HAWAII CLIPPER: Pan Am Clipper---Hijacked!---by Japanese Navy Officers, 1938

hawaiiclipper.com	Site of Fix on the Rising Sun and of the ultimate MIA's of Pan Am's trans-Pacific flying boat, Hawaii Clipper---victims of the still-undisclosed 1938 hijacking, by renegade officers of the Japanese Navy
HOME PAGE HI-JACK PAGE SOURCE PAGE PAGE CONTENTS Clearing the Air Disinformation The Priester Report Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Richter Credit SPECIAL INTEREST The Five Positions Crew and Passengers - [TOP] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [TOP] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [TOP] - - - - - [TOP] - - - - - - - - - - - The Five Positions - 0200 GCT / 12:00P Guam 12 . 20 N - 134 . 26 E 0230 GCT / 12:30P Guam 12 . 00 N - 133 . 36 E 0300 GCT / 1:00P Guam 12 . 05 N - 133 . 28 E - [TOP] - 0330 GCT / 1:30P Guam 12 . 15 N - 131 . 37 E 0400 GCT / 2:00P Guam 12 . 27 N - 130 . 40 E - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [TOP] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [TOP] - - - -Crew and Passengers - - - - - [TOP] - - - - - - [TOP] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [TOP]	- CLEARING THE AIR: THE PRIESTER REPORT In the interest of clearing the air on the issue of documentation, it should be noted that the "Priester Report" (the five-page primary source document, used, and reproduced, in the book, Fix on the Rising Sun) does, in fact, exist, and survives as three copies, all located within Pacific Division files in the archives of Pan American Airways (at the Special Collections Department of the Otto Richter Library of the University of Miami, the official repository for whatever remains of the archives of Pan American Airways). The document is reproduced, in full, on this page, from copies provided by the library. Those who have recently heard or been told, that no Pan Am Engineering Department report was ever prepared, regarding the loss of Hawaii Clipper, or that the "Priester Report" never existed, have been the victims of a disinformation campaign, intended to discredit the book, Fix on the Rising Sun, and to extend a sixty-four year silence, which obscures the Clipper hi-jacking and the fate of the fifteen Americans on board. Although Fix on the Rising Sun reviews the earlier investigations and introduces new circumstantial evidence, provided by surviving relatives of the victims, the heart of this book is a sequence of charts, illustrating how the Japanese planned and executed this hi-jacking---and how the Americans managed to "get the word out." The charts were derived from an extensive navigational analysis of the five last positions, as reported by the Clipper---and recorded in the "Priester Report." It is understandable, then, that anyone intending to discredit the book, would attempt to dismiss the data, by alleging that the "Priester Report," the sole source for the five last positions, had never existed. These five positions, expressed in latitude and longitude, had been received, in Morse, by radio operator Edouard Fernandez, at PAA's Panay station, on half-hour intervals, between 12:00 pm and 2:11 pm (Guam time) after which, Hawaii Clipper was silent. The Air Safety Board and the press ignored four, but on August 2, only days after the hi-jacking, Andre Priester, the head of Pan American's Engineering Department, had prepared a five-page report, in which he recorded all five positions. Interestingly, the report was titled, "Hawaiian Clipper," Hawaii Clipper's little known and short-lived original name, and included useful facts about the the crew, the weather---and the five last-reported positions---and avoided speculation as to the cause of the Clipper's loss. However, having recorded (and, surely, analyzed) the last five positions, Priester also noted that the Clipper had been on the "regular southern course" to Manila when she disappeared, which was untrue: navigational analysis clearly indicates that she was on an unsafe, unapproved course to Manila. It appeared that, by combining the position data with a false but uncontroversial conclusion, in a company document, Priester had not only provided a counter for future disinformation activities, but had also prepared for the likelihood of file cleansing, which is a necessary prerequisite of disinformation. By providing a seemingly "innocent face" as a cover for the critical facts, Priester was clearly attempting to ensure that his report would survive a file cleansing and preserve Hawaii Clipper's five last-reported positions, indefinitely, within the airline's archives. It was no accident that the Pacific Division had salted away three copies in their files. The original of the "Priester Report" may survive, today, in a recently located "private archive," very possibly the "recycle bin" of earlier PAA file cleansing. Until the archive has been scanned, its contents will not be known, but it is known that, in 1987, it was scavenged, by individuals who claimed to represent the then-defunct Eastern Airlines. DISINFORMATION: AND THE "CLEANSING" OF FILES Disinformation is the deceptive practice of removing critical facts from a body of less sensitive facts, presenting the remaining body in the mantle of institutional authority and respectability, and drawing conclusions, which the missing facts would have precluded. Disinformation played a key role, very early in the aftermath of the Clipper hi-jacking. In a "Preliminary Report" on the loss of Hawaii Clipper, released, on November 18, 1938, by the Air Safety Board of FDR's new Civil Aeronautics Authority, the Board presented fifteen pages of important facts, pertaining to every imaginable aspect of the investigation. Missing, in all of this, however, were four of the five last positions that had been received from Hawaii Clipper, before her communications ended abruptly. The ASB, unhindered by the four missing positions and misinterpreting other reports, were able to argue that all further search should be directed away from the Philippine Sea and into the Philippine jungles. This was a textbook case of disinformation, which would have been negated by the analysis---and disclosure---of the five last positions. Although there has been no explanation as to why all data should not have been filed, the disinformation, in the recent case, had to have been predicated on the assumption that no evidence of the "Priester Report" would ever be found in the Richter archives, a careless assumption, it appears, based upon a misplaced trust in PAA file cleansing. In fact, although the Pan American archives are thought to have been "raided," prior to the transfer to the Richter Library, it is clear that the archives had long been subjected to internal and ad hoc file cleansings. Not all of them have been entirely successful. In one significant incident, in July of 1937, U.S. Naval Intelligence officers ordered Ellen Belotti, the Pacific Division's Communications secretary, to destroy the station reports relating to Pan American participation in the R.D.F. search for Amelia Earhart. Belotti complied with the order, as she revealed, publicly, in 1974, but retained, for posterity, in her own possession, a transcript of each of the four reports that had been submitted, which still exist, today, in a private collection. Even at that, a copy of one of the signed original reports slipped through the Navy's hands: this had been given to G. P. Putnam, Earhart's husband, who transferred it to Purdue University, where it, too, exists today. [As to the data in these reports, analysis proves, absolutely, that Earhart ditched, not in the Phoenix Islands, but in "the eastern fringes" of the Marshalls (as Putnam put it, in a letter to the White House, in August, 1937). My analysis was first revealed to the Amelia Earhart Research Consortium at Purdue University, in November, 1989--ed.] Undoubtedly, experience with file cleansing, in the 1937 Earhart incident, prepared the Pacific Division for a similar response to the 1938 hi-jacking of Hawaii Clipper. Ellen Belotti may have acted alone, in 1937, but the anticipation of yet another file cleansing, in 1938, involving lost PAA personnel, certainly resulted in a determined preservation of the "Priester Report" (perhaps with Belotti's aid), within the Pacific Division's files, as is indicated by the presence of three copies in the official PAA archives, at Richter. A comparison of a Richter copy of the "Priester Report," and the 1965 copy, used in Fix on the Rising Sun, shows that both descended from a common parent document. THE PRIESTER REPORT: AS IT SURVIVES TODAY The "Priester Report" is reproduced in full, and in as legible a form as can be expected in the relatively low-resolution environment of the Web. The five positions can be seen listed at the bottom of the first document page and at the top of the second. Note that the name of the Clipper is given as "Hawaiian Clipper" in two places, in the title, and in the first text-body line of the report. Thereafter, it is identified only as, "the aircraft." The reproductions are scans of copies, which were mailed on June 25, 2001 from the Richter Library. The certification-of-origin stamp was applied to the face of each page (not a typical practice), at the request of the author, in anticipation of this application. Reproduction is by permission, from the Pan American Word Airways, Inc. Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of Miami, and under copyright law, no other reproduction or dissemination of these materials is allowed without the consent of the University of Miami. Inasmuch as the five positions, as recorded in the report, were exhaustively analyzed in the book, Fix on the Rising Sun, it would be redundant to go into detail on this site. As the primary reason for reproducing the "Priester Report" was to provide assurance that it existed, and still exists, any visitor can now acquire the book, confident of its sources.

hawaiiclipper.com

Site of Fix on the Rising Sun and of the ultimate MIA's of Pan Am's trans-Pacific flying boat, Hawaii
Clipper---victims of the still-undisclosed 1938 hijacking, by renegade officers of the Japanese Navy

HOME PAGE
HI-JACK PAGE
SOURCE PAGE

PAGE CONTENTS
Clearing the Air
Disinformation
The Priester Report
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Richter Credit

SPECIAL INTEREST
The Five Positions
Crew and Passengers

[TOP]

-
[TOP]

[TOP]

The Five Positions

-
0200 GCT / 12:00P Guam
12 . 20 N - 134 . 26 E

0230 GCT / 12:30P Guam
12 . 00 N - 133 . 36 E

0300 GCT / 1:00P Guam
12 . 05 N - 133 . 28 E

[TOP]

0330 GCT / 1:30P Guam
12 . 15 N - 131 . 37 E

0400 GCT / 2:00P Guam
12 . 27 N - 130 . 40 E

-
[TOP]

-Crew and Passengers

[TOP]

-
[TOP]

[TOP]

-
CLEARING THE AIR: THE PRIESTER REPORT

In the interest of clearing the air on the issue of documentation, it should be noted that the "Priester Report" (the five-page primary source document, used, and reproduced, in the book, Fix on the Rising Sun) does, in fact, exist, and survives as three copies, all located within Pacific Division files in the archives of Pan American Airways (at the Special Collections Department of the Otto Richter Library of the University of Miami, the official repository for whatever remains of the archives of Pan American Airways). The document is reproduced, in full, on this page, from copies provided by the library.

Those who have recently heard or been told, that no Pan Am Engineering Department report was ever prepared, regarding the loss of Hawaii Clipper, or that the "Priester Report" never existed, have been the victims of a disinformation campaign, intended to discredit the book, Fix on the Rising Sun, and to extend a sixty-four year silence, which obscures the Clipper hi-jacking and the fate of the fifteen Americans on board.

Although Fix on the Rising Sun reviews the earlier investigations and introduces new circumstantial evidence, provided by surviving relatives of the victims, the heart of this book is a sequence of charts, illustrating how the Japanese planned and executed this hi-jacking---and how the Americans managed to "get the word out." The charts were derived from an extensive navigational analysis of the five last positions, as reported by the Clipper---and recorded in the "Priester Report." It is understandable, then, that anyone intending to discredit the book, would attempt to dismiss the data, by alleging that the "Priester Report," the sole source for the five last positions, had never existed.

These five positions, expressed in latitude and longitude, had been received, in Morse, by radio operator Edouard Fernandez, at PAA's Panay station, on half-hour intervals, between 12:00 pm and 2:11 pm (Guam time) after which, Hawaii Clipper was silent. The Air Safety Board and the press ignored four, but on August 2, only days after the hi-jacking, Andre Priester, the head of Pan American's Engineering Department, had prepared a five-page report, in which he recorded all five positions. Interestingly, the report was titled, "Hawaiian Clipper," Hawaii Clipper's little known and short-lived original name, and included useful facts about the the crew, the weather---and the five last-reported positions---and avoided speculation as to the cause of the Clipper's loss.

However, having recorded (and, surely, analyzed) the last five positions, Priester also noted that the Clipper had been on the "regular southern course" to Manila when she disappeared, which was untrue: navigational analysis clearly indicates that she was on an unsafe, unapproved course to Manila. It appeared that, by combining the position data with a false but uncontroversial conclusion, in a company document, Priester had not only provided a counter for future disinformation activities, but had also prepared for the likelihood of file cleansing, which is a necessary prerequisite of disinformation. By providing a seemingly "innocent face" as a cover for the critical facts, Priester was clearly attempting to ensure that his report would survive a file cleansing and preserve Hawaii Clipper's five last-reported positions, indefinitely, within the airline's archives.
It was no accident that the Pacific Division had salted away three copies in their files.

The original of the "Priester Report" may survive, today, in a recently located "private archive," very possibly the "recycle bin" of earlier PAA file cleansing. Until the archive has been scanned, its contents will not be known, but it is known that, in 1987, it was scavenged, by individuals who claimed to represent the then-defunct Eastern Airlines.

DISINFORMATION: AND THE "CLEANSING" OF FILES

Disinformation is the deceptive practice of removing critical facts from a body of less sensitive facts, presenting the remaining body in the mantle of institutional authority and respectability, and drawing conclusions, which the missing facts would have precluded.

Disinformation played a key role, very early in the aftermath of the Clipper hi-jacking. In a "Preliminary Report" on the loss of Hawaii Clipper, released, on November 18, 1938, by the Air Safety Board of FDR's new Civil Aeronautics Authority, the Board presented fifteen pages of important facts, pertaining to every imaginable aspect of the investigation. Missing, in all of this, however, were four of the five last positions that had been received from Hawaii Clipper, before her communications ended abruptly. The ASB, unhindered by the four missing positions and misinterpreting other reports, were able to argue that all further search should be directed away from the Philippine Sea and into the Philippine jungles. This was a textbook case of disinformation, which would have been negated by the analysis---and disclosure---of the five last positions.

Although there has been no explanation as to why all data should not have been filed, the disinformation, in the recent case, had to have been predicated on the assumption that no evidence of the "Priester Report" would ever be found in the Richter archives,
a careless assumption, it appears, based upon a misplaced trust in PAA file cleansing.

In fact, although the Pan American archives are thought to have been "raided," prior to the transfer to the Richter Library, it is clear that the archives had long been subjected to internal and ad hoc file cleansings. Not all of them have been entirely successful. In one significant incident, in July of 1937, U.S. Naval Intelligence officers ordered Ellen Belotti, the Pacific Division's Communications secretary, to destroy the station reports relating to Pan American participation in the R.D.F. search for Amelia Earhart. Belotti complied with the order, as she revealed, publicly, in 1974, but retained, for posterity, in her own possession, a transcript of each of the four reports that had been submitted, which still exist, today, in a private collection. Even at that, a copy of one of the signed original reports slipped through the Navy's hands: this had been given to G. P. Putnam, Earhart's husband, who transferred it to Purdue University, where it, too, exists today.

[As to the data in these reports, analysis proves, absolutely, that Earhart ditched, not in the Phoenix Islands, but in "the eastern fringes" of the Marshalls (as Putnam put it, in a letter to the White House, in August, 1937). My analysis was first revealed to the Amelia Earhart Research Consortium at Purdue University, in November, 1989--ed.]

Undoubtedly, experience with file cleansing, in the 1937 Earhart incident, prepared the Pacific Division for a similar response to the 1938 hi-jacking of Hawaii Clipper. Ellen Belotti may have acted alone, in 1937, but the anticipation of yet another file cleansing, in 1938, involving lost PAA personnel, certainly resulted in a determined preservation of the "Priester Report" (perhaps with Belotti's aid), within the Pacific Division's files, as is indicated by the presence of three copies in the official PAA archives, at Richter.

A comparison of a Richter copy of the "Priester Report," and the 1965 copy, used in Fix on the Rising Sun, shows that both descended from a common parent document.

THE PRIESTER REPORT: AS IT SURVIVES TODAY

The "Priester Report" is reproduced in full, and in as legible a form as can be expected in the relatively low-resolution environment of the Web. The five positions can be seen listed at the bottom of the first document page and at the top of the second. Note that the name of the Clipper is given as "Hawaiian Clipper" in two places, in the title, and in the first text-body line of the report. Thereafter, it is identified only as, "the aircraft." The reproductions are scans of copies, which were mailed on June 25, 2001 from the Richter Library. The certification-of-origin stamp was applied to the face of each page (not a typical practice), at the request of the author, in anticipation of this application.

Reproduction is by permission, from the Pan American Word Airways, Inc. Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of Miami,
and under copyright law, no other reproduction or dissemination of these materials is allowed without the consent of the University of Miami.

Inasmuch as the five positions, as recorded in the report, were exhaustively analyzed in the book, Fix on the Rising Sun, it would be redundant to go into detail on this site. As the primary reason for reproducing the "Priester Report" was to provide assurance that it existed, and still exists, any visitor can now acquire the book, confident of its sources.