SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airlock, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. This program is sponsored by the generous support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO of AMC Entertainment Holdings, Incorporated. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Pan Ammuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. The Pan Am Museum and the Pan Am community at large wish him the happiest of birthdays. Max is a 45-year veteran of Pan Am and a living legend within the airline community. He is also the godfather to His Serene Highness, Prince Albert II of Monaco. Max was kind enough to invite me into his home for a chat on a recent trip to San Diego. He will tell us about his childhood, serving in the U.S. Army under General Patton during World War II, and then beginning his storied career at Pan Am after the war. But first, here's some background on Max and his incredible life. Max Gurney joined Pan American Airways in 1946 as a ticket counteragent at the Marine Terminal at LaGuardia Airport located in Flushing, New York. Because of his ability to speak four languages, he was quickly promoted to sales manager in Dakar, Senegal, with jurisdiction over five countries in West Africa. In 1949, Max opened the Pan Am office in Milan and was reassigned shortly after in 1950 to Beirut as sales manager on loan to Middle East Airlines as part of a management contract with Pan Am. He was responsible for airline operations in six Middle East countries, including Saudi Arabia. In 1951, he was appointed Assistant District Sales Manager in Rome, Italy, covering six countries, and then transitioned in 1957 to senior representative and district sales manager for Southern France, based in Nice, where he formed a very close personal friendship with Monaco's Prince Rainier III and his wife, Princess Grace, the former American actress Grace Kelly. Their friendship grew so close that when their son, Prince Albert, was born, the Prince and Princess asked Max to be the child's godfather. In 1972, Max was transferred to Nassau as managing director for the Bahamas, including the Freeport and Rock Sound stations, until the Bahamas offices were closed in 1976. He subsequently became District Traffic and Sales Manager in Oslo, Norway, until 1980, and then once again returned to Monaco as Pan Am sales manager. This was because of his close personal friendship with Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. He held this position until the closure of Pan Am in 1991 and assisted with the transition to Pan Am's successor in the market. Prince Albert appointed Max honorary consul of Monaco in the San Diego Consular Corps, a title he still holds and cherishes today. Max is a member of the Tory Pines Rotary Club of La Jolla, California. He is a grand officer of the wine-tasting knights of Burgundy who meet in a story Dijon chateau each June. Max continues to travel back to Monaco in Dijon, France, each year. To this day, Max remains very close to Prince Albert and his family. In 2021, Prince Albert flew Max and a couple of his friends to Monaco to properly celebrate his 100th birthday. Max is founder of the Pan Am Heritage Foundation, along with Tommy Carroll, Don Cooper, and Teresa Weber. This group donated 10,000 euros in 2014 to the Foynes Flying Boat Museum in County Limerick, Ireland. You may remember that we interviewed Margaret O'Shocknesty, director of the Foynes Flying Boat Museum, in episode three of this program titled Flying Boats, Irish Coffee, and a Hollywood Star. Max currently resides in La Jolla, California and meets each Sunday with Pan Am Captain Tommy Carroll and U.S. Navy Commander retired Tim McAuley, formerly of the Navy Sealift Logistics Command. Now on to our interview with Centurion Max Gurney, where you will hear unique insights from his childhood in the 1920s and 30s, serving in World War II in Patton's Army, and working at Pan Am for over 45 years, between 1946 and 1991. Thank you very much for inviting me into your home, and it's a great honor to meet you, sir. Welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Thank you for having me, and I'm very glad that it's very illuminating. Uh your your work is very, very important, yes. I will back it up to the to the very end, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Well, thank you very much for that. How about we start with you telling us a little bit about your childhood? Where were you born?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

I was born on June 10th, 1921. And uh in Frankfurt of mine in Germany. Uh I'm the son of a Russian mother and an American father who was working for with the High Interallite Commission that was based, I think, in uh Frankfurt. So I spent uh with my parents a very short time because as you know the Versailles uh project lasted a very long time and it was not very successful at the end. But aside from that, uh we moved out, uh the family moved out. I went to I went to I had exposures in Switzerland. I went to school in Switzerland. Also I spent time in Italy uh and uh in France and in England, yeah. So because I had the family in uh in England, and when I got married, thanks to Pan Am, I got married with an English girl. Uh England became very, very important, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

You had mentioned that your father was an American diplomat working on the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I. Did he know President Woodrow Wilson?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Uh he had meetings with him, yeah, yeah. But uh as you say, my childhood was very broad, being uh with and with a family very rarely. The only time we were together was in England, really, yeah. Anyhow, we came uh we came back to the United States in the in the late 30s, and uh I went to school in I lived in New York.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

So you were born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1921, over a hundred years ago. Tell us about where you went to school.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Well, I went to school in uh in Switzerland at the beginning. Switzerland is composed of three major blocks, German, French, and Italian. So I went to school on the on the French side uh for three winters at least. I was going there and I was very happy because skiing is very good and a lot of outside life. And uh so that I was born in my uh first uh ten years in in very good environment. Healthy, and um my mother and father always uh mentioned that I should do as many uh exercises as possible. I was pushed into the water and swim by myself, you know, which I did.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

It's my understanding that one of the main reasons you are a great linguist today is because your father sent you to Switzerland to learn Latin and Greek and be exposed to many cultures and languages. Tell us a little bit more about this.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Hellenic exposure, yeah, uh particularly uh in beauty that I admired um both in Italy and and Greece, yeah. When I was uh with Panama, I was stationed in Rome, so I relived my younger life, yeah. But um I was very t attracted by humanist humanistic uh tendencies in culture. And um my father, who was a lawyer, taught me a lot of things. He was a very uh very active in uh at the end of World War One and continued to work for the State Department on the Voice of America during the war World War II, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Your father sounded like a very important diplomat that worked closely with President Wilson on the peace treaty at the conclusion of World War I. Please tell us more.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

It was yeah, he was a consultant in drafting uh some of the um protocol to offer the Germans uh whether we thought was the proper thing to do, which we didn't, yeah. But anyhow, that's my personal opinion. And he's in the in the environment I lived after World War I, uh I wasn't exposed to any frictions among people. You know, it was almost like uh a united uh group of uh civilized people and with some hate for the Germans, but uh in Italy too I had uh the pleasure in school to learn a lot of things and I profess now to know some Latin words words, but it's it's too far away now. So I couldn't speak to you in Latin or Greek. It's all Greek to me anyhow. So that was um a very happy life. I had uh mobile, I was ready to come back, and uh in New York, as I said, I spent about uh three years. I was going to Washington Irving High School. When did you move uh to New York City? That was in the mid-30s. So you were a teenager? Yeah. So um I spent some time in New York, and on the day of infamy, as you know, and uh I I was uh actually uh I had many friends in school.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

For our listeners, Max just mentioned the day of infamy. He is referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I was coming out of the uh movies, and when I came out 12 noon in New York, I was confronted with the attack on. I was working and I had um in daytime, and I was um very friendly with a number of uh students at night, and we formed a group and we felt very strongly at that time about being patriotic. So very quickly with my friends, we said, well, we can really we're not very good students. I wasn't anyhow. So we decided to enlist, you know. So I went to the draft ward and they said, Don't worry about it, uh, we'll call you. And in about uh less than a month, as I told you, we were drafted in New York but sent to Fort Mammoth in New Jersey. And uh had a very pleasant life. Uh had uh good friends from uh not only from Manhattan, you've been there, have you? Mm-hmm. But also from the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. I mentioned that because getting back to my army life, all these guys in uh 1942, when we were drafted, and we were blasted in New York, but we had our um vaccine. We were vaccinated and the army uh attire a gun. And uh I remember the first night some uh the lights were not out yet, but the f as these guys were only from net New York, these fellows, we don't have to go overseas. We are overseas. It struck me very much how you know detached we were from the rest of life. But anyhow, many of them went overseas in real time, and some of the some of them didn't come back, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Take us back to the lead up to America entering World War II. What was the mood like in New York City? Was there a lot of tension in the air?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, I I I lived uh in New York and the feeling, at least in my environment, was that it was very, very difficult from the United States to stay away. And although there was a at that time, I remember distinctly the efforts that the administration made in order to relieve the Brits, particularly, uh, with supplies, you know, for for because the war started in Europe uh in September 39, so that three years to catch up with them, and it took two years to do the job uh to get ready for the Second World War.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Did you have any school friends in Germany, Italy, or Switzerland during the lead-up to the war breaking out? And if so, were you worried about them?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Well, uh yeah, I don't have many uh I was a very nice, attractive girl, I remember. Excuse me to be one-sided. But anyhow, uh there were several there were a few Americans, I remember. As I say, this was uh very nice uh uh French school, uh very well run. Uh the Swiss are good for running good hotels and good schools, and um very uh well spoken, the the uh the ambiance was very, very constructive, so that I got a background there that sort of helped me in my later life because um going around yes, uh I learned uh I didn't learn Swiss because uh that dependent, but I did learn Italian and I did learn uh not Greek but uh French as well, yeah. So and a very modest a little bit of uh Russian because of my mother, but uh we didn't really speak in Russian have I uh so that was uh that was the first part of my life and uh it was uh as you can gather, I was very, very involved uh with the currents at that time, and uh being in New York I felt that uh uh there was this strong support to enter the war, uh and it was uh as you know the gradual developments that we were forced into it, but what is really striking for me for people that had never traveled before, uh, as I said, I remember the first day because uh the desire to to to go and fight, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Tell us about joining the U.S. Army right after Pearl Harbor.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Well, as I said, I was with a group of uh friends of my age, and they all wanted to, on one hand, to, you know, to do something for the country. So that together I went to my draft board uh in New York and uh I enlisted myself. The others went to their own boards in New York, and we finally met uh all together in uh in New Jersey at um Mammoth, I think was the name of the camp uh of the br of the of the camp, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

And with your group of friends that you enlisted with, you all decided to join the army together?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, they all wanted to join the army, but uh as you know, it was a big army. And uh so we were sent to different places. I had um a good training at Fort Bragg, I don't know if you're f familiar. And uh after that I was uh sent to for f field artillery uh training to uh Oklahoma, Fort SIL, yeah. And after that, uh yes, I was switched over. They found out that perhaps I could be more helpful in the w in the task we had overseas. So uh I went to several training camps in Pittsburgh, yeah, for for training and what uh was finally my d duties. I was uh with a group of another f twenty fellows uh of my age in the um breaking down uh enemy codes, uh cryptography and uh attached as a unit, combat unit, to uh I was telling that a few minutes ago. I arrived in North uh North Africa after the launching of the torch. I don't know if you're familiar with all the operations we had, but the torch was very important to my life because it had been conceived uh a long time before we really played any role in. And uh what was interesting is I was telling uh Tommy the Brits were very interested to make sure that we would be on the European side, you know, the forget about the Guadalcanal thing. And finally I think because of uh uh Marshall, I think Eisenhower, the big tops, decided that this torch thing, this was before it was launched, the right thing to do to destroy Germ Germany, you know, uh around North Africa, yeah. Because some in the um in the army thought that it would be possibly waiting for a landing in France itself, yeah. history was changing all the time, you know, and decisions were made. And uh it was uh in my uh estimation uh dangerous yes but then uh it was dangerous for everybody was up front. I crossed the Atlantic on a on a Canadian it took I think something like forty two days from uh Newport Beach to um to Algiers and uh Canadian army had we were crowded to capacity yeah none of the luxuries we have today but uh no luxuries we had uh rum in the morning as you know both Canadian army and uh all the Britishes really had a rum display of about half an hour so that was a relief. Anyhow we got there we ha I had some close shaves because it was the beginning and we were not trained to capacity but uh uh with Patton whom I admire and Bradley I don't know if you remember the names yeah but uh they were of consequence in the victory for our listeners Max just referred to George S.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Patton and Omar Bradley Patton was a brilliant but controversial four-star general in the United States Army who commanded the 7th Army in the Mediterranean theater of World War II and the 3rd Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Patton died in a car accident in December of 1945. Bradley was the senior officer of the United States Army reporting to General Dwight D. Eisenhower the Supreme Allied commander and would rise to the rank of General of the Army during World War II. General Bradley would go on to be the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff and oversaw the United States policy making in the Korean War. General Bradley passed away in 1981. Max's first assignment in Patton's army was in Africa as part of Operation Torch. In that operation General Patton was tasked to help plan the Allied invasion of French North Africa in the summer of 1942 and commanded the Western task force consisting of 33,000 men in 100 ships and landings centered on Costa Blanca, Morocco. The landings, which took place on November 8, 1942, were opposed by Vichy French forces, but Patton's men quickly gained a beachhead and pushed through fierce resistance. After the North Africa campaign Patton's army including Max were part of Operation Husky, in which the Allies invaded the island of Sicily and took it from the Axis powers. It began with a large amphibious and airborne operation followed by a six-week land campaign and initiated the Italian campaign. The events of Operation Husky led to the Italian leader Benito Mussolini being toppled from power in Italy and led the way for the Allied invasion of Italy. Germany's Adolf Hitler canceled a major offensive in Russia after only a week in part to divert forces to Italy resulting in a reduction of German strength on the Eastern Front. Sir can you tell us a little bit about your time in Sicily in July of nineteen forty three we had a very slow time to go back to Sicily and um we several episodes but anyhow we it was a long Italian campaign that started as you know after we landed in Sicily we tried to uh land in uh in near Naples and at the same time shortly afterwards we made uh an uh a bee shed in Anzio which is north of Rome with the idea of uh cutting the Germans off but we didn't you know it took time and the casino is was a bloody experience and many people left the other for our listeners as Allied forces made their way north of Naples battling Nazi and Italian forces at the end of 1943 they encountered fierce resistance in mid-January of 1944 at Mount Cassino blocking their push to Rome. This was a costly series of four assaults by the Allies against the winter line in Italy held by Axis forces that lasted over four months until the Allies were able to break through and have a clear path to Rome. And Max was in the middle of all of this the eventual collapse of Italy necessitated German troops replacing the Italians in Italy and to a lesser extent the Balkans resulting in one fifth of the entire German army being diverted from the east to southern Europe, a proportion that would remain until near the end of the war.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

The 45th division I don't know if you're familiar but we had two divisions that suffered very heavily before we landed uh before we got to the to the hills you know crossing the rivers yeah there was a very hard uh sequence of events and then we got stuck there for a while finally opened up breaking through the Germans we landed in Rome one day before D-Day in in Europe so really um the D-Day in Europe was really our landing in Sicily with Patton yeah because he had been there one year before yeah that's just my pride tells Sir did you ever meet General Patton? If so what was he like yeah yeah yeah we had he was we had very short meetings he was very abrupt unpopular but in retrospect of course despite the opposition as you know you know the story about how he got relieved in Sicily do you?

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Yeah so in a way I I look at history it if he had been there in my opinion if he hadn't done into this trouble with a pattern I knew he would have been in northern Italy in a short time really you know like he did afterwards and then it would have been shortened the war by getting the axis into Austria and Germany but you know history didn't work that way but I'm glad that he was in uh in Germany because he wanted to go all the way for our listeners Max mentioned an incident with General Patton in Sicily there were two high profile incidents of Patton striking subordinates during the Sicily campaign in 1943 and resulted in General Eisenhower reprimanding Patton and insisting he apologize to the two soldiers and anyone else that may have witnessed the slapping. Did you ever meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

I met Eleanor Roosevelt yeah in New York yeah I didn't meet the uh president uh but uh I cherished his image at that time yeah not a easy job at that time as well yeah more difficult today probably don't you think so?

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Mm-hmm What what was Mrs Roosevelt like well she was very generous she was um independent in a way and she straightforward and um uh very accomplished in the mission she had yeah she supported her husband although he had some diversions yeah but uh she was uh she was inspiring in a way uh particularly women at that time were going very strong for her yeah before we get into your Pan Am story tell us a little bit about the end of the Second World War which unit were you in and did you have many casualties well on my original uh I can only be precise on the last uh 84th of signal intelligence we were about twenty people headed by uh a lieutenant and uh I think we had only one casualty uh it was mostly due to the uh strefing and bombing in North Africa before we landed in Sicily but otherwise we all got out of it and uh we were so good they told us at the time when the war was over in Europe one day before in Germany they said uh we cannot let you go because you're essential so we were going to send you to Iwo Jima it didn't work that way because by the time we got to Iwo Jima the war was over what was it like when you uh learned that VE day victory over Europe and then VJ Day um what tell us about how you found out about it and what you were feeling yeah well uh I found out because uh that was a good part of the end of World War II as you know when we erupted in 1944 into northern Europe into northern Europe um and uh the Germans surrendered one day before so we were very happy because we thought we could go home but then they said you know we will continue but uh the feeling was of satisfaction I should say uh I guess everybody really wanted to go home.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

We had been away for a long time so uh it did uh but it was of the unit I was with uh Tom uh I think that uh they took uh of course they were young of it and uh they took the strides with uh with help and um and I think it was a happy ending.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Um now we'll get into your Pan Am story. Tell us about what happened after the war. Did you come back to New York?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yeah I was in New York and uh somebody I think about two or three years I was in Pennsylvania for a while and then when I got to New York somebody told me call on Pan Am they are looking for people that um could be enticed in your in your work. So we did as a matter of fact I remember distinctly we were at that time it was LaGuardia Airport and we were we had a very nice interview with a girl and we had about uh twenty fellows that also had just uh taken out of the Navy army you know and she said I have good news for you because uh Pan Am is losing a lot of luggage so we think that perhaps you can correct the problem so you are fine to go back to LaGuardia and see what you can do and straighten up this horrible thing. And in my opinion it was a little bit uh overrated but of course volume wasn't as that big and a lot of uh misplaced luggage or even stolen luggage you know happened but um the good news was that after uh three weeks uh the this nice lady called us and she said I'm very very sorry but we are losing more luggage than before so she said well what can we do now so she well I worked at the at the ticket counter at LaGuardia and operations a little bit and then they sent me to uh Dakar in French West Africa and you were hired by PNM because you spoke how many languages well yes they they I think they took me on the fact that I could speak French that I was uh young that I could move I wasn't married and because at that time uh it was American run uh mostly American run but they needed of course somebody from headquarters and uh uh it was a very large uh marketing area it was not just Dakar where we had a lot of uh mission uh coming not only from Pan Am coming from uh South America but also from uh uh not only from Europe they because Pan Am had a first New York Lin uh Johannesburg so we were learning that three times a week a lot of uh South American people that used to come on Pan Air to Brazil was coming on the Atlantic service so it was a very uh busy service where we had uh co uh constellation airplanes that but uh we had a capacity of what 35 people so it was limited took a long time but uh things worked out and we were very happy because Pan Am at that time was clever to sort of we didn't dun dominate our own hometown home country but we d did d dominate the outside of the commerce. So we had a lot of uh lead dealings with the foreign co governments uh like uh Liberia uh surrounding countries but we had to cover them and I had to go s often to that car because uh a lot of mission missionaries were going there. So it was busy m meeting and I enjoyed it you know in retrospect and we had at that time we had two Americans uh one American and myself and then it was the beginning where we could train some of our uh foreign uh friends and they took over some of the uh weight we had but it took time to get them what uh trained and after Dakar opened yeah this is very interesting because in the interest of Pan Am uh the right decision was taken that I like to they like me to take to take open of the um um station in Milan Italy quite uh a change this was dominated by TWA uh but we had support and uh funding from the looting uh looking and inverse investments so we had a s several success in reaching uh trans world airlines that had been dominating you know in Europe in Italy particularly but although we didn't have um uh access to our own country you know which was very d which was very uh dominating uh by the fact that they could travel from St. Louis or um Cincinnati whatever and try to fly directly to so we lost a considerable amount of traffic at home but we gained some of it because we were and eventually with years this phenomenon worked very very advantageous because now if you take an airplane between any two good points American airplane you will find that there's a more than 50% sometimes foreign treatment yeah. When I started with Pan Am Pan Am was carrying only was carrying more than 55% on our routes yeah and then it changed yeah did you ever have a chance to meet one trip or Charles Lindbergh yes I so I did I did meet Tripp One trip I did meet him at the airport because he had his own airplane at LaGuardia flying to Washington yeah on business over the years I I met uh one and his uh his family yeah and Lindbergh yeah Lindbergh uh I met him and I tried to get help from him as he was a vice president of Pan Am.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Dakar you were there in the early 50s correct yeah uh I moved to yeah I moved to yeah early east I went to the Middle East I was on loan from Pan Am to Middle East Airlines Pan Am had a very strong local airline in Beirut mostly operated by British pilots but they were going all over the place uh they went to Daran and Kuwait and uh uh Egypt so that uh we use them quite a bit and they use us yeah it was a good alliance and unfortunately I don't know the reasons but um they still in existence but they operate differently uh when did you meet your wife well I met my wife in Milan Italy and um she was uh she was from London actually originally from uh Scotland but she lived in London and briefly she was in uh in London during the br du during the Blitz and uh she got out of it because she had a friend anyhow I met her at a long time in Milan and I was after her she was a very attractive and very good combination so we had a good time in London but she doesn't she didn't want to go to the States so my great accomplishment is that after we got married in Portofino I said to her you know maybe it's time for you to go and be pregnant in the United States she said never in your life well but anyhow it's she I acquiesced and I was very lucky because she she flew on Pan Am alone the first time she got she got to New York and my mother didn't meet her at the airport she went to the to the Rockettes RKO so she did have an afternoon by herself and she finally got home and the happy ending that really made my life that unlike the tradition we had a very good she had a very good life with my mother-in-law they got along very nicely so that you see I had the best in my world so in your experiences in the the late 40s early 50s with Pan Am you developed lots of different friendships with some celebrities correct yeah uh one of which Rex Harrison uh was a friend that married you your your wife can you tell us a little bit about the background yeah well briefly uh Rex Marison was in the movie picture before she married me in England yeah so um she met uh briefly Rex Harrison and it just happened by

SPEAKER_00 44:00

She didn't know I she was in she had property in Portofino, the Italian Revere. She just happened by mistake that she was in in uh in the uh environment uh just when I got married, so I I asked her whether she could come to the uh civil uh ceremony. And I so he did, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Let's talk about Monaco. You were sent to Nice to become Pan Am's district sales manager for southern France and became close friends with Prince Rainier. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

I met Rainier and uh and Grace just about when uh sh shortly after they got married, and I was present when Albert, Grace's son, was born. So I'm glad to say that because we maintained very close relationship and Tom and I uh uh invited us for last June June in uh and gave us uh a real nice uh welcome, yeah. And of course with uh Grace who was uh she was a platform of uh important people, you know, more people that one could handle and uh but uh I was privileged to meet Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra. For with Frank Sinatra I had long sh uh meetings because I do you like him?

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Yes, I do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

But he has a temperament, yeah. So he came to uh briefly if I don't disturb you, he came to uh to from Milan, I think, uh on an airplane that was in the hands of Pan Am from an operational standpoint, and they arrived a few days before whatever servant. And he wanted to have a good time, so I said to Sinatra that at that time they had a picture of him floating right next to the main hotel. I said, why don't we go and see your your picture in French? So he said, Great, you know. So as soon as we got in, he said, that's enough. I did not understand. And immediately we went we went to the to the emetal to the Hotel de Paris, which is where you could uh have drinks uh d infinitum, yeah. And he was uh it was uh it was very amusing, entertaining, yeah. But he was getting a little bit uh with temperamental, yeah. Having fa fights with the staff. But anyhow, good interesting uh aside being a man of talent, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Tell us about how you became close with the prince and princess of Monaco.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

The answer to your question was very simple. Pan Am. Yeah, because uh I had a I had a precursor there in um in Nice. We were based in Nice, and he had started a uh good relationship with uh Pan Am and uh he was very, very active in maintaining very close relationship. So he said to me at the beginning, yeah, don't forget manuka Monaco, they're very important. So I cultivated uh I was close in Nice, halfway between Nice and and Monaco, and I had easy a access to Monaco when I was there because I had two different assignments. I had uh one assignment in Nice and when uh bat Pan Am closed Nice, I went to the Bahamas. But after the release I went back uh the prince made some put to to have uh to have me back in in in Monaco. So I I cultivated uh uh Monaco in Grace, very interesting uh lady, yeah. She knew what she was a talented woman, yeah, very good. She was a very interesting woman. I mean the positive she was an interesting woman, yeah, and she knew how to handle. It was a little bit of uh actors uh uh wor that she worked in her favor that she knew how to handle, and she became very famous, yeah, in Monaco, you know, it's a small community, but they asked, yeah. I should say about Albert, he's extremely thoughtful. He takes care of these girls. She said you kick you cannot have any advantage to the to the throne, you know, but I will be glad to inter inter inter endeavor to irritate to to uh accept in in the castle and so he's very thoughtful and he is very, very grace and com uh cl close and competent about the the ocean. He got involved uh very deeply because he knows the oceans about uh research in oceans and his fighting with the pollen to give you know associated to climate change. Is he in the United Nations? Yes, whereas uh Rotchenia was uh Rainier was a very uh marketing negotiator, marketing commercial meeting, very yeah, and very well educated, yeah. His son is much more like Grace, yeah, thank God. And uh so he's now pursuing with activity and like La Jolla in San Diego and New York, uh Monaco has moved forward a great deal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

What was Cary Grant like?

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Very nice, yeah. I think that the Grace had a particular did you miss him?

SPEAKER_01 50:19

No.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Uh yeah, he was very uh I remember only because I went with him to the uh the Monaco helicopter at a regular service from Mon from Monaco to Nice by airport. So that's where I got involved at the end of his staying after he assisted several of the events. But uh I took him to the airport with his wife. Very pleasant, yes, a very superficial meeting, but very pleasant. He had this sort of sardonic uh uh aspect, but uh anyhow, he he knew how to get around, yeah. Yeah, and a good actor, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Let's go back to your 45 years at Pan Am. You started with the airline in 1946, and in your career you had a front row seat to seeing the evolution of aviation from flying boats to jumbo jets. Tell us about that journey.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Yeah, it was uh well, it was a family affair almost. We were the uh La Guarda Airport, we had uh very uh good people in operation operations that really handled the airplane. I remember the cultivation of the old school was we were all in uniform, and uh I was at the ticket counter that before the airplane was boarded by the passengers to Bermuda, we had we had a bear daily to Bermuda we had DC-4s at the beginning and constellations eventually to DC4s to London as well. Yeah, it's um I remember because we had uh all these seven or ten guys in operations and three more from uh uh related uh uh work. We were lined up in front of the airplane and salute the airplane, you know. Before the passengers cleaned. And we salute the captain too. That's why I like the captain. Tom disagrees about you know but it's something to revere, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

So what when you look back, yeah. What is it about Pan Am that's special to you?

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Well, your mission, which is really to tell the story of Pan Am schools perhaps even vision in schools that putting Pan Am at war, that Pan Am really resulted in a lot of reaction from wartime. They will be more s receptive to know what Pan Am doing the war. And as we started with that, Pan Am I mean people don't know that we were in uh in wartime. So that's many ways that I say I uh I have um I have uh a lot of respect for your work because that's what we miss. And uh I hope you're successful and have you have you uh have this very large mission, it's also perhaps getting to with some getting old in getting in touch with some of the old uh indigenous people of Pan Am in in London particularly. Uh they have also a history to say, yeah, because there have been none and in the Middle East and in the Far East, right? I don't know whether the this centennial of L Lindberg far away, in a way, right, five years, will be a help. Because again, Lindberg is more popular in Europe than at home. So uh in uh in in Nice alone they have two streets in the name of Lindbergh. And when uh we went last year, uh this year, you know, they the name r resonates. But to answer directly question is I said it's a matter of education. It's a matter to and I think the way I judge people at home is that they're very receptive. Uh receptive, yeah. I mean, there are so many things to absorb in the communications of the world today, that even if you're not inclined to have some interests, you're sort of circumvented by other things, yeah. But schools, I think, important with the younger generation, yeah. And um support you in your in your drive, yeah. And Panama had, of course, in long haul, as you said, I'm glad you mentioned we had these around the world. I remember the beginning of my uh LaGuardia Airports, we offered around the world, we had two days, two daily flights, one from uh New York, around the globe to San Francisco, and one airplane from San Francisco to uh for twelve hundred dollars around trip here. But yeah, that's a lot of uh a lot of ground, I think. It's part of the technology worldwide and particularly home, of the advances we have made in so many fields. Pan Am likewise has sort of until its death followed that principle, yeah. Even in advertising, they had really such what uh always was um impressive to me that good choice with uh advertising and worldwide uh we had an agent who was very good, but sometimes they made s things that could not be uh exposed to the public, you know, words or whatever, yeah. So all these adjustments to work uh in in foreign countries uh and handle them correctly, you know, uh, over the years.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

You uh worked for the airline for decades. Um what are you thankful for about your experiences with Pan Am? And what feelings did you have and what were you thinking about when you heard the news that Pan Am ceased operations?

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Was terminated. Yeah, I was um seriously, I was thinking by surprise, yeah. Although like uh easy for me to contrast it, uh seven mistakes were made after the administration, yeah. Yeah, aside from the structure of the company, the best thing is in the human environment with all its faults, but many good things, yeah. The fault I think the people that were working for Pan Am uh were motivated. And uh Tom will be glad to confirm that the best service on the airplane, it was a difficult age, a different age, but anyhow the with the foreign influence we got a lot of Swedish and uh Scandinavian and German girls, but still the dominant key was uh the attachment to the work, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:25

I hear over and over again that uh Pan Am was different than any other airline or any other company. Um and 30 years later, after the company went out of business, you have former employees that are so loyal. What what's why is that? What's the point of the thing?

SPEAKER_00 58:48

That's a good question. So as you said, yeah, it's amazing the the attachment of um and that's why I say that the personnel attachment to the to the work, yeah. Yeah, and we had one point we had 82,000 people around the globe.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

How did your wife like uh traveling and living in different places as you got transferred?

SPEAKER_00 59:19

I was lucky because she was uh although at the beginning, as they told you, she wasn't uh willing to leave the continent. She helped uh she helped the travel that we did and uh she got adopted to uh to the uh uh well Rome trip. We got married in Italy and and um and um m southern France was not too difficult. Yeah, I got spoiled too, but she did too, yeah. But it was a pleasant environment and what was uh interesting why I profess to sping the foreign-led uh foreign people that work for Penham overseas is that they have also a lot of history and uh also very dedicated in London particularly, you know. And I'm sorry that some of them don't exist anymore, but still I admire you for finding the people that uh that you're looking that can give you source for this uh mission. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

I'm just gonna say thank you for your time, and then if you could just say, you know, it's been a pleasure to uh thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Can I just add one uh little thing? Uh does the name Onassis mean anything to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Yes, of course it does.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Anassis, as you know, very good merchant, was based in Monaco for a long time. He actually rejuvenated Monaco, and we used to go to the same nightclub every night, and he was also the president of the Egyptian of the uh Greek airline. And he was competing with Pan Am to a certain extent, and he hated Pan Am, very cerbically, and was particularly mad at Pan Am because we had built in Monaco a big neon sign in front of the casino saying Pan Am, you know. And uh so he said one day, the nightclub, he said, look, and it's true, he's he said to all his troops, you know, look at what Pan Am is doing and do the what Pan Am does better. But uh then he said to me, I want you to take that new sign down because it does irritate me. And he said, um, I said to him, you know, I see what I can do, but the trick was that it was on French territory, you know. So he had no jurisdiction, so he had to give up on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

And the sign stayed.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

And the sign stayed. The sign remained until the very end, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

So thank you so much, sir, for your time. It's been a pleasure, and thank you for inviting me into your home.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Well, thank you. Yeah, I hope it helped in your mission, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Excellent. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircraft and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Ammuseum.org. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am.