AIR ROUTE MAP,
see description under map
AIR ROUTE MAP,
see description under map
When I took an overseas cruise, courtesy of United States,
Germany occupied France, the Balkans, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and Italy,
and was attempting to occupy Africa. Its submarines were in all shipping lanes of the Atlantic.
Ships could only travel in convoys. Our convoy consisted of about fifty ships, five abreast,
lead by a battle ship, and at each side on the horizon a row of destroyers and cruisers.
The convoy went south following the equator to Africa,then north.
The convoy zigzagged, changing directions every fifteen minutes. Our ship zigged when it should have zagged
and rammed the battle ship.
My bunk was five decks below but I was the first man on deck, before the alarms sounded.
We left the convoy and unloaded supplies at Casablanca.
The entire French fleet of naval vessels had been scuttled at the docks to prevent their use by Germany.
Travel time by sea to Africa was thirty days. This explains the desperate need for a faster supply service.
A FLIGHT AROUND THE GERMAN ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA
EXCERPTS FROM WAR CORRISPONDENT QUENTIN REYNOLD'S STORY
The big wheels of the four-engine Douglas dug into the black concrete of the moonlit runway
as we roared by the office building of the Miami airport.
A moment later, one of the less air-minded passengers asked, "Are we off?" General Edgar Glenn
peered out the small window, looked down and said dryly,
"If we aren't they've played a dirty trick on us because our wheels are up."
That was a week ago.
Today I am in Cairo, just 14,000 miles from the moon-light of Miami, and for this past week
the wheels of the big aircraft have been for the most part up.
What would have been a miracle of transportation two years ago
is now something which the Air Transport Command accomplishes dozens of times a day
with monotonous regularity.
During the past three years, I have been with every Allied navy, army and air-force.
But never have I seen displayed the efficiency, the high morale of personnel,
the technical perfection which characterized the work of our Air Transport Command.
One expects it at the established airdromes of Miami, or Natal in South America.
But one finds it too in the jungles and deserts of Central Africa
where engines are changed and cracked cylinders are replaced just as quickly as such
major repair jobs are done at LaGuardia Field.
And the thousands of pilots and ground-men who stretch from Miami through Trinidad
down the coast of South America, who span the South Atlantic
and billet in large and small airports across Africa, are all Americans.
We stayed at Trinidad for the night because of threatening weather ahead, and then we hopped off
on the next lap, an 1800-mile jaunt, and the beautiful Douglas took it in her stride
like the thoroughbred she is. Natal, in Brazil, was our destination.
Natal, is the jumping-off place, and it is one of the few bases which one can name.
It is not vulnerable to enemy attack.
All cargo sent abroad sifts through Natal, and thousands of American youngsters load and service
the visiting and departing planes as casually as they filled up your car with gasoline in peace-time.
Thousands and thousands of pounds of cargo leave each day from Natal,
bound for wherever Americans fight. The promises we heard a year ago are being fulfilled today.
Converted transport planes which were built to carry 20,000 pounds now carry 30,000 pounds
and they fly in a steady and increasing stream from Natal across the South Atlantic,
bringing American war material into battle. There are no hangars at Natal,
although you'll usually find more than two hundred aircraft on the ground. Planes don't stay long enough at Natal
to use hangers. Even major repairs such as changing an engine are done in the open
by men who have had years of training with Pan-American, Eastern, TWA, and other American airlines.
These are the bests mechanics in the world. They will strip an engine and put it together as quickley
as you can do the same thing with a vacuum cleaner.
From Natal, you take the big jump across the pond. Again, this is a routine flight but is not without hazard.
To passengers, such a flight can never be routine. We fly at night,
and as the heat of South America recedes, the cool from the higher altitude infiltrates into the cabin.
The moon is high and the night is studded with stars and far below, the sea is a velvet carpet,
calm and serene. The beauty of the night prevents you from sleeping, if you are a casual passenger
and not a pilot who has made the trip fifty times.
Finally the night goes to sleep, star by star, and a golden dawn emerges from the horizon to broaden
and bring another day to you. And then the airplane banks sharply to the right and circles.
There is land ahead. We land at a large base which men call Bushtown (Accra).
A sergeant and his crew take over the ship and we hear him call to his men,
"Get this crate serviced in a hurry. We got a million planes coming in here today."
He had exaggerated a little. I stood at the airport nearly an hour, and planes were constantly circling,
waiting their turn to land; planes which had also performed this casual miracle of crossing the South Atlantic
without incident.
The colonel in charge assigns us to barracks. We sleep three in a room under mosquito netting.
American Army doctors unquestionably lead the world in the field of preventive medicine.
Actually, mosquitoes aren't very common in this particular part of Central Africa,
but those which are here are the nasty malaria-carrying type. And so every man must sleep under mosquito
netting, and there are signs warning the men not to attend the evening picture show without wearing mosquito boots.
For some reason, these local mosquitoes have a weakness for ankles,
and shin-high boots frustrate them completely.
CARVING AIRPORTS OUT OF JUNGLE.
The route across Africa was originally pioneered by three brilliant Pan-American pilots.
George Kraigher, John Yeomans and Henry Kristofferson (all colonels now) were responsible.
Then a shotgun wedding took place between Pan-American and our Army.
The three flying pioneers were taken over by the Army and they immediately went to work.
They took over airports, operation buildings and barracks. The limited Pan-American personnel
had to be enormously enlarged. New bases had to be carved out of the jungle.
A thousand problems not directly concerned with flying cropped up.
One fine airport at Mauduguri for instance, which Pan-American operated,
was excellent in every respect except that the only available water had to be pumped from 300 feet
below ground. In the jungle you make your own power, and it couldn't be spared to pump up the amount
of water which would be needed by hundreds and hundreds of men every day.
The three trail blazers found a spot six miles from the airport where clear water
lay only thirty feet below the surface. In no time at all, roads had been built,
barracks, messrooms, offices and store houses had sprung up. The jungle receded stubbornly but inevitably,
and today hundreds of your sons are living well, eating better than you do at home and,
within the admitted limitations of rigid Army existence, thoroughly enjoying life.
The airport being six miles away,
native black troops, British trained, have been given to our commanding officers to act as guards.
These husky natives are trained to obedience. Cairo, at last, is a welcome sight after a long trip.
Today, the town is filled with American uniforms. It has become a sort of Air Transport junction.
From here, planes wing their way north to Teheran and thence to Karachi, New Delhi and China.
CREDITS: (I have taken excerpts for this story from the writings of a famous war correspondent
named Quentin Reynolds. My mother clipped the article some fifty years ago from Collier's.
The magazine has been out of circulation for about thirty years.)
(please use Arrows to view the additional story)
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