This is a still from the above newsreel. I have lightened it quite a bit to try to identify the aircraft.

The DC-3 is clearly PH-AST. Behind it is DC-2 (PH-)AKT.

On the right is, I think, another DC-2. The end of the registration, under the wing, looks like it should be “(PH-)ALF” but, since that aircraft crashed in July 1937 and the newsreel comes from 1939, then it is presumably PH-ALE. If I’m correct, then this is the KLM DC-2 that became G-AGBH and has featured in an earlier post here.

Thanks for your information, ericmunk, 15 September 1943 being the day that G-AGHS was registered.

I shall check the elevator clamps, now that you’ve pointed it out.

You’re most welcome, Duggy, but I only ‘found’ it; John Wilson did all the work and put it on-line.

A different matter: there is well-known photograph of BOAC aircraft on the apron at Portela Airport, which opened on 15 October 1942. The photo was taken at least a year after that. I’ve cut out the grass and the sky and limited it just to the aircraft. There is at least one other photograph taken the same day; there are probably more. Perhaps the actual date is known by somebody reading this, in which case, please let me know.

Thank you, longshot. That was the British Movietone News clip. This is the Pathe News version of the same event:

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/new-us-ambassador-in-britain/query/New+US+Ambassador+In+Britain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TohL7pHavMg

And, for those more interested in KLM’s DC-3 flights to and from Lisbon, this bit of newsreel footage shows one of these in the opening sections:

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/american-private-citizen-no-1-arrives

It shows a KLM DC-3 arriving at Whitchurch, though the airport is not given by name. And is that a Flamingo taking off from Whitchurch towards London at the end? To Heston, perhaps?

Here are a couple of stills from the newsreel footage:

Since I find it so difficult to read extended documents on-screen, Duggy, I’ve taken the liberty of placing the text of your attachment into a WORD document – I trust that’s OK. The role and actions of civilian crews in WWII fascinated me as a youth and, as is evident in this thread, I believe, continues to do so at this end of my life. I didn’t know the story of ‘Pacific Clipper’ immediately following Pearl Harbor, so that made it doubly welcome.

There is a reference to a ‘video’ at the end. Could you please give details of that.

I notice that it was entitled “Pan Am – The Secret Weapon’ and it may be worth saying that, even before Pearl Harbor, Pan Am’s role in WWII had been publicised. The LIFE article, in the aforementioned 20 Oct 41 issue, was entitled: “Juan Trippe – Pan American Airway’s Young Chief Helps Run A Branch Of U.S. Defense”.

That article included a Pan Am route map, not two months before Pearl Harbor, which may help others reading the account of Pacific Clipper’s ‘adventures’ – or, at least, parts of it:

Maybe there has been some ‘airbrushing’ of the fuselage, as it looks rather ‘smooth’; perhaps the photo was cleaned up to remove any outward signs of ‘wear and tear’.

I was not concerned about the shadows on the front fuselage and the white uniforms do seem to be reflected on the underside of the wing.

I agree that, when you drew our attention to the wing and the tailplane, lazy8, they didn’t look quite right but, when I examined a line drawing (see below), I was much less concerned. I think the low sun (possibly coming from the west in the evening, with a warm glow) gives a bit of a false impression.

Thanks for the tip about LIFE magazine. I found the following in that 20 Oct 41 issue, the cover of which is shown in Post # 258 (above): three Pan Am Clippers at Horta.