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This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Lockheed”11 pages
A I R T R A N S P O R T A N D F E R R Y I N G pilots to Takoradi following the completion of deliveries to Cairo, and for hauling critical items of supply east from Takoradi." Realizing the importance of maintaining and increasing the scope of the trans-African operation, the United States government, acting through the Civil Aeronautics Administration, undertook to secure the transport aircraft from the civil airlines. Of the fifty requested, however, only twenty could be spared by the airlines, and no Army planes were available." And when the job of getting the planes to Africa was given the Air Corps, General Arnold found that neither military nor civilian crews with the necessary experience were imme- diately available. T h e few experienced Army crews could not be spared; and the country had long since been combed for civilian pilots and navigators for the North Atlantic ferrying service.3oRather than ship the planes by water, the ferrying job was turned over to Pan American A i r w a y ~ , ~ 'whose experience in the development of com- mercial airlines through Latin America already had been turned to advantage in the effort to extend and strengthen hemisphere de- f e n s e ~ . ~ 'As early as November 1940, Pan American had been made the agent of the United States government in carrying out the so- called Airport Development Program (ADP) for the construction and improvement of airports on foreign territory throughout the Caribbean area, Central America, and Brazil, as well as in Liberia. Panair do Brasil, a Pan American subsidiary, had undertaken at Belem and Natal the development with ADP funds of facilities destined to serve as major ferrying and transport bases along the South Atlantic route. Other bases that would be used principally for defensive pur- poses, but which provided emergency landing fields for transient aircraft, were constructed through Pan American agencies in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela.33 O n 29 May 1941, an agreement between Atlantic Airways, Ltd., and the British gov- ernment was drawn up for delivery of the twenty t r a n ~ p o r t s . ~ ~T h e British agreed to meet all expenses and to furnish the navigators. Atlantic Airways obtained the pilots from several sources, principally from the Lockheed Company on a loan basis. A sufficient number were found to ferry the planes to Africa in flights of ten or less.35 O n the night of 2 1 June 1941the first flight of ten transports took off from Miami, Florida, bound for Port of Spain, Trinidad. The next stop was at Belem, Brazil. Here the crews were arrested and held 3 2 '
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