The Casablanca Conference and FDR’s First Plane Ride

Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference

Today marks the 67th anniversary of the start of the Casablanca Conference, which took place from January 14-24, 1943 in the French colony of Morocco. The Casablanca Conference was the 8th wartime conference of the Allied powers, but only the 3rd in which Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt both took part, and the first that included the French. In attendance at this conference were Roosevelt, Churchill, and the dual leaders of the Free French; Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud. Josef Stalin was invited, but was unable to make it do to a prior engagement known as the Battle of Stalingrad.

The Casablanca Conference was a success, and solved some of the problems that plagued the Allies in 1942. For example, despite Stalin’s absence and the fact that the Soviets were originally allied with the Nazis, the Allies agreed to provide aid to the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the Allies also agreed on a plan to invade Italy in 1943, as opposed to France, which would have to wait until the summer of 1944.

A Boeing 314 "Flying Boat"

Anyway, this date was also significant because Franklin Roosevelt became the first President of the United States to fly in an airplane on official business. The trip was a harrowing journey, as the flight was 17,000 miles and the plane had to stop to be refueled 4 times. Why did the trip take so long? Well, the flight began in Miami, Florida, and flew south to Brazil before crossing the Atlantic. Then it flew north to Casablanca. To return to the United States, FDR had to take the same flightpath and as a result, celebrated his 61st birthday in the skies over Haiti. For you aviation buffs, FDR’s plane was a Boeing 314 Clipper, known as a “Flying Boat.” Can you imagine the historical fiction that could be written based on this plane crashing?

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