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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 1903.PDF
334 FLIGHT IN GERMANY TO-DAY layman. Above all is the Allied Control Commission in Berlin. Apart from military control backed by the flying forces, there are departments—often duplicated and triplicated in different zones—to govern commerce, textiles, plastics, aircraft, shipbuilding, road transport, instruments, metallurgy, public utilities, oil, conversion and liquidation, and the all-important coal production and distribution. Personnel controllers have entirely dif- ferent problems governing finance, displaced persons', prisoners, public utilities, legal matters, education, religion and similar services. It is Whitehall and govern- ment departments such as the Ministry of Supply over again. Only those intimate with the machinery of government can appreciate the complexity and all- embracing nature of the economic and general problems to be surmounted by B.A.O.R. (British Army of the Rhine). A minimum of three or four years will be needed 10 straighten out the chaos, and no real start can be made until inventories and records are complete and communications restored. From officials of the Milgov (Military Government) I At Volkenrode under test was this rocket- driven glider used for aerodynamic or con- trol research Right: (Top) A 37 mm. A.A. gun being fired in the 400-metre long underground tunnel. It is capable of being evacuated to I 30th of an atmo- sphere (correspond- ing to an altitude of 30,000ft.). (Bottom) This " model farm " at Volkenrode is actually one end of the shooting tunnels in the weapons area. The buildings are capable of ac- commodating an air- craft. learned that there was no evidence of shortage of duralumin or aluminium sheet in German ', and that several ball-bearing factories are still in operation. Tvre production is slow, and if stocks are low there is "no real shortage of buna, though trouble is expected fro:n a shortage of phosphoric acid used in its manufai ture. Supplies of chemicals are good, but batterk- are a bottleneck. Heavy transport is short to tin tune of 25,000 vehicles. Many are being provided by cannibilisation from dumps, and five factories are now at work. Bicycles are scarce and at a pre- mium, as indeed are all light vehicles on wheels. Every effort is now being made to assist Germans to work out their own salvation. Improvisation is the order of the day, and Germans are past masters in the art of ersatz. For example, I was told by a chemist, in pass- ing, that from ever ' 20 tons of sulphite pulp waste effluent from paper-making, the Germans produced seven tons of edible yeast! Visiting Berlin by. Avro-Anson, we approached by Potsdam and Spandau, alighting at the Gatow airfield (Left): Air ChiefMarshal Sir Sholto Douglas at his Ger-man headquarters with the writer.
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