WWII was blazing and the men were overseas at the front lines. Women were naturally the next in position to command jobs here in the U.S. Word was out that Pan American was looking for females for the first time to serve as stewardesses. At 24 years of age Doris Kinsell was not about to let this opportunity go by. Read Doris’ adventures “Dispatches From Doris” by Romlee Stoughton.
Madeline Charvet Smith navigated the globe with Pan American from 1946 to 1951. Her memories of flying in Alaska, then a territory, and across the Pacific take you back to a time of great excitement in aviation. Enjoy reading “Forever Young.”
B.A. Walters began her Pan Am career after studying at Stetson University in Deland, Florida where she majored in English and Sociology. “I was planning on being a stewardess the entire time. My father was a pilot, and yes, as a woman you could learn to fly but not as a career. I knew you needed a college education and being a stewardess was what I always wanted to do.”
Read “B.A. Walters 37 Years of Airborne Adventure” by Terry Foster.
Her favorite layover was Rio de Janeiro. Flying the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser and DC4’s with a final destination of Buenos Aires meant layovers in Trinidad, Belem and Rio! A transfer to the Pacific was filled with excitement and…..Dengue fever.
Read “Memoirs From Lynn Lawrence Oberle” by Terry Foster.
“When I first started flying for Pan Am the war had not yet ended. It was quite something to fly into the Canal Zone. There was always an air escort and we had to put up blinders on the windows and confiscate cameras so no one could look out or look down to see the submarine net that protected the Panama Canal. One captain was really nice, he asked me if I had ever seen the net and when I said no, he told me to come into the cockpit and just carefully peer over the glass, and stay way down low and don’t stand up because the escort planes count the number of people in the cockpit. I did exactly as he said and got to see it.”
Read “Edwidge Stockton Mead – An Independent Woman Takes Flight” as told to Jocelyne Harding.
Featured Picture courtesy of everythingpanam.com.
No copyright infringement intended.
I’ve only just come across your site… I was looking for any info on the flight Pan Am 103 crew. Many things I often think are said about the passengers of such disasters but never much about the crew. This is an excellent find imo, sad, but excellent and so much more info. THANK YOU.
I realise the last post here was 2015 and it’s now 2023 but hey…
I wish there was more…but thank you so much for all that there is .
I love what you are doing here 🙂
THANK YOU !
I am so glad you found her. I always wondered about what the girls before me had to do on the plane and that was great!
wish I could remember my stories of the R & R flights. Sadly I took no photos. Later I flew the SP very month to Tokyo. I was a commuter and these flights were great to accumilate hours in the shortest amout of days away. Thank you for doing all this for us.
I love what you are doing :-)!