The Lion City

CCXXIII

Kallang Terminal and Tower, 1937

After leaving Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport (“One of the finest airports we had encountered”) on June 20th, Earhart and Noonan hopped the 880 miles to Kallang Airport, Singapore’s very first civil airport. Newly-opened on June 12, 1937, it had a long grassy landing field, a slipway for flying boats, and an imposing terminal. In its own right it was considered the “finest airport in the British Empire.”

The Electra at Kallang Airport

Singapore had the reputation of being “The Gibraltar of the East”. Just as Gibraltar stood watch over the Pillars of Hercules that controlled access between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Singapore stood watch over the Singapore Strait, the main seaway between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Founded by Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company, Singapore, and the accompanying Straits Settlements, were considered outliers of the British Indian Empire.

Commercial Singapore, 1937

By the time Noonan and Earhart landed in Singapore, the city had passed its hundredth year as a British Crown Colony. It was a remarkable, polyglot place where men and women of all races and creeds conducted all manner of business.

South Bridge Road, Singapore, 1937

The center of much of this business was (and still is) the Raffles Hotel, named for Stamford Raffles and founded in 1887. Over the years, Raffles has hosted guests as diverse as Elizabeth Taylor and Somerset Maugham, who used its ambience to great effect in many of his stories. A wandering tiger once fell asleep in the billiards room.

Raffles in 1937

From the mundane to the exotic and from the honest to the illicit, Raffles had seen it all even before Amelia and Fred checked in for the night. As with many British colonial outposts, but more so than many, the Europeans in Singapore indulged in pleasures ranging from the innocent to the louche. As far from home as they could get, what happened in Singapore stayed in Singapore. Usually.

The Grand Lobby at Raffles

Ngiam Tong Boon invented the Singapore Sling at Raffles Long Bar in 1915. Here, some of his descendants raise a glass to his memory

The center of gravity for all the intrigue that marked Raffles’ sometimes infamous history is the Long Bar; the famous and the unknown vie to rub elbows along its endless polished top even to this day. There’s little doubt that Fred Noonan would have passed up an opportunity to favor the Long Bar with his custom, pledges to his wife notwithstanding.

*For Jeanette Smith