The History of Pan American Airlines, 1963

[Music] in space high above the world of weather tonight over San Francisco New York and Miami at d approaching Honolulu over London Paris Argentina High Noon over Rome by Twilight to Tokyo Manila Santiago joerg across six continents and Seven Seas on a 24-hour schedule what is an Airways Machinery to Def by the law of gravity travel routes through the trackless sky arrivals and departures on time inlight service food service reservations [Music] ticketing cargo and sales air mail service a travel agent who knows the world all of this mass air transportation for the the world's every [Music] need if you want the whole story you've got to go back to when I first came with a company when she was just hatching out of the egg 1927 a wild year that was bathtub Jin and hot Jazz Lindberg made it non to Paris and the movies came out with talking pictures year one was just three Folker f7s linen fuselage and wooden Wings to float if necessary fly the first foreign air mail contract 90 Mi over water from Key West Florida to Havana Cuba off to a flying start at 85 mph providing all three engines worked at the same time when the wind was with us traffic and sails had 10 seats to fill fairs were high and folks were frightened from Havana across the Caribbean Berg and music cruise down the wings of a sakori duck scouting Skyway after Skyway blazing trade routes for the first multi-engine Air transport Fleet to sail the ocean [Music] air the ground floor that's our job all you need to engineer a foreign Airfield is a steady position with an International Airline that doesn't understand the difficulties go they tell you carve us a landing place halfway between Hill and gone and then keep going now it's a midle jungle next it's on a Mountaintop roll in the makings on hands and knees in the length of rope takes us 6 weeks to crawl 700 mil forward and 2,000 ft up then bulldoze a road through in 30 days put in a method of Supply another month shot Dynamite mine the hills of gypsum start your own cement factory make bricks too and carts to carry the bricks build repair Depot hangers Hotel set up a weather bureau communic vacations and you have plenty of time 6 months finished product through the courtesy of characters who smelled wetness and heat swatted mosquitoes and shivered with malaria pushed underbrush and overgrowth swam Rivers without Bridges cuz we wanted to fly a new kind of Merchant Marine flying the American flag Sailing by instrument to Ports wherever land meets Sky Ride the radio beam Miami to nassur San Juan by did da out of Havana Santiago Porto Prince and Santo Domingo a week later PTO Spain Trinidad harar IO then christoble and Biz Mexico through Tempo and on to Guatemala then Santiago via Quail Lima and anagasta Buenos Iris mono and kurasa through kahena and barania Haiti Panama Brazil Peru Chile and then the Argentine these places of the magic names to stir the soul of a dreamer and Quicken the pulse of the businessman [Music] talk about amazing Trails there was hardly a month we didn't rack up some new first on the scoreboard we revolutionized radio navigation over land and water pioneered the whole principle of being able to tell our Pilots their exact position at all times first to employ multiple flight Crews and flight stewards first to serve meals aoft to passengers first to develop a complete Aviation Weather Service and long range weather forecasting first to develop and operate four engine flying boats develop and use engine propeller brakes and carry life-saving equipment initiate a flight medical research program and though we sometimes had to fly in the face of seasonal hurricanes snow storms above the Andes service was more than 99% perfect and Old Salt was said mates when you've crossed your first ocean the rest are Duck Soup but he wasn't talking about flying over like a duck and not the widest hottest plate of soup on Earth the Pacific has the world's widest collection of wind rough water and weather everyone always complains about the weather well paa can't change it but we sure can't tell you what it's going to be before we're through there won't be a place on this planet where we haven't plotted the storms mapped the sky winds charted sunrise and moonet and taken the little old temperature here in oliv to California by the shore of the Pacific seven men in a Martin 130 are scheduled to make the longest overwater flight ever dreamed of by any Airline and what a crew five of the seven are transport Pilots three are registered aeronautical Engineers two are Master Mariners two others have navigation papers their training will give you some idea of the preparation behind America's conquest of an ocean China Clipper Captain music standby for station reports San Francisco calling come in all stations paa Ocean Air Base number one Honolulu Hawaii standing by for orders PE paa mid ocean Airbase number two Midway isand standing by for orders paa transpacific Air Base number three Wake Island standing by for orders paa mid ocean Airbase number four Guam standing by for orders paa transpacific Air Terminal Manila Commonwealth of the Philippines ready and standing by Sir China Clipper you have your sailing orders cast off and depart [Applause] [Music] [Music] 13 Flyers have lost their lives trying to Wing the 2400 miles from California to Honolulu how does a company fly the Pacific how does a company fly the Pacific well first you have to build bases Charter a steamer the North Haven at per 22 San Francisco load cargo five air bases two complete cities qu million gallons of gas 44 Airline technition 74 construction stiffs freshwater Stills windmills barges motor launches food for months a mil 18,000 other items and the promise of Adventure first Port of Call on our Pan-American Expedition map Honolulu set up a radio station and Landing facilities from Hawaii the North Haven sailed Northwest 12200 miles to Midway Island a DOT of Carl between China and the America flat Barren desolate hey but say meet the hermit crab and the Goon bird make yourself at home [Music] when the North Haven steams away Midway has a hotel with hot and cold running water and the whole works for Port AOL as the albatross flies Wake Island is a, mes Southwest of Midway 7 hours by air 5 Days by water dear Louie greetings from way Island Tropical Paradise we're supposed to be building an airport out here but actually all the work is done by these beautiful native maidens while we lay around eating bananas enjoying the peace and quiet the North Haven sailed on for Guam and Manila the lonely ones left at wake were promised a Santa Claus plan by Christmas with each man allowed 30 pounds of presents four pulled their gift weight and hopefully ordered a 120 lb blonde yes the Santa Claus Clipper landed Wake Island Christmas Eve but there wasn't a blonde stat side who believed we could fly across the Pacific this is how a company flies the Pacific we interrupt this program to bring you the latest report on the China Clipper after 18 hours at Sea the Pan-American flying boat is at this moment Landing safely in Pearl Harbor at Honolulu right on schedule [Music] one great step forward five to go island hopping Honolulu Midway wake Guam Manila like playing Lea [Music] [Applause] frog and China makes six in September of 39 along with Autumn out of the air above Europe there came a terrible sound on May 20th 4 months before in Washington DC the Civil Aeronautics administration had issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity to Pan-American Airways assignment fly the Atlantic 24 hours later the Pan-American Yankee Clipper took from Port Washington Manhasset Bay Long Island mission fly another ocean make the three years of our North Atlantic survey pay off for an international emergency run an aial Exodus for refugees of American origin a scheduled evacuation from our base in Lisbon matter of life or death America was concerned air mail to Europe zoomed the traffic for the human heart flew both [Music] ways December 7th 1941 Pearl Harbor Honolulu [Music] wake Midway Guam Manila in the same flames in that splitting second paa at Pearl Harbor was on the radio Beam with a code phrase for a plan of action plan a signed by trip plan a signed by trip plan a signed by trip pick up anything you can but don't send anything enemy planes are still out there got to get away from here fast change course instead of pearl Hilo tonight tomorrow San Francisco we're at War fellas at Wake Island the Philippine Clipper was machine guned but took off safely with a full cabin of evacuees the Hong Kong Clipper took a direct hit at her dock in Hong Kong sunk the Pacific Clipper escaped into the clouds off Auckland New Zealand one month later flight watch laguadia SE plane base New York picked up a message from the darkness above Pacific Clipper inbound from Auckland New Zealand Captain Ford reporting hey Captain for you to arrive Marine Terminal of Guardia in 7 minutes the Pacific Clipper had snaked around the world under radio silence 31,500 Mi to safety where without weather reports seab bases or service stations breaking all records by flying the longest continuous trip ever made by a commercial plane and the first round the world flight in pan-am history for us going to war was just putting on some war paint another suit of clothes and forgetting how to sleep though it was tough explaining to my kids why I wasn't in the army they called us the second line of defense we transported imported exported and reported for ATC and Nats around the alarm clock from 2400 to 2400 and my draft board kept sending me greetings we fed bombers for the Army Factory to Battlefield fob and served as a squadron in the Navy on the QT enemy Fighters 12:00 High we ran the African safario from the Pentagon to the Nile in return the Cannonball to Kolkata cargo to the Belgian Congo 102 in the shade high above the IRA over the barrier peaks of arican Yoma our fuel consumption Savvy and techniques like how goes it and point of no return all became precious sop for all Air Services and our flight routes top secrets guard them with your life cuz it is your life back home my mother got the idea from my letters that we were flying to just one place called censored hey ever build a hush hush air base with 70,000 people in on the secret you clear everything through the Army Navy security control customs and the FBI and then learn how to curse K rations gracefully in a couple of languages our paa airc rescue squads had a field day day and night find them keep them floating my boy we were so busy I never even had a chance to Miss Texas that is Brownsville but it felt good to be carrying passengers again lot Texans too to fullly enemy Boogie woggie was brought cast on our Direction [Music] beam ah humping these Himalayas isn't so dangerous weather's much too bad for enemy fighters to be up tonight [Music] my boss flew a Pan-American desk all through the war and we piled up enough overtime in four years for a paa 25-year pin from priorities alone we got combat paperwork fatigue don't know if we helped win the war but we were all in there trying 1946 47 [Music] 48 49 50 51 more experience more New Horizons each year bigger than the one before ocean crossings by the thousands passengers by the million a new era opening up a new age being born the age of mass transportation for the world the age of the [Music] jet we've had a date coming with this baby for a long time we didn't just stand around waiting for her we went to the drawing board and helped the Creator curtain going up on the age of the jet special classes for engineers and electricians mechanics and flight Crews revise the routines rewrite the rule books expand the maintenance department and gear it to the dawn of a new age we develop new tools new equipment new techniques it was the pioneering days all over again installing an electronic system to give us split second reports on seat availability Paris to San Francisco confirmed London to Idle Wild okay we'd come a long way from the 1920s from a one-story building on a goon Bird Island to a skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan towering up 59 stories above Park Avenue the world's largest commercial office building what the jet added up to was more space faster flights more cargo than any airline in the world a new frontier in cargo you name it we send it worldwide marketing with offices at every key Crossroad along every shipping route from the ice latitudes to the tropics proud of it sure when you get right down to it that's what service is pride experience people a portrait of an airline is a portrait of people including all the human geometry of hopes and dreams and plans for the future this is an airline and this and this across the Ark of the continents man reaches out to man at the far end of this morning Paris is waiting Rome and Rio de Janeiro Tokyo and [Music] Taran it took half a century to produce this one moment skilled hands and trained Minds on six continents [Music] the key turns in the lock the great door swings open the pure Sky stretches away to the ends of the world the Earth stretches away to a New Horizon [Music]