The flight from San Francisco to Auckland on 12 - 18 July, 1940 and the return on 20 - 24 July was via Hawaii, Canton Island and New Caledonia. On both flights, mail was accepted both from and to intermediate destinations.
Flight to New Zealand
From Hawaii
The flight left Honolulu on 14 July and flew to New Zealand via Canton Island and New Caledonia.
More than one slogan backstamp was used on arrival in Auckland
on 18 July.
This cover has a backstamp supporting the territorials.
From New Caledonia
This was the first flight from New Caledonia to New Zealand. The flight left Noumea, New Caledonia on 18 July and arrived in New Zealand the same day.
At this time, Pan American had not been granted landing rights
in Australia and it seems clear that their choice of New Caledonia
as a stopping point had more to do with their aim of an Australian - US
service rather than it being the obvious stop on the way to
New Zealand.
From New Zealand
To New Caledonia
This was the first flight from New Zealand to New Caledonia. The flight left Auckland on 20 July and arrived in Noumea, New Caledonia the same day.
Two backstamps were applied on arrival in Noumea, one giving the date and the other the Pan American Airways cachet that had been applied on the flight from New Caledonia to New Zealand.
This cover was postmarked in Auckland on 19 July and
has the correct franking of 1/-.
The cover has a cut out photograph of a clipper in the bottom left.
Although this next cover is addressed to the USA, it was only flown on the New Zealand to New Caledonia leg and the appropriate New Caledonia backstamps were applied on arrival.
The question of its subsequent route to the USA is answered by the presence of Australian censor tape. That shows that it was sent to Australia by sea where it was opened by the censor in Sydney as indicated by the two red dots. It would then be sent by steamer from Australia to USA.
The above two covers have slightly different cachets.
In the first, there is a full stop after HAWAII while
in the second there is no full stop and the last I of
HAWAII is out of alignment.
The next example is a postcard sent on the first flight. The rate for postcards was half the letter rate and so it has the correct franking of 6d.
The New Zealand first flight cachets were not just applied in Auckland, but also in Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington. In Christchurch, the colour of the cachets was green. This is an example postmarked in Christchurch on 17 July.
Many collectors sent their covers for the flight in sealed envelopes to Auckland and so covers with the Christchurch cachet are not common.
It should be noted that the three New Caledonia arrival backstamps shown
above are different.
To Canton Island
Two covers are shown, one from New Zealand and the other from New Caledonia.
The first cover was flown from New Zealand to New Caledonia on 20 July. It then left New Caledonia on 21 July and arrived at Canton Island on 20 July having crossed the International Date Line.
It has postage to the value of 1/6 which was the rate
published by the US postal authorities while the New Zealand
authorities published a rate of 1/9.
New Caledonia to Canton Island
This cover is postmarked 21 July and, because of crossing the International Date Line, it arrived in Canton Island the day before it was posted and has an arrival backstamp of 20 July.
Because of the volume of mail, more than one Canton Island
backstamp was used.
The backstamp on the cover from
New Caledonia contains an extra A.M. compared with the backstamp
on the cover from New Zealand.
Connection with FAM 14 at Hawaii
To Guam
This cover to addressed to Guam and is correctly franked with 4/3.
It was first flown to Hawaii where it was backstamped on 22 July. It then connected with the Pan Am route FAM 14 from Hawaii to Hong Kong. This was flown by Boeing B-134 via Midway, Wake Island and Guam and the Philippines.
The cover has a Guam backstamp of 28 July.
This cover also connected with the Pan Am route FAM 14 at Hawaii, but this time was flown al the way to Hong Kong. It has a Hong Kong backstamp on 31 July and is correctly franked with 5/3. That was also the postage rate to Macao, China and Japan while the rate to the Philippines was 5/- [1].
These last two covers are obviously philatelic in nature and have the
same US address.
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All scans were made by the author.
Information on this page is taken from:
Airmails of New Zealand, volume 2 (1986) compiled by
Douglas A Walker, and
The New Zealand Airmail Catalogue, (2nd Edition, 1994)
by James Stapleton.
Both are published by the
Air Mail Society of New Zealand
[1] Startup, R.M., Airmails of New Zealand, volume 3, 1997.