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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1532.PDF
88 FLIGHT JULY 23RD-, 1942 FERRY COMMAND BIRTHDAY overrun countries may sit with his small retinue at a table next to a crowd of Commonwealth Air Training Scheme sergeants who have just arrived by delivering a lease-lend or bought bomber across the Atlantic. Cosmopolitania At an adjoining table may be a mixture of American civil pilots of Ferry Command, decorative T.W.A. pilots (who operate the U.S. shuttle service) and U.S. Army Air Forces pilots. Here and there will be seen the old hands of British Overseas Airways who fly to and fro across the Atlantic with much the same sang-froid as they crossed the English Channel in the days of the Paris service. You sit on the airfield to watch the flying and maybe find your self in conversation with a knowledgeable man with a slight Continental accent who will assure you of the effect of the. bombing of Rostock, Liibeck, Essen and Cologne. Later he reveals himself as the foreign minister of "X," who is on his way to a United Nations conference in America. In the bar one drinks with a squadron leader who tells with a twinkle in his eye how, less than 48 hours previously, he was gambling in a neutral capital. How he won a con- sideiable sum from some Gestapo agents sitting on the other side of the table, and how, later the same evening, he lost this money to some refugees who were running from the Gestapo. The whole place is cosmopolitan both in men and machines. There are all sorts of aircraft types, from A.T.A. Puss Moths to newly arrived Liberators. A brief list would include Boeing Stratoliners of T.W.A. ; Con solidated Liberators, civil, newly delivered, and Coastal Command with their four cannon under the belly ; Hudsons by the dozen ; Venturas, the military version of the Lode star ; Fortresses ; and amphibious Catalina tricycles known as the Cansos. A little while ago there also passed through the Russian T.B.7, on which Mr. Molotov visited this country and America. Even camouflage goes through the whole gamut, from all-white to all-black, with an assortment of sand and spinach and grey and green. The airfield itself has the longest runway in Europe. All this has happened since Dunkirk. It is interesting to see how it has been built up. By July, 1940, it was - " Flight " photograph. The identity badge carried by the Ferry Command civil pilots- is copied from a type used by supporters of Wendel Willkie in his electioneering campaign in America. obvious that delivery of twin-engined and four-engined bombers by boat was wasteful both of time and cargo space. On the initiative of Lord Beaverbrook, who was then Minister of Aircraft Production, Atfero—or Atlantic Ferry ing Organisation—was created with personnel loaned by British Overseas Airways, supplemented by additional pilots engaged from America. Radio operators were trained by the Canadian Marconi Co. and the Canadian Radio Division of the Department of Transport. Some Catalmas and 50 Hudsons were the first machines to be flown over. A Catalina was despatched in October, 1940, and the delivery of the Hudsons from Newfoundland started the following month. December saw more Cata- linas arriving, these being handled by flying-boat pilots and flight engineers borrowed from the R.A.F. and R.C.A.F.
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