EVEN THOUGH it was no longer leading the search, Itasca continued to crisscross the waters near Howland Island for any sign of Amelia and Fred. Joining the cutter were a navy battleship, three destroyers, a sea plane tender and an aircraft carrier. But it was the U.S.S. Colorado, a battleship from Honolulu, that arrived first. Its orders were to search the Phoenix group—eight islands 350 miles south of Howland.

On the morning of July 9, all the U-3 spotter biplanes from the Colorado headed toward the first of the group, McKean Island. All they found were flocks of birds.

From McKean they continued to Gardner Island (now called Nikumaroro, in the Republic of Kiribati), sixty miles away. As the planes circled overhead, Senior Aviator Lieutenant John Lambrecht saw something that made him think someone might be down there. “Here signs of habitation were clearly visible,” he wrote in his report. Unfortunately, he did not record what he saw. Instead, the planes circled and zoomed over the spot, but no one on the ground responded. “It was finally taken for granted that no one was there,” he concluded.

Aerial view of Gardner Island, where John Lambrecht claimed to have seen signs of recent habitation. (picture credit 17.1)

Satisfied that Amelia had not landed on Gardner Island, the pilots moved on. “From Gardner,” Lambrecht reported, “the planes headed southeast for Carondelet Reef, a good ten miles away.” But the reef was under water. Finding nothing, the planes returned to the ship.

The next day they were back at it, continuing with a search of the Phoenix Islands. First was a flight to Sydney Island. “Upon dropping for inspection we could discover nothing which indicated the missing fliers had landed there,” wrote Lambrecht. From Sydney Island, they flew to Phoenix, Enderbury and Birnie—small, barren islands also in the Phoenix group that offered no clues.

At last they arrived at Canton Island (now known as Kanton or Abariringa), the largest in the chain. “It held the Colorado’s only remaining hope of finding Miss Earhart and her navigator alive,” wrote Lambrecht. But the pilots came up empty-handed. That night the mood aboard the battleship was “disappointed and search weary.”

Meanwhile, the military continued to closely monitor the airwaves for any signals from the lost plane. But Earhart’s frequency had grown eerily silent. “We didn’t hear anything but static,” recalled radioman Leo Bellarts.

The search continued for another eight days. In all, the military covered 250,000 square miles and spent 4.9 million tax dollars (about $58 million nowadays). It was the biggest search ever undertaken by the United States. But as days passed, hope evaporated. “Facts must be faced,” President Roosevelt finally said. At two minutes before five p.m. on July 18, 1937, an order was issued. It simply read: “All search for Earhart terminated.”