JOSEPHINE Blanco Akiyama, 95, died of a heart attack on Jan. 8 at her residence in Foster City, California, author Mike Campbell reported on his Amelia Earhart: The Truth blogsite.
He said Akiyama’s name “needs no introduction to anyone interested in the history of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, and inarguably the most important and well known of the original Saipan eyewitnesses….”
In 1937, when Akiyama was 11 years old, she said she witnessed the landing and capture of two flyers in Tanapag. The two were later identified as the American aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, Campbell said.
Akiyama was born on Saipan and was the youngest daughter of Juan T. Blanco and Antonia Blas Blanco.
Her parents, three brothers and six sisters survived the Battle of Saipan during World War II.
After the hostilities ended on Saipan in 1945, she worked as a dental assistant at a U.S. Naval Medical station in Garapan.
In 1956, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Max R. Akiyama, and son, Edward B. Akiyama.
There she worked at Mills Hospital in San Mateo before opening her own business, Josephine’s Beauty Salon.
In October 2018, she visited Saipan and was honored at a reception dinner by Marie Castro and other members of the Amelia Earhart Memorial Monument Inc.
She told reporters that she still “vividly remembers her only encounter” with Earhart.
According to Campbell, “Josephine’s childhood sighting of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan at Saipan’s Tanapag Harbor in the summer of 1937, first revealed in Paul Briand Jr.’s 1960 book ‘Daughter of the Sky,’ ignited the true modern search for America’s First Lady of Flight.”
He added, “She never sought fame, money or publicity for sharing her momentous story with Paul Briand Jr., the San Mateo Times and [broadcaster and author] Fred Goerner, just for starters.”
Akiyama is survived by her son Edward and daughter-in-law Donna H. Akiyama.
“I once told her that ‘fate’ chose her to let the world know of [Amelia Earhart]. The rest is history,” Edward Akiyama told Campbell.
Josephine Blanco Akiyama, circa 1960
