Clipper, Vol. 2, No. 11, August 1945

              
PASÍAMERÍCAM
CLIPPER
LATEN AMERICAN DIVISION
VOL. 2—NO. 11
450822
Copyright, 1945, by Pan American Airways, Inc.
AUGUST, 1945
Clipper Airexpress Links Americas, Speeds Growth
Pew people realize that the life-blood of two vast continents flows through the far-flung Clipper airexpress of Pan American World Airways. For the ever-growing airexpress service closely links the 21 republics of North and South America—their industries, their public welfare and their general economic development.
Air express shipments are vital cargoes needing speed and certainty of delivery. Essential machine parts travel with precious serums and vaccines in the holds of the giant Clippers—shipments that mean the continued operation of some key machine in war production, or the actual saving of a human life in some hospital.
Vital shipments large and small—from as little as an ounce up to 1000 pounds! Valves for busy oil pumps—telegraph, radio and telephone equipment—surgical and dental instruments—serums, vaccines and plasma — essential industrial chemicals— parts for machines, for trucks and airplanes—medicines and delicate industrial instruments—these and many other urgently needed shipments are flown every day from airexpress stations in the 50,000-mile network of the Latin American Division.
The vicious submarine attack of 1942 on the ocean shipping of the Caribbean by the Germans first threw a tremendous burden on PAA airexpress and brought it to its present importance.
Latin American goods, rubber, diamonds, quartz for radio, couldn’t move over the sea lanes to the great war production plants in the United States. The heavy oil production of Venezuela, so necessary to the Allied war effort, was threatened.
Along with the increasingly heavy loads of industrial shipments came frantic calls for aid as existing medical supplies were depleted. The fast flying Clippers were called upon again and again to rush vaccines and antitoxins southward to nip some incipient epidemic in the bud. There were also many calls for precious serums and plasma.
It was so with penicillin — when this Continued on Page 8
Flying Club in Guatemala Attracts PAA’ers
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder!
So hope the PAA’ers in Guatemala City who have joined the recently-organized flying club. Dubbed “Aeroclub,” the group was started by Minor Keilhauer, a leading businessman of Guatemala City.
For an annual fee, members of the club receive flying instructions and will later make solo flights. Rudy Lund, PAA’s station manager in Guatemala, was the first member to take the training ship up.
Besides Lund, other Pan American employees who have joined the group include Jay Wilson Jr., Enrique Salazar, Jose Paz, Oscar Rivera, Gonzalo Tabush, Carlos Gou-baud, Mario Tejada.
HEROES OF BATAAN
Philip G. Spadone (left), veteran of Bataan and now an employee of Pan American World Airways, meets another Bataan veteran, Col. George Clarke, at Pan American Field where the colonel addressed employees. Story at right. ^ ■ >
WEST INDIES CLIPPER OTTA GET AN OSCAR!
Turn a bright spotlight on a Pan American World Airways Clipper this time, Mr. Producer, for doubling in brass as an aerial showboat to fulfill the old theatrical saying “The show must go on.”
The story puts a reverse twist on the usual tale in which the actors get stranded when the show goes busted. Here is the script.
Scene I—F re n c h theatrical troupe, “Theatre Madelaine Ozere,” on stage in Curacao, Netherlands West Indies. Cast preparing to board Clipper for Port au Prince, Haiti. Full bookings ahead for backdrop.
Scene II—Same cast on stage in Port au Prince. Cast express great horror; excitement prevails. Backdrop: no scenery, same-having been left stranded in Curacao, through same steamship slipup.
Scene III—Badly worried manager of theatrical troupe, pacing floor, tearing out three last gray hairs. Ah; enter action. He thinks. Yes, that way it can be done.
Scene IV—Stage props, scenery, wigs, costumes, being loaded onto PAA Clipper. Scene shifts; time, two and one-half hours later, or three weeks’ faster than it could have been done by boat, PAA Clipper unloading stage props in Haiti.
Finale: Cast on stage, fulfilling bookings, while Clipper takes curtain calls.
Ho, hum! What won’t these Clippers do next?
Congrats From Stockholders
At the annual meeting of the stockholders of Pan American Airways Corporation, Juan T. Trippe, president, pointed out that during the year Pan American’s principal business was in the interest of the war effort. On motion from the floor, a resolution was adopted congratulating system personnel for their contribution to the war effort and endorsing the management’s current policies and postwar program.
Stay on the Job, Colonel Clarke Tells Workers
Urging PAA’ers to stick by their rivet guns and hold their production lines until the war with Japan is over, Colonel George S. Clarke made a brief but stirring speech at Pan American Field.
Colonel Clarke, last officer to leave Bataan before American forces surrendered, later spent months organizing and fighting with guerilla bands. He praised the Filipino soldiers who fought with out-of-date weapons, the American nurses who worked tirelessly to save those they could, and all who suffered and died on bloody Bataan.
Prophesying a long tough war ahead, Clarke paid tribute to American workers on the homefront, saying, “The job you’re doing here puts you on every battlefield of the world.”
The Colonel, sponsored by the War Manpower Commission in its observance of “Man Power and Woman Power Week,” was heard by hundreds of workers from the shops and offices at Pan American Field on July 25.
One man in the audience really knew what Clarke was talking about. He knew because he was there too. After the Colonel had finished speaking, Philip G. Spadone was one of the first to shake hands and introduce himself.
The pair reminisced about Bataan meat shortages—“We even ate the maggots, the roaches and the worms”—and about the mosquitoes—“We had to wipe them off by the fistful. We had no mosquito netting, we ran out of quinine, and Bataan’s the third worst malaria spot in the world ...”
Colonel Clarke left Bataan on a submarine to obtain food supplies for the starving American and Filipino forces. Only a few minutes after his departure, they surrendered to the Jap troops. Spadone, a bosun’s mate first class, who got out a month before the surrender, returned aboard a light cruiser three weeks later and took off some of the last evacuees to escape the island.
Spadone saw action on Guadalcanal and other hot spots of the Pacific war theater, before his return to the United States and honorable discharge in 1944. He has been employed as an aircraft and engine mechanic as an aircraft and engine mechanic at Pan American Field since April.
CURTAINS FOR CURTAINS
Here’s additional proof that the war is over—security curtains covering Clipper portholes have been eliminated over San Juan, Trinidad and Barranquilla.
Stewards and stewardesses breathed sighs of relief on getting the word, because the security curtains carried with them many a headache from passengers who wanted to see where they were going and had to be politely but firmly told “no”.
The curtains went into use at the outbreak of the war to protect military installations or communications centers from unfriendly eyes that might be snooping around.