The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

A I R T R A N S P O R T A N D F E R R Y I N G
Australia. Another Indian Ocean route was proposed that would have
connected Mombasa with Ceylon or Bangalore, India, by way of
Coetivy Island, the Chagos Archipelago, and the Maldive Island~.~'
A survey of the route across Africa was made by a board headed
by Lt. Col. Neil B. Harding." Early in March, Maj. Harold B. Willis
of the Air Corps and Lt. Col. Herman B. Pohl of the Corps of En-
gineers began a joint survey of the Indian Ocean route, making use
of a Pan American Clipper for the purpose. Before the Clipper had
left the east African base at Mombasa, however, word was received
from General Brett in Australia that Japanese operations in the area
of the COCOSIslands made the route to Australia no longer practicable.
Willis and Pohl were given orders to proceed no farther than the
Chagos Islands.78There still seemed a possibility that an alternate air
supply line to India might be found, but fortunately the preferable
Middle East land route was held and continued in use throughout the
war. Nor was it found necessary, as had been considered, to divert
all waterborne fighter aircraft to Port Elizabeth in the Union of South
Africa for ferrying up the old Cape-to-Cairo airway. Although more
exposed to attack, Takoradi and Accra in the Gold Coast Colony
continued to be the assembly points for fighter and lighter types of
aircraft shipped to Africa by
Until February 1942, when the Japanese captured Singapore and
overran the East Indies, the southeastern route served as the principal
line of air communications between the United States and the South-
west Pacific area. This was, indeed, its most immediate importance.
In the first days of the war the Japanese had cut the central Pacific
route from Hawaii through Midway and Wake to New Guinea and
Australia-the route over which the Far East Air Force had received
its thirty-five heavy bombers in the fall of 1941.Considerable progress
had been made by 7 December in the construction of bases for an
alternate, more southerly route from Hawaii to Australia through
Canton Island, the Fijis, and New Caledonia.80But this route was not
ready when orders were issued shortly after Pearl Harbor to rush
eighty heavy bombers and crews as soon as they became available to
the Far East for the relief of the Philippines." The only other route
that could possibly be used was that by way of the South Atlantic
and across Africa and southern Asia." Even though it had the marked
disadvantage of stretching approximately two-thirds of the distance
See above, pp. 179-81, 192-93, 223.
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