Pacific Airmail

Suspended

PAA Staff Leaves Noumea

OWING to the development of the Japanese war in the Pacific, the trans-Pacific air services, con ducted by PAA. from San Francisco, across the Northern Pacific to Hong Kong, and from Hawaii across the South Pacific to Auckland, have been suspended.

Now that the airmail services between Auckland (New Zealand) on the one hand, and New Caledonia, Fiji and Hawaii on the other, have been cut out, people are beginning to realise how valuable they were. We now are depen dent on much-reduced steamer services.

The Pan American Airways “Pacific Clipper”, which was in Auckland when the Japanese attacked Hawaii, flew back to the United States by going west instead of east, and thus encircling the globe. The route has not been dis closed, but it apparently was across Africa and the Atlantic. The flight took 22 days in all, including 12 flying days.

The airmail service between Austra lia and New Zealand is still operating.

Preparations to evacuate the staff of Pan American Airways from Noumea (described by PAA officials as a routine staff transfer in preparation for a change of route) had been made before the Japanese war, and became effective late in December. There have been no indications as to whether New Caledonia is to be abandoned by PAA or of any new route that is favoured. As it is hoped that the suspension of PAA ser vice is only temporary, information in regard to this matter is anxiously awaited.

Mr. E. J. Gough, who has been mana ger of C. Sullivan Ltd., Islands mer chants, of Sydney, for a number of years, has resigned and gone into busi ness on his own account. He now is trading as an exporter and importer, under the name of E. J. Gough and Co., at 1 Bond Street, Sydney. For the past 20 years, Mr. Gough has been intimately connected with the South Seas, particu larly Tahiti, and he has travelled exten sively throughout the Western, Central and Eastern Pacific, where he is well and favourably known.