Remembering Amelia

By Joyce Worley

The world watched the skies June 1, 1937, as Amelia Earhart took off from Miami on her attempt to fly around the world. They tracked her progress as she circumnavigated the globe, stopping in Brazil, Africa, Karachi, Burma, Singapore, Australia and New Guinea. While the world waited, she took off with her navigator, Fred Noonan, from New Guinea headed to Howland Island.

Then, after a couple of radio broadcasts indicating that she was low on fuel and having trouble finding the island, she simply dropped off the face of the earth, lost forever without a trace. And to this day, no one knows for certain what happened.

Amelia had made plans to undertake the 27,000-mile trip around the world at the equator. She set out from Oakland on March 17, 1937, but didn't get too far; the flight ended in Hawaii in a runway crash in Honolulu.

Undaunted, Amelia was not to be denied her big adventure. Reportedly, the flight went well after she and navigator Fred Noonan left Miami on June 1, 1937. There was some concern that the trailing, 250 foot wire antenna had been removed from the plane because it was hard to reel in and out while flying.

The lack of the radio antenna meant that the 2,566-mile hop from New Guinea to Howland Island would be without radio contact. The mechanics and trackers in New Guinea would be able to hear her for about 500 miles. Then she'd be on her own with no radio for two or three hours until she came in range of the Itasca, a ship stationed near the tiny island in the South Pacific.

Armchair admirals, filled with post-event wisdom, point to this as Earhart's fatal mistake. With the antenna, she could have had proper radio contact for the entire leg of the journey. Without it, she was taking a big risk.

On July 2, the crew of the Itasca heard Amelia broadcast at 7:42 a.m. Her exact words were "We must be on you but cannot see you and fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at altitude 1,000 feet." They watched the sky; all hands were quiet, listening for the sound of a motor. Then at 8:45 a.m., they received the last message the world ever had from Amelia. She said, "We are running north and south." And then, eternal silence.

It was the most extensive search ever made for civilians lost at sea. Ships and rescue teams crisscrossed the area and found nothing. Not a splash of oil, not a piece of floating refuse, not a handkerchief or a fuel tank. Nothing.

The world has searched ever since, combing that area of the Pacific for any trace at all. There have been rumors and false hopes. Some people theorized she might have been captured, her plane forced down then concealed on an island, and taken as a prisoner by the Japanese. If so, no record has been found; there's no reason beyond hope to think this is true.

Critics say Amelia was a foolhardy daredevil. Some people say her actual accomplishments were very thin. They say she was unprepared for the round-the-world attempt and that the removal of the antenna was a foolish mistake.

Amelia excelled in an area where no woman had gone before. Her energy and determination, her passion for flight cannot be criticized nor belittled.

Now, people collect mementos of her life. There are paintings, photographs, postage stamps, autographs, her published articles, and the books written about her. There are ads with her image and magazine articles about her. There are posters, banks, keychains, medals, paperweights, dolls and plates. There are reports of the search...a search that still continues to this day. Prices range from thousands of dollars for autographed copies of her own book to more affordable items such as toys and model planes.

It isn't her failure that makes us remember her name; it's that she had the courage to try it in the first place.

Joyce Worley is Editor of the Collecting Channel. These are the opinions of the author, not the opinions of eBay, and therefore eBay does not validate the accuracy of or endorse these opinions.

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The preceding material was written by Lee Bernstein. These are the opinions of the author, not the opinions of eBay, and therefore eBay does not validate the accuracy of or endorse these opinions.