No Amelia Earhart was not a prisoner of the Japanese

The Magics
This is one of those moments that makes me, as an amateur historian cry inside, because stories like this grow legs and go racing along the digital byways of the 21st century.  The above photograph is being held up as "potential proof" that Amelia Earhart, rather than dying during her round-the-world flight attempt in July 1937 was instead captured by the Japanese and held prisoner/killed/helped by the U.S. government as part of its secret spying mission masquerading as her flight.  The culprit on this is the History Channel with promotional stories like this one and breathless articles like this one run by People Magazine.

I'll summarize for you the gentle reader - the above photograph was found in the National Archives by a retired federal agent named Les Kinney who found it misfiled.  The image was in the collection of the Office of Naval Intelligence and, you can see from the caption on it, was taken in the Marshall Islands, a Japanese possession at the time and within "oopsie" distance of Earhart's flight path.  Purportedly one of the gentlemen in the shot is her navigator, Fred Noonan, and the individual in the white shirt with the short haircut seated on the dock is Earhart.  In the far right, her plane is being towed by a ship into harbor.

People Magazine helpfully blew up the picture so you could see the magic.  The other chunk of proof is a listing of records from the Office of Naval Intelligence that shows a file of 130 pages about Earhart being a prisoner on the Marshall Islands was in the governments records and was "purged":

Why This Is Stupid
Context mainly, to accept this theory requires a misunderstanding of the 1930s, Earhart's life prior to her flight, Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. military and government resources, and American-Japanese relations in 1937.  Lets dig into things piece by piece:

• Earhart's Flight/Aviation in the 1930s was dangerous - there is a reason Earhart's exploits earned her so much press and also so much fame, they were dangerous and being done by a female aviator.  Flying across the Pacific in the 1930s was a risky activity, the Clippers that did the jaunt regularly and were commercial aircraft carried extensive survival gear in case of crashes - and one of them vanished as well without a trace.  Support systems in the Pacific were minimal and Earhart's flight plan centered on landing on a tiny spot of an island to refuel, when her fuel capacity was extremely low.  It was a high-risk/high-reward strategy to hit a timeline and get press.  Speaking off...
• Earhart was a brand as much as a person and her style was wildly popular - that photo hinges, if you read the articles, on that being Earhart's signature haircut.  She did cut her hair short and maintain it cut short, as part of her image.  An image plastered on magazines, newspapers, and newsreels the world over.  A haircut imitated by a huge number of women in the 1930s.  Have a look at some style guide photos from the period below and remember - we are identifying Earhart based on looking at the back of her hair - any of the styles below potentially look like they might be mistaken for her distinctive look from the back?

• Earhart was a good pilot, not a great pilot - for the conspiracy to work you have to imagine that the United States government wanted to spy on the Japanese fortifications in the Marshall Islands (or other Pacific regions), needed a really good cover story to do so, and settled on convincing one of the most popular celebrity flyers of the 1930s to undertake this mission and keep it a secret.  Earhart was a close personal friend of the Roosevelts but she was also a popular lecturer, writer, and professional celebrity, trusting her with such a mission would be risky on those grounds alone.  But she also wasn't a great pilot - good pilot per those who knew her, solid pilot, but not great.  Also prior to her flight she hadn't spent a great deal of time with her plane and made several errors in flight that damaged it.  
• The United States had other pilots and spy aircraft - spying on Japanese military base construction in the Pacific was actually not that hard for the United States, the U.S. Pacific fleet (which was in the area and took part in the expensive search of Earhart post disappearance) had plenty of aircraft capable of long range flight in the late 1930s that could have taken pictures of those bases.  Aircraft piloted by veteran naval pilots familiar with their craft and, if captured, not a public relations nightmare for the U.S. government.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt was into spy stuff but not crazy spy stuff - FDR was down for unusual plans to mess with Japan and he did enjoy dabbling in spy missions/covert operations, but there is no evidence he went for using civilians as spies in this capacity.  Covert military operations, covert financial aid, absolutely.
• FDR was already hiding secret stuff to support Earhart - that airstrip that Earhart was going to land on at Howland Island, built by the U.S. Navy.  At FDR's request, to support this effort, because he, his wife, and Earhart were good friends.  Built at considerable expense during the Great Depression.  Now imagine going to Congress and saying "Yeah I built that base to support a secret spy mission on Japan.  What?  Use it again, nah, no plans for that."  FDR was popular but not that popular.
• Japan had nothing to really hide in the Marshall Islands - I dug around and it took some work but if you look at a solid online listing here the Marshall Islands did have military fortifications beginning in 1936 on them.  Specifically some minor guns and a few troops.  On islands owned by Japan.  Fortified in violation of their League of Nations mandate but as Japan had resigned the League of Nations in 1936, they kind of didn't care.
• The Office of Naval Intelligence file is not a smoking gun - it is a 130 pages of correspondence on Earhart being a prisoner of the Marshall Islands, as in - people wrote the government letters on the subject.  Funny thing about the government, generally it has to file every letter it receives for its archives.  Every one.  Even crazy ones talking about how Earhart's plane was brought down in the Marshall Islands by magical flying squirrels who taught her their secret nut-based code, which led to her being taken prisoner by the Japanese.  Because the squirrels taught her how to get to Atlantis and the Japanese wanted to know.  Goes in the file.  Eventually the file gets thrown out after enough years.  Could there have been a useful letter in there by someone with information?  Possibly, but there were also probably a LOT of squirrel letters.

But since we are in a special spot historically with this, I'm going to go to the broader point, in 1937 Japan could have really used a good public relations boost with the United States.  The image above is of the sinking U.S. gunship Panay, destroyed in December 1937 by Japanese aircraft.  The ship was stationed in China and the Japanese government apologized and paid an indemnity for the action.  1937 overall was a bad year for Japanese-American public relations, with Japan's invasion of China and smashing of large amounts of territory.  Earhart vanished in July 1937 and the U.S. government spent over $4 million in the largest search and rescue effort in history to that point trying to find her.  

Had the Japanese government found her, why in that climate would they have locked her up?  Lets look at the options:

• She is a U.S. spy on a clandestine mission - Japan returns her without saying anything, FDR owes them a favor/is at risk of exposure.  Japan exposes her, FDR looses position in the U.S. and faces some nasty questions from Congress.  
• She saw some Japanese military building while crashing - the U.S. learns about Japanese base building, which isn't actually a secret, and Japan gets credit for finding and saving the most popular female aviator in the world.  Bonus points if done after the U.S. government spent $4 million and failed in its efforts.  Japan is a hero for finding and saving her.
• She didn't see squat and Japan found her - Japan gets hero points and makes a wonderful public relations success with the U.S. public

Had the Japanese government found her in July 1937 alive post crash I can only imagine them announcing it to the world with glee.  Probably offering to help fund repairs to her plane and an offer that she work with them in he next attempt to use Japanese facilities to support her flight in a "hands across the Pacific" PR coup.

Earhart was a brave woman, a brave aviator, and she and her navigator died attempting a dangerous Pacific crossing.  Mistakes were made, it was an ill-fated attempt, but give her credit for flying and dying pursuing it.  Don't turn Earhart's story 80 years after her death into a weird conspiracy mess.

Sources:  Wikipedia on Japanese history in the Marshall Islands, USS Panay incident, and Amelia Earhart; North American Forts listing of Pacific island fortifications, Timelines of History on 1937 events

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İngilizce ' de Japan ve Japanese ne demektir ?

Japan : ( cı – peğen ) Japonya . || Japanese ( cı – peniğiz ) : Japonca , Japon .

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Japanese Invasion Of China 1931-45: RARE (LARGE) IMAGES

Everybody believes that World War II began on September 1, 1939 with the German attack on Poland. But the Chinese are convinced that the war  began much earlier! Some say in  1931 - Japanese invasion of Manchuria; others put it on July 7, 1937 - when, using the armed incident in the area Lugoutsyao (incident at the Marco Polo Bridge), the Japanese army launched a war to capture all of China. China suffered huge losses in World War II, and the atrocities that the Japanese committed in the country surpassed all limits.

First some background. When the Japanese invaded China in 1931, the country itself was in turmoil. The Nationalist Chinese KMT Chiang Kai-shek's regime was fighting the Chinese communists led by Mao. So till 1945 these two Chinese forces and the Japanese were all fighting each other. In short, China was in a mess.

 Men of the Collaborationist Chinese Army. During the Sino-Japanese War 1937-1945 the Japanese in every captured region of China formed collaborationist unit. Over time, these units were absorbed in the army. The size of the collaborationist  Chinese army at the end of World War II  reached 1.1 million.

COLLABORATIONIST CHINESE ARMY

The Collaborationist Chinese Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War went under different names at different times depending on which collaborationist leader or puppet regime it was organized under. 

During the Invasion of Manchuria General Xi Qia organized a pro-Japanese secession movement in Kirin at the head of the "New Kirin" Army, and Chang Hai-peng at Taonan in the northwest of Liaoning province organized the Hsingan Reclamation Army. Both forces attempted to defeat the remaining Chinese forces in Heilongjiang province and at Harbin but failed. After the Mukden Incident, the Chinese forces that went over to the Japanese were formed into the army of Manchukuo Imperial Army in early 1932. During the Japanese Operation Nekka in Jehol and the Battle of the Great Wall in 1933, Japan used the "National Salvation Army" of Li Chi-chun under the old five-barred flag of the Chinese Republic and the Taoliao Army of Manchukuo under Chang Hai-peng. 

At the beginning of their intervention in Inner Mongolia the Japanese used Chinese forces under Liu Guitang and Li Shouxin. Later they used Wang Ying's Grand Han Righteous Army to form part of an Inner Mongolian Army and later the Mengjiang National Army. Once they formed the Autonomous Government of Eastern Hopei they established the East Hopei Army. Manchukuo River Defense Army in a military exercise 

After the Japanese first began their invasion of China in 1937, in each place the Japanese captured, a collaborationist army might be formed and given various names, such as "IJA Assistant Army", "Peace Preservation Corps" or "Police Garrisons" and so on. Later on, particularly under the Nanjing Nationalist Government they were re-organized in a system of Divisions, Corps and Armies. 

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese occupied area was in continuous need for troops to suppress revolts and to defend against sabotage to the Japanese supply lines, which diverted much of Japan's regular army manpower. In order to solve its manpower shortage on the front line (especially after 1942 and the outbreak of the Pacific War), and maintain rule over already occupied areas in China, the Japanese began employing existing local soldiers and recruiting local people to be responsible for the occupied areas' public security. Accordingly, the Japanese occupied area puppet regimes established the North China Zhi'an Army and Nanjing collaboratist army. 

The various puppet regimes had nominal control over their own collaborationist army only, but Japanese military officers were authorized to command and transfer any collaborationist army units as they saw fit. In 1938, the manpower in China's puppet armies was approximately 78,000 men, mostly the forces of the Provisional Government of China in North China. When Wang Jingwei established the Nanjing Nationalist Government after 1940, the numbers of the Chinese puppet army suddenly rose to 145,000 men. Most of these new forces were local puppet forces established in areas the Japanese occupied from 1937 in Eastern, Central and South China. From 1942 to 1943 (probably as a result of the United States' entry into the war), the Imperial Japanese Army commanders permitted the collaboratist army commanders faced with a disadvantageous situation (often a result of being caught between the Communists and the Japanese army) to preserve their strength by temporarily surrendering to the Japanese, and then joining the Nanjing collaborationist army en masse. 

The result was the collaborationist army manpower started growing rapidly. According to the Chinese Communist Party statistics at the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, about 62% of the men in the Chinese collaborationist army were originally with the National Revolutionary Army. Though these results could possibly have been trumped up and used as propaganda due to the longstanding rivalry between both the Kuomintang and the Communists. Furthermore, the worsening situation for Japan from 1943 onwards meant that the Nanjing collaborationist army was given a more substantial role in the defence of occupied China than the Japanese had initially envisaged, and this army was almost continuously employed against the communist New Fourth Army, and the target of guerrilla and sabotage operations led by the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics and the Communist New Fourth Army. 

In March 1943, a British intelligence report estimated the total number at 345,130 men. Despite rapid growth in manpower and increased responsibility to support the Japanese, the collaborationist Chinese army suffered from very low morale because the general public in the occupied areas viewed them as Hanjian, or traitors to China, and many surrendered quickly to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's forces during military engagements. Enemy prisoners of low rank were persuaded to renege and fight alongside anti-Japanese forces, but high-ranking prisoners were executed. Many commanders of collaborationist army secretly cooperated with the Chinese Secret Service under General Dai Li, exchanging intelligence about IJA troop movements as well as taking orders from him to suppress communists activities.

Japanese soldiers at the Yellow River

Japanese marines ride a German troop-carrier in Shanghai

The Japanese army in China

WHAT  WAS THE "MARCO POLO BRIDGE INCIDENT" OR THE "LUGOUQIAO INCIDENT"?

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident (or the Lugouqiao Incident) was a battle between the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army, often used as the marker for the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). The eleven-arch granite bridge, Lugouqiao, is an architecturally significant structure, restored by the Kangxi Emperor (1662–1722). Often signifying the opening of Japan's comprehensive invasion of mainland China, both this 7 July and 18 September (Mukden Incident) are still remembered as days of national humiliation by most Chinese.
READ MORE ON WIKIPEDIA

 Japanese officers raise a toast to the success in Manchuria

Officers of the Kuomintang (KMT) Army in 1941

The Fall of Nanking

The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a mass murder, genocide and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing (Nanking), the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During this period hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women and children were raped by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army

 Japanese cavalryman in Manchuria. 1932

 Japanese soldiers with a captured Chinese Vickers 6-Ton tank

INTERESTING SIDELIGHTS: THE VICKERS 6-TON TANK

The Vickers 6-Ton Tank or Vickers Mark E was a British light tank designed as a private project at Vickers. It was not purchased by the British Army, but was picked up by a large number of foreign armed forces and was copied almost exactly by the Soviets as the T-26. It was also the direct predecessor of the Polish 7TP tank. By the start of World War II it was the second most common tank design in the world after the Renault FT-17.

Japanese soldiers on the march in Manchuria. 1932. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 19, 1931, when Manchuria was invaded by the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan immediately following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese established a puppet state, called Manchukoku, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II.

 Japanese machine gun crew in China

 Japanese soldiers storming the city of Nanking

An accurate estimation of the death toll in the massacre has not been achieved because most of the Japanese military records on the killings were deliberately destroyed or kept secret shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945. The International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimates more than 200,000 casualties in the incident; China's official estimate is about 300,000 casualties, based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal. Estimates from Japanese historians vary widely, in the vicinity of 40,000–200,000. Some historical revisionists even deny that a widespread, systematic massacre occurred at all, claiming that any deaths were either justified militarily, accidental or isolated incidents of unauthorized atrocities. These negationists claim that the characterization of the incident as a large-scale, systematic massacre was fabricated for the purpose of political propaganda

KMT (Kuomintang) soldiers fire away with a machine gun

 A Japanese tank in China. The Chinese people look on bemused at the invader.

 Japanese with the captured Chinese German made Pz.Kpfw.I Ausf.A tank

MORE ON THE Pz.Kpfw.I Ausf.A

The Panzer I was a light tank produced in Germany in the 1930s. The name is short for the German Panzerkampfwagen I (armored fighting vehicle mark I), abbreviated PzKpfw I. The tank's official German ordnance inventory designation was SdKfz 101 (special purpose vehicle 101). Design of the Panzer I began in 1932 and mass production in 1934. Intended only as a training tank to introduce the concept of armored warfare to the German Army, the Panzer I saw combat in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, in Poland, France, the Soviet Union and North Africa during the Second World War, and in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. 

Japanese with the captured Chinese Pz.Kpfw.I Ausf.A tank. It has Soviet DP-28 machine gun mounted on it.

Japanese with a destroyed Chinese T-26 tank. The Chinese Chiang Kai-shek regime bought arms from many countries, it seems

 Determined looking Chinese communist soldiers with a machine gun

 Chinese communist soldiers in 1945

 A Chinese machine-gunner with "Browning" M1928 (Polish modification of the American automatic rifle BAR) on duty in 1939. He wears a German helmet.

A Chinese soldier sits on the banks of River Salween in Burma. 1944.

A STORY....

“In a deep gorge on the upper Salween, foot-weary, battle-battered Chinese troops were finally backed up against the bridge, retreated across it while the Japs from the other side rained down fire on them. The Chinese left their dead behind them, blew up the bridge, and crawled up the winding road to the heights on the China side. 

Across from them the Jap's guns bayed at the scent of tired game. The Chinese had been beaten and battered beyond human endurance. One of them broke. Before his troops a general killed himself. The men wavered, looked toward the rear. 

To the front dashed Lung Yun (the Cloud Dragon), Governor of Yunnan Province. With the dead general at his feet, he called on the little soldiers for another last stand. The Jap would soon cross the Salween. His rolling stock was already massing on the bluff. He would have to be stopped. It would be hard. Every beaten soldier there knew that the Japs across the Salween were from the crack Red Dragon armored division. 

As he spoke his soldiers suddenly turned away, looked at the sky. The Governor stopped talking, for he heard the noise, too —the steady, humming throb of aircraft engines. It grew into thunder. Six American P-405 whipped across the bluff. The A.V.G.s were on the job. 

They bellowed across the gorge, swung into column and dived on the Jap. Their 50-caliber slugs tore into the gasoline drums on the trucks, sent them blazing. Their bombs uprooted lorries and tanks, and rolled them down the precipice. The Jap broke, dashed for the bushes, ran into patrols of cheering Chinese who had been left behind at the river crossing. 

On the China side the dead general lay where he had fallen. His men, shouting their war cries, hurried down to the river and sniped at the Jap as he ran. Down the road into Burma fled the Red Dragon, broken, bereft of his trucks and equipment. Six American youngsters and the Cloud Dragon had saved a bitter day.

Source: Wikipedia

 Nationalist Chinese soldiers on American made-M3 Stuart tanks

 Chinese soldiers with a German made MG 08 machine gun. The nationalist Chinese soldiers wore the German Stahlhelm helmets

Nationalist Chinese soldiers ready the searchlight in anticipation of Japanese bombers in Chungking in 1939

 The Japanese are in Nanjing (Nanking)

 The Japanese examine captured Chinese aircraft

 A Japanese soldiers talks to very young Chinese boy soldiers

 Japanese soldiers with a suspected Chinese saboteur. Manchuria. early 1930s.

 Japanese soldiers with a guard dog. Manchuria. early 1930s

1944.Burma. Nationalist Chinese soldiers with American made M3A3 Stuart tanks. The KMT regime got 100 such tanks from America under the lend-lease agreement

 The Japanese have captured these Chinese communist fighters

 In Manchuria. Japanese with captive Chinese

 Nationalist Chinese soldiers with a British officer in Shanghai, 1937, as the fighting was going on.

 Girl soldier in the Chinese army fighting the Japanese

 Women soldiers in the Chinese army

 Chinese soldiers with their gun

 Chinese artillery men

 Chinese soldiers in a German Sturm boat

 Waiting for the Japanese. The Chinese soldier in the foreground has a Mauser pistol with a rifle butt

 Chinese soldiers with a machine gun

 Chinese soldier with their smart German Stahlhelm helmets.

 A Japanese officer interrogates morose-looking captured Chinese soldiers

 Chinese people with the conquerors. Japanese marines.

 Bright looking Chinese pilots

 Captured Chinese soldiers in 1937

 Determined Chinese soldiers strike a defiant pose in 1930

 Grinning Japanese soldiers make Chinese POW pull a broken-down motor-cycle. The Japs had a feeling that they were superior to others.

 A Japanese army officer makes two Chinese men carry him. A sense of superiority? The Chinese men do not seem to mind it much. The one behind is grinning.

 Japanese with captured Chinese guerrilla fighters

 Japanese soldiers in a Chinese village. They seem highly amused seeing the Chinese artifact

 The conquerors. Japanese soldiers in China

 Defiant KMT soldiers in 1938. They are wearing British style helmets now!

Chinese POW

Chinese people made to kneel as Japanese soldiers pass. Such humiliation! The friction still remains to this day between the countries. The Japanese did not behave very nicely when it invaded China between 1932-45.

A Japanese soldier looks on sanguinely at bodies of Chinese civilians massacred by the Japanese soldiers

 A Chinese KMT soldier

Chinese soldiers in 1945. The Japanese were almost close to defeat but the real threat was from the Chinese communists led by Mao

General Chiang Kai-shek. Dictator of China till 1949 and founder of Taiwan

 General Chiang Kai-shek inspects his troops

A Japanese fighter aboard a aircraft carrier in 1939. The aircraft is a A5M4. The carrier is "Soryu"

Japanese soldiers kill Chinese people. In total, during the war in the Far East the Japanese deliberately killed between 15 and 20 million civilians and prisoners of war.

Late 1930s. A Japanese soldier catches up with the latest news in China.

Japanese soldiers with a broken statue of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the father of modern China.

 Grinning Japanese soldiers in China. 1939. They carry guns stolen from the Chinese army. For those interested they are Czech ZB 26/30 and Belgian FN1928 (based on the American BAR)

An injured Japanese soldier in Shanghai. 1932

Japanese medics tending to the wounded soldiers. Shanghai. 1932

 A Chinese soldier guards over a captured Indian soldier fighting for the Japanese.

 Chinese soldiers, look like communist, douse a fire which broke out in a Chinese city after a Japanese bombardment

 A Chinese soldier guards over American P 40 fighters

 Chinese soldiers. July 11, 1940. Somewhere in China

 Japanese soldiers in a Chinese city

 Earlier in 1939, Imperial Japanese army and naval units continued to attack and push forward into China and Mongolia. Here Japanese soldiers advance inland over the beach after landing at Swatow (Shantou), one of the remaining South China coast ports still under Chinese control at that time, on July 10, 1939. After a short engagement with the Chinese defenders the Japanese entered the city without encountering much further opposition.

 June 30, 1941. A Japanese tank I-Go (Type 89) crosses a wooden bridge in China. The Type 89 medium tank I-Go was a medium tank used by the Imperial Japanese Army from 1932 to 1942 in combat operations of the Second Sino-Japanese War, at Khalkhin Gol against the Soviet Union, and in the Second World War.

A Jpanese Mitsubishi K21 bomber drops bombs over the Chinese city of Chongqing

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