The Long Way Home (Revised Ed)

by Ed Dover

  “Oh, great!” Poindexter grimaced, “I just got through talking to my wife. Told her I’d be home around midnight tonight. Now she’ll really be tee’d off!”

  Hendrickson smiled ever so slightly at Poindexter. “Do you have any better idea?”

  Poindexter admitted that they had very little choice in the matter. “Well, if I gotta, then I guess I gotta. Better get back on the phone again.” And with that he turned back to the telephone booth.

  NC18606 swung lazily at her mooring as the flight crew came aboard, followed by the passengers. The late afternoon sun shone brightly on the hull of the Boeing. Flickering patches of sunlight, reflecting off the water, dappled the underside of the high wing. This would be the longest over-water leg of the flight schedule: some 2,400 statute miles to the Pearl Harbor terminal at Honolulu. This was – and still is the longest over water commercial air route in the world with no alternate landing field. Since arriving the afternoon before, the Clipper had been subjected to an almost continuous round of activities which would make her ready for the trip. Fuel tanks had been topped with 100 octane aviation gas. Extra stores of food and water had been taken on board, and all four engines had been thoroughly inspected by Pan Am mechanics. It remained only for the crew to take charge, assume their respective duty stations and bring the big ship to life once again.

  Because Poindexter was the Division’s Chief Flight Radio Officer, he was designated as First Radio Officer while Oscar Hendrickson took over as Second Radio Officer. Poindexter took his place at the radio desk. This is going to be one hell of a long trip, he thought to himself, and I don’t even have any extra clothes. There ought to be a better way...

  When all the passengers had come aboard, Clipper 18606 took off on the second leg of its flight. Lifting off the harbor, Ford pointed the ship upward and headed west in accordance with the heading provided by the navigation officer. Once established on course, with all four engines droning steadily at their long-range cruise settings, there would now be time to relax a bit. Ford unfastened his seat belt and motioned to Tom White to take the left seat. Rod Brown now assumed White’s former station in the right seat. “You’ve got the watch, Tom,” Ford advised his First Officer. “Rotate with Brown and Henricksen the next three hours. If you need me, I’ll be below.”

  Ford descended the spiral stairs to the main cabin and went forward to the galley. Barney Sawicki and Verne Edwards were busy preparing the evening meal.

  “Something smells pretty good,” Ford commented. “What’s the menu for tonight?”

  “Baked chicken, baked potato, peas and carrots, Skipper,” Barney replied. “And Devil’s food cake for dessert.”

  “Sounds great, Barney. Do you think you could spare an advance cup of coffee?”

  “Sure, just a second.” Sawicki turned to the coffee urn sitting on the sideboard, selected a mug from the cabinet and drew a cup of coffee which he handed to Ford.

  “Thanks, Barn.” Ford took the cup. Then, after a few sips, he peered down the length of the passageway toward the passenger compartments. “I guess it’s time to do the PR chore,” Ford mused, as he finished his coffee. “I’ll be back in the main lounge. How long to dinner service?”

  “We can start serving in about a half hour, Skipper.”

  Ford strolled back toward the main lounge. As he passed each section he stopped and introduced himself to the passengers.

  First Officer Tom White, settled comfortably in the left cockpit seat, scanned the instruments in front of him. He tweaked the autopilot trim to compensate for a slight drift in the gyro compass. The compass heading, according to the small square of paper that Third Officer Jim Henricksen had taped to the brow of the instrument panel, was supposed to be 260 degrees. The gyro had drifted slightly during climb to altitude and was now showing 263. In a few seconds the gyro heading and the little square of paper were in agreement.

  White relaxed a little and was contemplating the scene on the horizon. Sunset over the Pacific had a special quality, he thought. At their cruising altitude of 8,000 feet, they were now well on top of the broad deck of strato-cumulus that seemed to hover off the California coastline at this time of year. To the west a line of towering cumulus buildups loomed over the horizon, signaling the presence of an approaching cold front. Well, White thought, looks like the weather boys in Dispatch called this one pretty well. In the pre-flight briefing, Pan Am’s meteorologist had forecast there might be a cold front approaching the coast. The few reports from surface ships had indicated some shift in winds about 300 miles west of San Pedro. We’ll have to watch those buildups pretty close, White thought. If we can’t top ‘em we may have to drop down beneath ‘em.

  Up above, a few scattered alto-cumulus clouds picked up the orange-lavender glow of the setting sun, now just below the horizon. Directly above the Boeing and toward the east, the warm glow faded to blue and then purple and then indigo, as sunset caught up with and passed the ship. The Boeing was holding a long-range cruise speed of 130 knots.

  “Say, Tom, do we have a time to ETP[2] yet?” Second Officer Rod Brown’s question broke through White’s reverie.

  White looked over at Brown, seated in the right seat. “Not yet, Rod. Why don’t you check with Jim?”

  Brown swung to his left and parted the night curtain that now hung between the cockpit and the main section of the flight deck. He stepped down and back toward the navigation table, being careful to re-secure the night curtain. The cockpit area had to be shielded from the lights on the main area of the flight deck so that the on-duty pilots could retain their night vision.

  Third Officer Jim Henricksen was hunched over the map table, maneuvering a set of parallel rulers along the plotted track on the Mercator Projection.

  “Do we have a time to ETP yet, Jim?”

  “Just coming up... Wait a sec.” Henricksen said, without looking up from his work. “Need to work in that last drift sight we took just before sunset and figure the wind drift from it. Still too much twilight for a good celestial, so we’re trying radio fixes with the new A-N homer receivers.... Hey, Jack, you got those bearings yet?”

  Jack Poindexter, at the radio desk, was concentrating on the dials of the two identical receivers in front of him. He slowly turned the DF loop control as he listened to the Morse Code signal, superimposed on the broadcast signal by the receiver, for the letter “A” to blend with the signal for the letter “N”. Letter “A” was a dot and a dash; letter “N” was a dash and a dot. When the signals from the two sectors were equal they blended into one long, continuous tone. That would be the “on course” relative bearing and he could then compute the magnetic bearing from the aircraft to the ground station. “Bearing zero-seven-three on KNX. Stand by for cross reading. I think I can get KGO pretty good now.” Poindexter dialed in the frequency for the clear channel broadcast station in San Francisco. In a couple of seconds he heard music. The dial reading was confirmed a second later when the announcer came on with the call sign. Poindexter switched the function switch from voice to homer. Again he slowly turned the DF loop as the A-N homer circuit superimposed the Morse Code signals on the broadcast signal. In a few seconds he had his on-course reading. “KGO bearing zero-three-five. Okay, Jim?”

  Henricksen took down the bearings and began plotting them on the chart. The intersection of the two on-course signals would give them a pretty good fix. Then, with the drift sight reading and the dead reckoning figures based on takeoff time and airspeed, he had the wind factor dialed onto the plotter. “Looks good, Jack, thanks.” Within a minute or two he took out his pencil and made an “X” on the course line laid out on the chart. Next to it he jotted down the time: “13:12 GMT”

  [3]

  Brown stared down at the notation. “That’s it? 13:12?”

  “Yep. Give or take a couple of minutes.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Brown turned toward the cockpit, carefully parted the night curtain – just enough so that he could slip behind it – secured it again and
returned to the right seat. “ETP at 13:12, Tom.”

  White glanced at the clock on the instrument panel. It showed 05:25. Another seven hours and forty minutes or so, he thought. That sounds about right unless that weather up ahead louses up the winds aloft. Better keep an eye on those buildups.

  Jack Poindexter switched off the A-N homer function and changed to the air-ground channel. His next duty would be to contact KSF, the C.A.A. Overseas Communications Station at San Francisco. All overseas flights were required to report in at 15-minute intervals while over the ocean. If any overseas flight failed to meet that time limit, air traffic control would assume a cautionary communications alert status on the flight. If it missed two or more contact schedules, Search and Rescue would be alerted. At every 30-minute interval the flight radio officer would transmit the Clipper’s position, altitude, speed, and current weather conditions, as entered into the ship’s log by the navigator.

  “Coming up on the half-hour contact, Jim.” Poindexter called to Henricksen. “You got that PX report ready?”

  “Right up. Just have to insert the weather data.”

  Henricksen jotted a few last comments on the log sheet and handed it to Poindexter. Jack glanced briefly at the form to see that all was in proper order. Then he flipped on the transmitter switch.

  It took Poindexter about two minutes to transmit the report, using the high-speed “bug” that most of Pan Am’s radio operators carried on their flights. Anyone conversant with Morse Code could tell when a Pan Am operator was on the circuit; they were among the fastest Morse Code operators around. Pan Am’s stringent training required a checkout at a minimum of 30 words per minute sending and receiving. The savvy of Pan Am’s flight radio officers was unchallenged whenever Morse Code communications were used.

  When he was finished with the radio contact, Poindexter had time to sit back and relax for a few minutes before the next quarter-hour contact was due. Ever since leaving San Pedro he had been puzzling over the sudden turn of events that had caught him unprepared for a long journey out along the line. Ford and his crew were scheduled for a one-day layover in Honolulu before picking up another B-314 and heading for Auckland, New Zealand. The round trip would take a little over two weeks. Poindexter would have to make do with only the clothes he was wearing. Well, he figured, maybe I’ll have time to run down to Liberty House and pick up a spare shirt. Then he thought of his wife. What would she think of his sudden absence? Then he wondered if he had enough money with him. He took out his wallet and counted its contents. Hmm, just 36 dollars and eleven cents, he noted. I guess it’s short rations from here on down unless I can get one of the ops boys to wangle me an advance. Talk about traveling light!

  Down below, Barney Sawicki and Verne Edwards were serving dinner to the first group of passengers in the main lounge.

  Bob Ford had greeted most of the passengers by now, exchanging introductions and pleasantries. But this ‘PR chore’, as he called it, was not his favorite in-flight activity. The company always encouraged the Captain of each flight to make an effort at getting acquainted with the passengers. They claimed that it helped reinforce the passengers’ sense of safety and comfort to see a self-assured flight Captain, relaxed and pleasant, mingling with them. But Bob Ford preferred the company of his crew and the stimulation of the flight operations. Soon after dinner service began he excused himself and returned to the flight deck.

  “How’s the flight progress, Jim?” Ford asked as he came up the stairwell and stepped over to the navigator’s table.

  “Okay so far,” Henricksen answered, “but we may have to change altitude soon. We’ve got what looks like the makings of a strong front up ahead and there may be others further west. Tom spotted some fairly large buildups on the horizon just before dark and it looked like they were just getting started. The tops could be too high for us to go over, so we may have to descend to go under ‘em. Don’t have a handle on cloud bases yet, but we might have to consider getting pretty low. Could be a bit rough down there too.”

  Ford stood silent for a moment, digesting what his Third Officer had just said. The Boeing was a big, strong ship, but frontal buildups were not to be fooled around with. If the storm front extended above the Boeing’s rated service ceiling of 19,600 feet it would be beyond the aircraft’s ability to stay above the clouds. Most likely they would have to descend below the cloud bases. That would mean stronger headwinds. This could be a longer flight than anticipated, he thought. “How about celestial fixes? Can we get some solid ones before we have to descend? Might not be able to get star sights if we’ll be under an overcast for most of the flight.”

  “Yeah, I’m fixing to get those now. Figure another 20 to 30 minutes at this altitude. We can get a couple of celestials before we have to start down.”

  Henricksen reached for a large wooden case stowed under the chart table. He opened it and took out the octant. The octant was similar to a ship’s sextant that mariners used to fix their position by star sightings. But it had been modified with its own internal bubble level and light source to provide a more visible and stable ‘horizon’ reference line for use aboard aircraft. Taking the octant in hand, Henricksen turned toward the cockpit and poked his head through the night curtain. “Hey, Tom, I’m going to run a couple of star sights. Hold her ‘steady as she goes’ for me for a few minutes, okay?”

  Tom White glanced back at his crewmate. “Sure thing. Just holler when you’re done.” He then disengaged the auto-pilot and took manual control. The auto-pilot did a tolerable job of holding a steady course, but it had a tendency to ‘hunt’ as the gyro-compass drifted slightly, and had to be fine-tuned every few minutes. By going on manual control, White would be able to hold the ship on a steadier keel while the navigator took his star sightings.

  Henricksen turned and went to the rear of the flight deck. He opened the hatch to the cargo compartment and stepped through to the short ladder leading up to the navigator’s dome. Steadying himself on the upper rungs, he grasped the octant with both hands and looked out into the now-black sky. The great expanse of wing extended left and right, tapering to slender tips. The transparent blue exhaust flames flickered out behind dull-red exhaust stacks. Above, the blackness was studded with uncountable stars across the entire hemisphere of sky. To the west, intermittent flashes of lightning illuminated and silhouetted the cumulus buildups. The tops of these frontal monsters were now approaching 25,000 feet – much too high for the B-314 to climb over. They would have to descend and pass beneath them. Better get these star sightings locked in now, Henricksen thought. Once we’re under those buildups it’s going to have to be dead reckoning for the rest of the night. He flipped on the octant’s horizon light and began the sightings.

  Figure

  Navigator's dome in cargo compartment behind the flight deck (Pan American Airways photo).

  Twenty minutes later Henricksen looked up from the chart table and called to Bob Ford. “Skipper, come take a look at this.”

  Ford rose from the seat at the rear of the flight deck where he had been checking engine logs with Swede Rothe. He came forward to the navigator’s table. “What’s up, Jim?”

  “That sequence of star sights I took a while ago were all pretty solid, but if they’re right, it looks like we have a stronger headwind than originally forecast. This line of position shows us with about a negative 15 component. I’ve had to revise ETP by a couple of hours. It’s no problem as far as fuel reserve is concerned, but it will put us into Pearl a lot later than anticipated.”

  “About how much later?”

  “Not much before noon or 1 p.m. Hawaii time.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to settle for that. Might as well get your duty relief shifts set up for a long night and morning. I’ll relieve Tom White now and you and he might as well go below. Get some dinner and then sack in for a while. We’ll make it three on, three off for the rest of the trip.”

  Ford went forward to the cockpit. He relieved White and Fourth Office
r John Steers took Rod Brown’s place in the right seat. Oscar Hendrickson took over the radio watch from Jack Poindexter. John Parrish relieved Swede Rothe at the engineer’s station. With the watch change complete, the off-duty crew went below to eat and rest. The on-duty crew settled into their routines as the Boeing droned on, moving steadily toward the first of a series of cold fronts that lay across its flight path.

  By this time, British, Dutch, and American naval forces were on alert throughout the Pacific. Australia was designated as a “war station”. Small boats in Hawaii were put under license and Hong Kong’s defenses were in place. A British fleet, headed by the battleship “Prince of Wales”, arrived at Singapore. (New York Times, Tuesday, December 2, 1941)

  CHAPTER III

  A LONG NIGHT TO HONOLULU

  At first the bumps had been slight and intermittent. But as the Boeing crossed the advancing wind-shear line, the turbulence increased. Ford ordered the engineer to throttle the engines back in preparation for penetrating the storm front. Airspeed now showed only 120 knots. If Henricksen’s figure of a 15 knot negative component was accurate, that meant that their forward ground speed was down to about 105 knots, or a mere 115 miles per hour.

  “Trim for descent, 500 feet per minute, John,” Ford called to John Parrish. “Might as well get below that stuff now while we still have room to spare.”

  Gradually the big ship descended. At 3,000 feet they were still above the bases of the cumulus looming before them. “Keep it coming down,” Ford ordered, “but put a stopper in it at 1,000 feet.”

  At 1,000 feet above the sea the Boeing leveled off. They had barely 500 feet of clearance to the cloud bases above. The turbulence, by now, was almost continuous: light, sometimes moderate bumps, accompanied by occasional staccato bursts of rain, loud enough to punctuate the drone of the engines.