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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.
“Cairo”26 pages
A I R T R A N S P O R T A N D F E R R Y I N G the various installations by water transport and, to a limited extent, by air. T h e transportation and storage of sufficient supplies of gasoline alone constituted a logistical problem of considerable magnitude. Spare parts for each type of aircraft to be ferried over the route had to be stocked at each of the bases. With none of the stations was it possible to maintain unhindered water communications a t all times. Goose Bay was accessible by water only from early June to October. BW-8, above the Arctic Circle, enjoyed a shipping season of surprising length, being open about six months of the year. But the weather station at CRYSTAL I11 could be reached by water for only about six weeks of the late summer and early fall. Enemy submarines were a constant menace along the shipping lanes, as were ice floes, heavy fogs, and submerged reefs in uncharted areas.133 Principally because of the extreme shortage of transport aircraft, only a limited number of personnel and a relatively small quantity of supplies and equipment could be moved into the bases by air. But even during the winter, the Ferrying Command was able to operate a small- scale air transport service into Goose Bay in support of the con- struction work. With a single C-39, the command began moving contractor’s personnel and supplies from Moncton, New Brunswick, to Goose Bay three days after Pearl Harbor.134In mid-February 1942, this C-39 military service was replaced by a contract carrier service operated by Northeast Airlines. Northeast maintained for some months a regular service between Presque Isle and Goose Bay by way of bases in Newfoundland and later extended its flights into Green- land, Iceland, and Britain.135Before June, when the Eighth Air Force began its air movement along the route, two other contract airlines conducted survey flights and opened regular transport services over the North Atlantic. Transcontinental & Western Air began to fly its Stratoliners over the route in April, going all the way into Prest- During the same month, American Airlines, under contract to the Air Service Command, opened a service to Labrador, Baffin Island, and G~een1and.l~’In the weeks immediately preceding the start of the Eighth’s movement, the 60th Transport Group, a unit of that air force equipped with C-47’s, gave considerable assistance in moving supplies and men into the bases.‘38 Army Air Forces Headquarters, the Ferrying Command, and other interested AAF agencies were able to. keep in touch with activities at the bases by means of numerous survey flights sent out over the 3 47
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