PAN AM - 1932

By Eric Hobson

OCTOBER

“Precious Cargo”

Photo: Sours children arriving Rio, page 13. "Pan American Air Ways," Vol. 3, No. 4 (October 15, 1932).

Labeled “express freight,” two bars of Sapolio soap left Buenos Aires, Argentina, in mid-1932 destined for 440 West Street, New York City, where Enoch Morgan’s Sons Co. executives waited to inspect its Argentine Sapolio factory’s first two bars. In addition to heralding Buenos Aires’ outbound traffic, Pan American Air Ways reported on arriving freight, telling readers that “each Pan American Grace plane” from Santiago, Chile, carried “a legally maximum load of ... splendid and succulent lobsters.” Nestled in a Panagra Ford Trimotor, the Pacific crustaceans crossed the Andes to an eager reception: “Each night after a plane arrives there is much boiling of pots and sizzling of grills in the swanky restaurants of Buenos Aires.”

Pan Am carried cargo even more-precious than soap or lobsters in 1932, however.

Lilian Aurora Blotner, (born April 10, 1932) reached Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, June 20, aboard a Consolidated Commodore where she met her father, Felix M. Blotner, Pan Am’s Brazilian Division Operations Manager. Lillian left Camaguey, Cuba, her birthplace, on Tuesday, June 14 in Josefa Aurora Santalla Blotner’s lap, and “reached Rio on the seventy-second day of her life after a flight of 5,600 miles ... and arrived contented and cooing, apparently well satisfied with the efficiency and regularity of Pan American service.”

A few months later, Pilot Bert Sours scanned Rio’s sky for the Consolidated Commodore carrying his wife, Fernande, six-year-old daughter Denise, and five-year-old son Jackie. This 7,000-mile Miami-to-Rio trip pushed the Sours kids’ miles-flown to over 11,000 miles in two years, a total matched by few humans in late-1932.

Lillian, Denise, and Jackie racked up tens of thousands of air miles during the years their fathers were stationed in South America. Emulating Felix Blotner and Bert Sours, for the next 60 years Pan Am employees across the globe entrusted their families to colleagues’ care.

“Armored Car with Wings”

Photo compilation: Cubana Ford Trimotor at Havana (PAHF Collection).
1932 Atlantic Hurricane Season Summary Map (Wikimedia Commons).

The Caribbean’s 1932 summer and fall tropical storm season was unusually active even before the season’s ninth storm, the “San Ciprián Hurricane”, formed east of the Virgin Islands on Sept. 25. Moving west, the storm hit St. Croix and St. Thomas as a Category 1 hurricane, then exploded to a Category 5 storm before running the length of Puerto Rico’s north coast early Tuesday morning (9/27) unleashing 145 mile-per-hour winds. By nightfall, downgraded to a still-dangerous Category 2 storm, the hurricane lashed the Dominican Republic’s south coast.

Post-storm assessment was bleak: 257 dead and 25,000 homeless in Puerto Rico with damage equal to 20% of the island’s annual GDP. Although the Dominican Republic’s death toll and economic damage was lower than Puerto Rico’s, both countries were in economic distress.

Two North American banks with large Caribbean footprints (National City Bank, New York and Royal Bank of Canada) contracted with Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviación (Pan Am’s Cuba affiliate) to ferry $1,500,000 in much-needed cash to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and San Juan, Puerto Rico from where each bank could move the cash to meet clients’ needs.

On board were Pilot George Rumill and mechanic/radio-operator Frank Hernandez and five passengers: Vicente Rey and Fernando Sanchez of National City Bank, G. Bridgett and E. Hansch, of Royal Bank of Canada, and Cuevas Bustamente from Cubana.

According to Pan American Air Ways, the charter “left Havana at 12 o'clock and landed in Santiago [Cuba] at 5 p.m.; left the next morning at 5 a.m. and arrived in San Juan at approximately 4 o'clock.” Rumill and Hernandez returned to Havana on the same route with the same human cargo but minus the cash.

Sources:
"Pan American Air Ways," Vol. 3, No. 4 (October 1932), p. 7 & Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 1933), p. 21.
“1932 Atlantic hurricane season.” Wikipedia. (Accessed 9/2/2022).

“Will Rogers Flies Pan Am”

Will Rogers, movie star, comedian, columnist, and one of the United States’ most famous celebrities, stepped off the train at Brownsville, Texas, Thursday, October 6, 1932 and into group of waiting local dignitaries and fans. Brownsville was not an endpoint for Rogers that Friday; he wasn’t performing there, nor was he making a speech. Rogers was to leave the next day to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

While the trip was not tightly scheduled, it began at Pan Am’s Western Division headquarters in Brownsville. Newspapers reported that following Rogers’ Friday, October 7 departure on Pan Am’s daily flight to Mexico City, he would continue to Panama, then down South America’s west coast aboard Panagra aircraft to Santiago, Chile, before crossing the Andes to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where some reporters claimed he intended to buy polo ponies. An ardent polo player, Rogers dispelled this rumor, stating that only an Argentine could ride Argentinian horses.

Following his Buenos Aires visit, Will Rogers headed north up South America’s east coast on Panair do Brasil, through the Guianas (Dutch, French, and British) and up the eastern Caribbean to Miami. Upon his Dinner Key arrival, Rogers had accomplished a rarity for a round trip: southbound aboard land-based aircraft; northbound aboard flying boats.

Thirty-six month later (Thursday, 8/15/35) Will Rogers died alongside famed aviator Wiley Post in an airplane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska. Pan Am retrieved both men’s bodies: Joe Crossan flew a Pacific Alaska Airways F-71 floatplane based in Fairbanks flew to the crash site and back Friday, August 16, then commanded a Lockheed L-10 Electra sent north from Seattle to transport Rogers and Post to Seattle where a DC-2 flown by Bill Winston from Brownsville awaited. Winston landed in Burbank, California, Saturday, August 17, and held there while a memorial service was held. Later, Pan Am flew Rogers’ body to Oklahoma City for burial.

Sources:
Gene Banning, "Airlines of Pan American since 1927." Paladwr Press, 2001, pp. 316-17.
"Pan American Air Ways," Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 1933), p. 5. (@UniversityofMiamiSpecialCollections https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/.../40848/rec/1)
Photomontage: Southbound on land-based aircraft, Northbound on flying boats (clockwise):
-Stamps of Will Rogers in Nicaragua, PAHF Collection
-Correos del Peru Stamp, Pan Am Historical Foundation Calendar “Stamp of Approval”
-A poem about Will Rogers, Pan American Air Ways, March 1933.
-Will Rogers aboard Panaiir do Brasil Commodore in Camocim, Brazil. Pan American Air Ways, March 1933.
-Will Rogers in Fortaleza October 24, 1934 from the PAHF Lucien Boyd Collection.
-Will Rogers aboard Panaiir do Brasil Commodore in Georgetown, Guyana. Pan American Air Ways, March 1933.

“Nassau's Mail Drop”

Nassau Governor Welcomes Air Mail /Mail Signing of the Contract October 1932 / Ticket Counter at Dinner Key Terminal. Mail drop: "Pan American Air Ways," Vol. 3, No. 4, (October 15, 1932) p. 10.

Standing before the Nassau, Bahamas Government House in mid-July 1932 Sidney Farrington, Pan American Airway’s agent waved a British flag to guide the approaching Sikorsky S-38 pilot to the intended “drop zone” on the lawn. As a Pan Am employee wrestled the ceremonial “first-delivery” mailbag overboard, doubts about the stunt were warranted: the packet might fall long and plow into the assembled dignitaries. A falling U.S. mail bag trailing United States and British flags striking either Captain, the Honorable Edmund Hugh Clifford, C.B.; C.M.G.; M.B.O., Governor of the Bahamas, or his wife, Lady Clifford would mar the festivities and, possibly, put a dent in the project that Pan Am had been working on for three years.

Starting January 2, 1929, Pan Am had maintained a three-flights-a-week Miami to Nassau schedule under United States Postal Service, Foreign Air Mail (FAM) contract #7 which allowed Pan Am to carry US mail to/from Nassau. Because England demanded that British interests control its mail, and no British company could provide regular airmail service to Miami, all British mail traveled by ship. Pan Am was persistent and courted the Bahamian business community sharing word of airmail and airfreight’s economic value throughout the Caribbean. Finally, the British Crown yielded to its subjects’ demands and approved a “trial” period during which Pan Am carried outbound mail from Nassau to Miami, albeit, without subsidy.

Three months later, Tuesday, October 18, Sidney Farrington joined Governor Clifford in the Government House to sign a three-year contract for Pan Am to fly passengers and Bahamian mail between the British Colony and the United States. Moving from the signing table to the Colony’s Legislative chamber, Governor Clifford told assembled dignitaries, “Pan American Airways have so far conducted this service with security and precision and I think it has linked the Colony up with valuable mail and passenger connections with the rest of the world, and has been of benefit to the community.”

“Keys Are Key”

Photo compilation: Mappas Das Aerovias : Manáos - Bélem - Rio de Janeiro - Buenos Aires, 1936. University of Miami Special Collections https://digitalcollections.library.miami.edu/digital/collection/asm0341/id/5242/rec/104 and Ford Model A (Flickr- Cars Down Under https://www.flickr.com/photos/42220226@N07/https://www.flickr.com/photos/42220226@N07/https://www.flickr.com/photos/42220226@N07/).

The October 15, 1932 issue of the company’s in-house newsletter, Pan American Air Ways included key reports from South America:

Brazilian Division

“Radio Operator Arnaldo Lima of the Brazilian Division recently completed two thousand hours of air time. Erudite accountant Quintal, no mean statistician, figures that during this period radioman Lima probably wore out no less than five radio keys in pounding 695,879,478, 988 ½ dashes and twice that many dots. In doing this an unthinkable amount of volts were used up completely. He says they were just utilized but not used up. We are going to ask Communications Engineer Leuteritz whether Pan American uses a volt more than once.”  (p. 18).

Pan American Grace

“Everybody who has visited Las Palmas Airport [Lima, Peru] knows ‘Luchow,’ heavy-weight driver of the passenger bus. Communications Superintendent G.W. Angus let his car license lapse, and called on the mighty Luchow, giving him his keys and telling him to fix things up.”

“It was unfortunate that when Luchow came up to say that the keys didn’t seem to fit the car, Mr. Angus was too busy to pay much attention. Luchow tried the keys again.”

“A willing mechanic, seeing his difficulty, volunteered to wire around the ignition lock – which he did, and away they went. You’ve guessed what happened. Mr. Angus’ car was further up the line. When the owner of the absent car came out of the building – was there a row!” (p.21).