SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON 25. D. C. 
Sand Island, Jolinston X. Acoxx 
Sept» 29 , 1963 
Mrs* Maryanna Smellow 
Pacific Project Secretary 
Division of Birds 
Smithsonian Institution 
Washington 25, D.C. 
Dear Maryanna; 
It is now time to bring you up to date on rry trip out, the aborted bird 
shipment, and other equally confused and confusing aspects of the project* 
I now understand and appreciate many reinarks made by Binion, Fred, Bill, et. 
al. regarding operations on this end. Fortunately I had been x^arned not to 
be surprised when things did not go the way they were planned, so when they 
didn’t I wasn’tl 
Last Mon. a.m. we got into the conunuter jam on the way to the airport 
and missed the flight to Chicago. I phoned in and cancelled my reservations 
in order not to get docked the late charge. Arriving at Dulles I was put on 
a direct flight to Los Angeles and first class to Honolulu (standby for tour¬ 
ist) and charged an additional $43»00. In L.A. I was told that my chances of 
going toxirist class on my originally scheduled flight were almost nil. It 
all worked out when they put me on a commuter flight to San Francisco ($2*50) 
and I came out tourist class ($43 refund) arriving two and a lialf hours later 
than according to the original schedule. Bob and Roger came out to the airp 
port and took me to the hotel and I spent the evening X\rith them (Pat had gone 
out). They are all in fine shape and their work seems to be going exception¬ 
ally well. I filled them in as best I could on what was going on in Washing¬ 
ton and elsewhere. 
Tuesday I went to Army AT|fC0 at Hickam AFB and x^as put on standby for 
the Wed. a.m* flight to Johnston (they said that this would have happened 
eiiren if I had been there Monday afternoon). They then told me that the plane 
left at 9 ^•in# on Wed. When I arrived at 7:30 Wed. a.m. they then told me 
that the plane had left at 7 and that they would put me on standby on the 
Fri# flight. This flight supposedly left at 9 also. Most of Wed. was then 
spent trying to get things squared away with Capt. Suddath. Thurs. Eat, Rog, 
Bob and I went to the U. of Hax-^aii where we worked uo a lot of the data from 
A. 
the last YAG survey using Dr. Doty’s facilities. 
Fri. I arrived at Hickam at 500 a.m. and was told that I was on the 
9 o’clock flight for sure. Just as we started boarding at 8:30 Capt. Sud- 
duth called and said that the cargo flight of the previous day that the birds 
should have come on had been cancelled and that I x^as to try and have them 
put on the passenger flight that I was going dox'jn on for the return trip. 
Since he had heard nothing from this end he didn’t know for sure whether the 
