Everything about Fred Noonan totally explained
Frederick Joseph Noonan (
4 April 1893 – missing
2 July 1937, declared dead
20 June 1938) was a flight
navigator, sea captain and
aviation pioneer who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific Ocean during the 1930s. He was last seen in
Lae,
New Guinea on
2 July 1937 and disappeared with
Amelia Earhart somewhere over the western Pacific during their World Flight.
Early life and maritime career
Noonan was born in
Cook County (
Chicago),
Illinois. His parents were Joseph T. Noonan (born in Maine around 1865) and Catherine Egan (born in England). Noonan's father died when he was four, and three years later a
census report lists him as living alone in a Chicago boarding house, although relatives or family friends were likely caring for him. In his own words, Noonan "left school in summer of 1905 and went to
Seattle, Washington," where he found work as a seaman.
At the age of 15, Noonan shipped out of Seattle as an ordinary seaman on a British sailing bark, the
Compton. Between 1910 and 1915, Noonan worked on over a dozen ships, rising to the ratings of
quartermaster and
bosun's mate. He continued working on
merchant and
Royal Navy ships throughout the
First World War. Serving as an officer on munitions ships, his harrowing wartime service included being on three vessels that were sunk by U-boats. After the war, Noonan continued in the merchant marine and achieved a measure of prominence as a ship's officer. Throughout the 1920s, his maritime career was characterized by steadily increasing ratings and "good" (typically the highest) work performance reviews. Noonan married Josephine Sullivan in 1927 at
Jackson, Mississippi. After a
honeymoon in
Cuba they settled in
New Orleans.
Navigator for Pan Am
Following a distinguished 22-year career at sea which included sailing around Cape Horn seven times (three times under sail) the qualifications of a ship's captain. During the early 1930s, he worked for
Pan American World Airways as a navigation instructor in
Miami and an airport manager in
Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, eventually assuming the duties of inspector for all of the company's airports.
In March 1935 Noonan was the
navigator on the first Pan Am
Sikorsky S-42 clipper at
San Francisco Bay. In April he navigated the historic round-trip
China Clipper flight between
San Francisco and
Honolulu piloted by
Ed Musick (who was featured on the cover of Time magazine that year). Noonan was subsequently responsible for mapping Pan Am's clipper routes across the
Pacific, participating in many flights to
Midway and
Wake Island,
Guam, the
Philippines and
Hong Kong. In addition to more modern navigational tools, the licensed sea captain was known for carrying a ship's sextant on these flights.
1937 was a year of transition for Fred Noonan, whose reputation as an expert navigator, along with his role in the development of commercial airline navigation, had already earned him a place in aviation history. The tall, very thin,
brown-
haired and
blue-
eyed 43-year-old navigator was living in
Los Angeles. He resigned from Pan Am because he felt he'd risen through the ranks as far as he could as a navigator and had interest in starting a navigation school. In March he obtained a divorce from his wife Josie in
Juarez, Mexico. Two weeks later, he married Mary Bea Martinelli (born Passadori) of
Oakland, California. Noonan was rumored to be a heavy
drinker but this was fairly common during the era and there's no evidence it ever interfered with his reliability or accuracy as a navigator.
Earhart world flight
Amelia Earhart met Noonan through mutual connections in the Los Angeles aviation community and chose him to serve as her navigator on her World Flight in the
Lockheed Electra 10E she'd purchased with funds donated by
Purdue University, a circumnavigation of the globe at equatorial latitudes. Although the aircraft was of an advanced type and dubbed a "flying laboratory" for the press, little real
science was planned, the world was already criss-crossed with commercial airline routes (many of which Noonan himself had first navigated and mapped) and the flight is now widely regarded as an adventurous publicity stunt. Noonan was probably attracted to the project because Earhart's mass market fame would almost certainly generate huge publicity, which in turn could reasonably be expected to attract attention to him and the navigation school he hoped to establish when they returned.
The first attempt began with a record-breaking flight from
Burbank, California to Honolulu. However, as the Electra was taking off to begin the second leg to Howland Island, its wing clipped the ground, Earhart cut an engine to maintain balance, the aircraft
ground looped and the landing gear collapsed. Although there were no injuries, the Electra had to be shipped back to Los Angeles for expensive repairs. Over a month later they tried again, this time leaving
California in the opposite direction.
Earhart characterized the pace of their 40-day, eastward trip from Burbank to
New Guinea as "leisurely." They took off from
Lae on
2 July 1937, and headed for
Howland Island, a tiny sliver of land in the Pacific Ocean, barely 2,000 metres long. The plan for the 18-hour flight was to reach the vicinity of Howland using Noonan's celestial navigation skills, then find the island using
radio navigation signals sent by the
United States Coast Guard cutter
Itasca. Through a series of misunderstandings or mishaps (which are still controversial), over scattered clouds, the final approach was never accomplished, although Earhart indicated by radio they believed they were in the immediate vicinity of Howland. Two-way radio contact was never established and the fliers disappeared over the western Pacific. Despite an unprecedented, extended search by the
U.S. Navy and
Coast Guard, no physical evidence was found
Later research showed that Howland's position was misplaced on their chart by approximately five nautical miles. There is also motion picture evidence that a belly antenna on the Electra may have snapped on takeoff (the purpose of this antenna hasn't been identified and radio communications seemed normal as they climbed away from Lae).
Disappearance
It is possible, even likely, that having run out of fuel, Earhart ditched the Electra in the ocean where she perished with her navigator. However, in her last message received at Howland, Earhart reported that they were flying a standard line of position (or sun line), a routine procedure for an experienced navigator like Noonan. This line passed within sight of Gardner Island (now
Nikumaroro) in the
Phoenix Group to the southeast and there's a range of documented, archaeological and anecdotal evidence supporting an hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan found Gardner, which at the time was uninhabited, landed the Electra on a flat reef near the wreck of a large freighter and sent sporadic radio messages from there. Other evidence indicates Noonan may have succumbed to either injuries or exposure rather quickly, while Earhart may have survived as a castaway for a period of months. For example, in 1940,
Gerald Gallagher, a
British colonial officer and licensed pilot, radioed his superiors to inform them he believed he'd found Earhart's skeleton, along with a sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner.
Popular culture
Although Fred Noonan has left a much smaller wake in popular culture than Amelia Earhart, his legacy is remembered now and then. Noonan is often mentioned in W.P. Kinsella novels. He was portrayed by
David Graf in the "
The 37s" episode of the television series. Both a baseball stadium and an aircraft rental agency are named after Fred Noonan.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Fred Noonan'.
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