The Round The World Saga of the "Pacific Clipper" John A. Marshall
December 7, 1941 The first blush of dawn tinged the eastern sky and sent its
rosy fingers creeping onto the flight deck of the huge triple-tailed flying boat
as she cruised high above the South Pacific. Six days out of her home port of
San Francisco, the Boeing 314 was part of Pan American Airways' growing new
service that linked the far corners of the Pacific Ocean. With veteran captain
Robert Ford in command, the Pacific Clipper, carrying 12 passengers and a crew
of ten was just a few hours from landing in the harbor at Auckland, New Zealand.
The calm serenity of the flight deck early on this spring morning was suddenly
shattered by the crackling of the radio. Radio Operator John Poindexter clamped
the headset to his ears as he deciphered the coded message. His eyes widened as
he quickly wrote the characters on the pad in front of him. Pearl Harbor had
been attacked by Japanese war planes and had suffered heavy losses; the United
States was at war. The stunned crew looked at each other as the implications of
the message began to dawn. They realized that their route back to California was
irrevocably cut, and there was no going back. Ford ordered radio silence, and
then posted lookouts in the navigator's blister; two hours later, the Pacific
Clipper touched down smoothly on the waters of Auckland harbor. Their odyssey
was just beginning.
The crew haunted the overwhelmed communications room at the US Embassy in
Auckland every day for a week waiting for a message from Pan Am headquarters in
New York. Finally they received word -- they were to try and make it back to the
United States the long way: around the world westbound. For Ford and his crew,
it was a daunting assignment. Facing a journey of over 30,000 miles, over oceans
and lands that none of them had ever seen, they would have to do all their own
planning and servicing, scrounging whatever supplies and equipment they needed;
all this in the face of an erupting World War in which political alliances and
loyalties in many parts of the world were uncertain at best. Their first
assignment was to return to Noumea, back the way they had come over a week
earlier. They were to pick up the Pan American station personnel there, and then
deliver them to safety in Australia. Late on the evening of December 16th, the
blacked out flying boat lifted off from Auckland harbor and headed northwest
through the night toward Noumea. They maintained radio silence, landing in the
harbor just as the sun was coming up. Ford went ashore and sought out the Pan Am
Station Manager. "Round up all your people," he said. "I want
them all at the dock in an hour. They can have one small bag apiece."
The crew set to work fuelling the airplane, and exactly two hours later, fully
fuelled and carrying a barrel of engine oil, the Clipper took off and pointed
her nose south for Australia.
It was late in the afternoon when the dark green smudge of the Queensland coast
appeared in the windscreen, and Ford began a gentle descent for landing in the
harbor at Gladstone. After offloading their bewildered passengers, the crew set
about seeing to their primary responsibility, the Pacific Clipper. Captain Ford
recounted, "I was wondering how we were going to pay for everything we were
going to need on this trip. We had money enough for a trip to Auckland and back
to San Francisco, but this was a different story. In Gladstone a young man who
was a banker came up to me and out of the blue said, 'How are you fixed for
money?' 'Well, we're broke!' I said. He said, 'I'll probably be shot for this,'
but he went down to his bank on a Saturday morning, opened the vault and handed
me five hundred American dollars. Since Rod Brown, our navigator, was the only
one with a lock box and a key we put him in charge of the money. That $500
financed the rest of the trip all the way to New York."
Ford planned to take off and head straight northwest, across the Queensland
desert for Darwin, and then fly across the Timor Sea to the Dutch East Indies
(now Indonesia), hoping that Java and Sumatra remained in friendly hands. The
next day, as they droned into the tropical morning the coastal jungle gradually
gave way to great arid stretches of grassland and sand dunes. Spinnifex and gum
trees covered the landscape to the horizon. During the entire flight to Darwin
the crew didn't see a river big enough to set down the big flying boat should
anything go wrong. Any emergency would force them to belly land the airplane
onto the desert, and their flight would be over.
They approached the harbor at Darwin late in the afternoon. Massive thunderheads
stretched across the horizon, and continuous flashes of lightning lit up the
cockpit. The northernmost city in Australia, Darwin was closest to the conflict
that was spreading southward like a brushfire. A rough frontier town in the most
remote and primitive of the Australian territories, it was like something out of
a wild west movie. After they had landed, the Pacific Clipper crew was offered a
place to shower and change; much to their amusement their "locker
room" turned out to be an Australian Army brothel.
Ford and his crew set about fueling the airplane. It was a lengthy, tiresome
job. The fuel was stored in five gallon jerry cans, each one had to be hauled up
over the wing and emptied into the tanks; it was past midnight before they were
finished. They managed a few hours of fitful sleep before takeoff, but Ford was
anxious to be under way. News of the progress of the Japanese forces was sketchy
at best. They were fairly certain that most of the Dutch East Indies was still
in friendly hands, but they could not dally.
Early the next morning they took off for Surabaya, fourteen hundred miles to the
west across the Timor Sea. The sun rose as they droned on across the flat
turquoise sea, soon they raised the eastern islands of the great archipelago of
east Java. Rude thatch-roofed huts dotted the beaches; the islands were carpeted
with the lush green jungle of the tropics.
Surabaya lay at the closed end of a large bay in the Bali Sea. The second
largest city on the island of Java, it was guarded by a British garrison and a
squadron of Bristol Beaufort fighters. As the Pacific Clipper approached the
city, a single fighter rose to meet them; moments later it was joined by several
more. The recognition signals that Ford had received in Australia proved to be
in-accurate, and the big Boeing was a sight unfamiliar to the British pilots.
The crew tensed as the fighters drew closer. Because of a quirk in the radio
systems, they could hear the British pilots, but the pilots could not hear the
Clipper. There was much discussion among them as to whether the flying boat
should be shot down or allowed to land. At last the crew heard the British
controller grant permission for them to land, and then add, "If they do
anything suspicious, shoot them out of the sky!" With great relief, Ford
began a very careful approach.
As they neared the harbor, Ford could see that it was filled with warships, so
he set the Clipper down in the smooth water just outside the harbor entrance.
"We turned around to head back," Ford said. "There was a launch
that had come out to meet us, but instead of giving us a tow or a line, they
stayed off about a mile and kept waving us on. Finally when we got further into
the harbor they came closer. It turned out that we had landed right in the
middle of a minefield, and they weren't about to come near us until they saw
that we were through it!"
When they disembarked the crew of the Pacific Clipper received an unpleasant
surprise; they were told that they would be unable to refuel with 100 octane
aviation gas. What little there was severely rationed, and was reserved for the
military. There was automobile gas in abundance however, and Ford was welcome to
whatever he needed. He had no choice. The next leg of their journey would be
many hours over the Indian Ocean, and there was no hope of refueling elsewhere.
The flight engineers, Swede Roth and Jocko Parish, formulated a plan that they
hoped would work. They transferred all their remaining aviation fuel to the two
fuselage tanks, and filled the remaining tanks to the limit with the lower
octane automobile gas.
"We took off from Surabaya on the 100 octane, climbed a couple of thousand
feet, and pulled back the power to cool off the engines," said Ford.
"Then we switched to the automobile gas and held our breaths. The engines
almost jumped out of their mounts, but they ran. We figured it was either that
or leave the airplane to the Japs."
They flew northwesterly across the Sunda Straits, paralleling the coast of
Sumatra. Chasing the setting sun, they started across the vast expanse of ocean.
They had no aviation charts or maps for this part of the world; the only
navigational information available to the crew was the latitude and longitude of
their destination at Trincomalee, on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Using
this data, and drawing from memory, Rod Brown was creating his own Mercator maps
of South Asia. Ford was not only worried about finding the harbor, he was very
concerned about missing Ceylon altogether. He envisioned the Clipper droning on
over India, lost and low on fuel, unable to find a body of water on which to
land.
As they neared the island they could see a cloud bank ahead. Ford said,
"There was some low scud, so we descended. We wanted the maximum available
visibility to permit picking up landfall at the earliest moment -- we didn't
want to miss the island. All of a sudden there it was, right in front of us, a
Jap submarine! We could see the crew running for the deck gun. Let me tell you
we were pretty busy getting back into the scud again!"
Ford jammed the throttles of the Clipper forward to climb power, the engines
complaining bitterly. Their 150 mph speed soon had them well out of range of the
sub's guns, and the crew heaved a sigh of relief. It would be difficult to
determine who was the more surprised; the Japanese submarine commander or the
crew of the Clipper, startled out of their reverie after the long flight.
It was another hour until they reached the island, and the Boeing finally
touched water in the harbor at Trincomalee. The British Forces stationed there
were anxious to hear what Ford and his crew had to report from the war zone to
the east, and the crew was duly summoned to a military meeting. Presiding was a
pompous Royal Navy Commodore who informed Ford in no uncertain terms that he
doubted Ford would know a submarine if it ran over him. Ford felt the hackles
rise on the back of his neck. He realized that he could not afford to make an
enemy of the British military, the fate of the Pacific Clipper rested too
heavily in their hands. He swallowed hard and said nothing.
It was Christmas Eve when they began the takeoff from Ceylon and turned the ship
again to the northwest. The heavily loaded Boeing struggled for altitude,
laboring through the leaden humid air. Suddenly there was a frightening bang as
the number three engine let go. It shuddered in its mount, and as they peered
through the windscreen the crew could see gushes of black oil pouring back over
the wing. Ford quickly shut the engine down, and wheeled the Clipper over into a
180 degree turn, heading back to Trincomalee. Less than an hour after takeoff
the Pacific Clipper was back on the waters of Trincomalee harbor. The repairs to
the engine took the rest of
Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day. One of the engine's eighteen cylinders
had failed, wrenching itself loose from its mount, and while the repair was not
particularly complex, it was tedious and time-consuming. Finally early in the
morning of December 26th, they took off from Ceylon for the second time. All day
they droned across the lush carpet of the Indian sub continent, and then cut
across the northeastern corner of the Arabian Sea to their landing in Karachi,
touching down in mid-afternoon.
The following day, bathed and refreshed, they took off and flew westward, across
the Gulf of Oman toward Arabia. After just a bit over eight routine hours of
flying, they landed in Bahrain, where there was a British garrison.
Another frustration presented itself the following morning as they were planning
the next leg of their journey. They had planned to fly straight west across the
Arabian peninsula and the Red Sea into Africa, a flight that would not have been
much longer than the leg they had just completed from Karachi.
"When we were preparing to leave Bahrain we were warned by the British
authorities not to fly across Arabia," said Ford. "The Saudis had
apparently already caught some British fliers who had been forced down there.
The natives had dug a hole, buried them in it up to their necks, and just left
them."
They took off into the grey morning and climbed through a solid overcast. They
broke out of the clouds into the dazzling sunshine, and the carpet of clouds
below stretched westward to the horizon. "We flew north for about twenty
minutes," Ford said, "then we turned west and headed straight across
Saudia Arabia. We flew for several hours before there was a break in the clouds
below us, and damned if we weren't smack over the Mosque at Mecca! I could see
the people pouring out of it, it was just like kicking an anthill.
They were probably firing at us, but at least they didn't have any
anti-aircraft."
The Pacific Clipper crossed the Red Sea and the coast of Africa in the early
afternoon with the Saharan sun streaming in the cockpit windows. The land below
was a dingy yellowish brown, with nothing but rolling sand dunes and stark rocky
out-croppings. The only sign of human habitation was an occasional hut; every so
often they flew over small clusters of men tending livestock who stopped and
shielded their eyes from the sun, staring up at the strange bird that made such
a noise. The crew's prayers for the continued good health of the four Wright
Cyclones became more and more fervent. Should they have to make an emergency
landing here they would be in dire straits indeed.
Late in the afternoon they raised the Nile River, and Ford turned the ship to
follow it to the confluence of the White and Blue Niles, just below Khartoum.
They landed in the river, and after they were moored the crew went ashore to be
greeted by the now familiar hospitality of the Royal Air Force.
Ford's plan was to continue southwest to Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo and
begin their South Atlantic crossing there. He had no desire to set out across
the Sahara; a forced landing in that vast trackless wasteland would not only
render the aircraft forever immobile, but the crew would surely perish in the
harshness of the desert.
Early the next morning they took off from the Nile for Leopoldville. This was to
be a particularly long overland flight, and they wanted to leave plenty of
daylight for the arrival. They would land on the Congo River at Leopoldville,
and from there would strike out across the South Atlantic for South America.
The endless brown of the Sudan gave way to rolling green hills, and then rocky
crests that stretched across their path. They flew over native villages, and
great gatherings of wildlife. Herds of wildebeest, hundreds of thousands strong,
stampeded in panic as the Clipper roared overhead. The grassland soon turned to
jungle, and they crossed several small rivers, which they tried to match to
their maps. Suddenly ahead they saw a large river, much bigger and wider than
others they had crossed, and off to their right was a good-sized town. The river
had to be the mighty Congo, and the town was Bumba, the largest settlement on
the river at that point. From their maps they saw that they could turn and
follow the river downstream to Leopoldville. They had five hundred miles to fly
Late in the afternoon they raised the Congolese capital of Leopoldville. Ford
set the Boeing down gently onto the river, and immediately realized the strength
of the current. He powered the ship into the mooring, and the crew finally
stepped ashore. It was like stepping into a sauna. The heat was the most
oppressive they had yet encountered; it descended on them like a cloak, sapping
what energy they had left.
A pleasant surprise awaited them however, when two familiar faces greeted them
at the dock. A Pan American Airport Manager and a Radio Officer had been
dispatched to meet them, and Ford was handed a cold beer. "That was one of
the high points of the whole trip," he said.
After a night ashore they went to the airplane the next morning prepared for the
long over-water leg that would take them back to the western hemisphere.
The terrible heat and humidity had not abated a bit when the hatches were
finally secured and they swung the Clipper into the river channel for the
takeoff. The airplane was loaded to the gunnels with fuel, plus the drum of oil
that had come aboard at Noumea. It was, to put it mildly, just a bit overloaded.
They headed downstream into the wind, going with the six-knot current. Just
beyond the limits of the town the river changed from a placid downstream current
into a cataract of rushing rapids; pillars of rocks broke the water into a
tumbling maelstrom. Ford held the engines at takeoff power, and the crew held
their breath while the airplane gathered speed on the glassy river. The heat and
humidity, and their tremendous gross weight were all factors working against
them as they struggled to get the machine off the water before the cataracts.
Ford rocked the hull with the elevators, trying to get the Boeing up on the
step. Just before they would enter the rapids and face certain destruction, the
hull lifted free. The Pacific Clipper was flying, but just barely. Their
troubles were far from over, however. Just beyond the cataracts they entered the
steep gorges; it was as though they were flying into a canyon. With her wings
bowed, the Clipper staggered, clawing for every inch of altitude. The engines
had been at take-off power for nearly five minutes and the their temperatures
were rapidly climbing above the red line; how much more abuse could they take?
With agonizing slowness the big Boeing began to climb, foot by perilous foot. At
last they were clear of the walls of the gorge, and Ford felt he could pull the
throttles back to climb power. He turned the airplane toward the west and the
Atlantic. The crew, silent, listened intently to the beat of the engines. They
roared on without a miss, and as the airplane finally settled down at their
cruising altitude Ford decided they could safely head for Brazil, over three
thousand miles to the west.
The crew felt revived with new energy, and in spite of their fatigue, they were
excitedly optimistic. Against all odds they had crossed southern Asia and
breasted the African continent. Their airplane was performing better than they
had any right to expect, and after their next long ocean leg they would be back
in the hemisphere from which they had begun their journey nearly a month before.
The interior of the airplane that had been home to them for so many days was
beginning to wear rather thin. They were sick of the endless hours spent droning
westward, tired of the apprehension of the unknown and frustrated by the lack of
any real meaningful news about what was happening in a world besieged by war.
They just wanted to get home.
After being airborne over twenty hours, they landed in the harbor at Natal just
before noon. While they were waiting for the necessary immigration formalities
to be completed, the Brazilian authorities insisted that the crew disembark
while the interior of the airplane was sprayed for yellow fever. Two men in
rubber suits and masks boarded and fumigated the airplane.
Late that same afternoon they took off for Trinidad, following the Brazilian
coast as it curved around to the northwest. It wasn't until after they had
departed that the crew made an unpleasant discovery. Most of their personal
papers and money were missing, along with a military chart that had been
entrusted to Navigator Rod Brown by the US military attach in Leopoldville,
obviously stolen by the Brazilian "fumigators."
The sun set as they crossed the mouth of the Amazon, nearly a hundred miles wide
where it joins the sea. Across the Guineas in the dark they droned, and finally
at 3 AM the following morning they landed at Trinidad. There was a Pan Am
station at Port of Spain, and they happily delivered themselves and their weary
charge into friendly hands.
The final leg to New York was almost anti-climactic. Just before six on the
bitter morning of January 6th, the control officer in the Marine Terminal at
LaGuardia was startled to hear his radio crackle into life with the message,
"Pacific Clipper, inbound from Auckland, New Zealand, Captain Ford
reporting. Overhead in five minutes."
In a final bit of irony, after over thirty thousand miles and two hundred hours
of flying on their epic journey, the Pacific Clipper had to circle for nearly an
hour, because no landings were permitted in the harbor until official sunrise.
They finally touched down just before seven, the spray from their landing
freezing as it hit the hull. No matter -- the Pacific Clipper had made it home.
The significance of the flight is best illustrated by the records that were set
by Ford and his crew. It was the first round-the-world flight by a commercial
airliner, as well as the longest continuous flight by a commercial plane, and
was the first circumnavigation following a route near the Equator (they crossed
the Equator four times.) They touched all but two of the world's seven
continents, flew 31,500 miles in 209 hours and made 18 stops under the flags of
12 different nations. They also made the longest non-stop flight in Pan
American's history, a 3,583 mile crossing of the South Atlantic from Africa to
Brazil.
As the war progressed, it became clear that neither the Army nor the Navy was
equipped or experienced enough to undertake the tremendous amount of long
distance air transport work required. Pan American Airways was one of the few
airlines in the country with the personnel and expertise to supplement the
military air forces. Captain Bob Ford and most of his crew spent the war flying
contract missions for the US Armed Forces. After the war Ford continued flying
for Pan American, which was actively expanding its routes across the Pacific and
around the world. He left the airline in 1952 to pursue other aviation
interests.
The Crew of Pacific Clipper: Captain Robert Ford First Officer John H. Mack
Second Officer/Navigator Roderick N. Brown Third Officer James G. Henriksen
Fourth Officer John D. Steers First Engineer Homans K. "Swede" Roth
Second Engineer John B. "Jocko" Parish First Radio Officer John
Poindexter* Second Radio Officer Oscar Hendrickson Purser Barney Sawicki Asst
Purser Verne C. Edwards
* Poindexter was originally scheduled to accompany the Pacific Clipper as far as
Los Angeles, and then return to San Francisco; he had even asked his wife to
hold dinner that evening. In Los Angeles, however, the regularly scheduled Radio
Officer suddenly became ill, and Poindexter had to make the trip himself. His
one shirt was washed in every port that the Pacific Clipper visited.
This article originally appeared in the August 1999 Issue of "Air and Space
Magazine"