On July 2, 1937, when she took off from Lae (Papua New Guinea) she had only 3 legs left to finish her world tour, Lae/Howland 4,113 km, Howland/Hawai 3,100 km, Hawai/Oakland 3,800km.. However, this is in fact the crossing of the entire South Pacific Ocean, and these 3 legs are from one end to the other over the sea. The first is the longest and most difficult, as it involves finding Howland Island, a tiny, low-lying island at the water's edge, which can only be seen at close quarters, and is therefore nearly impossible to find using the navigation methods of the time.

Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, before the departure... Fred Noonan points his finger, laughing, at the Pacific island they'll never find...

The island of Howland in the middle of the Pacific, was to be used as a relay to refuel. To refuel her and help her with the final navigation the USCGC Itaska, a US Navy Coast Guard ship, was waiting for her near the island. He sailed around it, as there is no harbor or lagoon on this tiny island. It's a flat reef, "culminating" at an altitude of 3m, on which an emergency runway had been built.

The USCGC Itaska was given to the British during the war and renamed HMS Gorleston

the radio operator of Itaska

However, on take-off on the wrong runway at Lae, she had torn off her ventral antenna: she could transmit but she had no reception, and she hadn't realized it... so she was surprised not to have radio contact. And without reception, she could no longer be guided by Itaska.

Image from the Tighar site: https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/AEdescr1.html

At daybreak her navigator, Fred Noonan, no longer had the stars to navigate but was able to re-spot the sun which allowed them to reach the North/South axis passing through Howland Island, but without knowing which side of the island they were on. "We are on the line 157 337 WL", but they didn't know if they were North or South of the target! The atmosphere in the Electra must have been a bit "electric".

Fred was in the back, behind the extra tank block. Because of the distance and the noise of the engines, they only spoke to each other by passing messages on the end of a bamboo rod. (*)

(*) https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Luke_Field.html item 38.

As she reported, her fuel reserves were dwindling. Amelia chose to head south because there were no islands north of Howland (nothing before Midway at 3,000km). In case she was already too far north it was too dangerous to continue in that direction. By going south she could either find Howland, Baker or an island further south. And she flew low, under the cloud cover, to try to find a place to land. In doing so, Itaska could no longer pick her up.

Remark : Amelia was undoubtedly rather tense. In Lae, she had been bedridden with severe dysentery, even delaying her departure while the Itaska, with its 97-man crew (*), was waiting for her, circling around Howland Island because this tiny islet has neither a port nor a bay where one can moor. While this was the most delicate stage, she left in poor physical shape and in a bad weather window, at least as far as visibility was concerned. After 20 hours in the noise of the engines, with a very stressful communication problem, she probably lacked lucidity. She had no chance of finding Howland without the final guidance from Itaska. She should have said clearly: "since the departure I have no reception, probably a failure of my radio, if you hear me I take the South course, and I descend at low altitude to seek a place to land, look for me on this axis".

(*) 97 men in 1940, then, during the war, this whole class of coastguards was handed over to the British, and one of them was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The total number of dead and survivors was 130, but in wartime, with a more complete armament, the complement was a little higher.

In this area, there are only atolls that cannot be seen from afar, like the high islands. Finally, she probably saw the wreck of the Norwich City, and then the low island on which it was stranded. The Norwich City had run aground in November 1929 on Gardner Island, a small atoll later renamed Nikumaroro in Polynesian language. Note that this island is right on the North/South axis (157/337), on which they were positioned.

Amelia chose to land on the flat reef not far from the Norwich City wreck, but she tore off her landing gear, at least on the right side.

Note: Amelia arrived around 10:30 am, at the beginning of the rising tide, and she hoped to be able to land on the rocky reef which seemed quite flat. Probably she thought, at the end of the landing, to put the throttle back a bit to bring her plane closer to the beach. She expected to find help and perhaps fuel to take off again. Or she thought she could reach Itaska who could come from Howland to refuel her. She wanted to finish her round-the-world trip and she could not foresee that her right gear would get stuck in a crack, rendering her plane totally unusable, and in a place where it would be half submerged at high tide. If she had arrived at high tide, she would have probably chosen to land in the lagoon, managing to end up near a beach or in a shallow place. And finally her situation would have been much better.

The plane was leaning to the right, but the intact engine on the left wing could still turn and provide power for the radio. For four days, at low tide, Amelia transmitted distress messages. Then the plane was carried away by a stronger tide.

During these 4 days the tidal coefficient doubled, going from -40 +40, that is to say 80cm, to -85 +85, that is to say 170cm of total amplitude.

Tide times and coefficients from January 2 to 9, 1937 are given on the Tighar website (a real "gold mine"), with the water level in relation to the plane : tides at Nikumaroro

Friday, July 2, 1937

They landed at the beginning of the rising tide, at about 10 am. The days are short, the geographical position of Nikumaroro (*) is almost on the equatorial line, 560km to the South.

(*) Amelia's Lookeed Electra is in Nikumaroro, 680km south of Howland Island where Itaska is waiting for her, but she cannot hear her because of the curvature of the earth.

The atoll is surrounded by a rather large rocky reef, covered at high tide, which slopes gently down to the ocean.

Amelia chooses to land on the flat reef because she hopes to be able to take off again: she imagines that she will find fuel on the spot, or that someone will come to refuel her (*). She has almost finished her round-the-world trip. She can't think of an accident. With hindsight, it would have been wiser to land in the lagoon, at a shallow spot, but in that case she would have had to accept to damage her plane, which is not an option for her.

(*) A little fuel and some precise information about her position, and she could take off again to reach Howland Island...

At the beginning of the landing, at high speed, the right wheel gets stuck in a crack, resulting in a very severe shock, and the plane pivots violently around its right gear. At the front Amelia is attached by a belt, but the tail of the plane turned violently and a rudder is suddenly raised by forcing on her foot: her ankle is sprained. Noonan, in the back, unrestrained, was thrown and his head hit the fuselage hard, and he is left with a severe concussion.

They got out of the plane and Amelia found a place near the beach to set Noonan up. The day is not very warm because of the cloud cover.

Then she goes to the island to look for help. She passes by the wreck of the Nordwich City, but the hull is very rusty and the name of the ship is not really readable anymore. She seems to see New York City. (*)

(*) According to the photo taken a few months later (October 1937) during a reconnaissance by the English who wanted to recolonize this island, it seems that the name of the ship is no longer apparent on the hull of the wreck. However, nearby, there are the "graves" of 3 sailors from the Norwich City, buried near the beach, with perhaps a cross and an inscription where the name of the ship appears, more or less legible or perhaps written in abbreviated form (?). In any case Amelia read something either on the hull or on a burial inscription.

The SS Norwich City had run aground 8 years earlier, in the middle of a storm, and a fire ravaged the ship, forcing the crew to abandon her in the middle of the night. This fire heated or burned the paintwork, which undoubtedly accelerated the corrosion of the boat, and 8 years later no inscription can be seen on the hull. This coal-carrying freighter was empty when it ran aground, but its steam turbines were running on fuel oil, so there was a good quantity of fuel in the boat.

The evacuation of the boat went badly, the lifeboat turned over and everyone ended up in the water. Of the 11 men who died from drowning or being eaten by sharks, only 3 bodies were recovered and buried on the beach.

The survivors were recovered a few days later by another ship, so they stayed on the island for a very short time, in a makeshift camp, they had neither the time nor the means to make real graves for their comrades.

Amelia made a small bandage on her ankle and found a kind of cane. Perhaps she has one of her women's shoes on one side, and a larger men's shoe on the other (on the side of the bandaged foot), borrowed from Noonan (next to the skeleton found in 1940 there is a woman's shoe and a man's shoe). She is a thin young woman and her sprain does not prevent her from walking on sand and on a horizontal island. But this will certainly limit her search for drinking water, particularly in areas of dense vegetation.

She makes a big tour on the island and quickly realizes that it is uninhabited and that they are alone and thus without help. And she is worried because Noonan is in a serious condition and she herself expected to be in Honolulu in less than 48 hours and to be able to finish treating her dysentery in a good hospital.

At the end of the afternoon, at low tide, they returned to the plane which had not moved (the tidal coefficients were not high, the high tide was only +40) and Amelia turned on the left engine to charge the batteries and use the radio. She passed messages for several hours.

Saturday, July 3, 1937

At daybreak on Saturday, July 3, low tide was at 9:00 am and Amelia hurried to moor her plane to the beach. She has a piece of rope, some cords, some brass wire and some tools (screwdrivers, wrenches...). Maybe she manages to recover one of the control cables. Most probably she plants the torn off right train vertically, in a crack of the reef, the wheel upwards, to make an anchoring point. (This gear will remain planted in the bedrock after the sea has carried away the plane).

The wheel of the Electra appears on a photo of the English officer Eric Bevington (October 15, 1937)

They still have drinking water and some provisions.

The weather is very rainy and so she returns to the plane and continues to send messages from 9 to 12am.

Betty Klenck hears everything from Florida! She is out of range of the radio frequency but she picks up the "harmonics" like some other people who could hear the messages from very fan.

https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Brandenburg/HarmonyandPower.pdf

Betty notes the messages of Amelia and all that she understands of the situation. For Betty with 6 hours of time difference it is from 15h to 18h. To note that at 17h her father joins her and listens with her. He will make besides a report with the coast guards. Note that Betty Klenck, very moved to have heard the calls of distress of Amelia, will keep her notebook preciously throughout her whole life, that indicates well that it is not a delirium of young teenager..

Note that she is interviewed by Rick Gillepsie in 2007, that her notebook is photographed, and that Tighar's team verifies on the spot that the radio equipment she had at the time could indeed pick up Amelia's messages.

Amelia is a little panicked. She repeats the wreckage's name "New York City, New York City," "or something like that," she adds. Betty hears perfectly what Amelia says and she understands everything that happens in the plane, and she notes it on her notebook. Her testimony is prodigious !

Fred has an intracranial hematoma and he is delirious. The weather is getting better and there is some sunshine. The plane starts to heat up and Fred suffocates. He argues with Amelia and tries to take the microphone by force (*), then he runs away from the plane. Amelia turns off the engine and the radio and chases him.

(*) Fred Noonan has a concussion which is reported at different times in Amelia's messages. The effects of a mild concussion are limited to a duration of about 6 hours. There it is about a more severe concussion, which results in psychiatric and behavioral disorders: anxiety, agitation, impulsiveness, lack of motivation, mood swings, depression... and of various problems: headaches, vomiting, seizures, disorders of the language, the vision, the sleep, the intellectual function, the movement, the loss of smell... etc.

Note: The notebook of Betty is not dated, however I place its testimony at Saturday July 3, 1937 for several reasons:

- Amelia and Fred are in a panic following the accident and the discovery that they are on a deserted island, and therefore without rescue,

- Fred has an intracranial hematoma and is uncontrollable, but he will probably be calmer in the following days,

- Amelia does not mention the lack of water, although she mentions it in later messages,

- Amelia did not report that day that she was on an "uncharted" island, but the following days, the sky cleared and, at night, Noonan was probably able to recalculate precisely their position and, from then on, she reported that the island was not on the charts,

- The tide is rising but the left engine can turn because the tidal coefficient is still low, at 12:00 we have passed the middle point of the rising tide, the tide will rise until 14:30.

The morning is not very warm and interspersed with showers. In the evening they returned to the plane and Amelia started to send messages again. She did not mention the name of the wreck of the cargo ship anymore, because she had looked closely at the letters written on the hull (or on the graves of the sailors) and she understood that it was not New York. She simply said that the plane was half-submerged, next to a wreck, and that they were on a small deserted and uncharted atoll, (at least on the ordinary charts), and that her navigator, Fred Noonan was in serious condition and needed urgent care.

The sky is clearer and Fred Noonan can recalculate their position with the stars, and he doesn't see any island in that location on the chart. So he understands that this island is not marked on the charts, and it is important for him to transmit it to the radio.

Note: Amelia is heard from boats, from planes, from other islands or continents. Many radio operators notice activity and different noises on the frequency that she is the only one to use. But from time to time her voice is heard and even if one does not have the 2 or 3 hours of listening of Betty, it is noted that she is on a deserted island, not mapped, that her plane is half-submerged, close to a shipwreck, and that Noonan is seriously wounded. This concordance of messages with Betty Klenck's account (which was never broadcast at the time), is clear evidence that she landed on a deserted island, that she is still alive, and that her plane is in the water; at least at high tide...

Among the radio operators who hear it, some note the direction of the signal, and these readings, made in very different places, all converge quite precisely towards Nikumaroro.

https://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/2009Vol_25/postloss.pdf

The night in the plane goes well, the mooring works and the plane does not rip on the rock anymore (the coefficient of high tide has risen only of 10cm).

Sunday July 4th, 1937

The next day, the food was running out and they had no more water. The weather was fine again and the temperature rose. They left the plane without any problem, the low tide was at 10 am but the plane was dry well before 10 am.

Amelia spotted a pool of water at the southeast point, so she took a small container, a piece of sheet metal, the bottle of Benedictine, some empty vials, matches and a sextant box to avoid breaking the vials. She left Fred Noonan in the same place on the beach near the plane. She went to Southeast Point, lit a fire and boiled some water. The water is probably very brackish but that's all she found. Perhaps she managed to recover a little water vapor (?) by using several containers (*).

(*) Since ancient times, sailors have known how to desalinate sea water. Alexander the Great reported that, on Phoenician ships, sailors boiled seawater and recovered the steam with sponges…

We can suppose that Amelia boils brackish water in the container that she took in the plane, that she closes this container with a sheet after having suspended various bottles under the sheet... the water vapor condenses then in these bottles, which enables her to recover a little drinking water. But she has nothing well adapted and recovers only very small quantities ??.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRSAEZQKVf4  or  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IpgDVr25Eag

Nevertheless, if Amelia had been able to distill salt water, she would not have had to go to the other end of the island. Note that in the survival manuals of the time, there was no mention of techniques for desalinating sea water :

https://digirepo.nlm.nih.gov/ext/dw/13820890R/PDF/13820890R.pdf  (see page 32)

Then she finds some food, coconuts ? (*), shellfish, birds and small turtles. She makes herself something to eat and prepares a small meal for Fred which she brings to him with the sextant box and boiled water with the Benedictine bottle.

(*) This atoll had not been inhabited since 1880 and, as the English officer Gerald Gallagher in charge of the recolonization of the island in 1940 points out, there were only a few coconut trees buried in the vegetation, and it is not certain that Amelia could have obtained coconuts. Too bad the coconut milk could have quenched her thirst... Then, from 1940, Gallagher organized coconut plantations in order to produce copra, and since then the atoll of Nikumaroro is full of coconuts.

On the other hand, it seems to be very easy to catch birds because some of them nest on the ground, like the tropicbirds :

No doubt her operations to boil brackish water and recover more or less drinkable water take her quite some time, and no doubt she has a second home close to the place where Fred is resting, so as not to leave him alone too long.

At the end of this Sunday afternoon they went back to the plane to pass messages and to sleep. The sea was a bit rougher (the tidal coefficient had increased again, (+70 and -70cm) but the plane's mooring was holding. Note that at the high tide of 4 pm the tidal coefficient is only +60, so it is not yet very worrying.

Monday, July 5, 1937

On Monday, the day went on in the same way, during the night the tidal coefficient rose by another 5cm, +75 at 4:30 a.m., but they were sleeping or dozing and nothing happened. At the high tide of 4:30 pm the coefficient went down to +70. So in the evening they came back to the plane without being too suspicious. Note that the 2 low tides reached or even exceeded -80, but this probably went unnoticed.

It is possible that Amelia is not fully lucid, she has to walk (limping) almost 6km to go to the SE point (and as much to come back) and make fire and get water for her and for Noonan. She also has to walk around to collect fuel, dry leaves, dead wood... and she has to find food for 2 people. So a lot of walk and efforts in an equatorial heat which dehydrates her.

Near the remains of the old dwellings (the island was inhabited until 1880) there was perhaps an old well closer than the water on the south-east point... but the vegetation was dense, with probably more mosquitoes than on the seaside, and Amelia did not have the leisure or the energy to search all the nooks and crannies of the atoll.

I am sure that they spent the nights in the Electra, especially since the tides allowed them to easily access the plane in the evening and return to the beach in the morning, and it was more comfortable, they were protected from mosquitoes and there were even toilets in the back. And very few things belonging to them were found on the atoll, neither their clothes, nor their luggage, nor the navigation equipment, nor the tools... etc. Everything leads us to believe that they did not consider that the plane was going to be carried away by the sea.

Tuesday July 6th, 1937

At 5 am, 2 hours before sunrise, the high tide rose to +85.

I suppose that a strong current occurs along the beach. With this tidal range, the lagoon sucks in 10 million m³ of water to fill up, and the direction of the wind can vary the trajectory of the current. The tail of the plane is probably less well moored than the remaining wheel, the anchoring point gives way, the plane pivots, the second gear (already damaged during the landing) breaks, and the plane floats away, but it will soon fill with water and sink because it has moved away from the beach and the bottom of its body is damaged by the crash.

Amelia, on the additional tanks, her legs still in the cockpit...

Amelia crawled on the tanks to get to the back cabin and try to get Fred out of the plane, but she couldn't open the back door because of the water level (high tide and broken 2nd gear). It is panic, she is in complete darkness, Fred is struggling, making it impossible to rescue him, the water is rising and finally she will give up and go out alone after having with difficulty to get back to the cockpit to open the upper hatch, and go out by the top, without having time to take anything with her. (*)

(*) We can think that the plane was shaken before breaking its mooring, and that Amelia had the time to get dressed... but then, with the water rising in the plane and the darkness, she could not take much with her.

On the morning of Wednesday July 7th, Amelia found herself in great difficulty, everything remained in the plane (or almost), in particular her pills for dysentery. She returns painfully to her day camp, desperate and more and more sick and weakened. She still has her containers, the bottle of Benedictine, the box of sextant, the flasks, but she no longer has her matches to make fire.

I would add that she has neither her matches nor her "Lucky Strike"!

Amelia probably died before the passage of USS Colorado's seaplanes, therefore between Tuesday July 6 and the morning of Friday July 9, 1937  (*).

Amelia was ill before her arrival in Nikumaroro, and in her last messages she reported that she had no more water and that she and Noonan could not hold on much longer. After the loss of the plane she has no shelter to protect herself from the mosquitoes and if she continues to drink brackish water she will quickly have big problems that will worsen her condition, especially if she has no fire and cannot even disinfect this brackish water…

We could think of an accident like a bite from a small lagoon shark, or a sting from a stonefish or a textile cone (a small shellfish that emits a sting when taken in the hand and that is as deadly as the stonefish...), but the most probable cause is the lack of drinking water, especially since she is already dehydrated, due to dysentery. She travels around the world following the equatorial line and for a while she has been in countries with sanitary risks: whether it is tropical dysentery (shigellosis) or dengue fever, these diseases give a high fever and cause severe dehydration that can lead to kidney blockage or intestinal obstruction, especially if there is no water and no medical attention.

In 1940, when the island was repopulated by the English with inhabitants from neighboring islands, he left Officer Gerald Gallagher, head of the recolonization, who built a village and was particularly concerned with drinking water. When he finds Amelia's skeleton, he is sure that it is her, and he is sure that she died of thirst.

(*) It is a quick death if we compare her situation with that of the famous aviator Eddie Rickenbacker, World War I ace, lost at sea in October 1942, exactly in this same area of the South Pacific. The plane that was carrying him did not find the island of Canton, (Abariringa), another island of the same archipelago (the Phoenix Islands), on which it was supposed to land and had to ditch, for lack of fuel, in the middle of the ocean. Difficult landing in a rough sea, the plane sank quickly. The crew and passengers, including 52 year old Eddie, were able to inflate 3 inflatable rafts but they had no water or food... and they still survived 24 days!

See the PDF, a terrifying tale.

In this group we note the rather quick death of the pilot sergeant Alexander Kaczmarczyk who had just come out of a long stay in the hospital, which makes us think about Amelia's physical condition... Two others end up in a coma and barely escape death. And all those who get out are saved on the eighth day by the feat of Eddie Rickenbacker who miraculously catches a seagull: this bird is immediately eaten and its guts will allow to catch several fishes !

Eddie Rickenbacker, the American ace of aces in World War I

It should be noted that after this misadventure of Rickenbacker, the Americans equipped their military aircrafts with a desalinization kit, starting at the end of 1942, as the British had already done since 1940.

In short, an incredible black series :

- Amelia's husband only dealt with commercial promotion and neglected the radio equipment,

- In Lae, (Papua New Guinea), Amelia was affected by a tropical dysentery which forced her to postpone her departure and then Amelia, pressed by the Itaska which was waiting for her at sea (with its 97 crewmen), found herself in a bad weather window, and in a delicate state of health,

- Noonan and Amelia did not know Morse code... After a bad landing in Honolulu, the plane has to be repaired and the round-the-world trip is delayed by 6 months. Harry Manning is no longer available to continue the adventure. What a shame! He's a seasoned sailor, a good pilot, an excellent navigator and an experienced radio operator. His presence would have been more than desirable during this difficult stage, not only for radio communications, but also to take over from a tired Amelia,

Amelia Earhart, Harry Manning and Fred Noonan

- As the war with Japan approached, Itaska only wanted to use certain frequencies,

- The ventral antenna was torn off at take-off, on the bad runway of Lae, cutting all communication and making the end of the flight very complicated, it became almost impossible to find the island of Howland,

- Amelia arrived at Nikumaroro at the beginning of the rising tide, which encouraged her to try to land on the beach,

- The landing gear was torn off and the plane could not be brought to safety, just before the week of high water,

- Noonan's serious injury renders him unable to help Amelia, and he becomes a serious handicap for Amelia's survival,

- Amelia has a sprained ankle which will reduce her activity,

- A Catalina took off from Pearl Harbor on July 2, 1937, the same day, but it had to turn back because of the weather (a total of 24 hours of flight!): this Catalina could have refueled in Howland and started searching earlier. This extraordinary, long-range aircraft would have arrived on July 3: it would have had every chance of finding Amelia, whose messages it would have heard in clear,

- It rained only just after her arrival on the atoll, at a time when she was not yet aware that she might run out of water. If the rain had come later in the week, she would have stocked up on water and perhaps the Catalina would have even found her before the rain,

- Error in the message received by Betty Klenck in Florida: Norwich City becomes New York City, without this error the Coast Guard alerted by her father would have perhaps identified the stranded boat...,

- Nikumaroro was not on most charts, so the search for this island was not going to be quick,

- The relapse of dysentery, and Amelia going without water to cure Noonan,

- Itaska continued to search for Amelia towards the North and the North West, even though there was no place in this area where she could land,

The battleship USS Colorado and its seaplanes arrived from Pearl Harbour to launch the search for Amelia to the South

- Lt. John O. Lambrecht, the squadron leader of the Colorado seaplanes, arrived at Nikumaroro only on January 9, 1937, a little before 8:30 a.m., and took a photo on which it is visible that he was passing at high tide, at low tide he would have seen, him or one of his pilots, the landing gear planted in the flat and probably the plane or some debris of the plane. Note that on Lambrecht's photo, the tide seems to be particularly high: high tide is at 7:00 am that day, so at 8:30 am it is still high tide, the beach is covered by the sea, and the atoll looks like a thin cordon. In this case the tide is always the opposite of what would be desirable and always unfavorable to the survival of Fred and Amelia…, photo by Lambrecht,

- That Friday, July 9, Lambrecht's seaplanes did not land because they saw no planes on the island, and they were afraid of damaging the engines in the bird cloud over the lagoon, and perhaps Amelia was still alive... Lambrecht notes in his report on Gardner Island: "Here the signs of recent habitation were clearly visible (*), but repeated touring and zooming failed to elicit any response from the possible inhabitants, and it was finally taken for granted that there were none." ... he did not realize that there could be no recent habitation, other than the presence of Amelia. Nor did he realize that Amelia could have arrived at low tide, and landed on the flat reef,

(*) The "signs of a recent habitation" are certainly the places where Amelia made fire. Where she boiled water at the south-east point and where she set up Noonan during the day, and where she joined him to feed him and give him boiled water. In these two places she has gathered branches and some stones around the fireplaces which are probably quite black and visible from the sky by planes zooming in from low altitude. And there are still on these summary camps, the plate of sheet metal, the container, shells of tortoise, shells, various debris... etc.

Vought O3U-3 Corsair seaplane

- The search with the seaplanes of Colorado was not optimal. The Colorado had a technical problem with its catapult to launch its planes. Only 2 planes were launched during the first day of the search (out of 4 days in total),

- Lambrecht does not have precise information on the islands to be visited, and during the first 2 days the planes look for a "reef" which does not exist,

  → See : https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html

- Lambrecht did focus his search on the North/South axis indicated by Amelia, he visited Baker, then Mc Kean, then Gardner (Nikumaroro), then the Carondelet reef further South..., but the post-missing messages do not seem to have been transmitted to him, nor any information on Noonan's injury and the difficulty of surviving on atolls without drinking water (*).

(*) The English know these islands. During the reconnaissance of October 1937 prior to the recolonization of Gardner Island (Nikumaroro), they arrived with supplies of drinking water and equipment for digging wells. On their next trip they even brought seawater desalination machines. Lambrecht is not aware of the emergency character due to the lack of water, and finally he acts in reverse of the logic: the third day, Friday July 9, 1937, he does not land on the uninhabited islands of Mc Kean and Gardner, while he stops for a long time on the inhabited island of Hull, (Orona), where Amelia would have found water, food and care. And if he had asked the English settler who ran Hull, about the "signs of habitation" on Gardner's Island he would have probably gone back and there might still have been time to save Amelia. Gardner and Hull are only 260km apart and the USS Colorado was at that time halfway between Gardner (Nikumaroro) and Hull (Orona).

After Amelia's death, more time was lost :

- The war forbids new research,

- The English authorities are "septic", lose the skeleton, and bury (*) the discovery of Gallagher,

(*) No doubt they were afraid of seeing too many Americans arrive, while they intended to keep this archipelago under English control, and they were making efforts to recolonize the Gilbert Islands.

 In 1940, 3 years after the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the English officer Gerald Gallagher was sent to Gardner Island (Nikumaroro) to lead the recolonization. Some time after his arrival, he found a skeleton at the foot of a tree with the traces of a camp, a sextant box and a bottle of Benedictine. He is sure to have found the remains of Amelia Earhart and he sends many messages to the English authorities about this..., and he also sends the bones and the objects found next to the skeleton. But the command side does not share his enthusiasm, the bones will be "lost", he dies on the island before the end of the war, and his discovery will be buried until 1998.

- During the war Julius Wile, the alcohol importer, was sent to the European front and no one informed him that his bottle of Benedictine was found near bones that could be those of Amelia.