Interview conducted on January 14, 1999.
The interview describes Captain Donald E. Holman’s career with Pan American World Airways from 1941 to 1975; decision in 1937 to enter the U.S. Navy; training at the Pensacola Naval Air Station; flights on the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N and N2N; assignment to the U.S.S. Astoria in 1939 as part of the VOS observation squadron and the Curtiss SOC Seagull aircraft; discharge from the Navy in October 1941; hiring by Pan American; flight training at Treasure Island; celestial and sunline navigation; instrument training in Reno, Nevada; work on flights from San Francisco as a supernumerary between 1942 and 1943; experiences on inaugural flight from San Francisco to Noumea via Palmyra and Canton Island on a Consolidated PB2Y-3 Coronado with Captain Robert Ford and André Priester; meeting John Cooke, airport manager at Noumea; transfer to Miami base in 1943; checking out as pilot on coastways routes on the Douglas DC-3 down to Rio de Janeiro; first night flights in Mexico and Central America; transfer to the base in Guatemala City; transfer to New Orleans base; decision to transfer to San Francisco in 1952 to fly the Korean Airlift, including an episode in which he was flying munitions; aircraft he flew: Douglas DC-3 and DC-4, Boeing 314, 307 Stratoliner; transfer to New York base; routes he flew: London, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Beiruit, New Delhi; flying the Shah of Iran from Teheran to Washington, D.C. via Rome and Paris around 1961; work on the scheduling committee at the New York base and beginning of seniority system; encounters with Charles Lindbergh, Julia Child, and Claudette Colbert; positive feelings toward Pan American as an employer.
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