[Seahawk]

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 those engines take? With agonizing slowness the big Boeing began to climb, foot by perilous foot. At last they were clear of the walls of the gorgeand Ford felt he could pull the throttles back to climb power. He turned the airplane toward the west and the Atlantic Ocean. 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, Brazil 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 attaché 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 0300hours 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 La Guardia 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. It 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.