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
already existed. Fortunately, they did exist and could be quickly
harnessed for military purposes.147
As early as 1936 the Air Transport Association of America, the
trade organization of the civil airlines, working in conjunction with
the Air Corps and the Army W a r College, had formulated a plan for
the mobilization of the airlines in case of war. T h e plan had been kept
up to date during the intervening years, and after Pearl Harbor it pro-
vided a broad program for the wartime utilization of the civil aviation
resources of the However, the emergency expansion of
overseas transport services in the early months of the war grew out
of immediate and specific needs, and was not based on carefully laid
plans drawn up in advance. First there was the need for rushing emer-
gency supplies by way of Africa to the Philippines and to China, then
of supporting the heavy bomber ferrying movement to the Southwest
Pacific, and at the same time increasing the flow of lend-lease supplies
to the Middle East to bolster British and Russian resistance. Soon after
7 December, it became necessary to open air transport services to the
air bases under construction in the upper Atlantic area, and by the
spring of 1942 to establish regularly scheduled flights to Britain,
Alaska, Australia, Panama, and the Caribbean area. Expansion on a
piecemeal basis and under emergency conditions continued until the
summer of 1942. Then, with the growing realization of the poten-
tialities of air transportation, the concentration of control of air trans-
port services in a single command of the Army Air Forces, and the
great increase in the number of available aircraft and crews, it became
possible to undertake a more orderly development in accordance with
needs shaped by the long-range plans of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
the several theater commander^.'^'
As a first step in mobilizing the resources of the airlines, President
Roosevelt had signed an executive order on 13 December 1941direct-
ing the Secretary of War to take possession of any portion of any
civil aviation system required in the war effort.15' Also on the 13th,
the lend-lease administrator allocated twenty-five million dollars to
the W a r Department and authorized it to enter into commitments up
to that amount for the purchase of available four-engine aircraft, spare
parts, equipment, and facilities for construction or for any other
purposes necessary to the extension and operation of air transport
services.'51
In establishing new overseas services, the most pressing need of both
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