An “experimental” DC-4. A high-energy group of hardworking ex-servicemen. A Veterans Air Express UNRRA contract for cargo flights behind the iron curtain. And Newark/Miami winter passenger flights. By mid-1946, the all-veterans organization was becoming recognized and starting to thrive.
A pride hard to verbalize shudders through me every time I see this film footage of my Dad’s crew members disembarking from the Veterans Air Line DC-4 in Prague. Saunie Gravely was 22 when he got the idea of an all-Veterans air service. And this amazing footage is proof of his dream-become-reality. Come watch. Sorry, no popcorn today.
UNRRA war-relief. DC-4 flights to Prague three times and Warsaw twice with poultry hatching eggs.
By the time these eggs arrive in Warsaw, chicks from the first May delivery will have hatched. Both are historic flights.
Company techs convert an Army C-54 to second cargo DC-4 in just 13 days. But too slow military-to-civilian airfield negotiations hinder FL ops plans.
Cargo Ton-Miles and Passenger Miles adding up CARGO. December 3rd to 21st (1945). Here we have the first cargo revenue flights. Flown in the company’s newly acquired DC-3. (Passenger Period) These are reported further down the page. Cargo. April 1 – June 1, 1946. The Ton-Miles reported here are the first four of six war-relief …
Hollywood star Carole Landis christened Veterans Air Line DC-4 on July 24, 1946. The aircraft and attending celebrity Mrs. Gloria Vanderbilt both got champagne-splashed. Still searching for press photo coverage of event.
Court decision No. 6582a naming lawyers for petitioner Matson Nav Co, trustee for Veterans’ Air Express Co, and a slew of U.S. Attorneys and General Counsels for the Government. Dated March 19, 1948. Ironically, it was Saunie Gravely’s 25th Birthday. Preparation for potential contract leads to unforeseen outcome. Being a non-sked air line was not easy. The …
John J. Noll was a core founder of Veterans Air with six (maybe seven) other WWII vets, including Saunie Gravely, my Dad.
Pilot was unknown when this photo was taken in preparation for UNRRA flights to Prague. He was identified in a story about the 2nd Warsaw flight. Captain Morgan Cooper Walker is his name.
