OF FLYING CLOUDS AND CHINA CLIPPERS: China Clipper

CLVI

The China Clipper over San Francisco

Always-progressive San Francisco allied itself with the China Clipper immediately

What Juan Trippe wanted above all from his flying clipper ships was to capture the mystique and romance of an ocean crossing --- the intimate, quick shipboard friendships, and even romances, that came about as people walked the promenade decks of the great Cunarders. He, like Hugo Eckener in Germany, wanted not aircraft but flying ocean liners, with all their shipboard pleasures.

Art Deco aircraft: The China Clipper

The China Clipper off Alameda

Even more than earlier clippers, everything about the China Clipper suggested that it was a flying maritime vessel. Time aboard was marked by bells, the crew’s watches were set at Greenwich Mean Time, and she was outfitted like a luxury yacht.

“Sweet Sixteen” boarding at Alameda

The China Clipper on the calm waters of The Loch, Pearl City, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Even the cargo was exotic: On one flight, the ship carried nothing but mail and orchids packed in ice; on another, mail (always mail), and thousands of gallons of ice-cold milk (a favorite at Midway and Wake).

A China Clipper cutaway showing the interior cabins

A model of the China Clipper’s aft cabin

Her strong Art Deco exterior styling spoke of the future and of challenge. Her interior appointments were surprisingly clean and spare, very much in the Bauhaus style of the Hindenburg (but without the cold Nazi imprimatur).

Seating in one of China Clipper’s three lounge areas

Fine dining aboard the China Clipper

Like the passengers on the Hindenburg the passengers on the China Clipper had a simply spectacular view of the sea passing below. Sighting pods of whales and passing ships was a pastime aboard, and just as on the Hindenburg, keeping track of the China Clipper’s progress became a shipboard game. Unlike the Hindenburg, however, there was no smoking room aboard the China Clipper, and on the earlier passenger flights alcohol was limited to the Pan American hotels and ground facilities at Alameda, Honolulu, Midway, Wake, Guam and Manila. The China Clipper was overloaded with food, snacks, candy, gum, and other ingestibles to keep the passengers who normally smoked and drank satiated. The Steward handled luggage and other mundane details, but he was also a cruise director of sorts. Board games were available, and he organized activities aboard ship as well. The passengers heading out for Manila were going to spend more than a week in each others’ company in the air and on remote Pacific islands, and it was to everyone’s advantage that they got along.

The spare Bauhaus-type styling of the China Clipper’s interior was not unique to the M-130. The same kind of styling, though less cushioned, can be seen on board the airship Hindenburg (below) which was crossing the Atlantic while the Clipper flew the Pacific. While not as roomy as the Zeppelin, the M-130, able to seat six across with ease, was the widebody airplane of its time. The high, arched cabin overhead makes the ship seem especially spacious

Many of the China Clipper’s passengers were wealthy and knew each other from moving in the same social circles. Even strangers would find that they knew common acquaintances or had distant relations in common, so conversation flowed easily.

Passengers boarding the China Clipper through the aft hatchway

China Clipper passengers arriving in Hawaii

For those on the outside of the social circle, mixing might be a little harder, but given that the company representative or well-heeled lone entrepreneur aboard ship was in a position to have made the flight at all, shipboard curiosity, mixed with remoteness from home, most often broke down the usual class barriers.

A China Clipper timetable. In a nod to the Old World, the route was named the "Orient Express."

Pan American distributed this handy map to passengers so that they would know where they were headed. The inset maps may or may not have been very reassuring to nervous passengers

Unlike today’s hurry-up-and-stand-still-and-please-remove-your-shoes kind of flying, traveling on the China Clipper was a fully-rounded experience. A typical traveler arrived in San Francisco aboard the aptly-named train City of San Francisco.

The City of San Francisco. One of the first “Streamliners,” the train was redolent of the popular Art Deco style of the 1930s

An Art Deco automobile of 1934

China Clipper passengers would be met by a Pan Am car service that would drive them across the newly completed Bay Bridge to Alameda, there to embark on the waiting M-130.

Richard M. Bradley bought the first China Clipper passenger ticket in 1936

The Main Lounge of the China Clipper. The book on the table is entitled Sky Gypsy

The only off-note of the experience would come at Alameda, when not only would passenger baggage be weighed (Pan Am allowed a maximum of 55 pounds of luggage), but the passengers as well. On the long Alameda-to-Honolulu flight the Clipper drank fuel thirstily, and the more weight aboard, the more thirst. Particularly overweight passengers might be referred to the Matson Lines office to book a passage on the S.S. Lurline; after reaching Hawaii, they could catch the next flight westward.

The cockpit of the China Clipper

The flight deck of the China Clipper looking forward. The pilots are at the controls, while the Navigator, Radio Officer and Flight Engineer get to work. This is a staged promotional photo as can be seen by the fact that the crew is wearing jackets and hats

Passengers would then be invited to watch the crew’s boarding ritual, a slow stately march that generally took place at four bells (1400, or two o’clock). After the crew settled in, passenger boarding could begin. Liftoff would be at 3:00 p.m.

The passengers 'rattled around in the vast expanse of hull in a degree of comfort never known before'.

Board games were an important distraction aboard the China Clipper. Interestingly, none of the furnishings seem to be bolted down

What followed was an eighteen hour odyssey, undertaken in remarkable comfort. Passengers were free to move about the several separated cabins, their merest impulse attended to by a white-jacketed Steward. Before turning in, Pan Am’s voyagers would dine on a meal complete with fine china, heavy silverware and white tablecloths.

On long flights, seating in the secondary cabins was replaced by the twelve Pullman-type berths installed aboard the China Clipper

“Locksley Hall” would keep its promise. As the China Clipper chased the sun across the Pacific, she would experience a purple twilight, followed by a sudden pitchblack night as though the sun had been turned off at its source. Novices on the Pacific would be shocked and a little disoriented at the utter lack of dusk.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the height of the Victorian Age. His poetry is often heroic, though his phrases are frequently baroque. Lines such as “Pilots of the purple twilight” have earned the description “purple prose.” All the quotes on this page are taken (or adapted) from Tennyson; Juan Trippe found his themes inspiring

Again, Pan American turned to Tennyson for inspiration: The airline’s promotional material advised passengers that “Taking a Clipper is to’sail beyond the sunset and the paths of Western stars in a modern way that would have thrilled Ulysses.”

For, as Juan Trippe knew, “‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”