THE Amelia Earhart Saipan Memorial Monument Inc. group celebrated Amelia Earhart’s 125th birthday at the American Memorial Park Visitor Center on July 23, a day before the pilot’s actual birthday on July 24.
Amelia Earhart
Joining the celebration were descendants of the local residents who witnessed the presence of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, on Saipan in 1937.
Marie Castro, AESMMI founder, said 2022 also marked the 85th anniversary of Earhart and Noonan’s presence on island.
She noted that the local residents who saw the two on Saipan in 1937 are long gone.
“This missing history of Saipan needs to be recognized,” she said. “We cannot deny the description of the two individuals provided by our elders who witnessed with their own eyes what they saw and described an ‘American woman who had short hair style and wore a man’s outfit.’ ”
It was a very unusual thing to see for a Chamorro in those days, Castro said. “A woman always wore a dress,” she added.
Among the four local eyewitnesses were Josephine Blanco, Matilde F. Arriola, Joaquina M. Cabrera and Jose Sadao Tomokane.
Castro said in Fred Goerner’s book, “The Search for Amelia Earhart,” it was mentioned that local residents Jesus Salas, Pedro Sakisat, Antonio M. Cepeda and Carlos Palacios had also seen Amelia Earhart.
She said another local resident, Manuel Aldan, worked as a dentist and heard Japanese officers talking about “Earharto.” At the time the NMI was administered by Japan.
Other local residents — Francisco Tudela, Jesus Boyer, Gregorio Camacho, Francisco Diaz, Joaquin Seman, and Joaquin Deleon Guerrero (Culung) — who were conscripted by the Japanese government also saw Earhart and Noonan, Castro said.
She said that the best information about the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan can be found in “The Truth at Last” by Mike Campbell.
Castro’s group aims to erect a monument on Saipan commemorating Amelia Earhart.
In July 1937, during an attempt to become the first woman to complete a circumnavigational flight of the globe in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, Earhart and her navigator Noonan disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island.
