Belmont man recalls China Clipper and World’s Fair

“I built only ship models before I built the Clipper,” the retired graphics art teacher said. Not much of a surprise when he adds that “the Clipper was, after all, a ‘flying boat.’”

Indeed it was. The four-engine passenger airliner took off and landed on water. At the time, there was no airstrip long enough to handle it. One of the landing sites was Clipper Cove at Treasure Island, the 400-acre man-made island adjacent to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. In 1939 and 1940, the island was home to the Golden Gate International Exposition, better known as the World’s Fair, an event that drew approximately 20 million visitors.

The Clipper’s flights across the Pacific stoked the public’s imagination the same way going to the moon would decades later, Schoenstein said, recounting how the Pan American Airways Clippers stopped at island bases to refuel for the next leg of its trans-Pacific crossing. In addition to Honolulu, the plane’s stops included Midway, Wake Island and Guam, names that would soon become familiar to Americans as battlegrounds in World War II.

Schoenstein’s model, with a wing span of 50 inches, is of the Clipper built by aviation pioneer Glenn Martin. In 1935, the Martin Clipper flew the first commercial flight across the Pacific from the Bay Area to Manila. Later models were produced by Boeing. The model doesn’t fly, but it floated with twirling props when it sailed on Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park, thanks to Dr. Bruce Ettinger who helped build the plane’s remote control system.

There’s another Clipper model in the collection. This one is so small it can fit in the palm of one’s hand. It’s part of Schoenstein’s tabletop model of the Expos buildings, most of them torn down after the fair ended. During World War II, Treasure Island was taken over by the Navy. The tiny airplane sits in Clipper Cove adjacent to the fair’s administrative building, which still stands. The building, easily seen from the San Francisco waterfront, played a role in the Indiana Jones movie “The Last Crusade,” portraying a World War II German airport with Nazi flag flying. The model includes the Tower of the Sun, the central landmark of the fair. At nearly 400 feet, the real tower gazed down on all the other structures. Schoenstein built a separate model of the tower that is almost as tall as he is.

Under Navy control, the administrative building, which also served as Pan Am’s control tower, became a museum dedicated to the history of the “sea services,” meaning the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. Today there is a campaign called “Little Island Big Ideas” that hopes to renovate the museum.

“This museum will play a vital role in bringing the existing and the new communities of the redeveloped Treasure Island together around a common purpose,” said Mimi Manning, vice president of the Treasure Island Museum. “It will not only honor the island’s inspiring history but also herald its future.”

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NOTES: The Clippers are all gone, either ending up crashed or in the scrap heap. However, a welcoming British flying boat called the City of Cardiff sits outside the Oakland Aviation Museum, located adjacent to the Oakland Airport. It also played a role in an Indiana Jones’ movie, this one “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” For those seeking more information, the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos has an exhibit on both the fair and the Clipper. Highly recommended is the museum at the International Terminal at SFO which has a permanent exhibit on the Clipper that includes a cutaway model that displays the luxurious interior, which is in sharp contrast to today’s cramped seating arrangements.

The Rear View Mirror by history columnist Jim Clifford appears in the Daily Journal every other Monday. Objects in The Mirror are closer than they appear.