The Speares

Today's flight has us leaving the Avalon Peninsula and heading into the interior of the island, to Gander. Once known as the Crossroads of the World because of the key role it played in flying across the Atlantic.

Which by 1935 was fairly commonplace. And quite exciting. Rigid airships, such as the Zeppelins, were routinely flying between Germany and New Jersey, and Germany and Rio de Janeiro. The first Zeppelin transatlantic flights could take as much as four days; later flights had the time down to 78 hours westward and 61 hours eastward. A one-way ticket on the Hindenburg would cost you $400. That, of course, was the airship that famously burned up over Manchester county in New Jersey in 1937, possibly (though not necessarily) due to its use of the highly flammable hydrogen for its bouyancy gas.

The Hindenburg was initially designed to use helium for its lift, and not hydrogen. But the U.S. was the major source of the rare gas and the Helium Act of 1925 made it illegal to export. So foreign airships had to use the much more dangerous hydrogen. The Hindenburg disaster signalled the end of the airship era.

Flying boats were another, perhaps safer way to cross the vast Atlantic. They tended to stick to the South Atlantic where the icebergs were fewer, and there were interesting places to layover such as the Azores, while you were enroute to Brazil. French, German and Italian airlines all had skin in the game ferrying mostly mail from Africa to South America. But the goal was always passengers, from London to New York. And the airplanes of the day simply didn't have enough range.

So to get around this range issue, flying boats were becoming larger. And seaplane ports were set up in Foynes, Ireland, and Botwood, Newfoundland. These two ports were about the closest two points of land, suitable for the landing of flying boats, that there could be between Europe and North America. So starting on 24 June, 1939, Pan Am had a regularly scheduled flight between Southampton (near London) and Port Washington (near New York). It stopped in Foynes, Botwood and Shediac (New Brunswick). At the jaw dropping speed of 188 mph it would take over 18 hours in the air, plus layovers, to make the journey between England and the U.S. So passengers could count on at the very least a full day and night of travel. And it was first class all the way.

The Boeing 314 Clipper Flying Boat could carry 36 passengers. In style. Chefs would create exceptional six course feasts which were then served by white-coated stewards on a silver service. Guests, who had freshened up in one of the two dressing rooms prior to service, could then retire to the lounge for perhaps a cigar and brandy. Meanwhile, their first class seats would be changing over to bunks for the night. Yes, the 24th of June 1939 was the start of a new golden age of luxury transatlantic flight. And the 1st of September 1939 was the start of a whole other class of transatlantic flight. Ferrying bombers to England to be used against Hitler. Which brings us to great circle routes.

A great circle route is the shortest distance between two points on the earth. It is somewhat counter-intuitive, but if you were to fly from London at 51.5 degrees north latitude, to New York at 40.7 degrees, you would not head mostly west and a little south as you would think, New York being mostly west and a little south of London. You would head mostly west and a little north - 288 degrees, or 18 degrees north of straight west. The reason for this is best demonstrated by an orange, a felt marker and an elastic band which we'll get into another day. For now it's sufficient to say that the great circle route between London and New York goes right smack through Gander Newfoundland at about the 2/3 point. Or at about the 1/3 point if you are flying war materiel over to Britain.

The airport at Gander had been in existence for two years at the outbreak of hostilities in the Second Great War. When France fell a year into the war, with Britain likely to be next, there was an urgent need to ferry aircraft being built in Canada and the U.S. over to help the war effort. As many as 10,000 military personnel called Gander home during this period, ushering on as many as 20,000 fighters and bombers which all had to refuel in Gander prior to making the dangerous and lengthy flight across the ocean. This cemented Gander's place as "the Crossroads of the World", a moniker it kept until long after the war ended, as basically all transatlantic flights had to land here either coming or going.

Until the age of jets anyway. With the advent of jets, ranges were increasing rapidly. Pretty soon you only needed to land in Gander if you were actually going to Gander. But you still needed to fly directly over top of Gander. It was still on the great circle route. And this fact became important on September 11th, 2001.

When the terror attacks against the U.S. happened, the FAA and Transport Canada responded by shutting down North American airspace, U.S. airspace in particular. All planes were ordered to land, as soon as feasible, at whatever Canadian airport they were near. For anything flying the great circles between Europe and the U.S. that meant either Gander or Halifax. Halifax received 8,000 passengers on forty flights. Vancouver, on the other side of things, got 8,500. Most of the larger Canadian airports got at least some rerouted flights. But, broadly speaking, any large airport in Canada has a large town next to it. Except Gander. While Gander had runways large enough to be an alternate for the space shuttle, the town itself was home to only 10,000 people. Its population almost doubled within a few hours when it received 6,600 passengers and crew from 38 diverted inbound flights, all following the great circle between London and New York, that September morning.

As the planes landed they mostly just parked. No one really had any idea what to do next. Citizenship and Immigration and the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency had to bring in a lot of staff in a hurry to clear the immense backlog of sudden visitors to Gander. The RCMP was everywhere, doing security sweeps and just being a large presence. And an army of volunteers in town began converting every school, gym, community center, camp, or any other large space into shelters. The community rink became a huge refrigerator for the thousands of casseroles that were springing into being around the city. The bus drivers' strike suddenly ended because people would be needing buses. Masses of toiletries and bedding were being donated - the passengers weren't allowed to retrieve their checked bags. People opened their doors to complete strangers.

After five days it became clear there were going to be no further attacks, and U.S. airspace opened up, so people started to leave Gander. But they all left with the warmest of feelings for the people of Gander. And that, of course, led to the musical Come from Away.

Welcome to Gander!

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