Fred Noonan an interest in starting a navigation school. In March, he divorced his wife, Josie, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Two weeks later, he married Mary Beatrice Martinelli (born Passadori) of Oakland, California. Noonan was rumored to be a heavy drinker. That was fairly common during this era and there is no contemporary evidence Noonan was an alcoholic, although decades later, a few writers and others made some hearsay claims that he was. Amelia Earhart met Noonan through mutual connections in the Los Angeles aviation community and chose him to serve as her navigator on her World Flight in the Lockheed Electra
Japanese settlement in Papua New Guinea residents maintained links with their native wives for a few years before remarrying in Japan, but none of them returned to Papua New Guinea throughout their remaining lives. The mixed-race Japanese assimilated with the local populace within a few years after the war and identified themselves as Papuans. A 1921 census counted 87 individuals, and the number of Japanese residents in New Guinea witnessed a decline until here were only 36 in 1940. Approximately one third were businessmen living in Rabaul, while the remainder were plantation managers and fishermen who lived mainly in Manus, New Ireland and Bougainville. In particular,