Classroom clipper, Vol. I, No. 9, June 1945

              June, 1945
Published by Pan American World Airways
Vol. I, No. 9
TRANSATLANTIC CLIPPER—Passenger lists now will include names of those traveling to Europe to renew normal business relations and aid in rehabilitation of
countries ravaged by war.
RICE KICKERS IN TRANSPORT PLANES ASSIST BUILDERS OF ROAD TO CHINA
CIVILIAN FLIGHTS TO EUROPE EASED
4---
Persons With Business Abroad In National Interest May Travel
Less than a week after V-E Day restrictions on travel to Europe were eased, and space on the Clippers for an additional class of non-military passengers became available.
Formerly only the so-called “war effort” passengers could be accepted under Government regulations. Now persons whose business abroad is necessary to the national interest are eligible for assignment by the Navy priorities for Transatlantic Clipper passage.
Transportation necessary to the national interest is defined in Presidential Executive Order 9492 as transportation “certified by the War Department or the Navy Department, as being in the national interest because it will contribute directly or indirectly to the war effort, or by the State Department or the War or Navy Department acting for the State Department, as being in the national interest because it will similarly contribute (1) to the relief or rehabilitation activities in areas affected by the war, or (2) to the resumption of economic or other activities, disrupted by the war, that are necessary for the prompt reestablishment of peace-time conditions.”
Travel by educators would appear to be authorized by the new regulations, provided the specific purposes for such travel meet the conditions of the Executive Order. However, each individual application will be considered and decided by the priority officers. Tourist travel, obviously, is not yet authorized.
“National interest” is the yardstick, and Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew revealed in Washington that American business men now may have free access to France and Britain, and to Switzerland, if their business comes in that category.
Ticket offices of Pan American World Airways have received the application forms for submission by prospective passengers to the Department of State for assignment of priorities, and instructions have gone forward to Navy priority officers in the field. Some applications for passage under the new regulations already have been received and are being processed.
Three other steps already had been taken by the Navy to relax restrictions which had been in effect since Pearl Harbor.
Schedules, which had been military secrets, were released for publication from May 15 on. At first this relaxation was to (Continued on Page 3)
Airborne “Rice Kickers” helped to open up the new truck route to China which now is known as the Stillwell Road.
Construction of this overland route for transportation of war supplies to beleaguered China became a prime military necessity when the Japanese captured Lashio and closed the old Burma Road. The Burma Road was the last link by surface transportation between China and her allies, and its loss threatened strangulation of the Chinese War effort.
Heroic measures adopted to keep China supplied included an aerial freight service operated over the Himalayan mountain range by the Air Transport Command and the commercial air line China National Aviation Corporation, but the surface road was needed for bulk transportation in anything like the volume that was needed, and engineers of the U.S. and Chinese armies applied themselves to the task of hacking the Ledo Road connection out of the precipitous jungle and virtually rebuilding the northern section of the old Burma Highway.
Close on the heels of the Chinese Army forces which were pushing the Japs out of Burma, the engineering crews and thousands of Chinese coolie laborers worked at the road, which finally was opened in January, 1945 when the first truck convoy to move over the new route arrived at the border town of Wanting.
So rapidly was the work pushed ahead during the construction period that workmen on certain advance positions along the Paoshan-Mitkyina section had to be supplied by air transport. The task of bringing food and equipment to these men was assigned to the Chinese affiliate of Pan
American World Airways, China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC).
In Douglas C-47’s especially fitted out for the task, CNAC pilots swooped at treetop level over enemy lines while specially trained American and Chinese Rice Kickers booted 50-pound sacks of rice out of the rear door for the army of road builders. Other supplies were delivered in the same manner, but it was the technique developed for unloading bags of rice that gave the crewmen their nickname.
In the narrow, deep gorges, such a maneuver called for precision flying of the most exacting sort, and in many cases it meant roaring through a valley too narrow for any evasive action when the Japs let go with everything from small arms to ack ack.
These special missions to the Stillwell road gangs were incidental to CNAC’s main job of flying a transport service over the hump of the Himalayas between India and China.
When the concerted effort to open the land supply route to China was at its height, a number of the planes of CNAC were diverted, at the request of the Chinese Government and the U. S. Army, to fly supplies to Yunnanyi, Tengchung, Paoshan and Myitkyina on their India-bound trips. In 224 trips between October 22, 1944 and January 21, 1945, they carried in a total of 736 persons and 540,719 pounds of equipment.
The rice dropping operations were begun on October 22, 1944. By January of this year the CNAC pilots had piled up a total of 523 trips and kicked out 1,836,970 pounds of rice for the road builders.