Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
D157449-1C
Date(s)
- 1970-01-16 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
Group portrait of new stewardesses of the Flying Tiger Line, taken on January 16, 1970, at the Rodeway Inn of America. These newly minted stewardesses would operate under the Flying Tiger Line, an airfreight company first formed in 1945 by a group of former C-46 "Hump" flyers with Gen. Claire Chennault's "Flying Tigers" in China during WWII. The airline concentrated on freight operations, supplemented by military transports and by 1969, had upgraded its fleet to consist entirely of jet freighters. Also in 1969, service across the Pacific was added to previous U.S. transcontinental flights. The Flying Tiger Line would participate in both the Korean and Vietnam airlifts, carrying both cargo and military personnel and their dependants, and during the Vietnam War, would perform double duty as the U.S. Postal Service, delivering mail to combatants. The planes were used in the last minute evacuations of Vietnamese refugees during the last hours of U.S. troop withdrawls in 1975. The Flying Tiger Line was taken over by Federal Express in 1989, after 43 years of carrying cargo and people all over the world. (www.flyingtigerline.org/history; www.timetableimages.com/ttimages./ft) Color photograph ordered by Flying Tiger Line, McChord AFB.
Stewards; Flight attendants--Tacoma--1970-1980; Flying Tiger Line;