Letters To The Editor

A step in the wrong direction?

Dear Sir, Mention was made in a PIM article (‘‘The Earhart mystery” March, 1997) of a woman’s shoe and human remains being found on Nikumaroro Island. I have looked into the relevant file, held in the Kiribati National Archives, and this throws more light on the subject.

It was part only of the sole of a woman’s shoe which was found and apparently no one thought of testing it to see whether it floated in the sea (many shoes and parts of shoes are washed up on Pacific Island beaches and not taken there by man).With regards to the human remains which were found in 1940, it was remarked by the finders that they looked more than four years old, and this was confirmed by the senior medical officer at the Central Hospital in Tarawa. The find ing was that they were those of an elderly male Polynesian and that they had been on Nikumaroro for upwards of 20 years - and possibly much longer. They could not

therefore have been the remains of Earhart or her navigator.

Incidentally, the doctor who examined the remains. Dr Isaac, later lived in Suva for many years where he was well known as Dr Verrier, a colourful local character.

Peter Mcquarrie

Tarawa Republic of Kiribati

Sole of a women’s left shoe found October 1991 during Tighar’s Niku II expedition