remarked how she only did something "comparable to what a sack of potatoes could have done." Ultimately though, in a two out of three way an old saying about 'greatness' could be applied to Amelia's person: 'Some people are born into greatness, some people achieve greatness, and some people have greatness thrust upon them.' By the end of her flying career in Amelia's case, the latter two 'greatness' quotes are applied in reverse order; for in 1928 she had greatness thrust upon her first, before she more than certifiably qualified it four years later, by becoming the first woman to solo a plane across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932.

"The admiral wanted me to say to you he thinks you should continue your investigation, and I want to add to that, don't you ever give up. You're onto something that will stagger your imagination."

Web site hosting by Web.com