SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast or museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways. 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. Our mission statement is to educate, celebrate, and inspire present and future generations by preserving historical and diverse personal stories of Pan American World Airways. Please visit our website for more information at the Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is the Pan Ammuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. We would love to meet you when you visit our museum on Long Island, which is just a short distance away from New York City. In this episode, we'll be talking about presidential first flights and Pan Am's unique distinction as the first to give flight to the U.S. presidency. Later, we will be joined by Pan Am Captain John Marshall, who will share his memories of the very last flight of our iconic airline. Captain Marshall will also talk about his 27-year career at Pan Am, flying the DC-8 727 and the Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747. But first, the history portion of this episode. Who was the first president to fly in an airplane? If someone answered Roosevelt, technically they would be correct. But which one? President Theod Roosevelt took a brief flight on October 11, 1910, in St. Louis, Missouri, in a Wright Company type AB aircraft. So was that the first presidential flight? Answer? It's complicated. Theod Roosevelt was the first president to fly in an airplane, and one can call this the first presidential flight. But technically, Roosevelt was a former president at the time, so others could argue it was not the first presidential flight. However, 33 years later, on January 11, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first sitting president to take an official presidential flight. The plane flown was none other than a Pan American Airways Boeing 314 flying boat called the Dixie Clipper. The president would fly from Miami to a few stops in South America and then cross the Atlantic to Africa. After landing on the water in British Gambia, Africa, alongside the Omaha light cruiser USS Memphis, the president continued his journey to Casablanca aboard a TWA Douglas DC-4 aircraft so the Pan American crew could make preparations for his return flight. A quick note about military aircraft designations. During the war, the U.S. Army designated TWA's DC-4s as the C-54 and Pan Am's Boeing 314s as the C-98, although the U.S. Navy, which used a different designation system at the time, disregarded this designation and continued to operate the flying boat under the manufacturer's designation B-314. Roosevelt was secretly traveling to Casablanca for a conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French leader Charles de Gaulle to adopt a policy of unconditional surrender from their Axis enemies. The trip was planned with the utmost secrecy. In fact, the Pan Am crew did not even know their passenger would be the President of the United States until he arrived at Dinner Key Terminal in Miami shortly before departure. The first pilot to fly a sitting president, 34-year-old Pan Am Captain Howard M. Comb, Jr., a veteran of Transoceanic Flights, recalled that he was very much surprised to learn the identity of their guest shortly before takeoff. President Roosevelt's return flight was on the same Pan Am Boeing 314. However, the departure route was modified at the last minute for fear his plane would be an attractive enemy target. The Pan Am flying boat departed from Fisherman's Lake, Liberia, and then traveled 700 miles down the Gambia River until it opened to the Atlantic Ocean, all in the middle of the night and in secret. Next stop was South America and then back to Miami. Captain Cohn said the president was an excellent passenger and a good air sailor on his 15,000-mile round trip, displaying impressive knowledge of geography on a journey that included stops in Trinidad and Brazil. The president also celebrated his 61st birthday on the way back, dining on caviar, olives, celery, pickles, turkey, stuffing, green peas, cake, and champagne. Because this was a Pan American flight after all. John Leslie, Pan Am's Atlantic Division Manager and a wartime naval reserve officer, was given the responsibility of coordinating the Casablanca mission between the U.S. Navy and Pan Am. He remembers fondly the return flight in his journal. Here's what he wrote: quote, preparing for the final day's flight from Trinidad to Miami on the President's birthday, we got a nice birthday cake for him and dressed the aircraft with signal pendants which read, Happy birthday, chief, end quote. He also recalled an airborne birthday toast radioed from another Payne Am flying boat crew that was following closely behind, carrying members of the president's staff.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Passengers and crew of Clipper No. 2 request to inform the President that they will drink to his health and happiness at 1620 GMT, wishing him many happy returns of his birthdays. That our commander-in-chief should for the first time be celebrating his birthday in the vast freedom of the sky seems to us the simplicity of the new day for which we are all fighting with one mind and heart.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Ron Marasco, author and former Panam Vice President of Maintenance and Engineering, tells us that, quote, Leslie never recorded any of the light banter that took place during the president's birthday celebration, yet it's not hard to visualize the scene. FDR had a larger-than-life personality, was exceedingly charming, and loved Martinis. It was no secret the president looked forward to his favorite hour of the day, cocktail time. It does not take imagination to envision him smoking a cigarette in his characteristic long cigarette holder, with his infectious smile, toasting the crew an airplane for a marvelous trip. Thank you to Ron for sharing that insight. Pan Am had many firsts in its 64-year history, and with blue pride, we can say today that the very first official presidential flight was on a Pan American flying boat clipper. John Marshall attended Deerfield Academy, Stanford University, and served in the United States Air Force before beginning his distinguished career with Pan Am. He was based in Hong Kong, Sydney, Berlin, San Francisco, and served as chief pilot of the Honolulu Base, also known as the Royal Hawaiian Flying Club. He received the Civilian Desert Shield and Desert Storm Medal for flying military troops and material in support of Operation Desert Storm while with Pan Am. Captain Marshall serves on the board of the Pan Am Museum Foundation, and his writings and columns have been published and featured in Smithsonian Magazine and Airways magazine, and he keeps in shape, flying a World War II B-25 bomber named Show Me. He currently works for the FAA as an aviation safety inspector in St. Louis, Missouri, where he lives with his wife Carla, who also worked for Pan Am. Welcome to the Pan Am podcast, Captain Marshall. Thank you. Nice to be here. Captain Mark Pyle flew the last scheduled flight with passengers on a Boeing 727 from Barbados to Miami on the morning of December 4th, 1991, shortly after Pan American World Airways ceased operations. However, you have the distinction of being the last Pan Am 747 captain, having arrived in Brazil with passengers earlier that morning, and then flew your crew and airplane back to New York shortly after getting the word that the company went out of business, arriving in the early hours of December 5th, marking the last returning Pan Am airplane of the iconic airline. Tell us about that experience. One can imagine it must have been heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

Oh, absolutely. It was a unique flight and one that I guess will be always a part of Pan Am history. But like so many things, it started uh as a perfectly normal operation the night before. Uh I and my crew were scheduled uh to operate flight uh 211 from uh New York to Sao Apollo um as a regular scheduled flight. And I got to the airport and got to operations, and um things were as normal as they could be under the circumstances. And uh I went up to brief the flight attendants, and they besieged me when I walked into the briefing room because all the rumors that uh had been flying around for several days, wanting to know what I knew. And of course, I didn't really know much more than they did. So the departure was pretty routine. It was a nasty, nasty night. It was raining, cats and dogs, but the due to the hour of the departure, I think we're our uh the flight left at 11 p.m. We got off on schedule and we headed south towards Sao Apollo. And uh, as we continued down across the Atlantic coast, I made contact with a uh sister flight that was operating from Miami to Rio. And it happened to be uh captained by a very good friend of mine, um, Captain Vajakis, who had uh signed uh hired out of the airline about the same time I did. We were about the same seniority. And of course, that was the topic of conversation all the way to Sao Paulo. Well, we landed on schedule in Sao Paulo that uh the following morning, uh at about seven or eight o'clock, as I remember, and everything was perfectly normal. The uh little Pan Am girl was there to meet us and take us out to the bus, which was to take us to the hotel. And our schedule called for us to lay over all day in Sao Apollo and then operate as uh flight 212 back from Sao Paulo north to uh New York that night, uh leaving Sao Apollo about 10 or 11 o'clock, as I remember. Everything perfectly normal. We got in the bus and uh went downtown uh to the Sheridan Hotel uh where we were staying, and everybody dispersed. I went to my room and and uh I was just about to reach for a beer from the mini bar before I took my nap and the phone rang. And it was the director, Pan Am's director for South America, and he said Captain Marshall, he said the company has just ceased its operations, they want all the 747s out of South America this afternoon, and uh you'll take the airplane to either Miami or New York hasn't been decided yet. So do you the best that you can round up your crew? Well, they're gonna have a bus at the hotel for you at three o'clock to take you back to the airport. Uh and that was pretty much the sum total of the conversation. Well, to say that I was stunned would be a total understatement. And then I got to thinking about the logistics of rounding up not all my crew members, but whatever other crew members might be laying over in the hotel as well. And as I'm sure you know, one of the things the flight attendant does, no matter where they are in the world, when they hit the ground, they go shopping. So I enlisted the uh help of the hotel manager, told him what the situation was. Uh, we contacted as many of the crew members uh that were actually in the hotel as we could. And then we finally threw several roundabout ways, we did manage to make contact with everybody, including several other uh crew members that had been laying over uh waiting to do either deadhead to further assignments or they were out good scheduled to operate in another flight. So three o'clock came and um everybody showed up, thankfully, to the bus, and we rode back to the airport and we got to the where the Pan Am counter was. And I was stunned to see that every single trace of Pan Am was gone. All the signs, all the the the check-in counters, the computers were all gone. It was like uh someone had died and left and there was nothing there.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

And earlier when you you landed, um, everything was normal.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

It was perfectly normal. So I had this little group of flight attendants standing there in the lobby, and I said, gee, just wait here um while I go in and uh get the paperwork and find out what we're gonna do. So the first officer and I went to the ops office, and there was one poor little ops clerk there, surrounded by clacking teletypes and and ringing telephones and running from one to the other. And it turned out that they wanted the airplane in Kennedy. And uh I said, before we do anything, I need to talk to the local stage manager. And um he came in from next door and I said, Look, um we've been on the ground here not more than about six hours. I said, No one's had anything to eat, no one's had any sleep. Um I want to make sure we have some kind of catering. We're not gonna go all the way to New York without having some kind of food. The airplane itself was the airplane that we had flown into Sao Paulo. It had continued on with another crew to Montevideo, where it was scheduled to lay over until uh late that afternoon and then fly back to Sao Apalo where we were going to pick it up. He said they had turned the airplane immediately in Montevideo, and he acknowledged the fact that um we did have to have some kind of catering, and uh he was really, really good about that. In fact, we did end up with full catering. And when the airplane arrived, they parked it in a very far corner of the airport, and they gathered us up, put us on a bus. And just before we left, the station manager said to me, He said, Captain Marshall, do you suppose you could do me a favor? And I said, Well, I hope so. What is it? He said, We have a lady here who lives in New York, she's Portuguese or Brazilian, and she's been down here visiting her daughter who works for Pan Am. She was a gate agent at Pan Am. And now she has no way to get back to New York because she was traveling out of pass and there's no more Pan Am. Would you could you possibly see your way uh clear to take her? I said, Well, what are they gonna do? Fire me? I said, Absolutely, I said, put her on the airplane, we'll put her on the general deck, and we'll we'll make her a crew member.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

And she was the last passenger.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Right. So that's what we did. And we got on the bus and and uh got out to the airplane, and of course, the crew that brought the airplane in from Montevideo was already on board. They were gonna go with us. We had, I guess, a total of about 50 people on the airplane. And before we left, I said, I want everybody in the first class cabin right now for a little briefing. And they all gathered up uh in the front there, and I said, Look, this is the last one. I said, Let's go out with some class. The airplane is fully catered, and that meant a full liquor cabinet. I said, I do not want anyone getting off this airplane ship face. Let's go out really with some class. And they all agreed. There was a lot of somber faces and a lot of tears and a lot of sobs. Well, we um they uploaded the fuel we needed and we fired up and got ready to go. What was going through your mind? I was just I was just kind of numb. I was just trying to convince myself to make sure that I had everything covered and not to let uh the emotion of the moment um you know make me do anything that I shouldn't do, or vice versa. And as we got down the end of the runway ready to take off, I said to the first officer, ask him if we can make a low pass on departure. And they said no. And uh I briefly thought about doing it anyway, but then I thought, no, we have six hours of Brazilian air space to fly through. That might not be a good idea. So we took off and we headed up through the night through Brazil and then up uh across uh Paramaribo and Port of Spain and up the Atlantic coast. And um just for fun, I called up Houston Radio to see if Pan Am Operations Control was still up there, still on duty. And they answered right away, yeah. They were there. They said, uh, you're the last one. And uh one of the I I kept thinking all the way north, what if something happens to the airplane? What if we have to land somewhere? What happens then? What happens to the crew? What happens to the airplane? Will we get any service? What kind of reception will we get? So anyway, we got to New York, it was about 3 a.m. and it was a beautiful sparkling, ice cold, crisp morning, and you could see um see the city from a long way. And of course, we were the only ones in the traffic pattern that approach control turned us over to the tower. Um we turned in runway um 31 left, and uh he said, You're the last one, Clipper. And every the cockpit was full of full of people, just wanted to be there. And uh he said that I think everybody just almost lost it. I know I did. I looked over at the first officer and he wouldn't look at me. And uh it was supposed to have been his lady anyway, because I flew the airplane down, he would have flown it back. But I said, I'm really sorry, but I'm taking this one, and so we landed on 31 left, and they parked us way off in the Zangs at the uh International Arrivals Building, the IUB. There was one lone Delta mechanic there who would there to put the gear pins in and the chocks in and stuff, and they had a rickety old um maintenance ladder that they wheeled up to the to the L1 door, and here. All 50 crews, most of them flight attendants, tottering down that ladder. And they had one little Volkswagen bus to take us into the terminal. And uh there was one custom guy there, and he just waved us on through, and we got to the other side, and there was a little Pan Am girl there in uniform, and she uh she was practically in tears, she was obviously had been crying, and we were wondering how we were gonna get to the crew parking lot, and she had some little uh Italian sports car, took us two at a time to the crew parking lot. The guys go down there, pick up their cars, and then come back and pick up somebody else. And but to the last it was over, and that was the end, and it wouldn't it took a couple of days for it to sink in.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

And and then so after it it sunk in what were you thinking? I was thinking with the airline for 26, 27 years at that point.

SPEAKER_04 23:09

Yeah, what do I what do I do now? Um you know, I've still had yeah number of years to fly. And uh HALPA was not much use. Uh we found out pretty fast that if you're not paying dues anymore, HelpA doesn't want much to do with you. So is that the pilot union? The pilot union, yeah. So yeah, I'll probably get hell for saying that, but that's the way it was. And so then I got to thinking about and then you know, things that you don't ordinarily ordinarily think about because it's all part of the package, like medical insurance. I never thought about medical insurance, it was just there, and then all of a sudden it wasn't, and then I found out got the sticker shock of how much it cost. You know, I was 55 years old. Holy cow, it was astronomical, um you know, things like that. Um it was not a happy time.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

And in December, December 4th of this year, we'll be celebrating the 30th anniversary of that day. That's right. And we have a museum and there are a whole bunch of younger people that are interested in Panium and its legacy and its history. Uh what message do you have for them?

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Um the message I have is don't let this die. This is a vital part not only of aviation history, but of our history. And the story of this airline from when it first started in the in the 20s and crossed the oceans and pioneered new airplanes, pioneered jet service, 747 service. Uh, it's a magnificent legacy, and it deserves to be uh to be told. There was a philosopher once that said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. And there's nothing truer than that in this case. Uh the museum is a beautiful piece of work. It's been put uh put together by uh some with uh members with fantastic talent, and we've got resources and input from all over the country, all over the world, really, about what Pan Am in and what and what uh what it was uh to American aviation history. Go in there, look at it, and just absorb it because it's so important.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

We're gonna take a quick break with a commercial from 1969 announcing the Pan Am 747. More to come with Captain Marshall.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

In the roaring twenties, the sound of luxury on the seven seas meant only one thing. But times change. 1927, Pan Am introduces the Poker F7. 1935, Pan Am introduces the China Clip. 1949, Pan Am introduces the Boeing 377. 1958, Pan Am introduces the Boeing 707, 1969, Pan Am introduces the incredible, the largest, fastest, most comfortable plane in history. The Boeing 747 Superjet. The plane that's a ship, the ship that's a plane. First takeoff, December 1969, on the world's most experienced airline.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

So you became a 747 captain in 1977, correct? Yes, sir. Um, when you would see children on your airplanes that looked up to you as a role model, how did that make you feel?

SPEAKER_04 27:19

Oh, it made you feel 10 feet tall. And it wasn't only the children, it was the cute little girls and the and the young college kids and stuff, too, you know. We uh at Kennedy, uh normally uh the airplane would be parked at one of the you know, the the whirlport gates there, and uh the passengers would all congregate there before departure. And the easiest way for us, or at least for me, to get to the airplane from operations was uh take the elevator up to the main concourse level, walked on the concourse to the gate and walked through the you know the waiting area onto the airplane. And there's 200, 300 people there sitting there waiting to be called to get on the airplane. And here you walk through with your bags, you know, it didn't have any wheels or any of that stuff in those days. You just carried them and and and walk out into the airplane, and you walk out of the airplane, you you can feel 600 eyes just staring at you. And but there were a couple of times when the I I could pick out a you know, a little kid who was obviously really excited about the whole operation. And I'd go up to them and I'd say, You want to come out and take a look around before we get started here? They say, Oh my god, can we? And uh so I'd ask the parents and they'd say, But yeah, my God, yeah. So I'd take the little kid with me and take him upstairs and let him sit in the seat and explain things to them. And and uh didn't take very long. I mean, then he had to go back downstairs because we had to get the airplane ready to go too, but those are always fun things to do. Yeah, that's cool, yeah. That's cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Well, thank you for your time, and uh we're very excited to have you back on the podcast in a future installment. And uh anything you want to add to our listeners?

SPEAKER_04 29:19

No, I I think this is a wonderful thing that we're embarking on here, and I'm very happy to be a part of it, and I hope this everybody enjoys it.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Can you do us a favor and give us a captain announcement as if you were on a PM plane?

SPEAKER_04 29:39

You mean other than sit down and keep your feet off the seats? Well, I would uh um make an announcement either just before we tack it out or while we were waiting for takeoff. And um I would uh say something like uh good evening, everyone. This is Captain Marshall speaking. On behalf of the entire crew, I'd like to welcome you aboard your Pan Am jet clipper flight two from uh New York to London. Our flight time this evening will be about six hours and 40 minutes. We'll be flying at an eventual altitude of 37,000 feet. The uh weather is forecast to be good, uh, also en route and for our arrival. Um in the meantime, please uh sit down and enjoy the flight. And uh we'll see you. I'll make an announcement uh further along the way with an update. Thanks for flying with us. That's great. Well, thanks again. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

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 and Instagram. Please consider becoming a member of the museum or making a donation. 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. 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 Am Museum.org. And with that, we're going to close out this episode with a Pan Am song from 1980 called Say Hello to Pan Am. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

Just say hello to a brand new world just as well to a brand new change much closer to the waiting for you change.