Galapagos Islands Air Base in Nov 1941?

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phylo_roadking
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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#31

Post by phylo_roadking » 26 Feb 2009, 02:37

One point I SHOULD make at this time - all the above refers ONLY to Panagra setting up a domestic air network inside Ecuador, including the Galapagos domestic-licensed route. Panagra had flown INTO Ecuador for a number of years, there was a regular service from Cristobal in the Canal Zone - which seems to have been Panagra's main airmail terminal in the region - to Guayaquil in Ecuador; Panagra's aircraft N.C.15965 crashed on Aug 3 1937 in Mosquito Bay on the approach to Cristobal.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#32

Post by phylo_roadking » 26 Feb 2009, 05:23

So where does that leave us?

A period source - Burden - that has aspersions cast on the accuracy of his book for no other reason than it was written during the war. I don't see any other sources being knocked down because of THAT, there are plenty of books, diaries etc, from the war period that stand on their merits until proven otherwise. My opinion on THAT is that Burden needs to be PROPERLY discredited as a source before anyone can say he was wrong in what he said, or prove that any of his material was indeed "massaged" because of the environment in which is was written. And THEN his discussion of the events surrounding the beginning of the Galapagos service needs to be proved inaccurate. Until then he stands as the reputable source on Central and South American airlines and U.S. involvement in their running etc.. An assumption that he is wrong or unsafe is simply an unsafe assumption to make in itself. Proof of his unreliability in general, and specifically in relation to the SEDTA/Panagra issue would be needed to knock him down.

A contemporary source - a Japanese intelligence head-of-station...who turns out to have been far more reliable and capable than anyone thought when he was dismissed as merely an "agent". Akiyama's statement and what it means - that there was an airfield on the Islands and so well-known that his superiors would know what he was talking about - needs to be proved wrong before it is discredited.

Remember, just because WE haven't found anything yet doesn't mean it's not there to be found. After all, as Sid is fond of saying - and in THIS thread too - "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". He needs to stand by that rule himself and PROVE Burden and Akiyama wrong. They're reliable enough sources to ME, anyone gainsaying them needs to do the actual legwork and find and present that proof.

Likewise we have plenty of evidence that there were no U.S. or Ecuadorian military airfields or flyingboat stations in the Galapagos until after the period in discussion. We are tripping over material on these and their start-of-construction dates and when they were operational.

So that leaves us with the situation that a reliable source knew of an airfield there, a civilian service of SOME type is reported to have begun, and no military bases were sited in the islands in the period.

At this point I'll read one other item into the record I didn't intend to until I had hard copy in my hand. A colleague in the Ulster Aviation Society told me several weeks ago now that Panagra did indeed start an airmail service to the Galapagos, using a rough field on Baltras, next door to what was THEN the islands' largest community on Santa Cruz island. The first commercial passenger service into the islands however didn't start until the first flight by LIA (a subdivision of TAME) flew into the islands in the early 1950s. He said 1953, but as well as the airmail confirmation he's to check that for me and provide something in print I can actually SCAN from and post up. He said Pat Zarht's history of Panagra was indeed published in BISE, the internal staff magazine of Braniff Airlines, "B-Liner" being the one that you found on coffee tables in terminals.

That will of course be the FINAL nail in the coffin of there being no airfield in the Galapagos in and around December 7th 1941; but in the meantime the sources ABOVE need to be knocked down too. Not merely dismissed offhand as before, with unsupported opinion posts.


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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#33

Post by Sid Guttridge » 26 Feb 2009, 15:45

Hi Phylo,

A pointless effort to bury my questions in circumstantial waffle, but you aren't actually addressing them.

I will now repeat them for the TENTH time:

This is what you wrote on 5 February 14.45:

"You won't find a mention of a NAMED Panagra passenger field on the Galapagos, for instance...but there WAS an air mail strip - for the "service" referred to in two sources....."

All the emphases are yours. You are not simply stating this as a fact, but attempting to hammer it home through artificial emphases. You must therefore presumably be very confident in your sources, of which there are apparently two.

All I want to know is what these two sources are, because I have looked into this subject long before this thread and found no evidence of any Panagra airfield on the Galapagos. This remains so after your above posts. If the two sources you claim are in the above posts, please distinguish them for me, as your text doesn't actually do so.

In order to continue giving you as much assistance as possible, I will ask another simple question for the fifth time- are they either of the sources Robdab offered in the post I mistakenly attributed to you?

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. The Burden quote you use makes no mention of a civil Galapagos Islands airstrip or Panagra flights there. Nor does the book mention one anywhere else. Nor do the numerous maps of airline routes in it. So presumably Burden is not one of your two claimed sources. So what is?

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#34

Post by phylo_roadking » 26 Feb 2009, 16:10

Sid, as you're being unnecessarily obtuse....

A reliable period Japanese intelligence source with a high-performancing reputation reports an airfield there...as brought to our attention by you;

Burden reports a civilian service to the Islands starting; and confirms the start of Panagra operations on the crisis-creating route from December 1940.

Several posters - including you yourself - have confirmed there were NO military airfields in the Islands;

So I'm afraid THIS -
All I want to know is what these two sources are, because I have looked into this subject long before this thread and found no evidence of any Panagra airfield on the Galapagos. This remains so after your above posts.
...is simply YOU now choosing to believe that absence of evidence IS evidence of absence. Breaking you own rule. And you complain about MY double standards?

The situation is quite clear; YOU are the gainsayer, so it's now up to YOU do prove Akiyama and Burden and Conn&Fairchild and Lenard&Bartz wrong...and with something a LITTLE better than "because I have looked into this subject long before this thread and found no evidence of any Panagra airfield on the Galapagos". That proves nothing except you haven't found it...and after all, THIS thread has indicated there is some CONSIDERABLE questionmark over the degree of "looking into this subject long before this thread" by other posters...

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#35

Post by glenn239 » 26 Feb 2009, 19:57

Rob - the idea of torpedoing a gate and then bombing the back side is a non-starter.

Re - airfields. Rather than argue forever about it, I think it would be better just to list the implications for each, of a military field existing or not existing.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#36

Post by phylo_roadking » 26 Feb 2009, 20:35

Glenn, that is remarkably easy;

A/ IF there had been a military airfield in the Galapagos - then there would be military aircraft flying in and out of it, and reporting unidentified aircraft in the area either in the air or on the surface;

B/ if there was a civilian airfield in the Islands, then there would be civilian aircraft flying in and out of it, reporting unidentified aircraft in the area either in the air or on the surface.

Notice anything???? :wink:

If there was NEITHER...then any wireless-equiped vessel in the Islands could report unidentified aircraft. It seems to have been quite a traffic crossroads, what with US naval vessels, Ecuadorian Navy supply boats, fishermen, scientific expeditions, US Presidents cruising in the islands...

While there may not have been a telephone cable to the mainland in the period, I wouldn't assume there were no radios :wink: And in the absence of any regularly-scheduled flights of any sort, then if anyone reported an aircraft in the Islands they would be reporting it to the authorities in Ecuador in case it was an aircraft lost or in trouble :lol: And THEIR first reaction to that? Clear it with the Yankees in the Ecuadorian Air Mission or straight to the Canal Department, given that USN flyingboats flew over the Galapagos, as we now know...a flying boat? It could have been one of THEIRS in trouble, after all... :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#37

Post by David Thompson » 27 Feb 2009, 04:22

glenn239 -- You wrote:
Re - airfields. Rather than argue forever about it, I think it would be better just to list the implications for each, of a military field existing or not existing.
On 22 Nov 1941, a Japanese agent in Panama sent a report to his employers which read:
"The naval defense area, patrolled against possible lightning attacks, extends in the north from Salina Cruz on the Tehuantepec Isthmus to Monepene (on ?) the Gulf of Fonseca. The southern limits extend to the air base on the Galapagos Islands."
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/411122ax2.html
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1#p1288671 (Sid Guttridge post)

The question is, was there an airfield or airbase on the Galapagos Islands at that time? The islands were controlled by Ecuador. That leaves four possibilities for an "air base": (1) A commercial air base; (2) An Ecuadoran military air base; (3) A US air base; (4) The Japanese agent was mistaken.

Here is the evidence I've seen so far, in this thread and elsewhere:

(1) A commercial landing strip on the Galapagos

(a) Panagra (Pan American-Grace Airways) -- There is an image, front and back, of a philatelic commemorative envelope postmarked October 20, 1936 to inaugurate Panagra air service from Ecuador. Galápagos stamps on rear of envelope.
http://www.galapagos.to/EPHEMERA/INDEX.HTM

The back of the envelope has a number of postage stamps depicting the Galapagos Islands. However, there is no return address, and the postmarks are from the Ecuadoran capital of Quito rather than the Galapagos Islands. Panagra didn't start an Ecuadoran air service with internal flights until the end of 1940. See The US Army in WWII: The Western Hemisphere - Framework of Hemisphere Defense (1960), p. 241:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... k/ch10.htm

I suspect that the 1936 envelope merely commemorates the beginning of Panagra flights connecting Quito and the US.

The US armed forces apparently built an airstrip on the Galapagos from scratch in the spring of 1942. None of the accounts mention improving or enlarging a pre-existing airstrip. See the discussion below.

(b) Ecuador didn't have a national airline service in 1936-1941. For details, see the SEDTA discussion below.

(c) SEDTA (Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Transportes Aéreos) -- Until late 1941, Ecuador contracted its needs out to a German-owned airline, SEDTA. SEDTA only operated two aircraft, both of Junkers manufacture. The two Ju-52 aircraft flew Ecuadoran mail and passengers to and from various cities on the mainland of Ecuador. For an appraisal of the SEDTA operations, see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, vol. 5, pp. 831-850
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 05&isize=M
and Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 263-265, 270-290.
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 07&isize=M

The US State department had informed Ecuador in 1939 that it would be a matter of grave concern to the United States if a foreign power were to use the Galapagos Islands as any kind of commercial or other base. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1939, vol. 5, pp. 633-635: Letter dated 6 May 1939 from Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles to President Roosevelt
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... e&page=633

In 1940, SEDTA applied to the Ecuadoran government to start a flight service to the Galapagos Islands, but the Ecuadoran government turned SEDTA down. See The US Army in WWII: The Western Hemisphere - Framework of Hemisphere Defense (1960), p. 241
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... k/ch10.htm

Beginning in 1940, the US government had been negotiating with the Ecuadoran government, which was financially strapped, to get rid of SEDTA and replace it with Panagra. In late 1941, the US was successful in ousting SEDTA from Ecuador. For these negotiations, see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, vol. 5, pp. 831-850 and Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 263-265, 270-290.

See also: "Winter in South America," Time, June 10, 1940
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 89,00.html

"Sedta Cuts the Rates," Time, January 27, 1941
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 49,00.html

"SEDTA requisitioned by Ecuador," in The Struggle for Airways in Latin America (1977), by William Armistead Moale Burden, pp. 73-74
http://books.google.com/books?id=G3g0yj ... &ct=result

(2) An Ecuadoran military airbase.

(a) "Ecuadorian aviators, grounded since the Fall of 1939, have no planes in which to fly." See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, p. 259:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 67&isize=M

(b) Even by 1941, according the the US Air Mission in Ecuador, the country only had a few pilots who could fly out of Guayaquil and make it to another airport on the mainland, and the EAF planes weren't equipped with radios or proper instruments. The President of Ecuador didn't think his pilots were capable of flying the SEDTA Ju-52s. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 278-279:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 86&isize=M
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 87&isize=M

(3) A US military airbase.

(a) Andy H quoted this passage about US interest in the Galapagos in 1938-1939:
General Stone at the end of 1938, after rumors had circulated that the government of Ecuador was considering selling the Galapagos, found sites for airfields, seaplane bases, and AWS stations and reported suitable seaplane anchorages and radar sites on Cocos Island. This was the basis for General Stone's recommendations of 5 January 1939 that steps be taken to acquire the islands either by purchase or by an "exclusive" lease "for the purpose of establishing thereon such advanced naval air bases and AWS stations as may be necessary
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA ... rd-12.html
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2#p1301292

(b) Letter from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of State, 19 Oct 1940, suggests that the US build a landing strip and float plane dock in the Galapagos. The Secretary of State replies that the President's only interest in the islands is commercial, not military. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, vol. 5, pp. 854-855:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 66&isize=M
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 67&isize=M

(c) Letter of 13 May 1941 from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of State advancing proposed construction costs for a naval facility, including a patrol plane ramp, on Albemarle Island in the Galapagos. This is followed by a letter of 19 Jun 1941 from the Chief of Naval Operations to the Liaison Officer with the State Department referring to securing permission from Ecuador in future agreements to build a naval and air bases on the Galapagos. The Under-Secretary of State responds on 11 Jul 1941 by instructing the US charge d'affairs to confidentially ask Ecuador to scuttle the US request for a naval and air bases on the Galapagos on the grounds that it would jeopardize relations with Peru. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 261-262, 265:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 69&isize=M
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 70&isize=M
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 73&isize=M

(d) Letter of 12 Sept 1941 in which the Navy renews its request for an agreement with Ecuador to use the Galapagos Islands for a naval and air base. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, p. 266:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 74&isize=M

(e) Letter of 21 Oct 1941 stating Ecuador has given the US permission for ships and planes to enter Ecuadoran ports and the Galapagos. There is no mention of a US base. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 266-267:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 74&isize=M
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 75&isize=M

(f) Letter of December 13, 1941 indicating that the Ecuadoran government wanted to set up an agreement for US ships and aircraft to patrol the Ecuadoran coast and the Galapagos. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, p. 267:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 75&isize=M

(g) Letters of 16 Dec 1941 stating that negotiations were successfully concluded for US use of Ecuadoran ports and airfields. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 268-69:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 77&isize=M
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 78&isize=M

(h) An airfield was under construction on the Galapagos in Mar 1942, but was not ready for use until May 1942. See The Army Air Forces in WWII, vol. 1 (Plans & Early Operations), pp. 298-302:
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/I/AAF-I-8.html

(4) The Japanese agent was mistaken. It looks to me that's all we've got left.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#38

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Feb 2009, 04:54

I suspect that the 1936 envelope merely commemorates the beginning of Panagra flights connecting Quito and the US.
Daivd, I'd concur with that, as I mentioned last night. There are also a number of airmail items around the Net with an transit stamp of "Cristobal" on them, Panagra's through terminal for airmail on it's way north; IIRC one left Quito via Cristobal and reached Hawaii, so obviously went into the U.S. and into the main PanAm airmail route across the Pacific via the HI.
For an appraisal of the SEDTA operations, see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, vol. 5, pp. 831-850
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 05&isize=M
Daivd, is there any indication BEFORE that document begins of the earlier history of the "crisis" - any diplomatic correspondence after SEDTA 's first bid on the Galapagos route at the end of 1939? That set of correspodence cuts in at the point when the "crisis" has already well started, at the point where the U.S. government is encouraging the Ecuadorian government to actually buy out SEDTA themselves - so it unfortunately begins 4 months into the problem.
In 1940, SEDTA applied to the Ecuadoran government to start a flight service to the Galapagos Islands, but the Ecuadoran government turned SEDTA down. See The US Army in WWII: The Western Hemisphere - Framework of Hemisphere Defense (1960), p. 241http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... k/ch10.htm
David, P.241 in that link doesn't mention either the Galapagos OR SEDTA...? It deals with SCADTA and Colombia...

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#39

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Feb 2009, 05:20

and Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 263-265, 270-290.
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 07&isize=M
I absolutely LOVE the "dirty tricks" in there...like buying up the local stockpile of aviation fuel that SEDTA needed to continue operations! :lol: :lol: :lol:

...and of course THEN the Ecuadorian government would be able to wind up SEDTA officially for non-compliance with its existing operating contract! 8O

And they had the Canadian government order International Petroleum not to supply fuel to SEDTA either...

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#40

Post by David Thompson » 27 Feb 2009, 05:40

phylo -- You wrote:
For an appraisal of the SEDTA operations, see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, vol. 5, pp. 831-850
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 05&isize=M
Daivd, is there any indication BEFORE that document begins of the earlier history of the "crisis" - any diplomatic correspondence after SEDTA 's first bid on the Galapagos route at the end of 1939? That set of correspodence cuts in at the point when the "crisis" has already well started, at the point where the U.S. government is encouraging the Ecuadorian government to actually buy out SEDTA themselves - so it unfortunately begins 4 months into the problem.
I didn't see any, and I read through the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) sections on Ecuador from 1936-1941. The US, of course, had informed the Ecuadoran government by May 1939 that such an operation, by SEDTA or any other foreign business, would be a matter of grave concern to the United States, so the warning was already out there.

In 1938, the FRUS section on Ecuador gave a report on German (and other foreign) commercial infiltration into the Ecuadoran transportation industry in 1931-1938, but the detailed appendices to the report were not reprinted in the FRUS volume. They might answer your question more fully -- if we had them.

You also wrote:
In 1940, SEDTA applied to the Ecuadoran government to start a flight service to the Galapagos Islands, but the Ecuadoran government turned SEDTA down. See The US Army in WWII: The Western Hemisphere - Framework of Hemisphere Defense (1960), p. 241http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... k/ch10.htm
David, P.241 in that link doesn't mention either the Galapagos OR SEDTA...? It deals with SCADTA and Colombia...
My apologies, phylo -- the manner in which the pages were numbered in the e-text threw me off. The pertinent passage starts with the last line of p. 241 and continues onto p. 242; same link, of course.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... k/ch10.htm

See also:
To a jittery U. S., Sedta is as sinister as her late sister Scadta. Recently she has sought (unsuccessfully) to extend service to 1) Colombia, 2) the Galápagos Islands,† which, though sparsely inhabited and commercially impotent, are located strategically near the Panama Canal, 3) the jungles of eastern Ecuador, from which she could easily connect with Lufthansa-owned Condor's penetration line in western Brazil. Her Junkers JU52s (used as troop transports in Belgium, The Netherlands) could fly from Ecuador to the Canal Zone in four hours or less.
"Sedta Cuts the Rates," Time, January 27, 1941
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 49,00.html

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#41

Post by David Thompson » 27 Feb 2009, 06:45

Another possibility -- that between these two events:
(e) Letter of 21 Oct 1941 stating Ecuador has given the US permission for ships and planes to enter Ecuadoran ports and the Galapagos. There is no mention of a US base. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, pp. 266-267:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 74&isize=M
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 75&isize=M

(f) Letter of December 13, 1941 indicating that the Ecuadoran government wanted to set up an agreement for US ships and aircraft to patrol the Ecuadoran coast and the Galapagos. See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, vol. 7, p. 267:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bi ... 75&isize=M
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1305685

the US used its entry agreement with Ecuador to set up a more or less clandestine air base for PBY patrol planes on the Galapagos (an issue thoughtfully raised by PM), may have merit. That would explain the Japanese secret agent's message of 22 Nov 1941, but I'd like to see more evidence tending to confirm the point.

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Re: PHYCTION!!

#42

Post by Sid Guttridge » 27 Feb 2009, 12:13

Hi Phylo,

So common are they, that I think we need a new word for Phylo's fictions: Phyction!

You posted "And when the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War, fought between July 5, 1941 and July 31, 1942, broke out the Ecuadorian government seized the two aircraft, painted them in Ecuadorian air force colours - and sent them to bomb targets in Peru. And when they flew over the front lines...rather fluid ones, for the very superior Peruvian forces did VERY well...they looked up and said "Oh, we know THOSE aircraft! They're OUR old Ju52s!" And so didn't react, didn't report them transiting the front lines, and didn't fire on them - the the now-Ecuadorian bombers carried out a series of very nasty air raids on Peruvian towns without being intercepted!!!"

I don't know where you got this nonsense from, but it is almost complete fiction. The Ecuadoran air force flew no missions beyond the front lines in July 1941. Why? Because it had no serviceable armed aircraft at the time. All its flights were behind Ecuadoran lines in the communications or observation role. There were no Ecuadoran raids on Peru and the ex-SEDTA Ju 52s were not put into combat service in the short time available during July. It was the Peruvians who conducted cross border bombing raids and they also put their single confiscated ex-German Ju-52 into service as a GHQ transport.

The French aviation mazines Avions and AirMagazine have a total of five articles on this air war. If you want references, please ask.

This is up there beside your Phyctional French naval raid into the Baltic in September 1939, your Phyctional entirely US-crewed RAF Catalina that spotted the Bismarck and many others.

Cheers,

Sid.
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 03 Mar 2009, 13:28, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: More Phyction.....

#43

Post by Sid Guttridge » 27 Feb 2009, 13:41

Hi Phylo

I have my copy of The Struggle for Airways in Latin America by William A. Burden, (Council of Foreign Relations, New York, 1943.) in front of me. Burden's index has only one mention of the Galapagos Islands and this makes no reference to any airfield there.

If you are insisting on using Burden as one of the two sources to justify your proposition that "You won't find a mention of a NAMED Panagra passenger field on the Galapagos, for instance...but there WAS an air mail strip - for the "service" referred to in two sources.....", where is it?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Galapagos Islands Air Base in Nov 1941?

#44

Post by David Thompson » 27 Feb 2009, 20:43

I set up this thread to separate out the discussion of this topic from an unrelated parallel discussion in the "What If?" section at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=148214 - DT.

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Re: Galapagos Islands Air Base in Nov 1941?

#45

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Feb 2009, 22:48

Sid, I am using Burden as a source for Panagra having started a service inside Ecuador in December 1940 - as I clearly said. Saying that I was using it for another aspect of the debate, which it did not happen to support nor was intended to support, is disingenuous. I did NOT say I was using him for proof of a Panagra airmail strip, but that Panagra's internal passenger and airmail services for Ecuador went live in 1940, and that the whole SEDTA crisis arose BECAUSE of the airmail route to the Islands...and that Panagra was put into Ecuador to combat SEDTA after the galapagos islands' issue arose.

If you read David's material carefully, you'll find mention that airmail contracts were to be signed SEPARATELY and a few days AFTER the Panagra passenger service go-live in December 1940. Unfortunately David's otherwise excellent material doen't have anything ELSE to say on airmail services. But THAT does not in any way take away from Burden's or Conn&fairchild's report of Panagra's initial position of being brought in to rival SEDTA on the proposed Islands' route; the issue then "merely" mushroomed into a whole replacement of the SEDTA operation...

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