Pan Am Clipper flight time in World War II?

[reddy200]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone could help me with this: I am trying to get a rough idea of how long it would have taken for a Pan Am Clipper to fly from New York to London via Lisbon in 1940 (during WWII). Does anyone have any idea of what the flight time would have been (ie roughly how many days it would have taken)?

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks,
R.

[renfrew]

The Pan American service would have terminated at Lisbon and passengers would have continued by BOAC,probably to Bristol or Poole.
The Timetable Images site has a PanAm timetable for 1941 with the timings between New York and Lisbon.

[reddy200]

Thanks renfrew! I've had a look at the timetable - interesting. I'm guessing that the timetable wouldn't be too different from the year before. I do have a (no doubt silly) question though, as I'm having some trouble understanding the timetable - in the columns of the timetable, what do 'AA', 'NWA', 'TWA' and 'UAL' stand for?

Thanks a lot!

[aviate1138]

AA American Airlines, NWA North West Airlines, TWA Trans World Airlines, UAL United Air Lines - perhaps?

[Groundloop]

In 1941 wasn't TWA still Transcontinental and Western Air? I don't think they started using the Trans World name until their first Trans Atlantic route in 1945/6.

[avions86]

I believe the Trans World Airways company name was born following the merger of TAT (Trans America Transport ? --- something like that --- and T&WA in the "thirties". But the use of TWA "name" (you might be correct) may not have started until WW2 years.

[bvcu]

wasnt part of the atlantic schedule through Foynes on west coast of ireland ! visited there a couple of years ago, lots of info at museum.

[reddy200]

Thanks all! Hmm I might try the Foynes museum as well then ... thanks for the tips!

[Groundloop]

I believe the Trans World Airways company name was born following the merger of TAT (Trans America Transport ? --- something like that --- and T&WA in the "thirties".

Transcontinental Air Transport merged with Western Air Express in 1930 to form Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA). Trans World Airways was used as a marketing name from 1946. The company did not officially rename from Transcontinental and Western Air to Trans World Airways until 1950.

[WHBM]

Pan Am started proper transatlantic services in the summer of 1939, and had literally just weeks of operations before things fell apart. Of the six new Boeing 314 flying boats, two got diverted to the Pacific, and the other four provided two once-weekly services from New York, one through Botwood, Newfoundland and Foynes, Ireland to Southampton, and the other through the Azores and Lisbon to Marseille (also a significant stop on Imperial's flying boats to Africa and Australia). The pioneer trip took 27 hours from New York to Lisbon, including the Azores stop. As it apparently took several days of maintenance work to do the turnround in New York for the aircraft after every round trip, this was about as much as the four aircraft could manage. At the end of August 1939 this all had to be cut right back to one service just to Lisbon. Pan Am didn't set foot in the UK or France once the war started, until the US joined and they began work for the military.

It was always known that the northern route would be untenable in winter, but in the bad winter in early 1940 icing conditions drove even the Lisbon route progressively southwards in the USA until they ended up having to operate it out of Miami, and reliability became very poor. If you were going from New York to London it was probably still quicker to take the Queen Mary. Frequency to Lisbon was pushed up as much as they could, to three services a week by summer 1940. Going through Bermuda was optional but progressively it became standard. Into the winter and the cure to the previous weather problems was to push the winter route even further south, from Baltimore through Bermuda, Trinidad, and across the Atlantic to Portuguese Guiana, then up to Lisbon. Later Belem in Brazil was added to minimise the Atlantic crossing - thousands of miles more than a direct route. It all showed that the flying boats were just not practical for all year operations. I don't know what de-icing kit they were fitted with, if any.

I see from the 1941 timetable they had pushed the summer frequency up to four times a week. By this time another 6 Boeing 314 had joined the fleet.

Pan Am never made any money on the grand Atlantic or Pacific flying boat services, the operating expenses were just enormous. Although passengers were carried, of course, the key revenue source was mail. But it was their Caribbean/Latin American operations that kept them in business.

[Noyade]

Interesting post WHBM. :ok:

[/URL][URL="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/828/routesl.jpg/"]http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/2060/routesl.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/685/routesy.jpg/)

[A30yoyo]

Lots of pics of the Clipper to Lisbon in Google Life archive
LIFE: Pan American Clipper - Hosted by Google (http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=03e65dfaf1a57b0d&q=clipper%20lisbon%20source:life&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dclipper%2Blisbon%2Bsource:life%26tbnh%3D131%26t bnw%3D132%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D717%26tbs%3Dsimg:CA QSEgm5mLPFOlWV0SG5vlhxSAjLjw%26tbm%3Disch)
Lady leading up the steps is Eve Curie (daughter of Marie Curie) who was a journalist in WWII and was still going to parties in
Manhattan in her nineties
more by searching 'Atlantic Clipper' or Pan American Clipper' e.g.
Pan American Clipper source:life - Google Search (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&biw=1440&bih=717&site=images&tbm=isch&btnG=Search&oq=Pan+American+Clipper++source:life&aq=f&aqi=&q=Pan%20American%20Clipper%20source:life)
(Google/Life thumbnails aren't clicking well currently...slide the cursor onto a thumbnail then click on 'more sizes')

[reddy200]

Wow, that's all fantastic and interesting info - thanks so much for your help! Might be a long shot, but anyone have any guesses/idea as to how long it would have taken for someone to then go from Lisbon to London by BOAC (in around June 1940)?

I'm basically trying to work out, roughly, how long the total trip would have taken...

[renfrew]

There is a some information here http://www.wasc.org.uk/NewFiles/CAA%20report%20complete.pdf at page 78.

After the invasion of France,the situation was obviously very confused and services were operating on an ad-hoc basis.
The passengers carried would have been travelling with government permission and mostly on official business.

[WHBM]

Renfrew, that's an excellent document (it contradicts some other accounts in places, but you get used to that with works about the period), which will surely occupy my forthcoming weekend instead of the gardening !

Regarding flying from Lisbon to the UK, it was a mixture of flying boats (to Poole Harbour), and landplanes to Bristol, the old Whitchurch airfield, which was BOAC's temporary base. From here, passengers would be taken to Bournemouth or to Bristol Temple Meads stations, and inserted into the probably already overfull London train.

I'm aware that some of the Whitchurch-Lisbon flying was done by KLM using those DC3s which managed to escape from the Netherlands in May 1940; much of their large fleet of these was destroyed on the ground in the Netherlands during the invasion, but the escapees were based at Whitchurch and formed a useful supplement to the BOAC fleet. General policy seems to have been to fly at night, to arrive over the UK coast just at sunup.

Regarding total trip time New York to London, I would think it unlikely the ops officer would even think of organising anyone on the flight at Lisbon until they actually arrived. This wasn't a hub connection in Atlanta type operation. Flying time Lisbon to the UK - probably about 6 hours.

Probably the best account of a flying boat trip at the time across the Atlantic, both ways, (although it was Christmas 1941) is in Jack Bamford's book "Croissants at Croydon". Bamford had been the Air France UK manager pre-war, went into the RAF, where he ran various airline-style operations, then back to Air France after 1945. He was personally tasked to take key documents to Churchill who was visiting Roosevelt in Washington, and he took a PBY Catalina from Prestwick, not their first choice but it was what he had available. He gives a whole chapter in the book to a description of this amazing flight. Very recommended. Published by Sutton Council Libraries some years ago (the chief librarian was an old aircraft buff :ok:, and the old Croydon airport is actually in Sutton's boundaries), I believe they printed far too many and they may still have some new ones in stock.

[A30yoyo]

Thanks , renfrew , for the link. WHBM, Croissants at Croydon was my lucky find at the New Year booksale at Croydon Airport this year! Flightimes of 6-8 hours Lisbon-UK and prhaps 24-30 hours US-Lisbon but passengers might be looking at days
/ weeks in a hotel waiting for a seat allocation.
Newsreel of Wendell Willkie arriving at Whitchurch on the KLM DC-3 G-AGBB Ibis* and transferring to an RAF Flamingo (for Hendon?)...he was well connected!
AMERICAN PRIVATE CITIZEN NO 1 ARRIVES - British Pathe (http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=12028)
*later shot down

[reddy200]

Thanks for all this! Once again, all very helpful info. Gives me a much better idea of what the journey would have been like than I had before. (Also gives me a few things to follow up on :))