Stratocruiser: Part three

Air Classics, Jun 2000 by Klaas, M D

This is your dream come true! This is the travel experience you've waited for. This is the air queen that will Bring you a tingle of joyful excitement, whether it is your first air trip, or your hundredth. This is the Pan American Double-- Decked 'Strato-Clipper,' a sky giant designed and built to tick off teh lines of latitude or longitude with the greatest of ease, to reach around teh map and make Tokyo a suburb of Los Angeles, Rio a neighbor of Manhattan. Pan American's Double-Decked 'Strato-Clipper' brings you teh world, and practically any point on it, in minutes and hours, instead of days and weeks." So wrote Pan Am's Public Relations Department staff in 1951 when trying to lure passengers to the comfort of their B-377 fleet while magazine adds and other tactics were being handled by the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency that had maintained business with Pan Am since 1942.

Popularity for the Boeings had been on the increase with each passing month ever since their introduction into commercial operations. Also keenly aware of the B-377's capabilities was the USAF's Military Air Transport System (MATS) immediately following America's plunge into the Korean conflict in June 1950. Under a special military contract, Pan Am began a transpacific airlift to speed key military officers and supplies to South Korea, via Japan. Operating ten planes from its fleet of aircraft that included two B-377s and 14 planes from four other sub-contracting airlines (American, AOA, Capital and Eastern), Pan Am once more went to war as it had so gallantly done during World War Two. Within a month after North Korean tanks and troops had cut across the 38th parallel, Pan Am had released a total of 24 of its four-engined planes for the vital airlift. A third B-377 was turned over to MATS by AOA.

Throughout the three-year military conflict, the three B-377s helped transport military specialists, mechanics, war mail, blood plasma, USO entertainers, spare military aircraft engines and the like to the fighting front. One Pan Am B-377 carried a top secret load of newly developed rockets. Other heavy cargo loads consisted of special electronic equipment, small batteries for bazookas, radio masts, medical supplies and battle zone maps and charts.

As important as the B-377 flights were to the embattled troops, so too were the earlier mercy trips earmarked exemplified by two flights conducted in May and June 1949, by BOAC's B-377 Caledonia. The first emergency flight, originating out of London with a fuel stop at Keflavik, Iceland, delivered 18,500 pounds of supplies to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, after the nearby Red River spilled its banks to flood the city. Returning to London after its first delivery of supplies, the stripped B-377 took on another 24,640 pounds of aid which registered as being the heaviest single load of cargo ever to be flown across the North Atlantic and then flew back to Winnipeg.

Both cargo holds were filled to capacity as was the plane's upper deck after every seat and berth had been removed. At mission's end, the Speedbird Caledonia was put on public display at Winnipeg's Stevenson Airport where, for 25 cents per person, townspeople were allowed to tour the air savior, More than 6000 people filed through the sky giant while another 5000 had to be turned away. The tours brought in $1400 which was graciously handed over to the directors of the Manitoba Flood Relief fund.

Other mercy flights of note included the many B-377 Clipper trips undertaken during the same time as BOAC's Canadian triumph when 123,942 pounds of fresh produce was air-lifted to strikebound Hawaii.

Pan Am continued to maintain its regular commercial air services across the Pacific. Strato-Clippers and other aircraft became packed with tourists flying to Hawaii who had made reservations months in advance. Intermingled in B-377 cabins were not only tourists and business travelers but press, radio and TV war correspondents and combat photographers from leading photo syndications and periodicals all flying to Tokyo and then by military planes or ships to Korea. Meanwhile, tourists and business men and women continued to hog B-377 seats for passage to the Orient, South Pacific and Australia. Pan Am's separate Pacific war-lift operations continued to be headed by Adm. John H. Towers, the airline's New York-based vice president. Pan Am's Pacific Division headquarters in San Francisco called for extra mechanics and ground crew for the increased airlift loads. On the average, ground personnel put in 17-hour shifts to keep up with the heavy volume of war supplies. Additional commissary men, mechanics and ground crews were also added to Pan Am staffs at Honolulu; Wake Island and Tokyo's Haneda Airport. Security was increased against any possible sabotage attempts and the leaking of any classified shipping information.

On 31 October 1953, Pan Am's airlift contract with the US Government was ended. Pan Am was the largest prime contractor during the conflict, and the airline that had put in the most flight hours. Pan Am had carried some 23 million pounds of war supplies across the Pacific to Japan for trans-shipment to Korea, as well as carrying some eight million pounds of US war mail.