MEMORIES OF THE DOCK AT PEARL HARBOR: On every Honolulu take-off and landing, Sally and Zoe’s mighty Pan Am jet Clippers roared over Pearl Harbor and FLYING’S history. On November 23, 1935, Capt. Ed Musick landed the CHINA CLIPPER in Pearl Harbor, and taxied down to the Navy seaplane docks on Ford Island. Thereafter, Pan Am flying boats used the Middle Loch of Pearl, where the airline leased plantation lands and suitable housing for crew accommodations, passenger service facilities, a hospital, and a maintenance and supply base. Passengers were transferred to the elegant Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Several retired maintenance workers, most notably Pat Calimpong, had worked on “17 generations of Pan Am aircraft, but could not read or write.” Pat told stories about the “Pan Am L-dock” and how the crew chief would demand any tools dropped in the water be retrieved by the offender. He and Alex Luka remembered December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, when the Pan Am crash-boat rescued dozens of oil-soaked sailors from flaming waters around the USS ARIZONA. The flying boat era ended shortly after World War II with the advent of faster, sleeker land planes. But the romance of the CHINA CLIPPER lingers on.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:35:33 +0000
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