The information they are uncovering presents a rather different picture from the Noonan of legend. The Real Fred Noonan It has traditionally been held that Frederick J. Noonan was born in Chicago in 1894, but if that is true, the fact somehow escaped the notice of the 1900 U.S. Census. Joe Noonan was born in Roscommon, Ireland. That endeavor ended on March 20th with the crackup at Luke Field in Hawaii. No contemporaneous source has yet been found to support allegations that Fred Noonan had a drinking problem.
Stories abound, but there is no hard evidence.
No letter, diary or memorandum has surfaced to explain Fred's departure from his illustrious career at Pan American, or even pin down the date, which seems to have been sometime in early 1937. On April 4th, Fred and Mary Bea were involved in a head-on collision car accident near Fresno. Fred was cited for driving in the wrong lane, but there was no mention of alcohol. Driver had been drinking. But there were injuries.