Sir, - I watched the 6.01 news on RTE on December 27th and the documentary, "Marsh to the Sky", which followed, the story of Shannon Airport. All I can say is, I hope the rest of Irish history has not been documented in a similar manner.
This documentary gave the impression, by the continued footage showing Aer Lingus aircraft, that they were the people who built the place up, while completely ignoring the many non scheduled operators who were the bread and butter of the place while operating their DC4s, 6s, 7s, 7495, B377s through Shannon. These carriers were operating there long before Aer Lingus showed its colours on the North Atlantic and were the people who helped to develop a stretch of concrete in the middle of a swamp into a great airport.
The fact that Aer Lingus did "charter". as the man said, Seaboard & Western Airlines aircraft to get itself started on the North Atlantic, did warrant its being mentioned. However, if it had chartered from Seaboard, the name Seaboard & Western would have been on the side of the aircraft. What it did was "wet lease" the aircraft, which meant that the aircraft were in Aer Lingus colours with Seaboard pilots and engineers while the stewardesses were Aer Lingus girls. Seaboard & Western was the first scheduled all cargo carrier operating across the North Atlantic, and Shannon was one of its main bases in Europe.
For a split second, the Transocean Airline counter was shown in the film but there was no mention that this company operated MATS charters through the place for over 15 years; as did Flying Tigers, United States Overseas, Overseas National, Zantop, Capital, Riddle, Trans Caribbean, Slick, Seven Seas, to mention only a few. Most of these carriers are now defunct, and their names deserve to be written in the annals.
Shannon Air, an Irish non scheduled carrier which set up in operation in Shannon in 1964, did not warrant a mention, though this carrier showed the flag all over the world. However, anyone who might like to have further information on this airline should read Gateway to Ireland by Karl Hayes and Eamon Power, in the spring 1995 issue of Prapliner.
Forgotten were men like George Brown, Tommy Compbosso and Sam Pratt, American technicians who came to Shannon with AOA in the 1940s to set up that company's maintenance operation there; or Bob Decker, one of the American meteorologists who helped get that office going. Only for these and men like them. Danny Kaye would never have arrived on a "200 mile an hour DC4" and visited "the Limerick Boat Club". A 200 mile an hour DC4! - a DC4 would be hard pressed to do 200 miles an hour in a dive. At least, the ones I used to flight plan would. Yours, etc..
Caherdavin Lawn,
Limerick.