Stranded. Six days from its home port of San Francisco, a luxurious Boeing 314 flying boat, the Pacific Clipper, was preparing to alight in Auckland, New Zealand, as part of the airline’s transpacific service when the crew of ten learned of the Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. All across the Pacific, Pan Am facilities came under assault: Wake Island, where the Martin M-130 Philippine Clipper returned just in time to pick up the Pan Am staff and escape although riddled with bullet holes; Manila, which had come under direct air attack; Hong Kong, where a Sikorsky S-42B was destroyed at its dock; and, of course, Pearl Harbor. Where to go?.

Air and Space article:

https://airandspace.si.edu/sto...ld-commercial-flight

Wiki article on clipper:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314_Clipper

The Long Way Home book:
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Wa...ing+314+clipper+book

Interesting book with more details on the flight.


The book touches on the extra training needed by PanAm pilots to fly seaplanes. Picked my memory reading about the recent small seaplane crash.

When i started grad school two decades ago I was getting dual degrees in History and Education

Unfortunately I was also working 2 jobs and had to drop the History after a year

But before I did one of the classes I took was called the history of flight

The story of Juan Tripp and the early days of Pan Am and the clippers are fascinating

Thank you for the links and story!


(I keep trying to go back and finish that masters but my wife says I have to earn money with one of my 4 degrees before she will allow that. She is SO demanding)