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
Copra plantations in New Guinea Copra plantations in New Guinea Copra plantations in New Guinea have been cultivated since the late 19th century, originally by German colonialists. They were continued by Australian interests following World War II. Copra is the fourth most significant agriculture cash crop of PNG. An estimated 2.6 million people are engaged in coconut activities in PNG to either generate income and/or as food to supplement their livelihoods. In 1884, German settlers arrived in eastern New Guinea (now part of Papua New Guinea), who planted Coconut palms ("Cocos nucifera") for the production of copra, the dried flesh of the coconut. They established