Tom Culbert

Enjoy the journey and adventure of the Pan American Airways Africa Ltd. Project (contract flying) in 1941-1942. Pan American Airways was in the Second World War even before the United States armed forces entered the fray. Early in 1941, at a meeting in London with Winston Churchill, Juan Trippe, Pan Am's president, offered to upgrade the trans-African Imperial Airways route, as a way to reinforce the British in Egypt, then under siege from Axis armies. It was also foreseen as a potential route to the Allied forces in east Asia, severely threatened by Japanese advances in China and Burma. Confirming that "90 percent of aviation is on the ground," it pioneered the organizational and practical requirements for building and maintaining airfields for concentrated airlift operations in almost uncharted territory. Remarkably, the first trans-African flight took off within ten weeks of the signing of the contract.
Contents:
1. The British War Effort in Trouble
2. PAA-Africa Gears Up
3. Hustling East
4. Operating Locations for PAA-Africa
5. Flight Operations
6. Ground Operations
7. Altering the Course of the War
8. Military Take-Over
9. Their Legacy - Alive Today… (meer)