OT-Preserving CW memories

[Thom LaCosta]

>From time to time I make a post reminding folks that there's a web site where
the content comes from a submarine radio operator (www.zerobeat.net/submarine)
.

I'd love to do a similar site with the memories and stories of folks who made
their living pounding brass, whether aboard ship, at a Coast Station, Police
Communications, Railroard or other venues.

Yep...it appears that hardly anyone does any of the above now, and I'd like to
preserve your memories on the web so that those of use that use and enjoy cw
have a frame of reference other than amateur radio....when you're not around,
you'll take those memories with you.

If ya have a mind to, drop me an email....I'll be happy to turn it into HTML
and devote as much space on the server as it takes to tell the story of the
magical music.

73,Thom-k3hrn
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[Howard W. Ashcraft]

I have no personal memories as I am a relatively recent amateur.
However, when I was growing up, one of our family friends was Thomas
Roberts, a Captain for Pan American Airways.  Tom got his start in the
airline industry as a radio operator on the China Clippers.  As I
recall, and others will probably be able to verify some of this, the
commercial news services used to transmit high speed code.  I don't know
what speed they used, but I recall that it was mechanically generated
and very fast.  He, and others of his generation, were able to copy the
news broadcasts by ear.  I can recall him pounding on a typewriter
copying code and having the transmission stop well before he stopped
typing.  He never could type as fast as he could copy.

As I can copy about 13-15 wpm under ideal conditions, I can only imagine
what it must have been like copying code on the China Clippers with
early radios and lots of electrical and mechanical noise from the plane,
itself.

Howard Ashcraft, W1WF

-----Original Message-----
From: Thom R. Lacosta [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 3:52 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] OT-Preserving CW memories

>From time to time I make a post reminding folks that there's a web site

>where
the content comes from a submarine radio operator
(www.zerobeat.net/submarine) .

I'd love to do a similar site with the memories and stories of folks who
made their living pounding brass, whether aboard ship, at a Coast
Station, Police Communications, Railroard or other venues.

Yep...it appears that hardly anyone does any of the above now, and I'd
like to preserve your memories on the web so that those of use that use
and enjoy cw have a frame of reference other than amateur radio....when
you're not around, you'll take those memories with you.

If ya have a mind to, drop me an email....I'll be happy to turn it into
HTML and devote as much space on the server as it takes to tell the
story of the magical music.

73,Thom-k3hrn
www.zerobeat.net Home of QRP Web Ring, Drakelist home page, Free
Classified Ads for amateur radio, QRP IRC channel Elecraft Owners
Database
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[Mike Morrow-3]

Howard wrote:

>... I can only imagine what it must have been like copying
>code on the China Clippers with early radios...

The long-route airline aircraft of the era often had a radio operator on
board.  He had to be licensed the same as a merchant marine radio officer,
with at least a Second Class Radiotelegraph License (20 wpm plain language,
16 wpm code groups), PLUS he had to have the Aircraft Radiotelegraph
Endorsement (25 wpm plain language, 20 wpm code groups) on his license.

One of the continuing controversies about the last Amelia Earhart flight
revolves around whether she, or Fred Noonan, had adequate knowledge about
the radio gear they chose and carried.  There have been some reports that
Noonan held a commercial radiotelegraph license.

The FCC was still carrying the Aircraft Radiotelegraph Endorsement in their
system of commercial operator licenses and exams as late as about 25 years
ago when I first got my second class telegraph license, though I'd guess the
last commercial airline radiotelegraph operator positions had disappeared
decades earlier.

Up to the early 1960s, many airlines had their own staff of land-based HF
radiotelegraph operators used to communicate scheduling and other info
between operation centers for the airline.  Though the individual operators
may have had decades of experience and could often copy above 50 wpm, few
ever advanced to the first class radiotelegraph operator license because the
traffic that their station handled was not "public correspondence" as was
required in the experience qualifications for the first class ticket.

I never heard any machine-sent news/sports broadcasts on the maritime CW
bands being sent at speeds higher than about 35 wpm.  More critical
safety-related broadcasts (weather, notice to mariners, etc.) were generally
sent at about 25 wpm.

The long-range military aircraft crews of WWII appear to have rarely
conducted their Morse communications above about 12 wpm.  In fact, many of
the WWII-era aircraft radio sets could not be keyed any faster due to keying
relay operation times.  Many on this list will remember the WWII surplus
"command sets" (ATA/ARA, SCR-274-N, AN/ARC-5) that got many hams on the air
in the 20 years following WWII.   In their original military installations,
they could not be keyed faster than about 14 wpm.

If you like Morse, it's hard not to like the old sets that were used when HF
radio Morse was in it's commercial heyday.  But for power-, weight-, and
performance-critical portable operation today, I'll take a solid-state
microprocessor-controlled rig anytime.

73,
Mike / KK5F
(Military Boatanchor Addict)

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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

I used to copy press off the air in the 50's. As the lone Flight Test ground
controller for Lockheed Aircraft Service, it helped fill in the time between
condition checks with planes aloft and preparing meteorological reports. We
used both HF AM and CW in those days. The "press" was sent from punched
paper tape, I believe. It ran at a very steady 20 wpm.

In my experience, "High speed" (>20 wpm) was ONLY used between a relatively
few stations in which the same ops communicated with each other constantly.
>From what I've read, some of those ops really "screamed", but they were the
exception. They were usually government or military circuits and, before
teletype become common after WWII, occasionally between shore stations
moving traffic to where it could be passed onto the proper ship by a coastal
station.

On any "open circuit" intended for general consumption - like a press
broadcast - 20 wpm or even less was run. After all, all ops had to copy
without "fills" and the ops were only required to be able to copy 20 wpm.

International stuff going from shore stations to ships at sea was often much
slower - 15 wpm or less. Indeed, some commercial stations welded the weights
on the operator's "bugs" in place to hold the speeds down at all times. They
wanted absolutely consistent speed, no matter which operator might be on the
shift, and chose a speed that they felt every operator on any ship or
station could copy, no matter how "green".

Radio station KPH on the US west coast (north of San Francisco) is regularly
put on the air thanks to a dedicated  group of hams/ex station operators.
When the station is active, they often send a press tape that hams can copy
on the short wave and  medium frequency (600 meter) band. Check
http://tinyurl.com/3fvgz for more information about them. They often put the
old station on the air on New Year's eve. I don't know what this year's
plans are.

A really fun book documenting the adventures of "Sparks" - marine radio
operators - is "Sparks What's Going On?" It's a 300 page compendium of
anecdotes and reminiscences by radio operators who sailed the high seas in
the heyday of CW communications. It's filled with personal notes and stories
of humorous encounters such as the time the ship Queen Elizabeth passed
Gibraltar one night.

A Morse blinker on the rock flashed out, "What ship?"

The QE replied, "What rock?"

"Sparks What's Going On?" was published by Sylvester Focking, DH4PB. For
more information see: http://tinyurl.com/4yewb

Sylvester also published some CD's containing actual examples of CW on the
High Seas between ships and ships and shore stations. It includes an actual
SOS call that, to this day, still produces a chill when I hear it.

Ron AC7AC


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[Mike Morrow-3]

Ron wrote:

>The "press" was sent from punched paper tape, I believe. It ran
> at a very steady 20 wpm.

Hi Ron,

Coast Station WCC in the 1970s sent a nightly news/sports/financial
broadcast in the 1970s at somewhere around 30 wpm.  It was great practice,
and interesting too.

Coast station NAM during the same era was sending weather and
NAVAREA/HYDROLANT broadcasts, intended primarily for Naval Sealift Command
civilian-manned vessels, at a consistent 25 wpm that was very easy to copy
due to the perfect machine-sent nature of the keying.  I have to figure
that, even though the second class telegraph license didn't require speed
greater than 20 wpm, most candidates copied well above that before setting
for the exam.  I found the random code group exam at a paltry 16 wpm to be
far more difficult to pass, since at least 80 consecutive random characters
had to be copied without error during the five minute run.  Five errors
spaced just right would send you down.

>A really fun book documenting the adventures of "Sparks" - marine
>radio operators - is "Sparks What's Going On"

Sounds like a great book.  I'll have to track that one down.  It's so
aggravating dealing with the foreign currency issue, though.  The RSGB a few
years ago was selling a memoir of a British radio officer of the 1970s and
80s.  I don't remember the title, but it was well worth reading as a
description of the late soon-to-be-gone era of commercial Morse.  In the
very early 1990s, a lot of commercial telegraph license holders were sent a
solicitation from one of the radio officer unions looking for candidates to
filll open billets.  I guess there hadn't been too many new recruits to an
obviously dead-end career!

>Sylvester also published some CD's containing actual examples
>of CW on the High Seas between ships and ships and shore
>stations. It includes an actual SOS call that, to this day, still
>produces a chill when I hear it.

That would be very interesting!  I've talked to merchant radio officers who
completed lengthy careers without ever hearing a real SOS.  Was it sent
...---...  or ...   ---   ... ?  It's surprising how many have the
misconception that it's sent with a space between the S, O, and S, rather
than the proper method of sending it all as *one* character.  In fact, even
the USAF's automatic emergency code keyers (AN/ARA-26) that were attached to
most USAF airborne HF sets in the 1950s and 1960s were designed to send SOS
incorrectly as three separate characters!

73,
Mike / KK5F

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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

Mike wrote:

"I've talked to merchant radio officers who completed lengthy careers
without ever hearing a real SOS.  Was it sent
...---...  or ...   ---   ... ?"

-----------------------------------
SOS was a prosign, as you point out, sent correctly as one character:
...---...  But any error is possible and at times probable. The world of
civilian ops from all countries on the marine band was quite different from
the military channels!

Focking's CDs of marine band activity is a good reminder about how (not so)
fast many marine stations were and how rough *some* of those fists were -
even some shore ops!  To me, the Ham bands today filled with keyer-generated
CW sound very little like the old marine frequencies where half or more of
the fists were on straight keys.

I bet a LOT of those ops would have loved to have a K2 for the keyer and, at
times the filters. The 500 calling frequency  was often a cacophony of
signals all on top of one another in the passband of receivers of the day.

To this day I still prefer a wide filter, even with moderate QRM. With my K2
on CW, I use the SSB filter more than any other.  I love being able to keep
track of what's going on around the frequency I'm using. The trick of
course, is to turn off the AGC so stronger signals in the passband won't
depress the receiver gain. One of these days I'll add a hard limiter to
protect my ears. The dynamic range of the K2 allows really huge peaks to
come through without the AGC.

Ron AC7AC


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[Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy-2]

Ron,

In 1946, the only way I could get from South Africa to Mauritius as a 16
year old was to sign on as "Spark's Helper" - at least I had passed the ZS
ham tests! The main Tx was a single tube 1.5kW oscillator on 500kHz and the
other two frequencies. The standby was a rotary quenched spark which did not
need any bandswitch - it was probably DC to Light. Not sure whether it used
RF or sound for communicating. Sparks used to wind it up for testing, he
said, in the middle of the night, methinks really to wake up the ten elderly
female passengers on board. Cannot imagine K2's keyer running that thing!!

73, Geoff   GM4ESD


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 9:08 PM
Subject: RE: [Elecraft] OT-Preserving CW memories


I bet a LOT of those ops would have loved to have a K2 for the keyer and, at
times the filters. The 500 calling frequency  was often a cacophony of
signals all on top of one another in the passband of receivers of the day.


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[Don Wilhelm-3]

Ron and all,

Are you aware that reducing the RF gain will reduce the AGC action as well.
Folks who want to try it may be surprised how well copy can be made under
QRM conditions with the AF gain at full and the overall gain controlled by
the RF gain.

With this technique, the residual AGC provides some 'limiting' protection
for the ears while allowing one to dig for really weak signals - this is
applicable at any bandwidth, but more so for wider ones.

73,
Don W3FPR

----- Original Message -----

To this day I still prefer a wide filter, even with moderate QRM. With my K2
on CW, I use the SSB filter more than any other.  I love being able to keep
track of what's going on around the frequency I'm using. The trick of
course, is to turn off the AGC so stronger signals in the passband won't
depress the receiver gain. One of these days I'll add a hard limiter to
protect my ears. The dynamic range of the K2 allows really huge peaks to
come through without the AGC.



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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

Don W3FPR wrote:
Are you aware that reducing the RF gain will reduce the AGC action as well.
Folks who want to try it may be surprised how well copy can be made under
QRM conditions with the AF gain at full and the overall gain controlled by
the RF gain.

With this technique, the residual AGC provides some 'limiting' protection
for the ears while allowing one to dig for really weak signals - this is
applicable at any bandwidth, but more so for wider ones.

------------------------------------------------------------

Good point, Don. Yes, that's what I do with the K2 quite a bit. It's worked
well enough that I've put off fixing up a limiter.

The problem comes up when I need to run the gains up for a very weak station
and suddenly a huge signal in the passband keys the rig. The AGC kicks in
and the weak signal disappears! Saves my ears, more or less, but kills the
copy.

With a hard limiter, if I've got the weak signal up right where the limiter
is starting to clip, a much stronger signal is no louder. It's just rougher
sounding thanks to the higher degree of clipping it gets.

Ron AC7AC


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[k6dgw]

Well, YMMV ... but I'm sort of with Ron.  I like to know what's going on
around me, and if I want to really dig in and pull someone out of the
noise, I know I can do it (well, sometimes!).  I retired from
communications engineering, and I accept all the theory for channels
subjected to noise and possible throughput as a result, but we're not
"Point-To-Point" folks.  I'm not totally sure that it applies to the
operation of a ham radio station.

Fred K6DGW
Auburn CA CM98lw

W3FPR - Don Wilhelm wrote:

>
> Ron and all,
>
> Are you aware that reducing the RF gain will reduce the AGC action as well.
> Folks who want to try it may be surprised how well copy can be made under
> QRM conditions with the AF gain at full and the overall gain controlled by
> the RF gain.
>
> With this technique, the residual AGC provides some 'limiting' protection
> for the ears while allowing one to dig for really weak signals - this is
> applicable at any bandwidth, but more so for wider ones.
>
> 73,
> Don W3FPR
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> To this day I still prefer a wide filter, even with moderate QRM. With my K2
> on CW, I use the SSB filter more than any other.  I love being able to keep
> track of what's going on around the frequency I'm using. The trick of
> course, is to turn off the AGC so stronger signals in the passband won't
> depress the receiver gain. One of these days I'll add a hard limiter to
> protect my ears. The dynamic range of the K2 allows really huge peaks to
> come through without the AGC.
>
> _______________________________________________
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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

Earlier in this thread I mentioned that the old RCA coastal marine station
at Point Reyes, CA still gets on the air from time to time courtesy of a lot
of hard work by ex ops who are also Hams.

They have announced that they will be on New Year's Eve to help celebrate
SKN on the Ham bands as well as on the 600 meter Marine band. The Amateur
call sign is K6KPH and the marine call sign is KPH.

K6KPH will begin operation at 1600 PST/0000 GMT. They expect to operate for
about six hours, or until 2200 PST/0600 GMT.

Frequencies - K6KPH will be on 3545kc, 7050kc, 14050kc and 21050kc if the
band is open. There is a slight possibility that a transmitter will be
activated on 18097.5kc. Operators will advise if that frequency is being
monitored.

Multiple operators will be on duty at the operating positions, some of whom
are likely to be ex-KPH ops.

The transmitters for 3.5Mc, 7Mc and 14Mc will be 1950s vintage RCA sets. The
transmitters for 21Mc, and 18Mc, if activated, will be a Henry commercial
sets.
 
The transmitters for 3.5Mc, 7Mc and 14Mc will be 1950s vintage RCA sets. The
transmitters for 21Mc, and 18Mc, if activated, will be a Henry commercial
sets.

KPH will be on the air with continuous transmissions on MF beginning at 1700
PST/0100 GMT.

Frequencies - Announcements will be made on 500kc. Press, weather, and other
information will be sent on 426kc. 500kc will be monitored for calls from
ships at sea. The silent period on 500kc will of course be observed.

Equipment - The transmitter will be a Henry commercial set. Power will be
about 5kW. Antenna - The MF transmitting antenna will be a Marconi T.

Signal Reports & QSLs - Signal reports and QSLs may be sent to: Ms. Denice
Stoops P.O. Box 381 Bolinas CA 94924-0381 USA

---- AR -----

Denice was the first woman operator at KPH. In the past, at least, they QSL
600 meter reception reports and contacts on the ham bands with genuine RCA
message forms (there were bunch over when commercial operations shut down)
filled out on a vintage mill (all caps CW typewriter).

Work 'em with your Elecraft rigs and marry history with the future <G>. It's
a fun way to spend some time New Year's eve. Don't be surprised not to get a
RST report. If you snag an old commercial op, they'll report your signal
strength using the system commercial stations have used for many decades:
QSA 1 through QSA 5. 1 = barely in there, 5 = "armchair" copy. Answer the
report in kind an give an OT at the KPH key a nice feeling of being back
"home" again...

Ron AC7AC


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[Mike Morrow-3]

Ron wrote:

>KPH will be on the air with continuous transmissions on MF
>beginning at 1700 PST/0100 GMT.
>
>Frequencies - Announcements will be made on 500kc. Press,
>weather, and other information will be sent on 426kc. 500kc
>will be monitored for calls from ships at sea. The silent period
>on 500kc will of course be observed.


It's hard to believe that it's only been five years since all this went
extinct.  Even as recently as 15 years ago there was substantial maritime
Morse activity.  I used to keep a Kenwood R-600 on 500 kHz at my bedside at
night.  I miss hearing the Winter night-time MF Morse activity that here in
the eastern U.S. could come from anywhere between the Great Lakes to the
Carribean.  Often the signals were A2/MCW, not A1/CW.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely we'll be able to hear KPH in Alabama, but I'll
try.

73,
Mike / KK5F


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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

Mike, KK5F wrote:

It's hard to believe that it's only been five years since all this went
extinct.  Even as recently as 15 years ago there was substantial maritime
Morse activity.  I used to keep a Kenwood R-600 on 500 kHz at my bedside at
night.  I miss hearing the Winter night-time MF Morse activity that here in
the eastern U.S. could come from anywhere between the Great Lakes to the
Carribean.  Often the signals were A2/MCW, not A1/CW.

-------------

Astonishing that only a decade ago I was lured from my word processor to
dust off my Radiotelegraph license to start climbing masts and repairing
vacuum tube CW transmitters, radio direction finders, old radar sets, etc.,
on the merchant ships we pulled from the mothball fleet war for Gulf war I.
Over the previous three decades America had given up almost all of its
merchant marine in favor of cheaper foreign lines, so they were pulling
every old hull that could still move under its own power out of mothballs to
haul supplies to the Persian Gulf. My main task was to tease 1950's and 60's
vintage electronics back to life for a few more trips across the Pacific.

Having no American merchant marine meant no trained crews and officers. On a
whim I had answered an query from Mackay Radio looking for help. They were
chasing down every licensed commercial operator who could stand upright.
When I wandered into the shop, the grizzled old manager looked at me,
pointed to a box on the bench and asked me what it was. I looked closely...
frequency dial, audio gain, bandswitch, regenerat... "What?" I asked. "Are
they still using regenerative receivers?"

"Your hired!" he bellowed. "You're the first guy who's been here who knew
what it was!" And so began a really fun re-acquaintance with the "roots" of
radio communications that lasted for several years in the 90's.

Memories of dragging myself and a load of tools and test equipment ashore
off of the launch at 1 a.m. Christmas morning after an 18 hour shift
rebuilding a old radar are balanced by the bright, sunny morning I stood on
the bridge wing of the 1,200 foot long Naval Hospital Shop USNS Mercy as she
glided under the Bay Bridge on our way to sea trials. I needed to calibrate
her radio direction finder. The captain came up to me and handed me a
steaming cup of coffee in a Navy mug. When we returned to port and I packed
my things, I was about the leave when the Captain said, "Hey Ron! You forgot
this" and handed me the mug. I'm having a cup of coffee from it as I write
this.

Seeing how CW quickly died only a few years later, I was profoundly glad to
have been able to come back to the party for a just a little while before
they turned out the lights for the last time.

The sage who observed that we only live once and counseled embracing each
opportunity as it comes was telling the truth...

Ron AC7AC



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[Thom LaCosta]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

>
> Seeing how CW quickly died only a few years later, I was profoundly glad to
> have been able to come back to the party for a just a little while before
> they turned out the lights for the last time.
>
> The sage who observed that we only live once and counseled embracing each
> opportunity as it comes was telling the truth...
>

And that's why I'm asking that you folks who earned a living, whether in
private or government service, by making the morse music submit some of your
memories.....cause when you're gone, it ain't like we can go up in the attic,
rummage around and find them.

73,Thom-k3hrn
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[hank k8dd-2]

I was at VO2AAA in Labrador City for CQ WW CW with K2/100 #850 and an
AL-1200.  We were next to a residential area with a very high line noise
and precipitation static.
On 80 and 160 meters with the AF gain about 3/4 way up and riding the RF
gain and DSP with noise reduction made some of the second & third tier
stations copyable.   Sometimes you have to be really fast on reducing the
RF gain to save your ears!

I don't really like the "sound" that I get out of my K2 with the DSP, but
when you are digging stations out of the noise the NR and the DSP filter #1
really helped.

The K2 as the run station was good for about 3000 Q's, the mult station for
a couple hundred.  And 3.4M points.  Think I remember working a couple
calls from this list!

73    Hank    K8DD


At 12/11/2004 07:45 PM, W3FPR - Don Wilhelm wrote:

>Ron and all,
>
>Are you aware that reducing the RF gain will reduce the AGC action as
>well. Folks who want to try it may be surprised how well copy can be made
>under QRM conditions with the AF gain at full and the overall gain
>controlled by the RF gain.
>
>With this technique, the residual AGC provides some 'limiting' protection
>for the ears while allowing one to dig for really weak signals - this is
>applicable at any bandwidth, but more so for wider ones.
>
>73,
>Don W3FPR
>
>----- Original Message -----
>To this day I still prefer a wide filter, even with moderate QRM. With my K2
>on CW, I use the SSB filter more than any other.  I love being able to keep
>track of what's going on around the frequency I'm using. The trick of
>course, is to turn off the AGC so stronger signals in the passband won't
>depress the receiver gain. One of these days I'll add a hard limiter to
>protect my ears. The dynamic range of the K2 allows really huge peaks to
>come through without the AGC.
>
>
>
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[Doug Faunt N6TQS [phone]]

   From: "Mike Morrow" <[hidden email]>
   Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 12:25:51 -0600

   Howard wrote:

   >... I can only imagine what it must have been like copying
   >code on the China Clippers with early radios...

   The long-route airline aircraft of the era often had a radio operator on
   board.  He had to be licensed the same as a merchant marine radio officer,
   with at least a Second Class Radiotelegraph License (20 wpm plain language,
   16 wpm code groups), PLUS he had to have the Aircraft Radiotelegraph
   Endorsement (25 wpm plain language, 20 wpm code groups) on his license.

If you're interested in fiction about some of this, I highly recommend
_The Lost Flying Boat_ by Alan Sillitoe.  This is fiction, but as a
former radio operator himself, and a fine writer, he communicates the
magic of Morse very nicely.

After he became a successful writer, he bought a shortwave receiver so
he could just listen in becuase he enjoyed it so much.

73, doug

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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

Doug wrote:

If you're interested in fiction about some of this, I highly recommend _The
Lost Flying Boat_ by Alan Sillitoe.  This is fiction, but as a former radio
operator himself, and a fine writer, he communicates the magic of Morse very
nicely.

------------
Thanks! I've not read that one.

A great novel about the early days of maritime shore station operations is
"The Nymph and the Lamp" by Thomas H. Raddall. It was published in 1950 by
Little, Brown and Company, Boston, USA. It's still available through used
book dealers on the internet.

Ron AC7AC


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[Bruce Sugarberg]

Hello All,

The most incredible aviation story of all, is the round-the-world-flight of
the Pacific Clipper at the start of WWII.  It is the subject of two books,
the first written by Pan Am Radio Officer Ed Dover:

73, Bruce WA8TNC
***********************************************************

"The Long Way Home: Captain Ford's Epic Journey" - Ed Dover


Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December, 1941, a giant
four-engined Pan American Airways Boeing flying boat, registered as NC18602,
under the command of Captain Robert Ford, embarked on a remarkable journey.
In one sense, it was the earthly 1940s equivalent of the first Apollo lunar
missions in that it ventured into unknown territory and returned home safely
in the face of overwhelming odds.

Caught en route over the South Pacific at the time of the Japanese attack,
Captain Ford and his crew were forced into a flight plan that none of them
had anticipated when they left San Francisco on 1st December for what was to
have been a routine round trip commercial flight to Auckland, New Zealand.
Faced with the threat of interception by Japanese forces, they were ordered
to take their strategically valuable aircraft on a globe-girdling, 31,500
mile, six-week odyssey, heading westward mostly across territory that had
never been flown over before by such a large commercial aircraft. With no
suitable navigation charts, no certainty of obtaining fuel or servicing, and
under a total veil of secrecy and radio blackout, they threaded their way
across the war zones of the Far East, the Middle East, Africa, the South
Atlantic, Brazil, and the Caribbean, to bring their aircraft home safely to
New York.

This is the story of that historic flight as related to me in person by
Captain Robert Ford.

****************************************************

"Escape of the Pacific Clipper" by George L. Flynn


The Escape of Pan Am's Pacific Clipper on its maiden voyage is a true story
of adventure and suspense.

In 1941, the Pacific Clipper was a technological marvel and the finest
commercial plane in the air. Not only did Japan and Germany seek the capture
of such desirable prize, but our Allies and friends looked for ways of
laying claim to her. Trapped in New Zealand after the bombing of Pearl
Harbor, with all their Pacific bases under attack or captured, the valiant
crew of eleven men challenged the Imperial Japanese navy, 30,000 miles of
uncharted waters, and the German Luftwaffe to try for a safe landing in
America. With courage and skill, the crew of the Pacific Clipper eluded the
pursuing Japanese through Australia, Indonesia, Ceylon, and India. In Iran,
the Germans took up the chase through Egypt, the Congo, and Brazil. After a
final stop at Trinidad, the heroic crew brought the Clipper home to New York
and the final showdown.

Lead by Captain Robert Ford, the Pacific Clipper and its crew flew across
continents landing on lakes and rivers that had never seen a flying boat.
Without arms, money or proper maintenance facilities, and under strict radio
silence, they succeeded where most would have given up or failed. Their
gripping tale and magnificent odyssey is captured by George Flynn and
illustrated with maps, schematics, and technical data on the revolutionary
monowing seaplane.
=======================
> Doug wrote:
>
> If you're interested in fiction about some of this, I highly recommend _The
> Lost Flying Boat_ by Alan Sillitoe.  This is fiction, but as a former radio
> operator himself, and a fine writer, he communicates the magic of Morse very
> nicely.


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