1940-1945

Pan American Air Ferries provide military transport services from Miami to Africa and the Middle East

During World War II, Miami was ground zero for the largest and most important military-civilian air transport collaboration of the war.

Pan Am is given special wartime assignment

On August 18, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that Pan American Airways had been given a special wartime assignment involving the creation of a new 10,000 mile air route to provide air transport services to allied forces in Africa and the Middle East. Pan Am personnel were to fly U.S. government and lend-lease planes carrying much needed men and supplies to strategic outposts on the allied front via a route across the south Atlantic that would avoid actual war zones.

Pan Am president Juan T. Trippe issued a brief statement in response to the announcement, saying that, “The officers and personnel of Pan American Airways are gratified at this opportunity of placing at the service of our government’s defense aid program the company’s many years of experience in the operation of international and transoceanic air service established under the American flag. I am confident that this new task which has been assigned to Pan American Airways System in this emergency, in the light of that experience, will be successfully carried out.”

Framework is established

The framework in which the transport service was to be initiated included several specialized operations involving Pan Am which were set up at the request of the government prior to the President’s public announcement. The infrastructure included (1) an Airport Development Program (ADP), (2) creation of Atlantic Airways, Ltd., (3) creation of Pan American Airways-Africa Ltd. and (4) creation of Pan American Air Ferries.

Airport Development Program requires secrecy and sacrifice

The Airport Development Program was conceived in 1940 as a top-secret operation. In July of 1940, President Roosevelt asked Pan American to build twenty-five land airports and nine seaplane bases in fourteen Latin American and Caribbean countries. The bases were to appear to be built as part of a normal Pan Am expansion plan. The secrecy was essential because at the time the United States was still technically neutral and public opinion was isolationist. As Robert Daley writes, in An American Saga – Juan Trippe and His American Empire, “A foreign construction program sponsored by the War Department and costing $12 million would be extremely unpopular with U.S. voters, not to mention the people in Latin America.” By 1942, following the U.S. entry into the war, the program had almost doubled in scope. Pan Am was to build 50 airports and was asked to expand the size of the 25 originally ordered. Under conditions of great hardship, the program moved forward rapidly. Bases built included Belem, Amapa, Macapa, Fortaleza, Natal, Recife, Bahia, Cayenne, Zandery, Georgetown, Trinidad and Puerto Rico, all vital to the trunk air route to the northeast “Hump of Brazil,” which was closest to Africa.

Churchill, Trippe and the Cairo corridor

On June 17, 1941, Pan Am’s president Juan Trippe was invited to give a lecture on Ocean Air Transport to the Royal Aeronautical Society in London. After the lecture, high-ranking RAF officers crowded round him to ask if he could devise a route to supply British troops in North Africa. Trippe used a map on the wall to show the officers how another route could be set up. Later that evening, he was summoned to a private dinner with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Trippe and Churchill talked long into the night about the possibility of setting up an air supply route to Cairo across the South Atlantic.

When Trippe landed in the U.S. the next day, he was whisked to the Oval Office in Washington, where President Roosevelt awaited him. Roosevelt wanted to know what Trippe and Churchill had discussed. When Trippe explained, Roosevelt directed him to set up the trans-African route as soon as possible.

Pan American Airways-Africa Ltd. oversees expansion

Pan American Airways-Africa Ltd. was created on July 15, 1941 to oversee the trans-African expansion, including the construction of additional air bases. Franklin Gledhill was appointed to oversee the operation. Pan Am rose to the occasion with unparalleled efficiency. In record time, fourteen fuel supply bases, radio stations and airports were built across the continent, at Dakar, Fisherman’s Lake, Roberts Field, Accra on the Gold Coast, Lagos, Kano, Maiduguri, on the Sahara’s edge, El Geneina, El Fasher, Khartoum, and Cairo. Incredibly, the first scheduled flight over the new transport service route took place within 61 days of the President’s announcement. The bases could service huge bombers and transports in and out in less than an hour. It was an extraordinary, unprecedented achievement given the difficulty in transporting supplies across the U-Boat infested Atlantic and the harshness of the climate and terrain.

Atlantic Airways is reborn as Pan American Ferries

Atlantic Airways, Ltd. was organized in the summer of 1941, with headquarters in Miami, to deliver lend-lease aircraft and supplies to the British in Africa across the new South Atlantic route. Flight crews that were hastily assembled were a cross-section of American aviation. They included former barnstormers, flying soldiers of fortune, crop dusters, and veteran transport pilots. On its initial run, Atlantic Airways Ltd. ferried ten twin-engined transports to the British in Africa. The scope of the program was soon broadened. On July 24, 1941, Pan American Ferries was incorporated and absorbed Atlantic Airways Ltd. PAA’s John Steele was appointed Operations Manager. Hiring, maintenance, recreational and training facilities were housed in the former Golf Park County Club (later known as Westview Country Club) on Gratigny Parkway, near Miami Municipal Airport. A mechanics training school was set up at the Embassy Club on N.E. 2nd Avenue, formerly a swanky gaming establishment, and a hangar built at Pan Am’s NW 36th Street Airport. An airstrip for ferry operations was carved out of the rocky terrain of rural South Dade County in Homestead, later to become Homestead Air Force Base.

The first ferry flights left Miami on September 18th. It was the start of a service which, by the time it was taken over by the military in November 1942, had shuttled war and transport planes overseas for Britain, for the Soviet Union, for the Dutch and the Free French on flights ranging from 1600 to 16,500 miles. At its peak PAA Ferries had 1650 people on its payroll and had moved the equivalent of 1500 aircraft over 2,500 flights, delivering vitally needed planes, guns, cartridges and supplies to critical points in the front which were later credited with helping to turn the tide and drive the Axis out of Africa.

Vital pipeline is up and running as war is declared

Fortnightly service between Miami and Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, was inaugurated on December 6, 1941. Two months later, following the U.S. entry into the war, the service had been extended to the Middle East and beyond, to Calcutta, India, a route of 11,500 miles. In India, vitally needed supplies and men were picked up and flown across “the Hump” of the Himalayas in Burma to China, which, under attack by Japan, had been cut off from all directions except from the air.

The operations of both Pan American Airways-Africa Ltd. and Pan American Air Ferries were taken over by the Army Air Transport Command on November 1, 1942. The service was absorbed into Pan Am’s new wartime division based in Miami, the Africa-Orient Division. It quickly became known as the “Cannonball,” due to the speed at which men and supplies were transported to the front. See also “Pan Am Cannonball operation provides a lifeline to China,” https://hangar5foundation.org/1940-1945/10/.