Faux Pas

CCXXV

 

The monsoon rains were unrelenting. Had Earhart and Noonan been in some isolated settlement it’s quite possible that they would have been driven stark staring mad with cabin fever and nothing much to do. It was going to take some days --- and no one was really sure how many --- to get a replacement for the temperamental fuel analyzer and to ensure that the stubbornly misbehaving fuel flow meter and generator meter were up to snuff. Fortunately, Batavia (now Djakarta) was a major stop for KLM Royal Dutch Airways, and there were always various long-distance aircraft calling --- even a few Electras.  

The Dutch trading post of Batavia was first founded in 1696. Today it is Djakarta, the capital and most populous city of Indonesia, and has a population of 10,000,000

In the meantime, the very European Bandoeng and nearby Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies, were happy fleshpots to lose themselves in. Amelia went souvenir shopping and wrote up her booknotes. She and Fred Noonan were given the Ambassadorial treatment, with a car and driver and a tour guide at their disposal. Despite the pounding rains which started and stopped with the suddenness of flipping a light switch, they made the most of their enforced visit to the island of Java.  

The Flying Laboratory at Bandoeng

Amelia’s health complaints continued. Although her case of touristas seemed to subside for a day or two, it returned with a vengeance after she ate a staple of the local cuisine, rijsttafel  (“rice table”). Despite its Dutch name, it is a traditional Indonesian feast consisting of forty or more dishes such as egg rolls, sambals, satay, fish, fruit, vegetables, pickles, and nuts. Served in small portions, each dish is accompanied by a different rice preparation.

A Dutch family in Bandoeng enjoying rijsttafel at home, 1936

A Dutch doctor diagnosed Earhart with dysentery. She was angry at her own weakness, gobbled medications to settle herself, refused to rest, and stewed at the idea that her July 4^th homecoming was not to be.  Her judgement and common sense were becoming impaired by weariness and illness.

Her bad humor led to an argument with Fred Noonan when she was invited to the Royal Governor’s mansion in Batavia for a state dinner as the guest of honor. Noonan’s name was not on the invitation. It was clearly an oversight, a faux pas on the part of their hosts, and the intelligent thing to have done was to show up to dinner with Noonan at her side as if there had been no mistake at all. He was her only crewmember and her flying partner, after all. Instead, Amelia stupidly and childishly announced to Fred that he could not come along. Even sick, she should have known better.

The Royal Coat of Arms of The Netherlands

The argument that erupted was legendary. For years afterward, people who were present at the Hotel Cecil remembered the shouting from behind closed doors. Noonan and Earhart’s distinctively American voices could not have been mistaken though apparently no English-speaking guests ever reported what was being said --- perhaps it was too indelicate for the era to bear repeating --- but the substance of the brouhaha can be well imagined.

The archipelago of the East Indies remained a Dutch colony between 1602 and 1949 before winning independence as Indonesia. Today it has the largest Muslim population of any nation and is struggling to remain secular and to protect the rights of its minorities

Earhart went off to dinner --- alone --- and Noonan found his way to the bar. This ugly episode provides us with the Worldflight’s only verifiable episode of Noonan resorting to drink, courtesy of two pilots named Chaters and Callopy, who claimed to have been his drinking companions that evening. According to the two, they stuck with beer while Noonan belted down straight whiskey, ejaculating imprecations at Earhart all night long. Noonan had a frightful hangover the next day. Fortunately, they remained grounded.

If Noonan did drink that night  --- and there’s no reason to think he didn’t --- A.E. has to carry some responsibility for it.  Harry Manning and Paul Mantz both had seen her at her worst, and so now had Fred Noonan. Once again, the overeager prima donna who lurked inside of Amelia Earhart had shown her ugly countenance.  Whether this contributed to her ultimate fate is a question that cannot be answered.

The Netherlands East Indies, famed for the islands of Java, Bali, Borneo, Celebes, and Sumatra among thousands of others