Amelia Earhart (26 page)

One author stated that Bolam's height, arm length, hands, and fingers were identical to Earhart's. He also claimed that their handwriting was identical, though this has never been verified. In his 1970 book
Amelia Earhart Lives
, author Joe Klaas credits the source of a great deal of the information he placed in the book as Earhart researcher Joe Gervais. Based on the research at his disposal, Klaas put forth the notion that Irene Craigmile Bolam was likely Amelia Earhart. He did not state that it was an absolute fact but that the evidence could easily lead one to believe they were one and the same woman.

Within days following the release of the book, Mrs. Bolam made arrangements for a news conference that was attended by a number of prominent news agencies of the day. An angry Irene Bolam walked up to the podium and with no opening comments stated that the book was a “cruel hoax.” She then slammed the book down on a table and sternly announced, “I am not Amelia Earhart,” turned, and walked out.

This seems like an odd, unnecessary, and perhaps overly defensive reaction by Bolam to the publication. In the first place, Klaas never came right out and stated that Bolam was Earhart but only intimated that it was possible. In the second place, Bolam's reaction to the book seemed unusual. Amelia Earhart was, in the minds of virtually every living person on earth, a woman of high accomplishment, a heroine, and an inspiration to many. To be so dramatically upset at being compared with such a noted person seems unwarranted. There was nothing whatsoever negative in the association, nothing insulting. It was, in fact, rather complimentary. Most women, one would think, would be pleased with such an identity.

One week following the Bolam news conference, an odd article appeared in the November 21 issue of
Time
magazine. A portion of it stated:

The woman they name as Amelia is Mrs. Irene Bolam, widow of a businessman and now living in Monroe Township, New Jersey. She emerged long enough last week to ridicule the book as a poorly documented hoax. Before the press conference was over, the woman from New Jersey had convinced many she was not Amelia Earhart, but some wondered if she were really Mrs. Irene Bolam.

The last line is quite puzzling, but no explanation accompanied it.

For seven weeks following the release of
Amelia Earhart Lives
it was a best seller. Then McGraw-Hill suddenly pulled it from distribution and recalled all copies. Since there was nothing libelous in the publication, the action by McGraw-Hill is curious. Though no details were ever learned, it has been suggested that the move to cease publication and retrieve all copies was ordered by the U.S. government. The book has since been reissued.

Months later, Irene Bolam filed a two-million-dollar lawsuit against author Joe Klaas and researcher Joe Gervais for “invasion of privacy and libel.” A definition of libel, according to the
New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary of the English Language
, states, “A published statement, photograph, etc. which without due cause has the result, or is intended to have the result, of bringing its subject into disrepute.” A thorough reading of
Amelia Earhart Lives
reveals nothing libelous, scandalous, slanderous, or even remotely negative regarding Mrs. Bolam. If anything, she is depicted as a charming and respected individual.

Five years passed, and the lawsuit was never brought to court. The delays were not the result of action by the defendants but rather by Irene Bolam herself. The defendants—Klaas and Gervais, and presumably McGraw-Hill—were interested in settling the case and expressed a willingness to arrive at a suitable determination if Irene Bolam would provide, in the presence of the judge, her fingerprints in order to prove once and for all that she was not Amelia Earhart. Bolam refused, and her refusal ultimately resulted in the relinquishment of a sizable settlement.

Less than one month later, the suit against Klaas and Gervais was dismissed for “factual errata.” One of the errors pointed out was that the book referred to Guy Bolam as her “alleged” husband when in fact they were legally married. McGraw-Hill settled out of court for $60,000. The attorney for McGraw-Hill was convinced that Bolam and Earhart were one and the same but determined it would have been too costly for the publishing company to pursue the case. The only conclusion that can be arrived at is that Irene Craigmile Bolam did not wish her true identity a matter of legal record.

Irene Craigmile Bolam passed away on July 7, 1982. According to stipulations in her will, her body was to be donated to science with the explicit instructions that she was not to be fingerprinted or otherwise identified. Her insistence that she never be officially recognized alive or dead is indeed curious. On October 26, an article appeared in the Woodbridge, New Jersey,
Times Tribune
: In part, it stated:

After her death, rumors surfaced that [Irene Bolam] was, in fact, Amelia Earhart, the famous aviatrix who disappeared on a flight between Lae, New Guinea, and Howland Island on 2 July 1937. Now, Irene Bolam's fingerprints are one of [New Jersey's] best kept secrets.

Irene Bolam's prints were denied to police agencies, the county prosecutor, Mrs. Bolam's doctor, state medical examiners, hospital authorities, and Mrs. Bolam's immediate family. Each person, in turn, had either found no standing to enter the case or had come up against a legal stone wall.

The death certificate was dated August 17, 1982. All of the spaces on the death certificate were filled out except for two that requested the names of the deceased's mother and father. Both sections were marked “Unknown.”

A man who claimed to be Irene Bolam's son—Clarence Heller—expressed an interest in pursuing a solution to the Earhart-Bolam controversy but was denied. Heller's wife was quoted as saying that the officials at the medical school where Bolam's body had been sent had disguised the corpse “in some manner so that only one or two people in the school knew which . . . was hers.” She also said that “the attorney for the school told her that a prior arrangement made with Mrs. Bolam precluded the release of her fingerprints.”

In other words, not only did Bolam refuse to provide fingerprints while she was alive, she made arrangements to keep them a secret after her death. One cannot help but wonder why. According to author Reineck, an April 23, 1992, letter from Dr. Gordon J. McDonald of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey stated that Irene Bolam's body was ultimately cremated and the ashes were buried in an unmarked grave. The letter also stated that the medical school had no information regarding “any next of kin of Irene Bolam.”

Bolam's death certificate was signed by Dr. Ming Fong Hsu of Roosevelt Hospital in Edison, New Jersey. He listed Guy Bolam as the individual providing Irene's personal information. Guy Bolam, however, had passed away twelve years earlier in 1970.

The notation of “unknown” applied to the form requesting the names of Bolam's parents, as well as the statement that the medical school had no information relating to Bolam's next of kin, are difficult to comprehend. Surely, such information would not have been difficult to obtain. What seems to be apparent was that there was an orchestrated attempt at keeping relevant identity information regarding Irene Craigmile Bolam from being obtained. The obvious question is why was this done? Research into the life of Irene Craigmile Bolam from 1945 until her passing in 1982 reveals nothing that would necessitate or even suggest this level of secrecy. Unless, of course, Mrs. Bolam was, in fact, Amelia Earhart.

There exists an impressive body of evidence that carries the strong suggestion, if not outright logic, that:

1. Amelia Earhart was involved in a covert government-endorsed and government-sponsored operation wherein the objective was to take photographs of real and potential Japanese military installations on one or more of the mandated islands in the Pacific Ocean. This information was kept from the American public.
   
2. Earhart friend and navigator Fred Noonan survived the alleged “crashed and sank” event originated and perpetrated by the United States government.
   
3. Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese military and held prisoner, perhaps as long as eight years.
   
4. Earhart was liberated from a Japanese prison camp in China and repatriated to the United States under a new identity—Irene Craigmile.
   
5. There exists a litany of mysteries—solved and unsolved—revolving around the disappearance of Earhart, mysteries that add layer upon layer of suspicion and enigma related to government involvement and cover-up.
   
6. Earhart lived out the remainder of her life under a different identity—Irene Craigmile Bolam—and remained unknown to the world at large but well known to close friends and intimates.
   

Despite the abundance of evidence and the clear indication that Earhart was involved in a clandestine operation and resumed life under a new identity, there exist a number of traditionalists who cling to the government's position and who further deny any credibility in, and seek to discredit, the Amelia Earhart–Irene Craigmile Bolam association. In their effort to “prove” that Irene Craigmile Bolam was not Amelia Earhart, a handful of enthusiasts employing Internet sites—among them Ronald Bright, Mike Campbell, and Bill Prymak—have focused on a few select associations but ignore the entire body of evidence available. They have stated that “no hard evidence exists to support an Earhart survival theory.” The truth is that such evidence—from a number of sources and at a variety of levels—is quite abundant. The aforementioned Earhart hobbyists, along with a few others, adhere to the U.S. government position that the aviatrix crashed and sank near Howland Island. Their arguments, all of which add to the great theater of Earhart drama and theory, conveniently ignore the abundance of the related mysteries, circumstances, contradictions, confusions, and clear attempts at deception.

For example, while the Earhart = Bolam debunkers have focused on government-supplied information and traditional versions of the flight around the world and its aftermath to maintain a certain historical status quo, they have conveniently disregarded or overlooked the array of other mysteries surrounding the Earhart case, including: the Howland Island conundrum, the clandestine visits of Bernard Baruch and Admiral Westover with Earhart, the modifications of the Electra, including the installation of cameras, the Wilbur Rothar mystery, the tampering with the logs from the
Itasca
, the illogical and botched search for the Electra, the changes in the flight path, the government files on Earhart labeled top secret, the Mili Atoll landing, the false information released by the U.S. government related to weather during Earhart's disappearance, Earhart's role as a spy, the controversy involving Fred Noonan, the mystery letter sent to Jaluit, the government document that refers to Earhart's application for Japanese citizenship, the Tokyo Rose controversy, the Morgenthau memo, the discovery of the Electra at Aslito Airfield, the Forrestal mystery, the circumstances involving Forrestal's death, the Weihsien Prison Camp rescue, Irene Craigmile Bolam, Guy Bolam, Irene Bolam's refusal to be fingerprinted or otherwise identified, Irene Bolam's confusing death certificate, and more.

There exist several Amelia Earhart–related Internet sites that do little more than add to the confusion and do little to assist in resolving anything. An example of one is “The Controversial History of Amelia Earhart's Last Flight and Most Prominent Survival Account.” The site lists as authors and contributors Randall Brink, Fred Goerner, Vincent Loomis, Joe Gervais, Donald Moyer Wilson, and Rollin Reineck. In a somewhat self-aggrandizing effort, the site is labeled by the authors as “academically objective.”

Even a cursory examination of the site yields the notion that it would fail any test related to academic integrity, and there is certainly nothing objective about it.

One common argument that has been advanced by the vocal but small Earhart-is-not-Bolam group relates to the notion that the aviatrix was five feet, seven inches tall, in possession of a trim physique, and flat-chested, whereas Irene Craigmile Bolam was five feet, five inches tall, possessed of a “full physique,” and had a plump, ample bosom and thus physically bore no resemblance to Earhart at all. Earhart enthusiast Ron Bright wrote, “I think it is pretty common knowledge that people who are skinny into their 40s generally remain skinny the rest of their lives.” This absurd statement is contradicted by science, medical research and records, and everyday experience and observation.

Absent from this argument are factors relating to aging, health, stress, and logic. In 1965, when Irene Craigmile Bolam was identified by author Joe Gervais as possibly being Amelia Earhart, the aviatrix would have been sixty-eight years old. Data from physicians, medical specialists, chiropractors, health agencies, and other health-associated entities clearly show that as one ages, one's height and stature is easily and often reduced as a result of deterioration in the skeletal and cartilaginous structure, particularly in the area of the spine. Losing two inches in height during old age, say, from five feet, seven inches to five feet, five inches is not only a possibility, it is quite common.

Photographs and descriptions of Irene Craigmile Bolam portray her as a bit overweight, perhaps as much as forty pounds or more. Weight gain in the aged, like height reduction, is common and normal. The weight differences between Amelia Earhart and Irene Craigmile Bolam can be the result of aging, the ever-common hormonal changes related to such, diet, illness, stress, and sedentary lifestyle. It must also be pointed out that during her eight years of imprisonment, and given what has been learned about the terrible conditions at the Weihsien Prison camp in China, the notion of stress and physical trauma contributing to the state of her health and well-being cannot be discounted.

Another argument put forth by the traditionalists relates to the presumed notion that Earhart, if returning to the United States under an assumed identity, never made contact with her family, and they wonder in print how such a thing can come to pass. The doubters only assume that Earhart had no contact with family members. The possibility that she did exists.