As this Flying Tiger 923 Memorial Web Site meets the end of three full years of public posting of 106 stories, we take pride in the fact that we have enjoyed some 61,000 public views world-wide.

Of course, the majority of those 61,000 views originate from the United States, (29,916). Other countries show a keen interest in the event as well especially when considering the ratio of views compared to their population. Among those with a high number of visits are:

USA, 29, 916
Germany, 8,047
Switzerland, 7,333
Ireland, 3,377
Canada, 2,363
United Kingdom, 1,152

At least one person from every country on earth has viewed the legacy of Flying Tiger 923.

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STORY POPULARITY:

It is curious to note the popularity of stories in terms of their views. Here is a summary of the top five postings of the 106 stories written:

1 – John Murray: Fate of 76 lives in Captain’s hands, 1,129 views, of which 185 were on the second posting of the same story.

2 – Pierre Andre Raymond: The Celerina’s role in rescuing a Super-Constellation at sea, 1,044 views.

3 – Carol Ann Gould: Flight attendant on her day off, 947 views. Carol Ann actually had three different stories posted separately with quite different themes. They were not added together for the purpose of this summary.

4 – A photo of Super Connie #N6923C – RIP, 923 views. This was the actual Flying Tiger 923 on the tarmac of Gothenburg Torslanda airport in Sweden one year prior to the crash. The photo was provided by Ragnar Domstad who was then a junior at Chalmers Technical University in Gothenburg. He was an engineering student arranged chartered flights to the U.S. on the Flying Tiger Line.

5 – Who is in the photo?,  846 views. This was a group photo of random survivors and ship crew members on board the Celerina in the days after the rescue.

6 – Flying Tiger 923 and the Raging North Atlantic. While this is not a story, but rather a video related to the story, it has been very popular with internet viewers. To date, the video clip has had more than 2,000 viewings! Pierre Andre Raymond was a 19-year-old crew member on the Celerina who happened to have an old 8 millimeter movie camera with him on ship. He took three minutes of video of the raging seas just 12 hours before the crash, not knowing what excitement was to come. He gave us that film strip for public posting.

Since the beginning of the project, many early viewers were satisfied with what they read and dropped off the radar. At the same time, many new viewers have discovered the site and have taken to viewing its contents. Therefore we will continue with the site in hopes of finding still more who were on board or the families of both those who died and those who survived.

In summary, over the course of the past three years, the story of Flying Tiger 923 has risen from being virtually unknown to the world, to a site for thousands of people who were affected by the crash or who have an interest in airlines and air tragedies.

Thank you for your interest and best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year! We look forward to 2015 and another year of spreading the story and hopefully picking up more stories related to the tragedy.

Here’s a lovely Flying Tiger 923 memorial poem by our friend Garret Ahern, Dublin, Ireland:

‘Big Bird’

Out from New Jersey,
Big bird spreading wings,
Trundling east-ward, in
War-cold nineteen-sixty-two.

Three-score souls and ten-
And more aboard,
Service by the
Rhine in mind.

Far beneath lies rolling
Equinoctial ocean,
Unfriendly to the stricken
Super-Constellation.

Big bird descending,
Inevitable ditching.
Frantic prayers implore –
Then impact, devastation.

Plucked from the inverted,
Overcrowded, life-raft,
The lucky greet new
Friends and shipmates.

In time, diverted,
The good ship “Celerina”
Nears its rendezvous.
Green fields plain to see.

By Galley Head, the
Helicopter’s clatter
Stampedes a flock of sheep,
Away west, wave-battered
Big bird settles,
Low in the briny deep.

© 2012, Garry Ahern