Pacific Far East Line

Pacific Far East Line, also called PFEL in short, was a passenger and cargo shipping line founded in 1943 by Thomas E. Cuffe, in San Francisco, California.^[1] At the beginning he started by chartering foreign ships to run the lines in tramp trade. Later scheduled cargo services were added to the line. During World War II the South Atlantic steamship line was active with charter shipping with the Maritime Commission and War Shipping Administration.

After World War II Pacific Far East Line purchased some of the low-cost surplus ships. All purchased ships were given names ending with the word "Bear". Pacific Far East Line flag was blue with a golden bear and below the letters PFEL, and Pacific Far East Line ads called PFEL routes "Routes of the Bear". During wartime, the South Atlantic steamship line operated Victory ships and Liberty ships. Chairman Thomas E. Cuffe died in 1959. Pacific Far East Line operated some Lighter aboard ship (LASH ships).

In 1977 The US Maritime Subsidy Board approved the application of Pacific Far East Line, Inc. (PFEL) for being granted a construction-differential subsidy (CDS) for financing the reconstruction of four LASH barge carriers into full container ships at Bethlehem Steel's San Francisco shipyard at a cost of U$5 millions each. The four ships were the Thomas E. Cuffe, Golden Bear, Japan Bear, and the Pacific Bear, all built in 1971 and 1972 at Avondale Shipyards, Inc., New Orleans, La. However, as containerization expanded, Pacific Far East Line failed to upgrade sufficiently rapidly its fleet to container ships and modernize as other shipping lines did in the 1970s. With the Vietnam War over Pacific Far East Line lost revenues and eventually went bankrupt and closed in 1978, all ships being sold or scrapped due to age.^[2][3][4]