SPEAKER_00 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. 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. This podcast is sponsored by the generous personal support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO and chairman of AMC Theaters. He is also president of our sister organization, the Pan Am Historical Foundation. 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. Bill is the perfect example of a Pan Am kid, and Diane was a Pan Am stewardess at the peak of the Jet Age in the early 1960s. But before our interview, we're going to tell the story of Bill's father, Oliver J. Studeman, a Pan Am man from the very beginning, and explore three places that don't get nearly enough attention in the Pan Am story Brownsville, Texas, Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, and Teterborough Airport in New Jersey. So let's get started. There is a photograph I keep coming back to. It was taken in 1972 at Teterborough Airport in New Jersey. A man is standing with his staff from the Pan Am Metropolitan Air Facilities Division. He is retiring after more than four decades with the airline. To his right, almost as an afterthought in the caption, is a younger man named H. V. Pat Riley, who would go on to become the founding executive director of the Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum at Teterborough. The retiring man is Oliver J. Studeman, vice president of Pan American World Airways. He was professionally known as O.J. Studeman, however, his friends and colleagues called him Studi. He started flying tri-motored Fokkers out of Brownsville, Texas in 1933, hauling mail through the Sierra Madre for 14 passengers at a time. He ended his career with the title of Vice President in a biography that touched nearly every division of the airline he gave his life to. He also had a son. That son, born in Brownsville in January 1940, would grow up to serve as Director of Naval Intelligence, Director of the National Security Agency, and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, twice serving as its acting director across two presidential administrations. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Frank Murkowski said he had, quote, mastered as few others have, the intricate and arcane world of signals intelligence, end quote. That resume and the senator speak for themselves. But before all of that, back in the summer of 1962, he was a 22-year-old college graduate working at the Pan Am Ticket Counter at London's Heathrow Airport. And he met a girl. But let's talk about his dad first. O.J. Studeman won his wings as an Army Air Corps cadet at Brooks Field in Texas in 1930. Three years later, he joined Pan Am's Western Division at Brownsville and began flying mail-carrying trimotor Fokkers from Texas through Mexico to Panama, across the north coast of South America to Port of Spain, Trinidad. Maximum seating capacity on those early planes was 14 passengers. Food was box lunches, without exception. He was also among the first Pan Am pilots to fly a Boeing 307 Stratoliner, the first commercial aircraft with a pressurized cabin. By 1939, he had risen to chief pilot of the Western Division at Brownsville. From there, his career traced the full map of Pan Am's empire. He moved to Seattle as operations manager of the Alaska and Pacific Divisions, then to San Francisco as operations manager of the Pacific Division, overseeing the airline's Transoceanic Lifeline during the war years. After the war, he moved to Miami as operations manager of the Latin American Division. Then came Cape Canaveral. Pan Am's Guided Missile Range Division was one of the least known and most remarkable chapters in the airline's history. From the early 1950s, Pan Am served as prime contractor for the U.S. Air Force's Eastern Test Range at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, providing operations and maintenance for the Missile and Space Program. O.J. Studeman served as assistant vice president of that division. The man who had flown mail over Mexican bandits in 1933 was now helping run operations for the American Missile and Space Program. After a period at Corporate, he moved to Teeterborough as vice president of the Metropolitan Air Facilities Division, overseeing Pan Am's vast infrastructure in the New York region. He retired from that post in 1972 and passed away in December 1985. His son Bill, who shared these details, offered the simplest and most fitting tribute. His father, he said, was a pilot's pilot. Now, those three places I mentioned earlier, Brownsville, Treasure Island, and Teterborough. Brownsville, in 1929, was the edge of the known world for American commercial aviation. Juan Tripp had just acquired a scrappy little Mexican airline that had been flying oil field payrolls over bandits in single-engine biplanes. The U.S. Postal Service had just awarded Pan Am foreign airmail Route 8. And Brownsville, sitting right on the Rio Grande, with Mexico directly across the river, became Pan Am's gateway to the south. It was not glamorous, the facilities were primitive, the weather was brutal, the terrain beyond Brownsville, the Sierra Madre Mountains, was worse. Pilots flying toward Mexico City through cloud cover would were operating largely on instinct, and instinct in those days could kill you. It was here, at Pan Am's Brownsville base, that the airline began to solve that problem. A pilot named Edward Snyder became one of the first aviation professionals to systematically develop instrument flying techniques. He blindfolded trainees and put them in a revolving chair to prove that human senses were useless without visual cues. When Snyder died in an accident, a younger pilot named Harold Gray took over the work. Gray would go on to pioneer Pan Am's transatlantic routes and eventually lead the entire airline as Wantripp's handpicked successor. The instrument flying techniques, born in Brownsville, spread across Pan Am's entire system and ultimately influenced commercial aviation worldwide. Brownsville was also where Charles Lindbergh, Panam's technical advisor, landed a Ford Trimotor in March 1929 to inaugurate the mail route from Mexico City and where Oliver J. Studeman first fell in love with the sky. His son was born there seven years later. If you've driven across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, you've passed it. Treasure Island sits in the middle of San Francisco Bay, a flat and probable place that didn't exist before 1936. It was built entirely from film material dredged up from the bay floor by the Army Corps of Engineers, a joint project of the federal government, the City of San Francisco, and the Works Progress Administration. It was built for two purposes, to host the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition and to serve as the permanent Trans-Pacific terminus for Pan American Airways flying boat service across the Pacific. The Pan Am Terminal Building constructed there is still standing. It is a striking piece of Art Deco architecture listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it currently houses a whiskey distillery as of May 2026. But when you walk through its doors, you are standing in the building where passengers bound for Hawaii, Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Manila, and Hong Kong checked in for their flights on the Boeing 314 Clippers, the most luxurious aircraft ever built at the time for commercial service. Pan Am called it the Port of the Trade Winds. Departures were announced by ships' bells, one bell for crew, two bells for passengers. The experience was designed to feel like boarding an ocean liner, not catching a flight. But then the war came. The Navy seized Treasure Island in 1942. After World War II, the flying boats were retired from Trans-Pacific service, and the airport that was supposed to anchor San Francisco's future in the air age never fully materialized. SFO was built to the south. The island became a naval training base. But the terminal is still there, and I encourage you to visit. Teterboro Airport in New Jersey is one of those places most people drive past without a second thought. It should get more than that. Teterboro is the oldest operating commercial airport in the New York metropolitan area. Aviation pioneers William Deal and Clarence D. Chamberlain, who made the second transatlantic crossing just weeks after Lindbergh, both called it home. Pan Am's connection to Teterboro runs through its Metropolitan Air Facilities Division, the operation that managed the airline's vast infrastructure in the New York region. And the division was eventually led by Oliver J. Studeman. Pan Am leased Teterborough Airport from the Port Authority of New York, New Jersey, on January 1st, 1970, under a 30-year agreement, making it one of the few airports in the country actually operated by an airline. But perhaps the most lasting legacy Pan Am left at Teterborough has nothing to do with the airport itself. In 1963, Charles Limberg visited Dessau's assembly plant near Bordeaux, France, on behalf of Pan Am to inspect a new French business jet. He wired Juan Tripp afterward with a short message, I've found our bird. The airline promptly ordered 40 jets with an option of 120 more in established Pan Am business jets to run its executive jet operations. Pan Am Business jets eventually became the Dessault Falcon jet, headquartered at Teterborough Airport, where it remains to this day. The airline is long gone, its footprint at Teterborough is not. There's a photograph in Henry M. Holden's book on Teterborough Airport, part of Arcadia Publishing's Images of Aviation Series that shows Studeman at an event there, identified as vice president of Pan Am, standing with aviation pioneers, county officials, and the Director of Aeronautics of the state of New Jersey. Another photograph shows his retirement in 1972 with a young Pat Riley standing to his right. For Oliver J. Studeman, Teterborough was his final chapter. For Pan Am, it was part of the vast, largely invisible infrastructure that made the world's most famous airline actually work. Now on to our interview with Bill and Diane Studeman. Diane Jeans grew up in Milford on Sea in Hampshire, England. Her father was a Royal Navy submariner during the Second World War and a policeman after that. He came from a long line of publicans from the New Forest in Hampshire, a family rooted in one of England's most storied landscapes. The Navy and aviation were woven into her life from an early age, and she understood long before she ever put on a uniform what it meant for an airport to be not just a transit point, but a world unto itself, a place with its own rhythms, its own culture, its own particular kind of glamour. Bill grew up as a Pan Am kid in the truest sense. His father was building a career that would take him from Brownsville to Seattle, to San Francisco, to Miami, to Cape Canaveral, then to New York. His uncle, on his mother's side, also worked for the airline. Pan Am for Bill was not just a company, it was a family inheritance. He attended college in Tennessee studying history. He graduated in June 1962. That summer he took a job at Pan Am's ticket counter at London's Heathrow Airport. Diane was working the TWA desk. And they met. Diane joined Pan Am as a stewardess after that summer, entering the airline at what many would argue was its cultural apex, when the uniform was a statement and the Clipper jet was a promise of something larger than the ordinary. Bill entered Officer Candidate School in 1963 and spent the next 32 years in the United States Navy as a naval intelligence officer, rising from deployments to the Western Pacific during Vietnam all the way to the directorship of the National Security Agency and Deputy Directorship of the CIA. Shortly after Bill became a naval officer, Diane hung up her wings to become a Navy wife and mother. They settled eventually in Annapolis. Today, Diane is active with the Garden Club of Annapolis, where she is past president. I had the privilege of serving alongside her on the Pan Am Museum Foundation's board for four years. And I've worked with Bill for the past five years in his role as chair of the advisory board of the Pan Am Museum Foundation. It's my great pleasure to welcome to the podcast. Finally, after five years of talking about it, my good friends Diane and Bill Studeman. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

So Diane, you and I served together on the Pan Am Museum Board.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

We did.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

And Bill, you are the advisor of the Pan Am Museum Board. Let's talk about your story on how you met. Let's go back to 1962 and tell us the story.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

So I used to work for uh Pan Am in the summertime at Heathrow all my college years. So I graduated from university in 1962 and was not going into the Navy until five months after that. So I went back to uh London Airport where I had uh been a local hire as a ticket agent. And I arrived uh after uh doing my comprehensive examinations, got off the plane and walked into the uh transfer desk lounge, the uh the uh interline lounge, uh and I met up with all of my old friends from the previous summers, and they were there, the uh the Pan Am people and the TWA people were very close socially together. Our desks were together, uh, and uh so uh while we were separate airlines uh and in competition with each other, we were uh fairly close socially. So the first time I ever saw Diane, I walked into the uh transfer desk and uh the interline lounge there, and she was uh sitting at the transfer desk, and uh we were just introduced, working, of course, right and I later, of course, was assigned to the transfer desk, so and there's only usually one person each from each airline there. So we ultimately sat together most of the summer. It was us against COAC and all the other airlines that were lined up down the way.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

But we had a good working relationship. If I had a delay, you know, with TWA, I would immediately let Bill know so that we could, you know, um put our passengers onto Pan Am and vice versa. He would uh let me know when Panam had a delay and I would take your passengers on TWA.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

There was a big laugh. Um Diane uh I arrived uh from New York in the heat of the summer and I was in uh wearing Searsucker suit courts back then, which was definitely not the fashion in the UK. And Diane made some comment about who is this guy here in these clothes.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

I I was really uh surprised when my friends, you know, welcomed this, you know, stranger who had even stranger looking clothes on. You know, nobody wore cotton in the summer in England. You you had some form of wool or whatever. And it was this pinstripe cord suit. And I thought, how strange these Americans are, and you know, who who is he type of thing? So it was with a little bit of skepticism, I think, when I first met him.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

When when did things change? And you're like, you know, I kind of like this guy.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

It wasn't really immediate. Um, we had a very platonic um friendship in that um our work days were not like Monday through Friday. You would have six days on and three days off. So all the airline people would socialize together. That we would go to the pool together, we would go up to London and to the pubs out of the country. Bill knew the best places were in little dives in the basement of places in London, and he had um was it a desperate, and you could ask him anywhere um in London where to go, and he knew.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

But we would go out to 12th century pugs in the countryside surrounding Heathrow, the Heathrow area. Again, this is all the group, this is the Pan Am folks and the TWA folks, all sort of together. Some of them were married, some were unmarried, and uh it was uh uh the summer passed very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah, it sounds fun. I could just hear the 60s, early 60s music and oh absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

And this is the height of the jetties. But it was a very innocent time. Um we had just a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

We both lived near uh London Airport. She lived down the road uh on just outside the boundary. I lived off the bathroad in a uh bed and breakfast across the street from where the old original terminal was when I originally went to work for Pan Am at Heathrow. I I I actually worked at the wooden World War II building uh where the international airlines were still there while the central area was being built.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

So, Bill, you uh went home. Home after the summer. Right. And then what happened after that? Because at some point, Diane, you decided to become a Pan Am stewardess.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Right. I could not become a stewardess until I was 21, which I became in the October. And then I applied to Pan Am rather than TWA. Had I applied to TWA, I would have been based in a place called Kansas. Flying domestically for the first two years. So I switched and applied to Penn Am in the fall and was interviewed and then came to the United States on February the 2nd, 1963.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So she came to the her flight attendant school was at New York. I was passing through New York occasionally. I then went to Officer Canada School, then down to pre-flight in Pensacola, and then ended up in intelligence school on the West Coast in Alameda while Diane was posted to San Francisco. So we were across the bay from each other. And she was in an apartment off now the famous Van S and Hayeshbury. Hay Dashbury with uh three other girls, one uh one American, uh, whom we all stay in contact or track still. And uh I was at Alameda with a whole bunch of bachelors, and occasionally I would bring the bachelors over when uh when they needed some morale boosting.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

So, okay, let's rewind for a second. So, Bill, you left London to go back to the States after that summer. Right. Were you dating or were you friends when you left?

SPEAKER_01 23:57

We were pretty much friends. I mean, I we I I I was I kind of knew where she was going. We kind of kept in contact. She came to New York, I was in Newport. So I was able to actually see her, I think once or twice when I was in Newport, then then uh we went sort of uh she went on to San Francisco. I went through the Navy route. Nine months later, I show up in the Bay Area. Got it. And then when did you guys start dating? Well, kind of during that time frame in in San Francisco, the the girls ultimately moved out of Hay Dashbury up to Twin Peaks. Uh I sort of got involved. Uh we ended up with lots of side stories about acquiring a dog, ended up in our family, of course. We the girls had to have a dog.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

He was our best friend.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, I was, yeah, I I tried to be the part of the person to try to keep him safe, really. Because I knew uh the other people where they were in the this um these apartments with her were people I knew from London.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Oh, neat. So it's kind of the same group that kind of carried over. Yes, yes, yes and Diane, when you got the job at Pan Am, what did your TWA friends say?

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Oh, they came with me. Um, I was on the flight with Judy Nichols and Fran Young, and Judy had worked um with me at TWA, and Fran was on the counter next to us working for Pan American. We we we were all friends, we all socialized together. So um our first apartment um I had with Fran and Judy and then Daya Nolan, who was the first American girlfriend.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

And we still talk to her on uh we still chat with her on video these days.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Nice, nice. So these are all lifelong friendships that you guys it all tracks back to the summer of 62.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Yes, and and then also Bill's dad just happened to be a VP in New York when I was going through, you know, the stewardess flight training school, and um he pinned my wings on me.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

I I was very embarrassed at the time, but now did did he know that you you were seeing his son? Yeah, okay. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

They had invited me to get home for for for dinner.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Um my parents lived in Garden City at the time, so uh it was just uh you know, cross-tracking all the time, right? Like it was faded, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

And we'll get back to Bill's dad in a moment, but uh Diane, let's talk about jet setting in 1962 as a Panium stewardess flying around the world. So tell us about some of your adventures.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Well, it was really a beginning of 1963. My very first flight was to Jakarta. It was a two-week trip. Um, flying out of San Francisco, you had the vast Pacific Ocean. So we flew all the way through to Jakarta, through the Far East, down to Australia, and then polar flights to London. So I was able to get home to buy my Italian shoes, have my haircut at Vital Sassoons, uh, see my parents. Um and it was an age before you had movies on flights. The flights were long. We were not allowed to sit down. You just used the jump seats strictly for takeoff and landings. And for the rest of the time, you worked the flight, you knew every passenger, you helped with the babies, with the children. You you asked the mother whether she would like to, you know, be fed first. They were your most important, you know, customer. Um, everyone dressed up. You know, the the women were in pantyhose, heels, dresses. I think they had discarded the hats, but certainly you wore gloves and you know, carried a smart-looking handbag. None of this um, you know, carry-on luggage or anything like that. Everything was un underneath in the cargo.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

And you cooked all the meals from scratch. On the airplane. Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Yes. Um, first class was a seven-course meal. And of course, we had all the time in the world to give great service. Uh, you weren't rushed. It was a time before um private jets, so all the stars would either fly internationally on TWA or Pan American, they had their favorites. And um, in the back, in the economy, we would cook scrambled eggs for breakfast, and that meant you cracked 266 eggs into little Dixie cups. Um, and you had to be very careful because um if you overcook the scrambled eggs, they would turn um a ghastly shade of green. And that's when you would see one of the stewardesses rush up to first class and grab a big bunch of parsley garnish and take back to put on the scrambled eggs to try and camouflage.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

And occasionally had to pick the eggs off the overhead ceiling when in the turbulence.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Yes, I did go through pure air turbulence and I was cooking scrambled eggs, and I had just put the eggs, very runny eggs, into the pan. And the the turbulence was so severe, my purser grabbed a hold of the back of my skirt and pulled me back down onto the jump seat. Um, and I had not closed, not had time to close the oven door. Well, the turbulence got so severe that that fluid eventually ended up all over the ceiling and then dripping from the ceiling. Fortunately, unfortunately, um, most of the passengers were also quite ill on that flight. So they weren't expecting breakfast, um, which was very fortunate.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

So speaking of celebrities, any uh celebrities that stand out to you that you want to share with our listeners, Diane? Who your passengers?

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Yes, yes. My favorite being Carrie Grant. Oh wow. Yes, we had a lot of stars. Um, Charlton has been I I remember um he I don't know which movie he was preparing for, but he had a script and he was the only um passenger in first class coming out of London. And he just asked very politely just to have a steak and a salad because he knew that we would go through the seven-course meal. He didn't want any of those trappings, you know. I I'm I'm really busy studying, you know, um, for this movie. So uh if you could just bring me, you know, a steak and salad. But Carrie Grant, um, bless his heart, I had him on three uh polar flights to and from London, and because his mother lived in Bath. And he is as debonair and as good looking, even more so than what you see in in the movies. And of course, we were very reserved, very polite, we were not fawning, um, but he had a very good sense of humor. And on the first flight, uh, of course, he was in first class, and he was at the back of first class, just just before the bulkhead. And he put on the Penan socks, and throughout the flight, he would across his legs, uncross his legs. And I had stopped by a little lady's seat about three rows back from the bulkhead. She tugged on my apron and she said, Is it true that Carrie Grant is on the airplane? And I said, Yes, and and it it was so cruel in a way. I didn't mean it to be cruel, but I pointed out where his feet were crossing and uncrossing. I said, those are Carrie Grant's feet. So for the remainder of the flight, she remained focused on the feet. So I I told Mr. Grant um where she was sitting, and that she was so excited that he was on the flight. And with every flight that he was on, he would always take time to walk back into the economy and stop and talk to people. Well, as he's passing this lady's seat, she her head goes back and he he he goes straight past her. And I was a little surprised and disappointed because I thought, oh, you know, I did point out, you know, the seat number and whatnot. Um but anyway, he came back and sat on her, so she was not expecting it. He she did not see him walk back, and he sat on the side of her seat. She was on the aisle, and he picked up her hand and put it in hers, and just had a lovely kind of you know, son to mother type of conversation that she were. I know that that was the highlight of her life and that she loves recounting the conversation that she had with Carrie Grant.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

And Bill, do you remember uh during this time period uh when you would see Diane, would she tell you some of these stories?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Oh yeah, well I get stories from all of the ladies because you know they were all flying either together or separately. Yeah, there was a there was never a dull moment. Uh and uh I was, you know, it was it was easy for me because I was had school hours in Alameda, so all my other hours were free weekend hours, except for studying. So I and I had a car so I could boogie across. I was also the chauffeur, you know, the uh introduces the introduced them to American cuisine. There was a restaurant just down the road, uh hippopotamus called Hippopotamus that made the thickest hamburgers in the world any way you wanted, from you know, far Asian to classic American.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Huh.

unknown 36:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Bill, Bill, any stories that uh stand out to you during this period that that was told to you?

SPEAKER_01 36:17

No, no, I mean I I I I think the biggest story was one night the girls one late afternoon, actually, the girls decided that they wanted to have a dog. And so uh I made a big mistake. I took the girls down to the city pound, and uh they allowed you to essentially see the dogs but not buy them. They were no longer being sold. So we finally had to go down South Bay and acquire a dog, and it ends up that we ended up having this dog who lived 15 years with us. Uh all of our they were our kids' dogs, essentially. Uh a little short-legged cross between a beagle and a dachshund. Uh and Diane, uh, he we called him Chico, but Diane had formerly named him Boeing. Ah, the name Boeing never caught on.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

I love it. I love it. Uh so Bill, you are a Pan Am kid. Uh, you were born in Brownsville, Texas. Only you were only there for a couple years, uh, and grew up mostly in Florida, right? Right. Uh, but I mean, Pan Am kid, your uncle, your mother's brother worked for Pan Am, and of course, your father was a pilot for Pan Am and then rose through the ranks to be vice president. Let's talk a little bit about your early days, and then we can talk about uh your father. One of the things to our listeners that Bill and I have talked about for many years, we think that there are four elements of Pan Am history that's kind of overlooked. Um, one is the land planes of the early days, the 1930s of Pan Am history. The other is Treasure Island uh in San Francisco, a man-made island that was constructed in the late 1930s for the World's Fair. We'll get to that in a second. The other is Brownsville, Texas, a big Pan Am operation. And lastly is Teeterborough. So, Bill, let's start at the beginning and tell us a little bit about your early years and your father.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Well, so I uh my father came to work uh for Pan America in 1933 as a pilot. He had been assigned to the Panama Canal to a composite squadron down there. And I only tell you this story because it does have a point. Uh the composite squadron was my father was a fighter pilot, a pursuit plane pilot, they call it, but he flew mostly mapping and reconnaissance missions around Central and South America. The composite squadron also contained a bomber group that were flying Keystone bombers. These were open cockpit uh uh early generation bombers. Uh, but the interesting thing about it was this composite squadron turned out to be a source of many Pan Am pilots that came essentially, Pan Am must have gone down there or somebody recruited them because my father came to work in 1933. But as I was growing up, uh all my friends in the neighborhood that were Pan Am captains in those days had been in the composite squadron. And they were kind of legends in the airline in many respects. So my father came to work in for Pan Am in uh 1933 in Brownsville, Texas. He was a Texan, my mother was a Texan. Uh Brownsville, Texas was the uh was the home of the Western Division headquarters. In late 1939, he became the chief pilot. Uh when he came to work for Pan American, he was flying the Fokker TriMotors, and which were the original Tri-Motors that Pan Am had at Key West, uh flying to Havana. Then uh ended up uh flying the Ford TriMotors, which succeeded the Fokkers very quickly, then DC two, DC threes, and my father ended up flying checking out on virtually every airplane Pan Am had in its inventory. It's an amazing thing to think about from 1933 to uh that era. In 19 uh 40, I was born early. Diane was born in late 41. You can calculate our age, but it's in the mid-mid uh mid-80s here. And uh my dad was assigned to uh the Pacific Alaska Division in 1942. Now World War II has started now, December 7th, 1941. He's we're assigned to Seattle. We leave, we live on a hill above uh uh the the Renton Boeing factory. You look down and you could see uh see nothing but netting. Uh there was a barrage balloon down at the end of the block that the neighborhood people had to let out and pull in. My father flew uh as well as was the operations manager of that uh division, flying DC-3s into Alaska, mostly under contract uh to the military. A lot of Pan Am's arrangements at that point in World War II were really contracts to the military. And you can read in the history about their big operations in Africa uh and on the West Coast, so uh, and and virtually every every place else. So then uh in 1944, after uh being in Seattle for two years, my father was assigned to be the operations manager of the Pacific Division. So you wanted to talk about uh Treasure Island. Well, obviously Treasure Island is a big naval place, but it was it has the history which he will recount here in a minute. But it was also the site of Pan Am's flying boat terminal there, a lovely Art Deco terminal.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Uh it's still there. Yes, people can visit it.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Right. And uh but Pan Am was really toward the end of the large flying boat era, and my father was a land plane guy, so he spent a lot of his time really over at the San Francisco airport, which was just being built at the time. And so, in anticipation of Pan Am's land plane operations. So he was there when they transitioned um to uh to land planes at those days, DC4, DC4s, etc., mostly, and uh flying out of San Francisco in 1946. We moved to to Coconut Grove, uh Florida, Carl Gables, Miami area. We rented a house owned by a legendary uh uh Pan Am captain, a guy named Lodi Lodison. Anyone has a book? Read the Lodi Lodison's Lodi Speaks, very cleverly written book, uh, an amazing history, a Dutchman, of course. And uh we built a house in Carl Gables, then I lived in Carl Gables until I went off uh to through my time in university. My dad then went to the Cape. He was the operations manager of the Latin American division during that period of time, lots of flying time. Uh, by the way, in a lot of my dad's flying era, when he could, I flew with him. I was actually able to fly with him. I flew downrange often, uh, as far south as uh Argentina, Chile, etc., in the Latin American division around the Caribbean. So we I I went off to college. My father then went to the Cape to be the assistant vice president of the Guide of Missile Range Division. Again, this is Pan Am touching the future of space travel, if you will. Sort of Pan Am had the contract for running the Easter Missile Test Range. Uh so my dad was effectively the operations manager of the Guide of Missile Range Division. Then he went to corporate. Uh and uh when the business jets and the metropolitan air facilities were set up, he became the The vice president in charge of that uh division and he retired from there. But in that time, Teeterborough was built up. Uh the Pan Am extended the runways, uh, built new admin buildings. It really went from a small uh local airport to a proper airport uh that it is now.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

And and like we've talked about, those uh those facts are are kind of overlooked in Pan Am history. I mean, they're there, but you have to kind of look for them. So I'm glad that we're highlighting it on this program.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Yeah, the Metropolitan Air Facilities Division serviced the business jets division. And you might remember that Pan Am bought the Mr. Falcon uh and operated the business jets. The hub of that was at Teeterborough, but they needed command and control, uh, all kinds of services at the at the long-range destinations that the Falcons flew to. And the Metropolitan Air Facilities Division saw to all of that: the ground, the communications, the servicing, whether it was uh in the Pacific or somewhere in the Atlantic or elsewhere for the business jets.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

And Diane, let's get back to your story. So you're flying around the world in luxury, having these wonderful passengers, including Carrie Grant. And Bill is a smart guy, and he's like, I'm going to ask her to marry me. Tell us a little bit about that experience and also your decision to leave Pan Am and say yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Well, let me just say uh it's not, it wasn't a traditional ask. Oh, well, here's a story here. I was I was flying uh using up all my disposable income to fly. I was at North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego at the time. She was in San Francisco. I would go up, she would come down. I would go up, she would come down. And one on various sundry weekends. She was in San Diego at one time when I actually was sent off uh on a TAD mission. And I'm going up the stairs of the uh airplane uh ramp, and she's standing there uh uh with taking getting ready to take my car back and fly home to San Francisco, and she goes, points at her ringer fing. I'm at the top of the ladder, and uh and I I give her the thumbs up.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

That was the proposal she proposed. Ah I asked him.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

When is this guy ever gonna you know get in line? And what was your rank at the time, Bill? Oh, I I'm a lieutenant JG at the time.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

So so Diane, you're like, this lieutenant junior grade uh is going to be my husband one way or another, and it's time to be a little bit more in your face. I'm gonna point at my rank finger. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

I I was growing a little impatient that's uh yeah, I I I tend to be a pretty shy person, so uh, you know, I don't move very fast. As you can tell, with all my time with these ladies, I'm really trying to just you know do the right thing, mostly as service support, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

So Bill gives you the thumbs up, Diane. And what happens next? How long before you decided to take your last flight uh on Pan Am as a flight attendant?

SPEAKER_03 47:24

I believe that was in June. We were married the 12th of September.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

In the UK.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

In the UK. Um, I only had enough time to order a wedding dress. It was I remember I picked it up on the Saturday before we left San Francisco on Monday morning. So there was no time to do any necessary alterations. And then actually at that particular time, I just thought I it doesn't matter what I get married in. I I just want to get married, you know, be a wife, have children. Um, it didn't matter, everybody else was concerned. Um, but I got on the flight with my wedding dress, and at that particular time, the overhead um they weren't really bins, it was just a shelf. So I I laid out my wedding dress, which probably took about four or five rows. Um, and we were married in England. Uh, and fortunately, because dad uh his dad's duty worked for Pan American, um, there were as many Americans.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

Your family was flying in from all over the place, friends. It was uh it was uh interesting. Uh the church was just uh south of London Airport. When we saw it for the first time, the weeds were high, the gravestones were covered with, and uh we the uh the guy who was gonna preside over the service, the rector there had never done an American wedding. The church was right across the street from John Milton's house. He wrote all of his poetry. The church did finally clean up the the yard, and uh because all these people were there, we had a we had a uh a wedding dinner the night before the wedding, and uh the priest got a little sloshed and um barely made it to the service the next day. And then Diane's parents, who were publicans, uh people who uh uh ran pubs, uh, had a lovely uh reception in a pub on the bathroad, uh right there uh where London Airport is on the boundary. And then we actually were delivered early on to London Airport hours before our flight and hooked up with all our TWA and Pan Am friends and partied until they poured us on the airplane to go to our honeymoon in Lisbon, Portugal.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

That's great. It it's what's interesting is that all the aviation people are are connected, and this is such an aviation story in all different types of angles.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 50:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

Yeah. So even Diane's parents were associated with working on the boundary of the airport. So that whole area was, and everybody we touched were involved somehow or another with aviation.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Interesting. So, Bill, where are you in your career? So you you're a lieutenant uh uh junior grade, and when did you transfer to the USS Yorktown?

SPEAKER_01 50:54

So I'm I'm already in an air wing, uh, which is which when it deploys is embarked in Yorktown. So the the Yorktown was at uh the port of Los Angeles uh and uh actually originally San Francisco. My squadron was at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, California, suburb of San Diego. So when the aircraft carrier would go to sea, we would fly out and join them. I was part of the air wing. I was the squadron intelligence officer, uh, and I was in that squadron for three and a half years, made two deployments to Westpac. Diane and I tried our best to meet up when we could because uh we we fortunately had a nice vacation in uh in Hong Kong together. After she told you, I think earlier that uh she she had come to Yakuska to join the ship. Uh when she arrived at Tokyo Airport, uh a Pan Am Exchange ticket agent whom we knew from London piled her in the Pan Am car and drove her to Atsugi Naval Air Station in the middle of the night through uh Tokyo traffic. Wow. We met up and we got uh we got up the next morning and we went down for breakfast, and the squadron was there, and two-thirds of the way through breakfast, uh the announcement came over the uh the the loudspeaker and the in the officers club that will all members of uh anti-submarine squadron 23 please report to the flight uh to the basically to the flight line. And it was the first mass deployment of Soviet submarines out of the Sea of Japan into the Philippine Sea, and we had to go basically ride herd on them. So the whole vacation there was interrupted, and then Diane joined us when we finally broke away from the Russians and we ended up essentially making a port visit in Hong Kong. And then that's another long saga, but you know, it's never dull when you're when you're doing international travel, and you know, one's in the military and one's not.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Yeah. And then Diane, when was your last flight with Pan Am uh 1964? How was that transition from being an international stewardess, having passengers such as Charlton Heston and Carrie Grant, and now becoming a Navy wife? Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

It went very smoothly. Um my last flight was on Christmas Day, um, which was memorable because everybody was in such high spirits. It was a fitting end to you know my two years of flying. I wanted to get married, I wanted to move on from flying. I loved it, I loved every minute of it. I I so appreciate the opportunity that I had. But my reality was to, as I say, be be a wife and a mother. So my last flight was to Tokyo, and then of course Bill's explained what happened. I decided to fly back to my parents' home, see them for a couple of weeks before going back and waiting in Bangkok, uh, keeping in contact with the embassy to find out when the Yorktown would pull into Hong Kong. And that was a grand sight. And then six months after that, yeah, we we had our first child.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

So I I was so we rented a little house in Coronado, California. And our first daughter was born nine months and several days later in the in uh the Coronado hospital. And we we still have fond connections with Coronado. Diane's best friend, the wife of the Martin Baker ejection seat tech rep to the Naval Air Forces Pacific. Uh uh, she met her on the streets of Coronado the first day she was there. They're fond, fast friends ever since. And so, you know, Coronado, we had two tours of duty in in San Diego both the times we lived in in uh Coronado, California. Paradise, of course, in its own way. And uh left the squadron uh ultimately, uh, then uh went to postgraduate school, came back to the Pacific, second time in Coronado. Uh I was with the amphibibs then, did two more tours. All my tours in those days were mostly in the far western Pacific, mostly associated with the Vietnam War. So I did two tours with the with the carriers in the north and two tours with the amphibians in the south, uh, mostly extended deployments. So theoretically, there were supposed to be six or seven months, often ended up as nine or ten months. Uh, but it was professionally interesting. And then uh I was considering getting out of the Navy because I was stuck in the Pacific, and I told uh the Navy detailer uh we needed to go to Europe, and he sent us to Naples, Italy. And after that, we had two tours in Naples. So we had a career that was mostly um associated with either Italy or with the Western Pacific. And then uh, if you're an Intel guy, you spend a lot of time in Washington. We spent we had one tour in in uh Norfolk at uh the Atlantic Fleet Command. But um and so uh just normal promotions from there on up. I was an Intel professional, so I held uh intelligence jobs all over the Intel community.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

And Diane, this is the height of the Cold War, and your husband is doing some very important work safeguarding Americans and national interests. Were you ever worried about him on these trips?

SPEAKER_03 57:10

Not really, because I knew that he could really take care of himself if he was ever shot down in Vietnam, for example, which he was. Um he came down, that was worrying. Um they called me um on ham radio, uh, which was really the only way to communicate back then. And you only had a few minutes to speak, but somebody from his sister squadron called and said, Well, there's been an accident. Um, Bill came down in a helicopter, but he's all right, over and out. Thank you very much indeed, over and out. Um, and it wasn't until afterwards that you say, How on earth do you get shot down in a helicopter and and not be injured in some way? So that was very worrying until I found out that in natural fact he had made it out um safely.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

Well, you know, it's occupational hazard of being, you know, uh in the military. Um so but I don't think she worried. Uh, you know, the I was normally in a pretty safe environment. After the combat zones, you know, I was in a domestic environment. I think the traffic in Naples, Italy was more dangerous than uh airspace over the Toy Rap River in Vietnam. So the I have lots of driving, sorry, so I don't, you know. We had two tours of duty in Italy, one in Naples. We lived out actually out north of Naples, so it was a combat experience just getting home and getting to work. And then we had uh a tour in Gaeta, Italy, which is a small Italian seaport about 50 miles north of Naples, which is the the home port of the Six Fleet Flagship. So we lived there. Domestica was a delightful tour, and uh uh our kids went to school. Uh they had to come, you know, to to combat Italian driving tactics on buses, going long distances. You had to have a lot of patience in those days. But uh, you know, in driving in Italy is uh is uh a I wouldn't say it's a contact sport, but I would have to say that it certainly is an interesting, you know, experience. And unfortunately you pick up some bad habits in the process of trying to deal with all that, you know. Uh so uh I still say that I I do you know drive fairly fast, but I do think that you're you become a safe driver as much as you you can possibly be. I mean, we're still driving in our mid-80s, so um I just took a group down there. We met up with all these Pan Am stewardesses down in Southport, you know, North Carolina. Um, and we got down there and back and uh with four of us in the car. So and in in minimal driving time.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Let's get back to your story. So you you were in Italy, and then what happened next? Uh you you said that you had a couple tours in DC.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

Right. I I went to Norfolk. Uh then uh from 1980 on, uh, I we we lived in in Virginia. All my tours were uh essentially here in town. So uh I worked in the Pentagon, I I worked uh at NSA, I worked out at Langley, where CIA is located, uh, and did a lot of traveling overseas. And so I had uh the senior offer officer experience. I was a director of naval intelligence for four years. Uh so uh the the uh these senior jobs were interesting. I uh I fought a couple of wars essentially from those sitting positions and uh just an interesting place to watch the world go by. Unfortunately, you know, Pan Am had gone down by then, uh, you know, because Pan Am was such a big uh asset in the old days and had a wartime uh angle, you know, flights out of, you know, transport flights out of uh uh uh Vietnam, uh all kinds of other things that uh Pan Am was a national resource, as was TWA. So and all the American Airlines that uh participated with the military in these regional contingencies.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

And it was probably very interesting in the 70s and the 80s being an intelligence, because that's the dawn of global terrorism, where terrorism really impacted all of the airlines uh in in that time period. I mean, today as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

One of the reasons why Pan Am, of course, probably ended up failing was Pan Am was identified more. So, yes, uh but you know, 1990 as a seminal period of time. It's the end of the Cold War, it's uh the beginning of Desert Storm, uh it's uh which is really the shift over to the Middle East, it's the Pan Am demise is all in that period of time. And so uh these are uh these are interesting, it's like time is compressed. And then, of course, after the Cold War uh was over, we went through this period of the global war on terrorism. Now I'm retired by then working for a defense contractor building uh reconnaissance and command and control toys for the military.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:41

So, Diane, this is like an intersection of all your worlds aviation, pan Am, the Navy. Your dad served in the Royal Navy during World War II on submarines. Your brother was in the Royal Air Force as a pilot, and then you married a Navy guy, and then he happens to be a Pan Am guy, and then you worked for Pan Am. I mean, it's it's like all of these worlds are are crisscrossing all over the place. Tell me about your first flight.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:12

My very first flight was with my brother, who, as you said, was in the Royal Air Force as a pilot. He took me up when I was just 15 and performed aerobatics. A loop, and then straight into a barrel roll. And I had never experienced pulling G's before. I might add, he took me down to tea and served me sticky cream buns. So you can see what his agenda was here, but anyway, um, it was a dramatic and adventurous introduction to flying, but it certainly piqued my interest. And after that experience, my brother and I had greater respect for each other for different reasons.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

This was in an open cockpit tipmunk. So if you can you can probably research that, you can see that both of them were sitting essentially out in the open like the 1920s, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:18

Right. So, what was coming through your head when this was happening?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:22

At first, I had great admiration for my brother. I thought, my goodness, he is so smart, he's so clever, he can, you know, pilot this plane. And then I realized the agenda that he had was to see if I could take it, um, wanted to get me ill. And it was with a great deal of pride when we came out of the uh loop and then into the bowel roll. There was probably a couple of seconds of silence, and then I said to my brother, Brian, I was not sick. That said it's a great story.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

And uh, I would take him up to Warner Springs to uh the glider field up there, and one day I took him up there and uh he launched after he qualified at uh eight o'clock in the morning, and uh he didn't come back, and he didn't come back, and he didn't come back, and he was catching thermals, and he didn't come back until after lunch, essentially on one flight flying over Warner Springs, California.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

Cool. That's very cool. Which brings us to your family. We've talked about your family a little bit, and Diane, again, you know, your your father was in the Royal Navy, your brother was in the Royal Air Force, you married a Navy Pan Am guy, and then your son ended up going into the Navy so. Let's talk about your children.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:01

We have three wonderful children. Girl, boy, girl. The oldest daughter is a doctor. Michael in the middle is the retired Navy Admiral. And our youngest daughter is with the government.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

Wow. Well, I mean, you that's that's three home runs. My word. Uh what kind of what kind of doctor is your oldest?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:30

She is now a pathologist, but she started out as um surgeon.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:37

Surgical resident.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

But realized that she would not really have a life. The hours were so long. She wouldn't have a family. She would be well published, but she would blink and she would turn around and be 65 and not have a family, but be very a very successful surgeon. So she made a very courageous decision to go back to school for pathology. And now she is happily doing that and has had a son, one of our four grandboys.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

Nice. And Bill, your son, Mike, is retired rear admiral, uh, following in your footsteps in the Admiralty.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

Uh, tell tell us a little bit about that. And how do you feel that your son got the admiral rank?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

Well, obviously very proud. He's a uh quite a specialist. Uh he's in the public domain, so I can uh talk about the fact that he is an Asian specialist. Uh he's uh what to learn Mandarin, and uh I graduated from Monterey, which is the Navy Postgraduate School, with a uh with a degree essentially in in uh uh Asian affairs. So that's his specialty area, and he continues to work in that area.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:01

And I'm going to embarrass the Studemans for a second because they're they're such wonderful, humble people, and they don't like to brag at all. But I am going to promote their son's book, Might of the Chain: Forging Leaders of Iron Integrity by Mike Studeman, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy retired. And there is a link in the episode description to purchase this book. Tell us a little bit about how it feels to have a son that is a celebrated Navy man, but also now an author.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

Well, first off, Michael has enjoyed writing for a lot of years, and actually, he's quite a good writer. And uh The Might of the Chain is really a book about leadership, so uh, which is really his favorite topic, that and adventure racing, I have to say. Which he's doing still now around the age of 60 years old.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

So is this from that that uh couple tours in southern Italy from your driving?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:03

Yeah, no, no, I I don't think so, but anyway, but no, but the authorship might come from when I was insistent that they all write a diary, a journal, a journal. And the problem was I never told Michael um he can stop writing a journal because to this day he writes a journal with photographs alongside. So writing is part of his life.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

That's great, that's a great story. And how many children did he have?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:45

They have adopted two boys.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

Okay. So that's three grandchildren, and then we'll get to your youngest daughter. Um, she works in in for the government. Uh, tell us a little bit about her.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

Well, uh she works uh in the um uh area of supporting government budget uh related activities, and that's about the most I can say at this point.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:11

But she's a single mom with a 14-year-old, so she's very busy, as you can well imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

Is there anything you'd like to add? Uh any trips, family trips that you went on that really stand out to you um looking back?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:26

Well, no, you know, we we're fairly active. So we we do sailing, all the kids sail or boat. Uh we live in the Chesapeake Bay area. Uh and uh so uh so we have we live on the water actually, so it's powerboat, sailboat, and the the kids uh enjoy their sailing, uh all of them actually. How about your green kids? Do they like to sail? You know, they're more into uh sports uh and uh and I think uh are serious, even academics. Uh the uh one recently graduated, uh Magna Kumlaudi from uh Franklin and Marshall University and is uh trying to make his way in the finance and economics area. And the others are essentially uh one's married and one is working essentially also uh in the accounting area.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:22

So looking back, your history with your father and your uncle, both working for Pan Am, Diane, your parents were involved with aviation with pubs, and then you became a flight attendant. Looking back at that incredible period of time, what do you want listeners to know about that time? And why is this history important?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:48

For me, there was really no other job that could come close to the satisfaction and responsibility for the safety and care of a cabin full of passengers. And it was a fun challenge to cook and present food as beautifully as possible in both first class, where seven courses were served on a tray with white linens, crystal, and fine china, along with flowers for each tray, and in economy, a complete breakfast or dinner. Every passenger was an individual, every flight was different, and one felt a great sense of pride to wear the blue uniform, only complete with the hat and the gloves, either short white for hot climates and three-quarter length black leather for cool. Representing the best, the most experienced airline in safety and service, Pan Am's logo was recognized worldwide, second only to that of Coca-Cola. Pan Am was the pioneer in aviation and set a high bar for quality. Pan Am represented the best in class. They set a high bar. It was an honor and privilege to fly with the best in design, safety, piloting, service on the ground or in the air. Its employees cared. Men dressed in smart suits, women wore dresses along with high-heeled shoes, gloves, and carried smart handbags. Flying was such a special event. Passengers dressed in their Sunday best, and there were no carry-on bags. Pan Am's experience in pioneering aviation spanned seven decades since the late 20s, 1920s, and it achieved the highest level of excellence in safety and service.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:56

Well, personally, you know, I'm a historian uh by degree and uh by avocation, if you will. I still do history. You know, I work on even Pan Am related history. Uh, when we were on the board of uh uh uh the Pan Am Museum Foundation Board, uh, we uh provide some money for the people still trying to find the uh uh the Hawaii Clipper, the Pan Am Clipper that disappeared in 1938 in the Pacific. And so uh the museum has offered money to the Lost Clipper Group, another former group of naval intelligence officers who have made five expeditions out to the Western Pacific, essentially trying to uh search for the story around the Hawaii Clipper. So uh I think history is important. Um I I still do active history, uh, write history. I still mostly read history books. I'm currently reading the the story of the uh of the of the Navy on the roof gang, which was the Navy signals intelligence group established in the late 30s that uh that essentially set the stage for the exploitation of the of the uh Japanese purple code and uh Enigma also in the Atlantic. So again, uh to me uh national security history is particularly important. And I view Pan American as a national security asset, essentially, in many regards. Um but also it was a great airline. It was my entire youth. As I said, I traveled a lot with my dad. My uncle uh we he we were fairly close. He started out with my father in my father's era as a weight and balance guy and a load controller at Brownsville Airport, ended up uh at Miami as the Latin American Division uh uh major dispatcher, and then spent decades in London as the chief European dispatcher. When I was there in London working, uh my uncle did the NASCAT uh with his wife and family. Uh so again, uh everything that I did when I was growing up was all around Pan Am. And I pride myself on the fact that I I went to work for Pan Am as a local employee. I I I was I I I interviewed and and tried to do well, and then I was invited back uh four times, you know, in at London, one time at uh Tacumen Airport in Panama City. So I've lived the Pan Am uh sort of story in many different kinds of guises here. And uh my father loved the airline, as you can well imagine. He he he I think uh had to he he predicted the airline was in trouble toward the end, and I'm sorry to say that he was right, but uh it's uh it's still one of the greatest uh uh stories in airline history that exists, and it needs to be told continuously. It has messages even for today.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:06

Well, it was the ambassador to the world, it opened the world, um flying on that blue and white airplane and having it on the tarmac in some far-flung country. It meant that they had arrived. It it meant so much to so many people. It was, you know, the lifeline between where they were as a third-world country and the hope of where they could be. Um I still remember, and it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, um, as you were making your way down the runway for takeoff, the languages, four or five languages um of announcements would just tell you, as soon as you had you know boarded that aircraft, you knew you were on a world-class airline. Um all the different languages spoken. It it was something to be very proud of. It spoke to every passenger, it welcomed every passenger. It wasn't like the the bus trip that it is, you know, today. Um maybe we helped that, you know, in development, but back then it was so very special, you know, to fly um around the world, flight one, flight two with the Nisei girls speaking their Japanese. Um, there was always someone that no matter your language, there would be a flight attendant who could, you know, seek to you, converse with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:07

But when they talk about Pan Am pioneering global civil aviation, it's a big story. You know, when I was growing up with my dad, most of the airlines in Central and South America, the local airlines, were half owned by the country and almost half-owned by Pan Am. And Pan Am would train their pilots, they would buy their airplanes, they would spec their cockpits, they would build their uh terminals and airports, they would build the navigation aids and the and the other kinds of things. If you go back and look at all that history, the Panerdo Brazil or Compañia Mexicana or all these other airlines that grew out from Pan American, the Chinese National Uh uh Airways Corporation, the the the uh the things that Pan Am did to expand aviation globally weren't it wasn't just somebody who went out there to try to make money flying an airplane around. They were growing the industry. And it's too bad because the industry ult the industry and industry-related policies ultimately were part of its demise. But it was grander than anything uh you might imagine as just a plain airline, a blue and white airplane, a blue and silver airplane flying uh around here and there. And those were really interesting times. I spent a lot of time with my dad. We would get a call at home. There was a constellation that couldn't get its nose gear down, circling around in a Miami airport. We'd drive out to Miami airport and wait until the guys got into the cockpit floor, crank the nose gear down and hoping it wouldn't collapse when he landed. And uh Pan Am built and spec'd airplanes for the Navy, then modified a DC-3, and later on that DC-3 became part of the naval transport. A Pan Am design, you know, with a bigger engine and with uh encapsulated uh landing gear and all kinds of amazing things. They worked with the airline builders to design and build these airplanes that are the first offs that Pan Am had. That 707 that's behind you, or the 747. And these are a really amazing stories that really nobody really understands when they go when they look into the history of airlines. But they also did it with their fellow airlines. My dad was very close with Braniff, very close with Eastern Airlines, very close with American Airlines. Um, they also had to do uh the the daily kinds of things that that managers had to do. They had to renegotiate contracts with pilots or even with flight attendants, cabin crews, etc. So it's a bit it was a big business, it still is a big business. It's a tough business. And so uh they weathered the storm for a long time, were pioneers in ways virtually nobody else was.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:03

You know, you haven't said anything about Charles Lindbergh being in your house.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:08

Well, I grew I grew up well, Charles Lindbergh was a Pan Am director at the time, and but uh, you know, a lot of a lot of great people in in pioneering people. I didn't ever see Amelia Earhart, but I certainly saw Lindbergh in and out of my house because he would come to Miami and uh would be faded for lunch and that sort of thing, and then my father would take him off and bring him home for drinks and dinner. Dan Morrow, my mother loved Dan Morrow, and uh it was she's you know a great lady, or she loved her poetry, you know, that sort of thing. It's amazing, really.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:44

So so hold on. For our listeners, let me just have repeat this. Your father had Charles Lindbergh over for lunch. Is that what she just said?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:58

No, when he would come, he was frequently at a business lunch with BP. And he would come to your house, but then in the evening, you know, he he would occasionally come to the house. So there was four or five occasions when and my father looked my father and Lindbergh were about the same height, and and I think uh Studio was six four. And so uh, and you know, they knew each other, they were operations guys. You know, my father flew survey flights, Lindbergh flew survey flights, you know, uh they were in the airline and and were enduring all the same frustrations with the equipment. Uh and you know, when we went to Miami, my father's job again, like San Francisco, was to shut down Dinner Key and to bring up 36th Street, what's now Miami International Airport. And uh so uh and Lindbergh's Lindbergh was an advisor, a senior advisor to to the airline, not only about routes, but technology and that sort of thing. And that was what my father did. That's incredible. Natural, I mean, as an operations manager, he's he has he has a natural tendency to to uh be affiliated. But you know, my dad had other jobs. I sent you a picture, by the way, of my father with Clark Gable. Yes, yes, you did. Yes, my dad would occasionally be asked to take you know some of the VIPs out. Pan Am had an old what their last seaplane tenor tender, uh Panor21, it was up the Miami River, uh, was at the disposal of the of the people uh who were seniors to to take out guests and to entertain and be a VIP boat, well maintained. Uh and uh so there was a lot of stories around my father, it was a big waterman, my father was a big hunter, my father was a big sailor. So when uh when you had to go out of the business office and hand these people over to somebody who could take them off on an adventure, they handed them off to my father.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:00

So interesting. As we're nearing the end of our episode, uh Diane and Bill, is there anything you'd like to add to our conversation?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:10

You you had asked me about my first trip with Pan Am. And I don't think I answered it as openly, perhaps. My first Pan Am trip was a two-week trip across the Pacific to Tokyo and through to Jakarta, Indonesia. I swiftly learned how world politics affected this world-circling airline. The captain singled me out, suggesting that as I was English not to speak with anyone, I would be confined to my room, and any room service was to be ordered by my roommate. I learned there were current tensions between the governments of Indonesia and the UK, and he wanted to avoid any innocent offense. Um, not everybody realizes how Pan Am affected history, and vice versa, history also affected Pan Am. That was affecting me on a very singular basis, but it goes to illustrate that you were a world-class airline, you know, you and you had to be concerned. I had not read the papers that day. I had no idea. Um, but he was on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:39

Wow, that's that's interesting. What year do you think that was? Well, 1963.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:43

1963.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:45

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:46

It was 1963, and I haven't looked up what was happening um between Sukano and the British government, but there certainly were tensions. The jet was on the tarmac, and they had a guard on board all night long. You know, for protection there. And the next day when we took off, I was in first class and I was serving coffee and we hit clear air turbulence. But when you hit clear air turbulence, you know, your first thought is I'm leaving a country where you had a guard on board, you know, had they done anything to the aeroplane, you know, had someone been able to um fiddle around with the engines or whatever. And I remember I spilled coffee over this passenger in one sea, all over him. I mean, a full pot of coffee. I sat down and unlike Linda Freyr's story, where the coffee came back down into the coffee pot, mine did not. Mine went all over this first class. passenger all over his suit and but he was so sweet you know he was more concerned about me you know held me where I was on the ground at this time covered with coffee and um but yeah that was my first flight that that was my first experience nice uh I think the only thing I'd like to add it's going to be interesting to see if if uh what's going on right now can create a business case where we can see Pan American again as a licensed operator of aircraft.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:36

That will be something special for us you know at the end of our life since we lived with it for so long. And uh we've gone through all this uh uh amazing story with the Pan Am Museum Foundation the Pan Am Museum uh trying to get the museum up uh in its small niche on the mezzanine floor there at the Cradle of Aviation Museum and I think that uh it would be nice to see the Pan Am in the air again so uh and see that logo and see if there is a business case that uh can be made for it to be seen by the Americ flying public again.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:15

Absolutely Diane any closing thoughts it was such a sad day when it folded and it closed so yes I I I share in the wish that um to see Pan Am fly again.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:37

And somebody needs to keep up with its history we still need there's a lot of parts of Pan Am's history that needs to be documented along the way. There's some there are some great books out some of the books on Pan Am are quite special especially the ones that deal with Pan Am at war and things like that. So it is a great topic for writing history it's it's an it's an amazing era for somebody to have lived through yeah absolutely it was my dad that lived through it and I you know he he was always an amazing adaptive guy and he loved the flying more than anything else I can I can I can I know of. Yeah he loved Pan Am he was Pan Am you know there were core people there were people that that that were the the financial people and the strategists and that sort of thing and there were the people that operated the airline and it was an operating you know it was an operating thing. Um really when you think about it and when you look back back at the detailed history it's it's totally amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:42

Well I'd like to thank both of you for taking the time to come on this program. It's it's an honor to know you it's an honor to have you on this program and uh I can't thank you enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:53

Oh it's our pleasure Tom thank you yeah and thank you what for what you've done on the board and for these podcasts that you produce they're truly extraordinary uh it's a legacy it's you've done a great job quite an achievement as many as you've done the the uh breadth and depth of it all the including tragedy and you know high points and amazing people so well done Tom thank you you've done a superb job Tom i I really must say um and you've been the glue and you've also kind of shown where where you can access history that we didn't know about.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:36

I appreciate that very much okay all right thank you so much take care thank you bye bye Tom 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.thepanammuseum.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 dot org. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world thank you for flying Pan Am