AMELIA EARHART MYSTERY

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 240, 12 October 1942, Page 5

AMELIA EARHART MYSTERY

DO THE JAPS KNOW SOMETHING?

P.A. Special.

SYDNEY, Oct. 12.

Japan may have been respon-iDie for the1 disappearance of Amelia Earhart Putnam, the famous American woman flier 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 Charles Palmer, an associate of the lost flier's publisher husband, George Putnam. Writing in the American magazine Skywards, he says that Mrs Putnam and Noonan took off from Lae (New Guinea) on July 2, 1937, for Howland Island, 2500 miles north across closely-guarded Japanese mandated islands. Fifteen . hours after taking off when, the American fliers must have been over Japanese islands, their last brief message was received: "Circling; cannot see island; gas running low." Although the American Navy launched a 16-da.y search covering more than 100,000 squai'e miles, no traco of the missing fliers was found. Palmer now asks: "In the light of recent events, was Mrs Putnam' s flight financed by the United States Government so that she could fly over the s e c r e t- shrouded Japanese Mandated areas? Did Japanese espionage discovcr this and. iiquidate1 her? Did the United States Navy. although realising that the chances were a thousand to one against, finding the fliers, 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, especiallv after circling for a forced landing?" asks Palmer. "Did she want to hide from the world, esoecially Japan, that she had gone. off her course into. Japanese areas? The recent United States Navy task force raids were obviously. based on information, and lend credence to the view that the Navy did not spend a quarter of a million dollars a day on a 16-day search for- nothing."