THE BRIEFCASE AFFAIR
One of the mysteries is Amelia Earhart’s briefcase. A Marine in World War II claims he discovered the briefcase in a safe in the war zone during the invasion at Garapan, Saipan. Robert E. Wallack, an eighteen year old machine-gunner at the time, joined a dozen soldiers who were assigned to search for stragglers.
Among the rubble of bombed structures they found a metal safe, the only object still intact. They crowded around hoping to find jewelry, cash, pearls, or gold. According to Wallack, “We thought we would all become Japanese millionaires.” The safe was locked. One of the dozen rigged the door with explosives and blew the safe open. Each man grabbed an item and ran outside to examine his prize. Wallack’s souvenir was a brown leather attache’ case with a large handle and a flip lock. It was full of papers. After Wallack’s initial disappointment, he began to sort through the contents. There were maps, passports, travel documents, and permits.
They turned out be the personal papers of Amelia Earhart. Stunned at his discovery, Wallack turned the papers over to an officer in the Navy. Since then, tragically, the briefcase and its evidence has disappeared. For fifty years, Wallack has been held under the weight of government silence in the disappearance of Amelia Earhart’s briefcase. The Navy and the Marine Corps both have shunned the evidence of what Robert Wallack found. In his retirement, he has contacted countless veterans who served on Saipan, but all the contacts have led to dead ends.
Wallack is very adamant about what he found. Researchers at Allied Artists have contacted Robert Wallack, and we were very much impressed with what he had to say. He believes that somewhere, someplace Amelia Earhart’s briefacse is sitting in storage in a Naval or a Marine Corps warehouse with the words “Top Secret” stamped on the box.
In the affair of the missing briefcase, there isn’t one briefcase that is missing there are two.
As Earhart traveled around the world the second briefcase is believed to have contained cancelled airmail postage envelopes. The cancelled stamps on the envelopes were to be used and sold as a fund raising venture for Earhart’s world flight. With every opportunity, Earhart took her briefcase full of cancelled envelopes to the local post office. There she had the local postmaster hand cancel each of the envelopes with an airmail stamp.
In Feb 1944, on Kwajelein at Roi-Namur, three marines entered a Japanese barracks and found a room outfitted for a woman. A W.B. Jackson said they found a suitcase containing feminine items and a bound, locked book lettered "10 Year Diary of Amelia Earhart." They turned the suitcase and other items over to an officer, and it was the last they heard of it. Also at Kwajelein, in Feb 1944, soldiers discovered a briefcase in the ruins of the airport. The briefcase was embossed with "A.E." in gold leaf. This was reported originally by Fred Goerner in his book "The Search for Amelia Earhart" published in 1966 and later repeated nearly 40 years later by Eugene Sims, writing for the Kwajelein Hourglass, a publication of the US Army at Kwajalein.
In World War II, the island of Roi Namur was a Japanese airbase with a large landing strip. In her capture by the Japanese, Earhart evidently left a trail in her imprisonment and the ensuing flight to Japanese headquarters in the Central Pacific. Researchers at Allied Artists believe the trail led from the area of the Marshall Islands, to the island of Roi Namur, then by long range seaplane to Saipan and imprisonment at Garapan. None of these artifacts have ever been recovered. Allied Artists requests that if any of our website viewers have information on the whereabouts of any of these artifacts, please contact us at info@LostFlightGroup.com as soon as possible. It would be a great help in solving this age old mystery. Your finding will be researched and with your approval posted to this website.
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