CAKE AND ALE AND CHRISTMAS
By: Anne Sweeney
Tags: Vietnam War, Christmas, Hong Kong

BY ANNE SWEENEY

U.S. Soldiers guard a Pan Am plane in Saigon.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!

- Ebenezer Scrooge

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Dear Friends,

I have sent this story out on many Christmases since I wrote it more than 20 years ago. I’m sending it again because it always seems to resonate no matter how often some have heard it. And luckily, I have new friends to tell of a faraway holiday during the Vietnam War.

I still believe that Dickens’ timeless classic has much to teach us. We have, as a global community, been through a harrowing, divisive and turbulent year. We are angry, exhausted and separated from the people and things we love. We are not sure we can solve our problems or personally change enough to take them on. The holidays may be more of a burden than a joy.

That’s what Ebenezer Scrooge thought. (Is there a better character name in all of literature?) That he was too old and too mean to change. That he didn’t have it in him. But when the spirits showed him how diminished his life and legacy would be, he vowed to try.

This annus horribilus, 2020, has been our own ghost and guide. It has shown us who we are, what good we are capable of and how we need to examine our lives to date and do better. We all have something to reproach ourselves for — dealing with isolation, lost business and political conflict has not always brought out my best self. I would not have got through if not for my wonderful friends! Thank you!

In the coming months, we can rise to meet the challenges to ourselves, our families and our respective countries. As dreadful as Covid-19 has been, we have come through crises before — wars, depressions, terrorism and more. I can assure you that 1967 was no picnic, with violent opposition to the Vietnam War, global political conflict and revolution. Yet here we are.

On Christmases past, my father always made a toast from Victorian times. “Remember that no matter what has happened or what is to come, ‘There will always be cake and ale and Christmas’.” I hope we can all celebrate the season and look to the New Year with hope and optimism.

Joy to your world,

Anne

Christmas Eve, 1967

Pan Am R&R Flight 346

Bangkok/Cahn Rahn Bay/Hong Kong

The tropical sun shone through the window of the DC-6 and on to the baby face of the young blond soldier sleeping off five days of R&R in the bars and brothels of Bangkok. His stubble was sparse and soft in the morning light.

I moved to the next row- two brothers with Darth Vader shades and a shy, slight Puerto Rican kid. Their meals were always the same on the R&R flights — steak, home fries, green beans, fresh milk, ice cream — and ketchup. On everything but the ice cream.

They were typical R&R passengers — young kids, from the ghettos, barrios and backwaters of America — LeRoy, Manuel, Billy Bob.

Our Pan Am crews were based in Hong Kong and we worked these R&R flights, exclusively, flying troops from Saigon, Canh Rahn Bay and Da Nang for five days of “Rest & Recuperation” in places like Bangkok, Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong. In support of the war effort and in its tradition of service to the US Government, Pan Am organized and operated these flights for $1 a year plus costs. The aircraft were old DC-6s; propeller planes phased out from the company’s Berlin operation by new 727s.

We did our best to make them comfortable on the flights — to chat, smile and bring extra milk or ice cream. The soldiers were polite and deferential. “Where are you from in the world, mam?” The world was anywhere outside Vietnam; a country few of them knew existed until their draft boards set them straight.

The plane started its approach into Cahn Rahn Bay. Miles of blue and green water and beaches were covered from end to end with military equipment. Scrap metal, artillery, jeeps and tires rotted and rusted in the tropical heat. Cahn Rahn Bay was an Air Force Base. We unloaded one group of soldiers, the aircraft was cleaned and provisioned, another group quickly boarded and we were aloft, headed home to Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport. Landing at Kai Tak was actually more perilous than landing in Vietnam

My Christmas was waiting to begin across the harbor in a modern flat overlooking the South China Sea. It would be like no other Christmas for this small town girl from Rhode Island.

When I got there, a Japanese Spruce tree would be hung with handmade silk ornaments, and Ah Nee, my houseboy, would be busy with preparations for Christmas Dinner. Ten people were coming — friends from Pan Am, my next-door neighbor, an Englishman I’d been seeing, plus friends of his from the British Navy whose ship was in port. There was room for more. I invited two young GI’s, Mike and Ted, from the flight.

As soon as we were off-duty I headed for the Star Ferry and home. I loved the ferry at sunset. Violet dusk settled over the harbor and the lights came up on both sides of the port. Behind me, in Kowloon, the white Colonial façade of the Peninsula Hotel glowed in the last light and the deck lamps of the luxury liner SS Rotterdam were lit. Junks, sampans, pleasure craft, tankers, and freighters, military ships from aircraft carriers to supply boats, plied the harbor or rested at its piers. Up ahead on the Hong Kong side, a portrait of Chairman Mao stared from the towers of the Bank of China. On the Peak, lights glimmered in the great houses of the Tai Pans and along the Tramway that slowly climbed the steep hills.

The Hong Kong Hilton yacht, Wan Fu, in full sail, glided by. A cocktail party was in progress; the well-heeled passengers, flying their colors of bright silks and navy blazers, sipping Tanqueray martinis and Tattinger Champagne.

We docked, and within minutes, a taxi was speeding me up and over the hills and home for Christmas.

The next morning was overcast, its chill mitigated by some of Ah Nee’s homemade and hot rice wine. Guest arrived at 2 — pilots, stewardess, naval officers and the two young soldiers from the plane. The Brits brought some very fine Scotch and Roger’s mother has sent a plum pudding from Fortnum’s. The festivities were interrupted briefly at 3 when Roger insisted we listen to the Queen’s Speech, broadcast at 3 o’clock on Christmas Day throughout the Commonwealth. Her Majesty’s high, clipped voice wished us all a Happy Christmas, just before Ah Nee, who could cook in several languages, presented a perfect turkey with all the trimmings.

In the midst of the meal, the phone rang. It was my father, calling me from Rhode Island. How was I, he asked. Had it been a lonely day? No, no, I assured him. We had made our own Christmas.

“You know what I always told you,” he said, his voice cracking over the time zones and tears. “That there would always be cake and ale and Christmas.”

Gathered around the table, strangers and friends, we found a glad holiday, however far from home. Thankfully, we didn’t know what the future held. Those at the table would scatter and lose touch. The war would be lost. Pan Am would one day fold its proud wings. The Queen would send her son to preside at the return of Hong Kong to China. One of the young soldiers would die on another holiday a few weeks later in what became known as the Tet Offensive, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.

But on that Christmas Day, all seemed merry and bright. Carols rang out. Toasts were raised to the season. The plum pudding flamed in a brandied glow. There was indeed, cake and ale and Christmas, and I knew then there always would be.