For reasons I can’t really explain, I really like the image of large propeller plane that’s on today’s #stampoftheday, a 6-cent airmail stamp issued on November 18, 1949.
The stamp depicts a DC-4, America’s first large four-engine plane and one that had both significant military and commercial uses in the 1940s and early 1950s. The plane was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, an early pioneer in aviation. (In 1967, the company merged with McDonnell Aircraft to become McDonnell-Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997).
In the late 1930s, Douglas started work on the plane, which would carry about 44 passengers, more than twice the capacity of the smaller DC-3 that it was going to replace. In December 1941, just as the first set of planes were nearing completion, the US was attacked and was soon at war with Japan, Germany and Italy. The War Department stepped in and bought the planes, which were modified and converted into the C-54 long-distance transport planes. Over the course of the war, Douglas built more than 1,200 of these planes, which could carry 40-50 people or ten tons of supplies-five times the cargo load of its predecessor, the C-47.
During the war, C-54s flew a million miles a month over the North Atlantic – more than 20 roundtrips a day. In 1944, C-54s were also deployed to the Indian subcontinent where they became a mainstay of efforts to fly over “The Hump” (the Himalayas) and bring much needed military supplies to the Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces fighting the Japanese. A special VC-54C, nicknamed the “Sacred Cow” by the White House press corps, became the first presidential aircraft, ordered for Franklin D. Roosevelt who used it to fly to several gatherings where Allied leaders planned the wartime and post-war strategies.
After the war, about 500 C-54s were declared surplus and were converted back to commercial use, often by Douglas, which also built and sold 79 more for commercial use. By January 1946, Pan American Airways was operating their Skymasters on transatlantic scheduled services to Europe and beyond.
In March 1946, Delta began using the plane on some of its routes, service it advertised in a brochure which noted: “When war’s end made additional planes available, Delta ordered a fleet of four-engined Douglas DC-4 airliners to bring you this increased luxury in air transportation. You will experience a new thrill in flying when you relax in a Super-Deltaliner. There’s more speed, more space, more comfort. You travel faster, make fewer stops and save more time.”
Moreover, pilots liked the plane, according Fritz Schwaemmle, a Delta pilot who said (not in the brochure), “For the first time we had…an airplane that we didn’t have to worry about fuel. We always had enough fuel on that DC-4 to go 2,000 miles, and somewhere in the United States, the weather was satisfactory for a let down within 2,000 miles.” The plane also had a great safety record due in part to its four engines which were so powerful that any two, even on the same side, could shut down and the plane could keep flying at 7,000 feet.
The converted C-54s and the new DC-4s transports into service, carried more passengers than any other four-engine transport. In fact, some were still flying as late as 2014. However, the plane did have notable drawback. Its cabin wasn’t pressurized, which meant it had to fly at lower altitudes where it encountered more turbulence and wind resistance. Both Boeing and Lockheed developed pressurized planes that competed with the DC-4, which led Douglas to start work on the DC-6, which entered commercial service in 1947 and became a mainstay of the company’s offerings until it was overtaken by the onset of jet planes in the late 1950s.
For many years, DC-4s were used to carry both people and freight, particularly in Alaska and the Canadian North, because the plane didn’t need long runways, which meant it could land in remote areas. Many C-54s also were modified for use in civilian firefighting and air tanker roles. This included fitting tanks inside and under the fuselage and the fitting of dumping and spraying equipment also on the wing trailing edges. Many remained in service until the late 1990s. The military also continued to make use of the planes, which were a mainstay of the 1948 Berlin Airlift and were used in the Korean War as well.
The Post Office Department, which used many DC-4s to carry airmail, featured the plane on a host of stamps, starting in 1946 with a 5-cent stamp and on postal airmail envelopes in 1946 when the airmail rate was cut from 8 cents per ounce to 5 cents. In total, the inflight image was used on over 7.2 billion stamps and hundreds of thousands of stationary envelopes. These included today’s stamp, which, as the first day cover envelope explains, was issued in several different forms: sheets of 100 stamps (on January 18, 1949), vertical coils (on August 25, 1949) and booklets of 12 stamps (issued on November 18, 1949). Collectors like my father thought it important to have all three versions in their collection.
There you have it. An iconic stamp for an iconic plane.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.