Sierra Hotel Blog
On April 28, 1937, a Pan American Boeing 314 Clipper completed the first commercial transpacific flight, arriving in Hong Kong from San Francisco. With private bunks, a dining room serving five-course meals on fine china, and white-coated stewards, the Clipper was the pinnacle of luxury air travel — until the war drafted the fleet into military service and newer, faster aircraft rendered it obsolete by 1951.
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Shot down over France on his 59th mission, Bob Hoover was captured and sent to Stalag Luft 1. After 16 months as a POW, he escaped, found a damaged Focke-Wulf Fw 190 on an abandoned airfield, forced a German mechanic to start it, and flew it to freedom in the Netherlands. He had departed in a Spitfire — and came home in a Focke-Wulf.
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