A highly classified mission took place in mid-January of 1943 while World War II raged in Europe, North Africa, and throughout the Pacific. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first sitting US president to not only travel aboard an aircraft but also take the risk of flying across the Atlantic Ocean.
Aboard Pan Am’s Boeing 314 seaplane Dixie Clipper, under the cloak of immense secrecy, Roosevelt and his staff set forth on an unprecedented journey, destined for Casablanca, Morocco. There, Roosevelt would rendezvous with Prime Minister Winston Churchill and head of the Free French, General Charles de Gaulle. Included in this tightly guarded assembly were General Dwight D. Eisenhower and General George S. Patton. Among the many war-planning decisions made between the leaders during this historic meeting was the plan for the Allied invasion of Italy, the first step in liberating Europe from Nazi occupation.
By the time of Roosevelt’s journey, and even before the U.S. entered the war, Pan Am had been assisting Great Britain as an air transport line for the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force. Pan Am’s involvement in the war effort ramped up quickly as fighting raged across the Atlantic, and then the Pacific, with Pan Am contributing its staff, planes, over-water navigation expertise, and bases of operation in support of the Allied campaign, eventually operating under
the cognizance of the Naval Air Transport Service. Inevitably, Pan Am would be the carrier to transport the president across the Atlantic Ocean to his secret meeting known as the Casablanca Conference.
John Charles Leslie, manager of Pan Am’s Atlantic Division, was selected as chief pilot for this task. As instructed, Leslie, along with veteran Pan Am pilots Howard Cone and Richard Vinal, flew two Boeing 314 seaplanes to Pan Am’s Miami Dinner Key terminal. Leslie reported to the office of the rear admiral commanding the local U.S. Naval District, then returned to the flight office at Dinner Key, where he, Cone and Vinal conducted their pre-flight briefing. Looking at the passenger list, they speculated as to who might be the first name on the list, “Mr. Jones” – a mystery soon revealed to be President Roosevelt.
Howard Cone was slated to fly the Dixie Clipper with the president on board; Vinal and Leslie piloted the Atlantic Clipper carrying support staff. The first leg of the journey was to Port of Spain, Trinidad, with a layover; then to Belem, Brazil, to refuel and take off at night for the trip across the South Atlantic to Bathurst, British Gambia (now Banjul, Republic of the Gambia).
After a brief rest, Roosevelt was then flown to Casablanca by a U.S. Military Air Transport Command C-54, where he and the other Allied leaders spent 10 days mapping out the future of the free world.
On the return trip across the Atlantic, aboard the Dixie Clipper that was now dubbed “Clipper One,” the cabin crew served a roast turkey dinner with birthday cake and champagne as the President celebrated his 61st birthday.
January 30, 1943 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt cuts the cake for his 61st birthday. From left, Admiral William Leahy, President Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, Pan Am pilot Howard Cone. (Photograph from the National Archives)
The Atlantic Clipper, now “Clipper Two,” sent a transmission wishing the president many happy returns on his birthday along with this envisaged statement:
Passengers and crew of Clipper No. 2 request to inform the President that they will drink to his health and happiness at 1620GMT, wishing him many happy returns of his birthday. That our Commander-in-Chief should for the first time be celebrating his birthday in the vast freedom of the sky seems to us symbolic of the new day for which we are still fighting with one mind and heart.
Pan Am was an integral player in the unfolding of history during those two weeks in January 1943. In keeping with professional standards, especially during periods of conflict, Captains John Leslie, Howard Cone, and Richard Vinal did not publicize their significant accomplishment. The specific details of the trip were not widely known until 2011, when Leslie’s son, Peter, published his father’s memoir of the journey in Aviation’s Quiet Pioneer: John Leslie.
In his book, Peter Leslie writes his father “mused in later years that a decision he made in a few seconds to call his two planes Clipper One and Clipper Two, rather than their Pan Am names, Dixie Clipper and Atlantic Clipper, entered the American lexicon with a sense of majesty and power as AIR FORCE ONE.”
Photographs of the Dixie Clipper and Capt. Cone courtesy of the Pan Am Historical Foundation.
Photograph of John Leslie courtesy of Peter Leslie.
