One of the most magnificent flying boats ever built, Pan American Martin 130:
Youngest of the glorious three, she was assigned - together with her sisterships, the China Clipper and Philippine Clipper, - for mail and passenger service over the Pacific, from San Francisco Bay to Manila and Southern China. Three flying boats offered luxurious accommodation to 36 "day" or 18 "night" passengers.
The Hawaii Clipper, originally named Hawaiian Clipper, made her maiden flight in March 1936; in May 1936, she was officially christened by Patricia Kennedy at Pearl Harbor, using a coconut instead of traditional champagne bottle:
Two years later, the Hawaii Clipper disappeared without trace. The Saturday Air Mail has chosen a short compilation by Aristaeus published on a friendly forum to provide you with some facts. Just the facts - more than enough for a fancy conspiracy theory.
With half hour position reports and RDF bearings which had been taken by the three monitoring stations the U.S. Navy searched for over a week and found nothing. No wreckage, no bodies, no debris, nothing.
Immediately after receiving word from Manila the U.S. Army transport ship Meigs, which had been sailing just 70 miles from Hawaii Clippers noon position began her search. During the 29th hour of her search Meigs spotted an oil slick just 28 miles from Hawaii Clipper's last known position. The oil slick was a 1,500 foot circle of oil rolling with the sea and Meigs launched a boat to take oil samples, which later proved not to have come from Hawaii Clipper.
No bodies, no wreckage, no debris. Hawaii Clipper had vanished.
Mr. Choy was a restauranteur with a tearoom in Manhattan and two restaurants in Jersey City with his best known restaurant named for the China Clipper.
Mr. Choy was en route to China to visit his brother Frank who was serving in the Chinese Air Force, and was also delivering 3 million dollars to the Kuomintang government in Chungking for war relief.
Maj French was the active commander of the 321st Observation Squadron, and was en route to China and had stated to a reporter from the Oreganian before his departure that he would be making his way to Canton China to observe Japanese bombings of that city.
Mr. Kennedy was the traffic manager for PAA's Pacific Division, and was en route to the Orient on company business, possibly to reschedule the connections with CNAC (China National Aviation Corporation) which had been disrupted as the result of recent Japanese military advances.
A botanist, and plant pathologist with the Department of Agriculture. In 1937, Mr Meier had arranged with Amelia Earhart to have Fred Noonan use an air-hook, which had been developed by Dr. Meier and Charles Lindbergh to collect airborne dust, pollen, spores and disease germs at attainable altitudes. Fred Noonan had taken such samples over the Atlantic portion of the flight around the world and Mr Meier had been able to establish with the samples sent back by Amelia Earhart that at least forty micro-organisms, plant and disease, were being carried across the Atlantic on the upper air currents. Mr Meier had hoped to prove the same with the Pacific leg of the flight but as we all know never recieved the samples.
Mr Meier had planned on takeing the samples during his trip across the Pacific onboard Hawaii Clipper.
Dr McKinley was the Dean of the College of Medicine at George Washington University, and had been a Professor of Bacteriology at the college since 1931. Widely recognized throughout the world as an expert on leprosy Dr. McKinley had studied this disease in the Philippines, where he was the field director for the Rockefeller Foundation and had served as a member of the Governor General's Advisory Committee on Leprosy. In May, 1938 Dr. McKinley had isolated a new strain of the leprosy micro-organism in an American leper, and in conjunction with Dr. Meier was traveling to the Philippines to determine whether a study of skin tests on Filipino lepers might reveal the very same micro-organism which he had isolated in the U.S. In addition, he and Dr. Meier were attempting to identify a vector for the transmission of leprosy, and other diseases, from Asia to North America.
Mr. Wyman was the former assistant to Pan American Airways president, Juan T. Trippe and was now Vice President of Export Sales for the Buffalo, New York, aviation firm, Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Mr Wyman was en-route to China to conclude buisness with the Chinese that would enable them to buy and install engines for the new Curtiss Hawk 75-A fighters (P-36) that china had bought to replace the Hawk 75 currently in service.
Amateur footage of Hawaii Clipper: