User:Conchflyer/Charles Lunn

Charles J Lunn - "Charlie" - (1906 - 1983) was Director of Navigation for Pan American World Airways and established the Aerial Navigator School at the University of Miami, where 5000 Army, Navy and ... cadets were trained under his leadership. He was presented a Doctor of Science Degree in Navigation from the University of Miami. He was the Navigator on the Dixie Clipper during the inaugural transatlantic passenger flight for Pan American Airways in YYYY

Early Life
Charles J. Lunn was born on August 8, 1906 in Key West, Florida. As a young boy he played along the streets and docks of his hometown. There he learned of ships and men with stories about long ocean voyages to interesting places around the world.

Charlie was a bright boy, consistently standing at the head of his class until he turned 14. That was when it was discovered that he had unusual talents in basketball and it was when Charlie discovered girls.

He was good enough in basketball that the Key West Athletic Club payed him $10.00 for each game he played, but his academic standing deteriorated to a point that he decided to leave school at the age of 16.

In 1920, there were few employment opportunities for a 16 year old dropout. Like other boys his age he was fascinated by the ships coming though Key West Harbour. He had talked to sailors about their voyages to far away ports and learned that it would be possible to get a job as an oiler on an ocean-going ship.

Seaman - Captain
At the tender age of 16 Charlie took his first job oiling the engine on a freighter ship of the P&O Lines plying between Key West, Tampa, and Havana, Cuba. It did not take him long to realize that his work was not in the steaming hot and smelly bowels of the ship. After a couple trips he made application for a job working on then top deck.

As a deck hand, Charlie was industrious and inquisitive. He asked questions and studied until at the age of 18, he became third mate on his ship.

From childhood, Charlie knew of stories of shipwrecks all along the Florida Keys. Spanish Galleons with millions of dollars in gold treasure had been lost in these waters as long as 300 years in the past.

These stories gave young Lunn a good sense of of the value of accurate navigation. He became obsessed with the importance of being able to navigate by the stars as a means of maintaining an accurate course on the sea. He studied the stars and he studied navigation books until spherical trigonometry became common place as he worked to nastier his favorite subject.

In Havana Harbor, Charlie was to meet two people who would forever change his life. The first Sylvia, who worked as a secretary for the P&O office in Havana. The other person Charlie met in Havana was Captain Pat Nolan of Pan American Airways.

Charlie met Sylvia, who worked as a secretary for the P&O office in Havana. After a brief courtship, Charlie and Sylvia married on May 30, 1930, in Key West, Florida the couple had three children.

In Key West, he and Sylvia became acquainted with an an author named Ernest Hemingway. He employed Sylvia to type one of his original manuscripts - Green Hills of Africa (1933). Then when Hemingway acquired the Pilar, a new fishing boat, he employed Captain Charlie to pilot it on its maiden voyage from Key West to Havana.

Charles Lunn Named Captain
Charles Lunn has been made captain of the SS Miami, which sailed from this port 12 days ago for Atlantic City, N.J. He is one of the youngest officers (25 years old) to ever receive a master's license for wide-open tonnage.

Aviator
When Pan American flying boats were tied up in Havana Harbor, they customarily tied up in the vicinity of the P&O ships. It was also a custom for the air crews to come aboard the P&O ships to visit and enjoy good well prepared food. It was on such a visit that Captain Nolan became acquainted with Charlie Lunn and his expertise as a celestial navigator.