WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 April 1940, Page 9

WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

A NOVEL CHRISTENING. The early months of 1939 saw yet another method introduced during the carrying out of an old custom. Mrs Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States, christened the first of the air fleet to take part in the Atlantic service. A great step forward is being made in aviation with the introduction of a service across the Atlantic by the PanAmerican Airways, and it was fitting that the christening of the Yankee Clipper should be no ordinary affair. In place of the usual bottle of champagne. the President’s wife christened this giant of the air with a bottle of water collected from the Seven Seas. At first a bottle of water seems hardly worthy of such an important occasion, but the collecting of the water that filled the bottle was by no means a small achievement.

On January 27 letters asking for phials of water were sent from New York, and in less than a month they were collected, some being carried as many as 15,000 miles. From Castle Harbour in Bermuda; Kingston in Jamaica. and the Golden Gate at San Francisco came water for this event. Twelve ounces each came from Valparaiso. Rio de Janeiro. Macao and Java Head. Batavia. Thus, waters from the North Atlantic. the Caribbean Sea. the North Pacific. the South Pacific, the South Atlantic and the China and Indian Seas were mingled, all being showered with the best of good/.vishes over the machine which will help to bring the nations yet closer together.