Hi, I’m the History Guy. I have a
degree in history and I love history, and if you love history too,
this is the channel for you. When the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor December 7th of 1941, it suddenly changed the lives of millions of
Americans, who found themselves drawn into the largest war in human history. But the impact
was more immediate for some than for others, as there were thousands of soldiers, sailors,
and civilians in the Pacific who, quite suddenly, found themselves in the middle of a war zone. Not
just in Hawaii, but in places like Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines. Ten such Americans were
employees of Pan American Airways, who suddenly found themselves stranded, thousands of miles away
from home. And the epic journey to return for the Pan American Airways Pacific Clipper, is a nearly
forgotten story that deserves to be remembered. Pan American Airways began flying in 1927,
operating air mail, and passenger service from the US throughout the Caribbean. They flew
to port cities where airplanes at the time could only land on water, and so made use of flying
boats, primarily the eight-seat Sikorsky S-38. Under the direction of the airline's visionary
founder, Juan Trippe, Pan American Airways expanded to include routes across the Americas.
And in larger float planes like the Sikorsky S-40, and S-42, established air mail, and passenger
routes to Europe, and then in the Pacific. In 1939, Pan American received the first of a
new class of aircraft designed for the airline. The Boeing 314 clipper was designed to
carry more passengers a longer distance. These massive flying boats had a range of over
3,600 miles, and a top speed of 210 miles per hour. A trip from San Francisco to Honolulu took
19 hours. The Boeing 314 clipper was designed for luxury, with five and six course meals prepared
in a full galley by chefs from five-star hotels, served by white glove stewards on silver
service. They used several refueling stations throughout the Pacific, and built
luxury hotels there for the overnight stays. These were the first commercial air routes that
made cross ocean air travel accessible, but they were a service for the rich. A one-way trip from
San Francisco to Hong Kong cost 760 dollars in 1939, the equivalent of roughly 13,000 today.
Boeing produced 12 of these elegant aircraft, nine were purchased by Pan American, and three
went to the British Overseas Airline Corporation. In 1941, the Pacific Clipper, the first of
the improved 314-A models, went into service. On December 2nd 1941, the plane with 12 passengers
and 10 crew, led by veteran Captain Robert Ford, left San Francisco on a scheduled
route to Auckland, New Zealand. After stops in San Pedro California, Honolulu,
Tiny Canton Island, Fiji, and New Caledonia, they were approaching their destination
early in the morning of December 7th, when the radio operator, John Poindexter, who had
been called into service the last minute when the scheduled radio men had gotten ill, received a
coded message that stunned passengers and crew. The Japanese navy had attacked Pearl
Harbor, and the United States was at war. While that would be a concern under
any circumstances, for the crew of the Pacific Clipper it was even more
of a concern. Because their route back home was now blocked…by the Japanese. They
could not go home the way they had come. After a week of waiting for messages
from Pan Am headquarters in New York, they finally received instructions. They were
to try and make it back to the United States the long way, by flying around the world, to the
west. It was a daunting prospect. The proposed trip was over thirty thousand miles. They were
across oceans, and territories they had never seen, and for which they did not have maps and
charts. They would have to scrounge the supplies, and equipment they needed. And they would do
this in the midst of a world erupting into war, where it was not clear where the enemy was,
and old alliances could shift in a moment. They didn't even have money, they'd only
been given enough for the original route. A sympathetic banker in Australia,
advanced them 500 dollars for the trip. Their first job was to return to New Caledonia,
their last stop on the Auckland trip to evacuate the Pan American employees there, and take
them to Australia. They then left on their epic journey. Their first stop was Darwin,
one of the northernmost cities in Australia, still a remote frontier town. They had to refuel
by hand, filling nearly five and a half thousand gallons of aircraft fuel by carrying five
gallon jerry cans to the top of the plane. The next stop was on the east side of Java in the
Dutch East Indies. They had no idea if the stop had been taken by the advancing japanese. It
hadn't, but it was almost as risky that it was defended by the British, who were unfamiliar with
the flying boat, and almost shot it down. Afraid to land in a harbor full of warships, Captain Ford
set them down on the ocean outside the harbor, only later finding out that that part of the ocean
had been mined. Finally recognized as friends, officials denied them aircraft fuel, which was in
short supply, and reserved for military aircraft. They had to fill with lower octane automobile
fuel. The crew pumped the remaining 100 octane fuel into the two tanks on their fuselage, and
used that to take off. Once at cruising altitude, they switched to the automobile gasoline, and held
their breath. The engine shuttered…but kept going. Approaching their next stop in Salon, they dropped
low out of a cloud bank to get their bearings. They were stunned to have dropped down
right above a Japanese submarine. There was then a race as a startled submarine
crew ran for their anti-aircraft guns, and as the crew of the Pacific Clipper dashed to
get back in the cloud bank! They narrowly escaped the Japanese fire. After leaving Ceylon, one of
the engines started spewing smoke. Limping back, they spent Christmas of 1941 making
repairs on a failed engine cylinder. After stops on the west side of British India,
and the Island of Bahrain, their next leg took them over Arabia. It was risky territory,
Saudi Arabia had aligned with the Allies as a non-belligerent in the war, but British air crews
that had crashed there had been killed by locals. Flying along, they came through
a break in the clouds to find themselves above the Holy City of Mecca!
A transgression that was only possible, because the Saudis did not have
anti-aircraft guns in the city. The next leg took them to another British
outpost in the Sudan, and then to the west coast of Africa in the Belgian Congo. Flying
over Africa was exceptionally dangerous, as crash landing there would likely leave no
hope of rescue. Landing in the Congo River, they had to fight a strong current, but it was
there that what Bob Ford described as, “One of the high points of the whole trip” occurred, as two
Pan American employees had been sent to meet them, handing the crew members a cold beer.
But there was excitement in the morning. Heavily loaded with fuel, they tried to take off
with the flow of the river. Lift was difficult in the hot and humid air, the plane barely lifted
off as it was fast approaching a waterfall. Ford pushed the engines to the limit to get
cruising altitude. After a grueling 20-hour flight across the Atlantic, that was the longest
non-stop flight to date in the airline's history, they landed on the east coast of Brazil,
finally back in the western hemisphere. There, authorities made them vacate the planes
so they could be sprayed for yellow fever. The next day, they discovered that the men
who had sprayed the plane had apparently stolen all their money, and important papers.
Their next stop, on the picturesque Caribbean island of Trinidad at a Pan Am facility.
The first they had seen since New Caledonia. Finally, on January 6th at 6 a.m, they arrived
over New York city. Ironically, after a trip of more than 31,000 miles, Laguardia Airport made
them circle for an hour, before they could land. Pan American Airlines Boeing 314 clippers were
pressed into service during the Second World War ferrying men and supplies for the United
States military, but still using Pan Am crews. And Bob Ford continued in his
role throughout the Second World War, leaving the airline in 1952. He
passed away in 1994, at the age of 88. When Franklin D Roosevelt became the first
US President to fly abroad for the Casablanca conference with Winston Churchill and Charles de
Gaulle in January of 1943, it was aboard a Pan Am Clipper. But the time of the flying boat was
coming to an end. During the Second World War, concrete runways were built throughout the world
to service heavy bombers. And after the war, those runways were much safer than the always
dangerous water landings, which required specially trained crews. The last of the Pan
American Boeing 314 Clippers was retired in 1946, as Pan American shifted to land-based
aircraft, like the Douglas DC-4, and the Lockheed Constellation. And while the
time of the flying boat was coming to an end, it was certainly not before the epic journey
of the Pacific Clipper. Her 31,000 mile journey was the first time a commercial airliner
circumnavigated the globe. They made 18 stops, in countries represented by 12 different flags,
touching down on five different continents. It is a piece of aviation history
that deserves to be remembered. I'm the History Guy and I hope you enjoyed this
edition of my series, five minutes of history, short snippets of forgotten history five to ten
minutes long. And if you did enjoy it, please go ahead and click that thumbs up button, which is
there on your left. If you have any questions, or comments, feel free to write those in the
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