Following the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December, 1941, a giant four-engine Pan
American Airways Boeing flying boat, registered as NC18602 (right) under the
command of Captain Robert Ford (below), 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.