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ABUA1W PAN A.' I'S FIRST TRANSATLANTIC CLIPPeR FLIGHT]
NEW YURK -- The 22 passengers aboard the first commercial
transatlantic passenger flight,
1~3~,
made 50 years ago, on June 28,
by a Pan Am flying boat, included distinguished figures of
the day, as well as a number of seasoned travel aficionados.
Captain Torkild Rieber, chairman of the Texas Company and a
former seaman, was one of several prominent industrialists aboard,
as were John M. Franklin, president of United States Lines; Mark W.
t..: res a p,
c h air Ina nan d pre sid e n t
0
f Hart, S c h a f f ne r & Mar x; R0 g e r
Lapham, president of American rlawaiian Steamship Company (also a
future mayor of San Francisco and grandfather of current
~ar£er's
editor Lewis Lapham); H. L. Stuart, president of Halsey Stuart &
Co.; J a me s
:VI c Vitt
ie, pre sid e n t
0
f Y1 c Vitt i e PIa tin g and Bra s s
H.eflnishing Co.,; J. H. Norweb of General Motors Acceptance Corp.;
Russell Sabor of Midland Laboratories; Louis Gimbel of the
department-store family; financier Ben Smith of Thomson
&McKinnon
and attorney Julius Rapoport, for whom the trip was merely the
first leg of a round-the-world flight.
Passenger W. J. Eck, assistant to the vice president of
~outhern
Kailway, had applied for his reservation in 1931 (preceded
only by Will Kogers, whose untimely death prevented him from making
tne fllgl1tJ.
Jlrs. Clara Adams had also been aboard the inaugural
flight of Pan Am's transpacific
Iv 0
r 1 d ma ide n v 0 yage
0
servic~,
a s well as the round-the-
f the Germa n d i r i ,,; i b 1e, t 11 e Gr a f Ze p pel in;
anotl1er aviation enthusiast,
~1rs.
Shcr:r,;lll Ildi::;11t, had been with
Lindbergh on his inaugural flight of
/) ;1 :\
1[;)'
s
C~ribbean
service.
Pan American World Airways, Inc., Pan Am Building, New York, New York 10166
- !. ­
Col. William J. Donovan, a lawyer from Buffalo, had been a
Medal of Honor winner in the first World War and the 1932 candidate
for Governor of New York.
(In World War II, he would head the
Office of Strategic Services, precursor of today's CIA.)
Also on board the transatlantic inaugural, representing the
airline itself, were Pan American Airways chairman C.V. Whitney and
Mrs. Whitney; directors Graham Grosvenor and E. O. McConnell and
their wives, and
~rs.
Juan Trippe, wife of the airline's founder
and president.
The Pan Am crew was headed by Capt. R.O.D. Sullivan, and
included Flight Officer Gilbert B. Blackmore; Junior Flight
Officers Robert D. Fordyce, Benjamin S. Harrell and J. Norman
Gentry; Engineering Officer John A. fiske and his assistants,
Melvin G. Anderson and Stephen H. Kitchell; Radio Officers Harold
G. Lambert and Harry L. Drake; and Stewards Bruce Candiotti and
John Salmini.
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