3 January 1952

Elephants check in for long-haul flight to London

The largest single overseas shipment of elephants from Thailand to date left Don Mueang Airport aboard a BOAC freighter plane bound for big-top of ‘Billy Smart’s New World Circus’ in London.

From the outset the five large passengers made it apparent who was boss, destroying their specially made holding-stalls, which had to be totally rebuilt. At a stop-off in Karachi, Pakistan, the elephants were let out for a stroll, and it took eight hours to corral them back onto the plane.

Once back in the air, the pachyderms’ in-flight menu consisted of sugarcane and a sack of sweet potatoes. A London Express reporter who joined the journey said the trip ‘was like a bus in rush hour, with elephants instead of people’. The plane also carried four gibbons.

3 January 1952

Elephants check in for long-haul flight to London

The largest single overseas shipment of elephants from Thailand to date left Don Mueang Airport aboard a BOAC freighter plane bound for big-top of ‘Billy Smart’s New World Circus’ in London.

From the outset the five large passengers made it apparent who was boss, destroying their specially made holding-stalls, which had to be totally rebuilt. At a stop-off in Karachi, Pakistan, the elephants were let out for a stroll, and it took eight hours to corral them back onto the plane.

Once back in the air, the pachyderms’ in-flight menu consisted of sugarcane and a sack of sweet potatoes. A London Express reporter who joined the journey said the trip ‘was like a bus in rush hour, with elephants instead of people’. The plane also carried four gibbons.