VICTIM OF JAPS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 241, 13 October 1942, Page 5

VICTIM OF JAPS

FAMOUS WOMAN FLYER VANISHED IN MANDATED ISLANDS (Special Australian Correspondent—N.Z.P.A./ Sydney, Oct. 11. Japan may have been responsible for the disappearance of Amelia Earhart Putnam, the famous American woman flyer, who was lost in the South-west Pacific five years ago. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, may have learned too much about Japanese war preparations in this theatre to be allowed to live. This suggestion is made by Mr. Charles Palmer, associate of the lost flyer’s publisher husband, Mr. George Putnam, writing in the American magazine Skyway. Mrs. Putnam and Noonan took off from Lae, in New Guinea, on July 2, 1937, for Howland Island, 2500 miles north across the closely-guard-ed Japanese mandated islands. Fifteen hours after taking off, when the American flyers must have been over Japanese islands, their last brief message was received: “Circling, cannot see island, gas running low,” it said. Although the American navy launched a 16-day search, covering more than 100,000 square miles, no trace of the missing flyers was found.

“In the light of recent events, was Mrs. Putnam’s flight fiananced by the United States Government so that she could fly over the secrecy-shrouded Japanese mandated areas? Did Japanese espionage discover this and liquidate her?” asks Mr. Palmer. “Did the United States navy, although realising that the chances were a thousand to one against finding the flyers, make that extensive search as ‘a pretext for ranging in prohibited areas?” Although Mr. Putnam denies that the United States Government invested any money in the flight, it is known that the Government prepared Howland Island some months before the flight and stationed two cutters on the route from New Guinea. “Why did Mrs. Putnam refuse. to disclose her position after leaving Lae, especially after circling for a forced landing?” asked Mr. Palmer. “Did she want to hide from the world, especially from Jaoan, that she had gone off her course into Japanese areas? “Recent raids of task forces of the United States navy were obviously based on information which lends credence to the view that the navy did not spend 250.000 dollars a day in a 16-day search for nothing.”