PAN AM - 1932

By Eric Hobson

DECEMBER

“Dinner Key’s 1932 Build Out”

Concepts of PAA Seaplane Base at Coconut Grove, "Pan American Air Ways," April 1, 1931 (PAHF Collection).

As 1932 waned, Pan American Airways’ Dinner Key seaplane base’s construction activity accelerated. Municipal dredges carving a mile-long, 700-foot-wide, deep-water channel jettisoned seabed behind the dyke demarcating the nascent airport’s perimeter, saving Miami a cartage fee while provided Pan Am with essential site fill. The arrangement accelerated the site’s construction schedule; still, Pan American Air Ways acknowledged that “the non-engineering eye can see little sign as yet of the impressive terminal which is in the making.”

Having guided similar work at Pan Am’s Nuevitas, Cuba airbase, Construction Superintendent, Otto Keim returned to Miami, assisted by civil-engineer/surveyor, W.B. King. Their team had half of the steel bulkhead in place along the waterfront by early December 1932 and most of the site’s scrub trees and bushes removed. Via regular inspections, New York City-based Division Airport Engineer Fred J. Gelhaus, monitored the project.

"Pan American Air Ways" promised readers that by July 1933 site-preparation would be “well through the stage of confusion and discomfort and carried to the point where the impressiveness of the new terminal will begin to be apparent.”

B.W. Reeser, Pan Am’s Airport Designer burned midnight and weekend oil drawing systems blueprints for the site’s Art Deco terminal and support structures. As the project evolved in response to reflect the company’s growth, Reeser kept adjusting these designs up to its final inspection.

Pan Am’s Dinner Key based opened as the company’s Miami flight-base on March 25, 1934.

"The first double wedding ever to take place in a Pan American Plane, and probably the first ever to occur, took place south of Haiti, on December 28. Participants in this event were (reading left to right) Charles Elmer Patterson and bride, Miss Jeanette Burrel, both of Philadelphia; Rev. A. F. Parkinson Turnbull of Port au Prince, officiating clergyman; Miss Elma Margaret Ellsworth, daughter of Captain and Mrs. Harry D. Ellsworth of Washington, D. C., and groom, Eugene D. Pawley of Port au Prince, Haiti. In the background is the Sikorsky Amphibian in which the ceremony took place."

“Flying Down To Rio Premiere”

Flying Down To Rio Trailer (Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

RKO Pictures musical Flying Down to Rio -- a film more people have heard of than have watched -- premiered December 29, 1932.

A mashup plot mixing a love struck big-band leader, a Brazilian beauty, flying sequences, international travel, and dance sequences (dancing occurred on the ground and in the air on top of three airplane wings) carried the audience from Miami, Florida to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in one hour and twenty-nine minutes.

The film’s significance is multilayered. Movie fans thrill at screen legends Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ first pairing. Film historians dwell on the movie’s pre-Hayes Code (film censorship) sexual frankness – from the chorus girls’ see-through costumes to the script’s puns and innuendo. Marketing strategists appreciate the film’s product placement savvy, replacing dominant public perception of flying as a daredevil’s endeavor with messages of safety, speed, high society and fashion.

While Flying Down to Rio earned RKO $1,500,000, Pan American Airways’ profits were incalculable. By allowing RKO to use its newest aircraft, the Sikorsky S-40, Brazilian Clipper, as a film set, and to include the aircraft in the film’s climactic flying scenes, Pan Am became the face of commercial aviation. Few of the millions sitting in the dark movie theaters during the depths of the global economic depression had the time or money to travel to exotic places, although they dreamed to do so. And, in the post World War II economic boom, many did … flying down to Rio (and to equally interesting places across the globe) aboard a Pan Am Clipper.

Video: Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAd0sZnE3Yw

“Christmas Crews Away from Home”

Clockwise: Sikorsky S-40 in the West Indies/Myrtle Bank Hotel luggage tag c. 1930s/
Sikorsky S-38 Pan Am Southern Clipper/Pan Am Caribbean Clipper (Pan AmHistorical Foundation Collection).

Pan American pilot, John H. “Gentleman Jack” Tilton, Jr. left 516 Hardee Rd., his Coconut Grove home before sunrise Saturday, December 24, 1932 for his two-mile commute to Pan Am’s Dinner Key seaplane base. Tilton’s wife, Gladys, and house staff, Elijah, Rosa Lee, and Matthew Lewis, would celebrate Christmas Day without him while he flew the Sikorsky S-40 Caribbean Clipper (NC81V) on the three-day Miami-Barranquilla-Miami route.

Jack and his crew were not Pan Am’s only employees working Christmas morning, 1932. Dinner Key was fully staffed: colleague R.O.D. Sullivan was commanding the Southern Clipper (S-40, NC752V) on the day’s Miami-Havana-Miami run. Havana was a more popular destination than Tilton’s stops -- Cienfuegos, Cuba, Kingston, Jamaica or Barranquilla, Columbia -- and Sullivan’s flight carried twenty-one passengers while Tilton headed south with five passengers, freight and mail.

The Caribbean Clipper landed in Kingston Sunday afternoon and tied up to the Pan Am barge at Bournmouth Bath alongside Sikorsky S-38B (NC9137). Elmer Rodenbaugh and his mechanic/radio operator joined Tilton’s crew for Christmas dinner at Kingston’s Grand Myrtle Hotel and turned in early as both crews faced early wake-up calls Monday morning.

Boxing Day, Monday, December 26, saw Rodenbaugh piloting the S-38B to San Juan, Puerto Rico and Tilton taking the Caribbean Clipper with one passenger to Barranquilla and returning with two. Back at the Grand Myrtle that night, Tilton joined pilot Gustave “Slim” Eckstrom -- in from San Juan in Sikorsky S-38B (NC9151) -- for dinner and a discussion of Tuesday’s weather forecast: by Tuesday night, Slim would sit for another hotel dinner in Port au Prince, Haiti, while Jack would join Gladys at home in Coconut Grove.

“The 1932 New Year's Report”

Hotel Nacional & Gran Casino Nacional. Postcards of Havana Cuba (PAHF Collection).

Havana, Cuba’s allure was such during U.S.’s Prohibition Era that between Monday and Saturday, December 26-31, 1932, 329 people crossed the Florida Straights by air. Passengers aboard Pan American Airway’s two-hour flight leapfrogged thousands of U.S. citizens aboard steamships headed to Havana’s bars, casinos, and cabarets. Pan Am’s year-end, round-trip $29 excursion fare (~ $500 US$ 2022) just sweetened the experience for those who could afford the getaway.

Pan American Air Ways reported ticket demand required extra flights all five days. Passenger volume was so great on New Year’s Eve (Saturday, December 31) that Pan Am run three non-scheduled flights to Havana using its largest seaplanes: two 22-seat Consolidated Commodores and one 38-seat Southern Clipper (S-40, NC752V) supported the regular S-40 service.

Pan Am’s year-end Miami-Havana route surge replicated the company’s 1932 performance.

As 1932 ended, Pan Am

• Served nearly every Caribbean, Central and South American country
• Employed more than 2000 persons
• Staffed the world’s largest aviation radio network of 61 stations based in 27 nations
• Cleared $698,526 on $8.4 million revenues (2022 US$: ~ $15 million net profit and $182 million receipts), and
• Offered every employee (ground and air-based) company-negotiated/subsidized life insurance through Travelers Insurance, Company.