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Transportation and “Industry”

September 21st, 1958

This is Post #4 in the new Series “Going to Afghanistan”.

Fred’s title was “Transportation and Industry”. Most economists would argue that Industry comes first; evidently they have never “hoofed it” to get a job and don’t really understand these posts. Transportation does come first, the discovery of America, immigration and emigration, soldiers shipping off to fight the local rebels in Concord or Lexington; it’s all about transportation. In the US west it was walking and wagon trains, paths, the trails and roads and then railroads. With the railroads came Empire, “the Empire Builder” is I believe still an Amtrak train. And then there were ships, Columbus and the Chinese ocean going Junks before them - Spanish galleons, British steamers and Men of War. With Orville and Wilbur Wright or the Russian guy who might have come first or the guy in Grass Valley, California that might have been even sooner a new mode of transportation took off; became airborne; changed the way we spoke and thought and thought about the world.

In this regard there are two things that one must know about Afghanistan. First, Afghanistan is and always has been land-locked; one cannot get there by the sea; no oceans wash her shores, there are no shores. Second, there are no trains in Afghanistan although there are reports of a few miles of track once being laid in Kabul during the British occupation. Finally, in 1958 there were no paved roads in Afghanistan outside the six or seven major cities. These three realities had for a century helped keep the country free and for at least the past eighty years free from war.

If one had to (or wanted to) go to Afghanistan one would pretty much have to walk in, often with the aid of camels, sometimes with donkeys. In Afghanistan the horse was generally associated with authority, wealth, and war for the thunder of hooves for centuries had almost always meant a new invasion. And the land itself was a defense, like Switzerland Afghanistan in the north and east was protected by the mountains, in the south and west the desert did the same; the nation is a lot like California without the coastal Pacific Ocean. This is perhaps why even in 1958 so few from the western world had been there and why so few Afghans had ventured west.

ICA wanted Fred in Afghanistan in a hurry, so naturally he flew. There were after-all now four dirt runways in the country; where even a DC-3 could land and maybe on a good day a DC-6 could land in Kandahar or Kabul, with the proper approach of course and with pretty much perfect weather.

But before I try and explain the history of aviation of the 30 years before 1939 when the DC-3 was functionally invented and the 20 more interesting years of aviation from 1939 to 1959 and then try and tie it all in to Afghanistan I should make this point: When it comes to flying, everything changed with 9-11 and the invasion of Afghanistan that started with the B-52s bombing of the Kandahar International Airport. During this time we saw the birth of Homeland Security and the universal screening of passengers and bags; the requirement of IDs before one was allowed to travel; the end of the airline industry as people had come to know it.

Fifty years ago airplane travel was quite different. People talked of “Prop-lag” as the concept “Jet-lag” had not been invented. People did not complain of any “lag” when flying even across the Continent, say Washington to LA - flying was still exciting, special. One was well-fed on the planes. There was silver plate silverware and white cloth tablecloths even on a short flight like from Reno to Sacramento. And, well first-class (invented by Western Airlines) was even something more, often including full sleeping berths and endless champagne if one wanted it - and some did. The US flew their diplomats first class in 1958, the airline flown was supposed to be an American flag carrier if available. Fred had the Field Service Officer (FSO) rank of a diplomat so he flew first class, something new to him.

Flying across the Pacific was not new to Fred. He had flown to Burma on a Pan Am Clipper (Queen of the Skies) in 1951. At 251 MPH one did experience prop-lag flying across the Pacific, flying at lower altitudes, flying against the weather with four giant propellers chopping relentlessly hour after hour against the wind. Matters were made worse by the fact that Pan Am (Americas foremost overseas airline) still wasn’t flying into Tokyo and as a result was island hopping across the Pacific to Manila which is the long way across the Pacific if one knows their geography. Great Circle routes are much shorter and therefore faster. The short distance between Tokyo and San Francisco is through Seattle and then up and out over the Aleutians, the tip being more or less Shemya (Alaska).

The Manila galleons of Spain leaving from Acapulco went north to go west (a shorter route, not just an effort to follow the coast). And of course the Japanese knew about Great circles, which is why they started their attack on the United States mainland at Attu, within sight of Shemya. There was no commercial airfield on Attu in 1958, but refueling could occur at Shemya which is why Northwest “Orient” Airlines landed there, to refuel on the way to Tokyo.

But, before going to Shemya, one had to board the flight in Seattle. “Northwest’s Flight #1 is delayed until 1:00 AM so I have ample time here. I had dinner with a couple bound for New Delhi. We’ll be together as far as Hong Kong. They are also staying at the Miramar. Their names are Dick and Jane Hoken and they have been to India before. Dinner was courtesy of Northwest so I had my steak. I registered my camera with Customs and inquired about the need for listing the tape recorder. I don’t have to register the tape recorder.” Letter of September 21, 1958, excerpts.

Tape recorders were still mostly a consumer novelty in 1958. Most American-made recorders on the market didn’t work. Fred anticipated a wide variety of potential uses for a tape recorder in Afghanistan so he asked around for suggestions from those in ICA. Their response was that there probably were no tape recorders in Afghanistan so it would be unwise to use ones limited weight allowance to take one as nobody was there (in Afghanistan) to fix it when it (inevitably) broke. Other people answered more directly, citing the brand-name of Norelco, a Dutch company affiliated with the North American division of Phillips. He bought the recorder, the size but not the shape of a very full flight bag, while still in Washington and carried it on the plane to Reno and continued to hand-carry it across Asia to Afghanistan. It was probably the first tape recorder in Kabul outside a few owned by the Afghan government. It never needed repair.

Northwest landed its westbound planes in Shemya at about noon Pacific Standard Time; the time in Shemya was different and only knowable if one left the plane and went inside the very small and dreary Northwest Airlines cement block hut and carefully studied the large institutional type clock on the wall. Then, while recovering from 10½ hours of prop-lag and after contemplating which side of the International Dateline one was on one might look at the clock and try to guess what time it was in Tokyo or Seattle or someplace else that mattered. Shemya time did not matter. There was nothing on Shemya except the airfield, the radio tower, the block house and some very important underground fuel tanks which without their aviation fuel one perhaps would never leave Shemya.

The block hut had a very simple refreshment counter and a few tables at which one could write, “It is raining and 47 degrees Fahrenheit in Shemya. Another eight hours will put us in Tokyo.”

The letter was mailed in Seattle by Northwest Airlines two days later - Shemya didn’t even have a postal cancellation stamp.