Seventy-five years ago, Amelia Earhart, in her glittering twin-engined Electra, disappeared over the vast wave-swept Pacific. Her cryptic last radio message WE ARE THE LINE OF POSITION 157-337…RUNNING NORTH AND SOUTH on that hot tropical morning of July 2, 1937, was received by the Coast Guard cutter Itasca and anxious reporters waiting for her at Howland Island, some 150 miles to the east. That last message would spawn a massive search of 260,000 square miles of the central-southwest Pacific over two weeks involving nine ships from three countries and 66 aircraft. But to no avail, Amelia had vanished. Her disappearance sparked a cottage industry of rumors and speculation which still continues after 75 years. And why?
Because there was no one there to rescue Amelia. Or was there? Could Amelia, just as a gesture to all those Great War victims of poison gas that she cared for in Spadina Military Hospital---could she have agreed merely to pick up a spy on Nauru Island on her way to Howland---and not incidentally get a few more precious hours of fuel? A spy who had vital intelligence on the operation of a biochem warfare lab operated by the Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731 and one of the most infamous biochem experiment stations in history?
Yes. And the Nevada Navy’s shark submarine Whitetip was there, embroiled in the pre-war maneuvering of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry Morgenthau, the Imperial Japanese Navy and the search for Amelia. In a world of men and machines of war, Pacifist Amelia Earhart would prove that she was made of sterner stuff than anyone could have imagined.
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