I want to personally thank Graham_Ranch for his excellent and well written article about Joan Merriam Smith. I met Mrs. Smith while stationed at the USNAS Agana, Guam. Jerrie Mock had arrived and departed Guam a day or two before Joan Merriam Smith landed.
At that time, Mrs. Smith was stranded at the naval air station Operations Lobby because of a faulty nose gear mechanism on her Piper Apache. Her rival, Jerrie Mock, had reached the continental United States and was well on her way to becoming the first woman pilot to circumnavigate the earth in an aircraft. Mock had to dip down into Texas to accumulate the necessary mileage to claim the title. I only said, "Hello," to Mrs. Mock upon her arrival. She slept a few hours and departed Guam very close to sunrise the following morning. She was in a race!
Smith had departed Guam at mid-morning a day or so later. She had encountered problems with the nose gear retract system on her airplane. The entire gear would retract, but the nose gear would creep back down to a point in between retracted and fully extended. She discovered this problem a few miles out on her departure and immediately returned to Agana.
Some of the mechanics at our naval air station had FAA mechanics licenses and could legally work on her civilian airplane. They discovered a faulty part which could not be repaired and must be replaced. Mrs. Smith was given access to our commanding officer's office so she could call her financial backers.
My office was across the hall from the CO's. I could hear her on the phone and she was quite upset with someone.
Two days later, her nose gear parts arrived on Guam aboard a Pan Am 707. The base commander provided her all the courtesies possible, which included free meals and lodging at the bachelor officers quarters as well as maintenance on her airplane.
After the parts had arrived, Mrs. Smith was sitting alone in the Operations lobby. It was well known by then that Jerrie Mock had completed her flight and Joan Merriam Smith became an 'also ran.'
I sat down next to her and struck up a conversation. My first question had to do with her husband and what he thought about her trek around the world. She said that he was quite supportive and they had planned to meet when she landed on Guam. I told her that my hometown was Norwalk, California which was only a few miles north of Long Beach, from where she hailed. I also confessed that I had a burning desire to become a flight instructor. She gave me her 'Around the World' business card and told me to look her up when I came back to the States.
Later that day, repairs to her aircraft had been completed and she departed Guam for Wake Island. A few days later, she finished her flight in Oakland, California.
I arrived back in the good old United States on February 17, 1965 at Travis AFB in the Bay Area. My parents flew up to San Francisco the following day and shortly after their arrival my Dad handed me a newspaper article telling of the death of Joan Merriam Smith and her biographer. To say that I was shocked would have been an understatement.
For years, I've tried to find out more information regarding the circumstances of her death and her subsequent burial location. I researched the NTSB records and found two. The first had to do with the crash of her record-setting Piper Apache which was lost near Lucerne Valley, California and the other having to do with the incident which resulted in her death.
The NTSB reports are a cold and brief description of an aircraft incident/accident, injuries/fatalities and a sterile summary of probable cause. In this instance, Joan Merriam Smith was faulted for "pilot error."
I don't believe the NTSB analysis and summation of this accident for one minute. Joan Merriam Smith was an excellent pilot. In addition to her private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot and multi-engine pilot ratings, she also posessed her airline transport pilot rating. She knew what she was doing while at the controls of ANY airplane.
I firmly believe that Joan Merriam Smith and her unknown to me biographer encountered sudden extreme clear air turbulence which exceeded the structural capability of the aircraft in which she was piloting.
She was flying a 'rented' airplane due to the loss of her Piper Apache a few weeks beforehand. One of the big problems of renting an airplane is you have absolutely no idea what the previous pilot had been doing in the airplane before you fly it. Another pilot could have been doing spins or other aerobatics and possibly 'stressed' the airplane during that flight. When a wing folds up, as it did for Mrs. Smith, it can usually be attributed to the failure of a wing strut in high wing Cessna's.
Any sudden negative load on a wing with even the most minor damage to the strut could easily result in a catastrophic wing failure - and that is precisely what happened to Mrs. Smith. I believe she encountered sudden extreme clear air turbulence and perhaps did not have sufficient time to reduce power and ride out the bumps.
Prior to Mrs. Mock and Mrs. Smths' arrival on Guam, I met a Guamanian named Jose Pangalenan. He had a theory that Amelia Earhart had been captured by the Japanese Navy and brought to Saipan where she and Noonan were held prisoner for several years. Supposedly, Noonan died of dysentery and Earhart was executed. I don't put much credence into the theory, but had accompanied Pangalenan to Saipan aboard a Guam Airlines Piper Aztec and checked out some of the alleged sites. Our pilot was Emmet Kay who later became a pilot for Air America and was one of the last prisoners of war released in southeast asia.
I had an interest in Earhart before Smith and Mock began their flights. I still have an interest in finding out what actually happened to her. I tend to agree with author and pilot, Elgin Long who wrote, 'Amelia Earhart, The Mystery Solved.' He claims that the predicted headwinds enroute between Lae, New Guinea and Howland Island were actually stronger than had been predicted and Earhart simply ran out of fuel and ditched in the ocean. Of course, there is always the possibility she ditched and was 'rescued' by the Japanese Navy.
Many of the answers I have been seeking regarding Joan Merriam Smith appeared in the article written by Graham_Ranch to whom I am most deeply grateful. I also discovered that Mrs. Smith is buried in plot 5027 at the Cypress Forrest Lawn cemetery near her Long Beach home.
A year ago, I looked up Jerrie Mock and called her. She lives in Florida. Despite the fact that she was now in her early 80's and had hung up her wings long ago, she did ask about Joan Merriam Smith and that 'race' forty years ago. The news media had turned their efforts into "rivalry" which never existed between these two ladies. While Joan Merriam Smith was stranded on Guam with gear problems, Mock confessed to me that she had strayed off course on her last leg into Hawaii and was later chastised by the FAA controllers. Neither lady flew their routes without problems but overcame them with skill and dedication.
Jerrie Mock was the first female pilot to circumnavigate the earth via a northern route and Joan Merriam Smith was the first female pilot to fly the more difficult Earhart equatorial route.
Thank you Graham_Ranch for the information you so competently provided. It is most truly appreciated.
V. Koenig
member1944@msn.com 
