DESPERATE BID

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19375, 13 July 1937, Page 5

DESPERATE BID

SEARCH FOR FLYERS USE OF 62 WARPLANES WATERS OF PACIFIC CHANCE IN MILLION (Klee. Till. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Rec. July 13, 11.30 a.m.) HONOLULU, July 12. Aviators aboard the United States naval seaplane carrier Lexington made final preparations yesterday for the last desperate search for the missing American flyers, Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam and Captain F. J. Noonan, as the ship neared the waters of Howland Island.

There have been only discouraging reports from the three aviators attached to the battleship Colorado after a search in the Phoenix Islands, but naval officials aboard the Lexington are resolved to push on with a most painstaking hunt despite the minute likelihood of finding the aviatrix and her navigator alive. Lacking any radio signals or other clues, it is the intention of the aviators to conduct the widest search possible, covering every mile of territory where it is believed the missing plane could have landed or drifted.

Officers of the Lexington said there was only one chance in a million now of finding the aviatrix. The main possibility remaining is that she landed on the water and her plane is floating, and this could be sighted from the air.

The planes are expected to scout west and south of Howland Island first and then extend the search to Gilbert Island, although it is felt there is only an outside chance that the plane could have descended so far short of Howland Island.

Sixty-Two Planes Ready

The Lexington to-day was ploughing along at half-speed to conserve her fuel with her 62 seaplanes poised ready for flight. She neared Howland Island to-day with those aboard convinced that only if Mrs. Putnam’s plane is floating somewhere on the sea is there even the ghost of a chance that she and Captain Noonan may be rescued alive.

Aviators from the Colorado abandoned all hope after piloting three planes for four days over the area south from Howland Island, searching every mile of its lonely waters and low coral reefs and the virtually uninhabited Phoenix Islands without finding a trace of the missing flyers. Naval officials, as a result of the failure of this hunt, were convinced that Mrs. Putnam was forced down on the sea rather than on an island. There is only the faintest possibility that the plane is yet afloat and the occupants alive. It is presumed that the Navy will abandon the search if the combing of the waters around Howland Island proves fruitless. Starting Point Uncertain It is unknown just where the search will be started to-day or tomorrow, or whether it will be extended toward Gilbert Islands where some believe the currents might have carried the missing pair. Before the Colorado’s aviators exhausted the possibility with an intensive and fruitless search, the Phoenix Islands area had been regarded as the most likely place in which Mrs. Putnam would be found. So’complete has been the lack of success that it has been a great blow to the searchers. One of the pilots of the planes reported sighting letters scooped in sand at Sydney Island spelling dozens of Polynesian words, but there was no sign of life. They discounted the possibility that the markings could have related to the lost plane. The Naval Department at Washington announced to-day that the Colorado was being withdrawn fr <ir. the search, and was heading north to refuel the three destroyers accompanying the Lexington, after which the Colorado would proceed to Honolulu.

The Swan, after refuelling, is proceeding to latitude nil, longitude 175 degrees west to continue the seaich. The Itasca is continuing the search of the assigned area, which she completes at latitude 1.74 degrees south.