John Delach

Bahrein, January 25, 1943: Having reached our destination, we awaited our orders. An army captain flying through gossiped, “Of course you know that you have to wait here until the Casablanca Conference is over. Then you are to fly Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin out east to meet the Generalissimo.” 

He rattled on while the crew sat mouths open and eyes popping. The First Officer and I did what we could to keep the crew busy and it wasn’t until almost two weeks later that we finally received orders to embark for Ceylon. As we approached our destination, Trincomalee, we managed to make our approach in dirty weather. Visibility was only one mile, less in rainsqualls. We found the pass to China Bay and half-mile beyond it the R.A.F. moorings in Malay Cove. And that was that. In the lounge, I discovered there had been a sudden and complete change in military thinking. General Wedemeyer and two aides on their way east would now be our passengers. Disappointed, but greatly relieved that the plan to put Roosevelt and Churchill on the same plane through unfriendly skies across a wide and little frequented ocean had been scrapped.

Our next destination was the northwestern coast of Australia. We knew our airplane was overweight by one ton. I took a deep breath and opened the throttles. The engines responded with a smooth, even roar. We raced across the bay toward a low spot in the hills. We put all our blue chips on the table and the clipper lifted off easily. We were airborne at eight-fifty, local time, two minutes early. It was now the sixteenth of February and the weather remained cloudy forcing us to continue navigating by dead reckoning until well after sunset. Two hours later the upper clouds vanished allowing the navigators to shoot three stars for a fix.

This first fix in ten hours of dead reckoning showed a navigational error of thirty miles. Not perfect, but not bad, an average error of three miles every hour. I took a two-hour break before re-assuming command just before day break. We were in a slow decent and an hour and a half later we leveled off at one thousand feet. It was now broad daylight and the last of the clouds had vanished. A half-hour later land came up out of the horizon ahead of us. And the automatic pilot tracked us directly over the Fraser Lighthouse, the marker for our arrival.

After one circuit of Exmouth Gulf, we located a fueling tender and landed four minutes later. Colonel Arnold came aboard in a foul mood. His relationship with PAA had soured and I sensed that he decided to blame us for the president’s cancellation. He flew with us on a short hop to Perth where we picked up twenty-six homeward bound U.S. Naval officers. Arnold left us there together with General Wedemeyer and I never saw either of them again.

We left Perth in the late afternoon so as to make a daylight landing in Brisbane where we began the long road home. After leaving Australia, we first stopped at the beautiful harbor in Noumea, New Caledonia where we slept on cots. From Noumea, we were forced to stay south of the equator for the next two days before heading Northwest for Pearl Harbor. Remember, this was early 1943 and the Japanese still controlled most of the Central Pacific including Wake and Guam.

Our route took us by way of Fiji and Canton Island with an overnight stop at each. The next morning, we decided to postpone our flight to Honolulu to tackle the repairs needed to restore the engines that had given us trouble back to working order. It was a beautiful night and we were soon airborne. The sun was three hours up when we landed at Pearl Harbor after a flight of fourteen hours. That night at dinner in the Moana Hotel, our entire passenger list came trooping into the dining room in good spirits, dropped a lei around my neck, and presented me with a handsome pen-and-pencil set, a generous thing to do.

After our first attempt to fly to San Francisco was aborted because of engine problems, we corrected the issues and left Pearl Harbor the next day. On arrival, fog was the problem, but I followed the letdown we devised eight years before for the China Clipper to deal with the fog. We flew south overhead the Oakland beacon before letting down. When about over the San Mateo Bridge, turned back and had the whole bay ahead of us to land where the fog was the thinnest and the steam traffic was nil.

We checked into the St, Francis Hotel, two to a room. The next day provided the first chance  for the crew to let their loved ones know they were still alive and almost home. The lineup of crew members at the telegraph desk was overwhelming. I moved on to take care of other business., leaving the hot blood of youth to pour out its affection via Western Union.

Next afternoon, we set off for New York and home with “just one more river to Cross.”

Our flight across the continent in a seaplane would be as long a flight as we had attempted, more than twenty hours. There was no help to be had from the westerly winds that night; the high-pressure saw to that. The ship would be heavy at departure, too heavy to top the cloud-covered Sierras. Well, all right, then, go under the clouds.

We did, wriggling through the San Bernadino pass under the cloud deck and clearing the trees, or whatever it is that passes for vegetation in those parts, by a positive figure, and that covered that problem, with the whole night ahead of us for coping with the next. We aimed for Atlanta by way of Fort Worth. From Atlanta, we could either continue to New York or turn south for Miami and clear skies. At mid-watch I turned the ship over to Austen and climbed into my berth in the aft crew quarters. When Mc Goven woke me, I asked him how we were doing.

“Ten minutes ahead,” he answered. “The winds are a bit better than forecast.”

I went forward to the flight deck. Tonight, the engines all sang in harmony. We had a half-hour to go to Atlanta. Time to make a decision. I sat down at my desk and over a cup of coffee went through the radio messages It still came out the same, everything north of Charleston was subject to overcast and fog, everything south, sunshine.

Prudence said, “Play it safe. Go to Miami, wait for the front to clear New York and fly home tomorrow.”

But conscience said, “You have flown into unknown places with worse weather. You know the Jersey coast. Go home and quit stalling.”

The first officer entered the flight deck, a questioning look on his face.

“We’ll carry on to New York, Mr. Austen. I’ll relieve you on the hour.”

Hours later it began to turn light in the east. Near Baltimore we peeled off the airway and headed east across the pine barrens of Jersey groping our way down through the layers of cloud that looked like torn and dirty laundry. We found the ocean somewhere north of Cape May, returned to the beach, and followed the line of the surf. We flew toward New York harbor passing Wildwood, Ocean City, the steel pier at Atlantic City, which called for a short climb to clear it. Then Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, and finally, Sandy Hook. The ceiling here was higher. We came up the East River over the bridges, not under, and landed in Bowery Bay at nine twenty in the morning, double daylight-saving time.

Ed Mc Vitty stood on the dock to greet us, a broad smile on his face.

“They took it for a joke when you sent us the message from Honolulu saying you’d be here this morning when the offices open but I told them to have the beaching cradle on the railway by nine. It’s ready for you now.”

“Sorry to be twenty-minutes late, Ed. We had a problem in San Francisco getting security data.”

“Never mind, Bill. If you didn’t make it when the office opened, at least you’re in good time for the coffee break.”

And so ended that voyage, the long way around the world, crossing the equator four times, through unfriendly skies, thirty thousand miles in all.