United States Overseas Airlines (USOA, originally Ocean Air Tradeways) was a supplemental air carrier founded and controlled by Dr. Ralph Cox Jr, a dentist turned aviator, based at Cape May County Airport in Wildwood, New Jersey, where it had a substantial operation.Wildwood - Homebase Of A World Air Service, Sunday Press of Atlantic City, 21 October 1962 It was one of the larger and more capable of the supplemental airlines, also known as irregular air carriers, during a period where such airlines were not simply charter carriers but could also provide a limited amount of scheduled service.

USOA had an eventful existence. For instance, in 1948, under an earlier identity, Atlantic Northern Airlines, it transported weapons for the nascent state of Israel. A 1948 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report on Israeli arms acquisitions referred to the carrier as Ocean Trade Airways, a name subsequently found in a number of books and articles. Israel also briefly pressed the ANA aircraft into service to fly flag carrier El Al's first flight. In 1955, USOA rescued a Douglas DC-4 from a forced landing on frozen Hudson Bay, floating it out on pontoons over 30 miles of sea after the ice melted. A large part of USOA's business was flying military charters and operations grew to encompass scheduled flights across the Pacific to Okinawa. But in the early 1960s USOA fell into financial distress, ultimately being unable to pay employees, leading to its 1964 shuttering by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the defunct federal agency that, at the time, controlled almost all commercial air transportation in the United States.

Cox pursued USOA-related litigation for at least 14 years after the collapse of the carrier, almost as much time as the airline existed.

History Foundation The airline originally flew as Ocean Air Tradeways (OAT), a dba for the aviation activities of Ralph Waldo Emerson Cox Jr, starting in March 1946.New Lockheed $4 Million Order, North Hollywood (CA) Valley Times, 12 December 1955 Cox received a dentist degree prior to World War II but became a Navy aviator during the war, after which he worked at American Overseas Airlines. Then based in Ronkonkoma, Long Island, OAT received its letter of registration (what such airlines had at the time in lieu of a certificate) from the CAB in 1947, at which time it had a single DC-4. Aviation pioneer Charles F. Blair Jr helped Cox to collect that war surplus aircraft from mostly-empty Bradley Field in Spring 1946, convert it to civilian configuration and fly its first commercial flight from New York City to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia on behalf of Aramco (including transporting Egyptian leader Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha to Cairo, Egypt) in November 1946. In 1947, Blair would borrow NC58021 to fly the first three trips for his own new irregular air carrier, Associated Air Transport.

Atlantic Northern Airlines and Israel

Atlantic Northern Airlines (ANA) was incorporated in Delaware in October 1947, and advertised headquarters both in New York City and in Maxton, North Carolina. In February 1948, ANA leased aircraft NC 58021 to the Jewish Agency for Israel (including providing crew), and flew arms from Europe to Israel in support of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (Operation Balak). The lease was arranged by Al Schwimmer, an American engaged in smuggling aircraft to Israel in defiance of a US arms embargo; he would later go on to found what is today Israel Aerospace Industries. The contract was terminated at the end of the summer, but Israel kept the aircraft. Cox's efforts to recover the aircraft ended when the Israeli Air Force crashed it on a beach outside Tel Aviv on 2 January 1949. Cox signed a general release as part of compensation paid by an Israeli organization. But airline and aircraft lived on in a court case when ANA separately sued Schwimmer for rent allegedly due for the period the aircraft was in Israeli control. ANA lost Atlantic Northern Airlines, Inc. v. Schwimmer, but not before it went to the Supreme Court of New Jersey, which issued a decision widely cited as a precedent for the use of evidence in contracts. While in Israeli control, the aircraft was briefly given civil registration 4X-ACA to bring Israeli president Chaim Weizmann to Israel from Europe in September 1948, considered the first flight by airline El Al (see picture). In the summer of 1949, ANA advertised DC-3 service from New York City to Atlantic City and Cape May.

The activities of ANA for Israel attracted the attention of the CIA, which in a 1948 report on Israel's arms acquisition identified the carrier as "Ocean Trade Airways," (transposing "Air" and "Trade" in its name). This name is now widely found in books and articles, including some academic articles, and even historical fiction.

USOA

United States Overseas Airlines was incorporated in Delaware on 28 January 1949, but it was only in December 1950 that the letter of registration was transferred from OAT to USOA, making it an airline. By 1953, USOA had five DC-4 aircraft. USOA or its predecessor, OAT, participated in the Berlin Airlift, provided air transport in support of the Korean War, flew refugees from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, what was then Belgian Congo, for the Military Air Transport Service and the Navy's domestic Quicktrans system. From the early 1950s until it started to collapse in the early 1960s, USOA was always one of the largest irregular/supplemental air carriers by revenue (see table below). In 1957, USOA was viewed as a perfectly acceptable choice but came second in the CAB case in which Trans Caribbean Airways (a smaller supplemental, but one with a better record of profitability and deeper presence in the Puerto Rico market) won a certificate to fly from New York to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Unfortunately for USOA, Trans Caribbean's certification turned out to be the only time the CAB ever elevated a supplemental to that status. In 1960, employment exceeded 500. As shown in the below table, peak revenue was 11.8 million dollars in 1959, equivalent to over $125 million in 2024 terms.

Hudson Bay and child abduction In 1955, a USOA DC-4 on lease to another operator supporting construction of the Distant Early Warning Line (a Cold War radar net designed to detect Soviet bombers) in Canada's far north ran out of fuel and landed on frozen Hudson Bay. USOA collected the insurance, bought the salvage rights and rescued the aircraft. It dumped hay and sawdust around the aircraft to delay the ice melting beneath it and fastened pontoons underneath to float the aircraft once the ice did melt. USOA successfully towed the aircraft across of open water to Churchill, Manitoba, hauled it out, took the wings off and shipped it by rail. This gambit got wide play, featuring twice in Life magazine.Like Eliza, He's Got A Chance, National Post (Toronto), 2 July 1955Plane Brought From Arctic Crash Site, Press of Atlantic City, 1 November 1955 See External links to see the original Life articles as well as a color video of parts of the saga. Including the cost of repairing the aircraft, however, USOA lost money.

(In a similar incident, in 1973 Alaska International Air successfully rebuilt a wrecked Lockheed L-100 Hercules on an iceberg in the Arctic Ocean.)

The mid-1950s also saw Dr Cox's marital issues intersect with USOA. In 1953, he abducted his child from his estranged wife in New York City. The child was found living in USOA's hangar at Cape May.Mother Mauled In Fight For Baby, Wilmington (DE) Morning News, 29 January 1953 Further, due to refusing to pay alimony, a judge awarded his wife control of the airline, which lasted six weeks until Cox could appeal.Didn't Like Him, But Loved His Airline, New York Daily News, 31 March 1953 Over the next few years, Cox crossed state lines with the child twice more, moving her to Pennsylvania, and later to Mississippi, trying to find a judge to award him custody. USOA featured not only in press coverage but as a participant; for instance, the wife's divorce attorney attached a DC-4.Plane Ownership In Lawyers' Fees Suit, Press of Atlantic City, 6 October 1956

+ United States Overseas Airlines financial results, 19521963 195219531954195519561957195819591960196119621963USD 000: Operating revenue4,348 2,974 3,529 5,629 4,707 5,194 9,007 11,812 11,644 9,691 5,694 4,746 Profit (loss) before tax717 (12) (425) 112 (508) 324 (401) (1,427) 151 % of operating revenue: Military charter 73.9 81.3 72.4 77.7 58.2 61.8 39.4 55.2 59.3 11.6 4.6Civilian charter 8.6 8.7 9.0 15.2 20.2 8.9 17.9 4.7 1.4 4.1 6.2Scheduled 17.8 11.0 4.1 2.8 17.1 28.1 41.4 38.5 39.3 84.3 89.2Other -0.3 -1.0 14.6 4.3 4.5 1.1 1.3 1.6 (1)(1)(1)Operating revenue: % of industry(2)6.1 4.2 6.5 7.3 7.0 10.3 13.8 15.4 14.0 Industry(2) rank3 5 3 4 4 3 2 2 3 (1) Included in scheduled (2) All supplemental air carriers

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Relative to other supplementals, USOA was big, and had many capabilities (e.g. long-range aircraft that regularly flew across oceans; the airline also had its own airframe and engine maintenance facilities, not only in New Jersey but in Oakland), but it did not produce regular profits. USOA's financial record of the 1950s, even ignoring the large 1959 loss, was, on average, below breakeven. The January 1960 collapse of Transocean Air Lines, at one time the undisputed leader among the supplementals, did not help USOA, though it did pick up Transocean's western Pacific service that hopped from Honolulu to Wake Island to Guam to Okinawa, a low-cost alternative for American military and dependents in those parts.Prop-Jets To Chase Nose Cones, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 1 May 1960 In 1962 the CAB noted with concern USOA's serious financial issues when certificating it on an interim basis as required by new legislation, and two of the five board members wrong a strong dissent about certificating USOA at all, based in part on poor finances. Other supplementals, such as AAXICO Airlines, produced regular profits, so USOA's issues were not a reflection of an industry-wide issue.

The situation became critical when in March 1962 USOA failed an inspection that eliminated its ability to carry military charters.Airline Here Hit by U.S. Edict Oakland Tribune, 29 March 1962 This was in the wake of the 1961 Imperial Airlines Flight 201/8 crash that killed 74 soldiers, the accident report of which was damning of that supplemental carrier's competency, causing the military to inspect its airline contractors. Military charters accounted for 59% of 1961 USOA business (see table), so that was a substantial blow. USOA quickly corrected the issues and passed another inspection later in the year, but yearly contracts had already been awarded, and then USOA failed again in 1963. Ironically, in its entire history USOA never had a single passenger fatality, which set it apart from other supplementals, which, in general, had an accident rate far higher than the scheduled carriers. Note the qualification "passenger" in front of fatality. See Accidents below.