Posted on: Wednesday, November 23, 2005
COMMENTARY
70 years later, memories stir of Pan Am
By Paula Helfrich
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A 1930s-era Pan Am Clipper made the trip from the West Coast to Manila with stopovers in Honolulu, Midway, Wake Island and Guam.
Honolulu Advertiser library photo
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I remember Pan Am, and so do millions of former employees and passengers.
Today, we honor the 70th anniversary of Pan Am's China Clipper, the feats of Bill Mullahey, who literally created the watery landing sites in distant Pacific atolls, and the first flight across the Pacific, Nov. 23, 1935, under the command of Capt. Ed Musik.
On Nov. 23, 1985, hundreds of aviation buffs celebrated the 50th anniversary of Pacific aviation with grand events at the West Loch of Pearl Harbor and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, as a great American icon remembered its history and re-created the epic voyage from San Francisco to Honolulu, Midway, Wake, Guam and Manila.
From a letter to friends written in 2003 come these memories of Pan Am:
I remember working Vietnam's R&R "Freedom Birds" in the late '60s, carrying thousands of GIs on DC6-Bs and 707 charters out of Da Nang to Hong Kong and Honolulu and Sydney, holding crying young men who just wanted to do right.
I remember the Dooley "Dollies," An Lac, the Holt Orphan Charters, the "Mortar Magnets," the soup kitchens and emergency shelters in dozens of natural disasters.
I remember Al Topping closing the door to Clipper Unity, leaving Saigon on the last Pan Am flight — April 24, 1975, carrying 500-plus passengers to Andersen Air Force Base. The thunder of the takeoff roll was drowned by the sounds of weeping as a country changed forever and our nation swore "never again."
I remember other city evacuations and natural disaster missions and hijacks in Lisbon, Teheran, Beirut, Rome, Cairo, Tenerife, Djakarta, Havana and Diego Garcia. And emergency relief landings in hundreds of places for thousands of people, safe on board, from Abidjan and Guatemala, Manila and Zaire, Karachi and Costa Rica.
I remember May 1, 1985, when Pan Am's Pacific was sold, and hundreds of crew and ground service colleagues gathered at Tokyo's Narita International Airport for champagne toasts to the past and to all the ports-of-call, colleagues closer than family, the memories.
I remember the "Mother of All Parades" in Honolulu to honor Desert Storm in 1991, organized by Adjutant Gen. Rick Richardson, us Pan Am "guerrillas," and our determination that no service member would step off those "Freedom Birds" without a lei and a kiss, and the hundreds of Vietnam veterans who stepped off the sidewalk to join the parade and marched with tears streaming — that was for you, too, brother.
I remember dozens of airline friends and colleagues, dead or wounded in bombings, terrorist attacks and mysterious accidents way before these newly dangerous times.
And most of all, I remember Lockerbie, Scotland — when our airline started to die. The final Pan Am Clippers landed to mournful wails from foghorns, fireboats and mighty ocean liners — the last plane from Barbados to Miami, Dec. 3, 1991 — an American institution, a victim just as surely as the World Trade Center bombings and the horrific tragedy of 9/ll.
I remember when the Pan Am "Blue Meat Ball" was, along with the American flag and the gates of the U.S. Embassy — a proud icon of our American way of peace and good hope, and we stood unafraid for safety and democracy in our time.
Yes, I remember Pan Am. I hope the world will never forget. Happy Thanksgiving, Ha-wai'i.
Paula Helfrich, a resident of Hilo, is president of the Economic Development Alliance of Hawai'i.
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