Pan American World Airways – Pan Am – was the most significant international player in the US airline industry throughout most of the twentieth century. Collectors are perhaps most familiar with the Clipper service, inaugurated in August 1934 with a flight from Miami to Buenos Aires, Argentina by a Sikorsky S-42 “Flying Boat.” Names like the China Clipper, Southern Clipper, and Caribbean Clipper would become famous throughout the 1930s.

Pan Am’s service, however, was not immune to the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbour as the cover shown here exemplifies.

Rated $1.50 and tied by PENANG 2.DE.41 cds, this cover was to be sent by airmail to Montreal, Canada (as per typed notation at the left). It was not posted early enough to be carried on the Pan-Am Clipper flight of November 29, and no further flight took place before service was suspended on December 7, 1941. It appears the alternative route was to send the letter trans-pacific by sea, as it has a SAN FRANCISCO RESEALING TAPE at left over the brown MAYALA censorship tape (and violet CENSOR 6 handstamp). From San Francisco it traveled to its destination, where it received three MONTREAL STATION H arrival backstamps.

A clean, sound, and scarce cover. Available on eBay here.