Wheeler Army Airfield the first transpacific flight from California in 1927; the great Dole Air Race from California to Hawaii; the first transpacific flight from the U.S. to Australia in 1928, and the first Hawaii-to-Mainland solo flight in 1935 by Amelia Earhart. Ms. Earhart visited Wheeler Field in 1935 in her Lockheed Vega and in 1937 in her Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Kingsford Smith, in his plane, the "Southern Cross", also used the airfield on his historic flights across the Pacific. By 1940, Wheeler Field had evolved into a primary base for Army Air Corps pursuit (i.e., "fighter") aircraft such as the P-40
Amelia Earhart Saipan is more than 2,700 miles away from Howland Island, however. Later proponents of the Japanese capture hypothesis have generally suggested the Marshall Islands instead, which while still distant from the intended location (~800 miles), is slightly more possible. In 1990, the NBC-TV series "Unsolved Mysteries" broadcast an interview with a Saipanese woman who claimed to have witnessed Earhart and Noonan's execution by Japanese soldiers. No independent confirmation has ever emerged for any of these claims. Various purported photographs of Earhart during her captivity have been identified as either fraudulent or having been taken before her final flight. A slightly