AIR SUPPLY LINE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1942, Page 4

AIR SUPPLY LINE

FROM UNITED STATES TO MIDDLE EAST STAGGERING QUANTITIES TRANSPORTED. ACROSS AFRICAN JUNGLES & DESERTS. (By Roscoe Drummond in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) WASHINGTON, April 18. While the full scope and efficiency of America’s aerial supply line to the Middle East must still remain undisclosed behind the screen of necessary military censorship, it is permitted to report today that its present operation is considered “something of a miracle” by the United States Government. “Staggering quantities” of food, construction supplies, airline 'equipment, machinery and other vital commodities are being successfully and continuously transported through the clouds over the South Atlantic and on to the North African theatre of the fighting. When the full account can be made public, the building of this air transport service across the jungles and deserts of Africa will, it is declared, be considered one of the notable and thrill-packed legends of the war. CONTINUOUS EXPANSION. The service, as one of the most important adjuncts to the lend-lease aid to the defending democracies, was well under way before the United States became a belligerent. Its expansion, has been continuous and is still going on. Its importance can hardly be over-estimated today. Many facts can still not be told, but because of the thoroughness with which it has now been established and with which it is protected, the censorship is permitting some of the story behind this accomplishment to be related. Just seven months ago President Roosevelt directed the establishment of an aerial highway across Africa, over which defence-aid aircraft and supplies could be delivered swiftly, safely, into Allied hands in the Middle East. Linked to Pan American’s longplanned South Atlantic service to the Congo, this new undertaking now provides a high-speed channel for air direct from the United States to this critical point in the front against aggression. ' To this end the Government provided the funds. The United States Air Forces Ferry Command supervises the route, the operating schedules, the flow of material over this artery to the East. Pan Americans job is to help organise and direct, to provide the manpower .operate the service. In seven months something of a miracle has been accomplished by these closely co-operating agencies. For not only has full-fledged anr transport service been established between the United States and Africa, but an organisation has been set up which, in part, operates over the old British Imperial Airways route which traced a course eastward across the continent. OPERATIONS SECRET. The trans-oceanic part of the African service serving points along the bulge of Africa’s west coast was pretty well known to the aviation worjd. But detailed operations of the African route had remained—and for good reasons would remain—hidden beneath the cloak of military secrecy. In the course of seven months, the project mushroomed from an idea to an organised air line under conditions that would have taxed the ingenuity of engineers and air line operators in peace time, let alone during a worldwide war. Yet the first plane was flying the I'oute just 61 days after President Roosevelt’s announcement. Taken altogether, Pan American’s contribution last month represented the combined efforts of several thousand men, hundreds of whom had been transplanted from the United States together with a huge flow of equipment. Men and material were on their way to Africa, starting last September.