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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0417.PDF
FEBRUARY K>TH, 1942 FLIGHT 163 HERE AND THERE Air Strengths LAST autumn there were 210,000 officers and men in the U.S. Army An Force, says Life. By June this num ber will be increased to 385,000, and the total is now to be expanded to a million men. The same journal gives the strength of the R.A.F. as 500,000 men and the Lujtivaffe as 1,000,000, but we question the accuracy of the figure given for the R A.F. which, in any case, is secret. Back from the Far East HAVING escaped from Bangkok at the ^ime of the Japanese occupation, the j(tr*fourable Leslie Runciman, director- general of British Overseas Airways, has just returned to this country after a five months! tour of inspection of the cor poration's Empire and other services stretching from Africa, via Egypt, Iraq, and India as far as Burma and Thailand. He also visited Persia, Palestine, Eritrea and Abyssinia, and had a number of useful discussions with various authori ties on the present and post-war possi bilities of civil aviation. Official Task Completed MR. W. C. DEVEREUX has been released from his position as Con troller of Repair and of American and Dominion Aircraft Supplies to resume control of High Duty Alloys, Ltd., and the other companies in his group engaged on the production of vital war materials. When appointed by Col. Moore- Brabazon seven months, ago, Mr. Devereux' task was to create an organisa tion capable of handling imported American aircraft and a similar organisa tion to handle the repair of aircraft engines, both British and American. With this task completed, Mr. Devereux asked to be released to devote his energies oace again to production matters. He has received letters of appreciation of his work from the Minis ter himself and also from other officials of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. **Wk.T.C. Birthday Greetings THE Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, has sent a message to the Air Training Corps through Its Commandant, Air Commo dore A. J. Chamier, on the occasion of the first anniversary of its formation, in which he said, " The Air Training Corps reaches its first birthday with the know ledge that it has surmounted- the perils of infancy and taken its place in the support line behind the Royal Air Force. The Corps offered boys a chance to learn the elements of flying and they have seized the chance with both hands. Since last February many thousands of Cadets have passed "into the R.A.F. or the Fleet Air Arm, with their preliminary training already completed. " To all of you who have thus shown your eagerness to play a man's part in voM country's defence I offer my con gratulations on the first year's work and m y good wishes for the future. 1 am sure you would wish me also to express your thanks to your officers, instructors and other helpers, «• ' '.hoot whose devoted «ocurs you could not reach your goal." Motor Industry Fighter Fund H . G. STARLEY, well known in the motor car industry, was really re sponsible for the successful launching of the Motor Industry Fighter Fund, which, aiming at .£100,000 for a complete fighter squadron, closed with the satisfying total of ^105,000. The full story of this fund, of which Mr. Starley became organising secretary and William E. Rootes its president, is told in an attractive 32-page brochure (appropriately enclosed ' between covers of Air Force blue) which has just been circulated with the compliments of the president and committee. It is beautifully printed and copiously illustrated on art paper and, since it relates -to such a stout effort, perhaps one may turn, the Nelsonian eye on the paper shortage for once. But we confess to a slightly raised eye brow' at discovering that the diagram " showing some of the thousands of com ponent parts of a Spitfire with the approximate cost " is, in sober fact, that of a Hurricane! However, the idea itself was good. Pin-point Navigation TT was recently mentioned that, in navi- -*- gating American bombers across the North Atlantic to this country, an error of seven degrees would cause the pilot io miss the British Isles altogether. But the Qantas Empire Airways crews, who ferry Catalinas from America across the Pacific to Auitralia for the R.A.A.F., have to navigate with absolute pin-point accuracy to "hit" some of the inter mediate islands now used as flying -boat bases, one of which is a coral island about four miles by three- miles in dimensions. CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS A Film Dedicated to the R.C.A.F. : Many Admirable Flying Scenes : Photographed Throughout in Technicolour IT is seldom that a film inspires a ease-hardened critic with a desire to see it through again, but "Captain of the Clouds " falls into this rare categorv ; it is a first-class production in almost every respect. What will appeal most to readers of Flight, over and above the film's excel lent technicolour photography, its many thrilling Hying scenes and its quite enter taining story, is the fact that it is entirely free from those tiresome, irritating in accuracies that have marred some of its forerunners. You will not have the pleasant illusion of reality shattered for you by technical howlers that the average school boy could not fail to spot and, in that respect in particular, Warner Brothers are to be most heartily congratulated. The film is dedicated to the R.C.A.F. and to the bush pilots, and although the story is a piece of screen fiction in which that lively little tough guy, James Cagney, plays the part of a Canadian bush pilot who joins the Royal Canadian Air Force, gets cashiered for a calamitous breach of discipline and ends by making the supreme sacrifice when an Atlantic ferry pilot, it cannot be charged against this film that the fictional aspect is merely an excescence upon its factual side. It is true that the idea of the- supposed bad boy vindicating himself in final self-sacrifice is anything but a new one, but this time th; plot has too much sound human drama and has been too well built up for such a criticism to be worth levelling. Moreover, the sequences show ing life on a big Canadian air training station are an essential part of the story and the two are of wt-11-balanced import ance in the production as a whole, thanks to intelligent direction. Cagney gives the spirited kind of per formance for which he is so well known, and Dennis Morgan, as the bush pilot who makes good in the R.C.A.F., gives a neat character study which runs true to type throughout. Air Marshal Billv Bishop, V.C., and Sqn. Ldr. O. Cathcart Jones, who also appear among a uni formly good cast of players, suggest that they might have been equally successful as actors had they chosen this profession in preference to flying. In the language of. the country, Warners have done a swell job. James Cagney (left) with some 6,006 hours as a bush pilot, finds himself compelled to receive ab initio instruction from his arch-enemy (Dennis Morgan) on joining the R.C.A.F. The trainer is a Fleet Finch with 125 h.p. Kinner engine.
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