The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-01-16

igatOr of g or "A from the Air T new ship in its first crossing. The ot
 This is no rare event. It hap pens dozens of times nearly every day. It has happened dozens of times nearly every day for the past year and half. It is an old story. But you have to see it to appreciate that this aerial Christopher Colum- buSing in reverse has now become such a routine business that no one thinks it unusual.
 This typical bomber crew will taxi it's ship to one of the many parking strips On this tremendously ! big and beautifully dispersed air base. A bus or station wagon will meet the ship to carry the crew into temporary quarters in Nissen huts for rest. While they sleep, their plane will be serviced.
 REAL EARLY BIRDS
 If the weather is clear into the British Isles next day, the crew will be awakened at 2 a. m. They will be givNn breakfast, then car ried to the briefing room, big Nissen hut with an enormous map of the North Atlantic on one end wall. They will be shown a movie that runs 50 minutes and gives them a preview of the route they are going to fly into the British Isles, the bases they may be or dered into as optional landing fields. Then veteran pilots and navigators who have gone over this last lap many times will give the crews special suggestions on radio signals, weather and flying condi- tions they are likely to encounter.
 By 4:30 or and on up to 10 a. m., the crew will be ready to take off and will be taken to their plane Leaving at these early morning hours enables the new planes to ar rive over England with a couple of hours of daylight ito play around in" in case they should be become lost, and still be able to land before dark.
 Thousands of U. s. planes have made this crossing successfully and without incident-a remarkable triute to the organization which has been built up to get these planes ferried safely across 5000 miles or more of ocean. as well as to the training which these young sters receive before they are ready for Europe. But once in while a plane will get lost.
 Weather may force a pilot off course. Or a young navigator may become confused and get his plane located in wrong position. Or a young radio operator may misread radio range signals intended to guide the plane to its true destina- ton.
 Operations officers at both Meeks Field in Iceland and at bases in the United Kingdom may be able to locate the plane exactly and tell the pilot and navigator where they are so as to put the plane on true course. For 150 miles or so to the east, they keep in touch with Ice land by voice. Then they go on code communication with their des- tination.
 When they're 150 miles out, they report in to the U. K. again, and are supposed to keep in communi- cation with their landing field at regular intervals. But there is the peculiar trait of cocky young flyers that makes them reluctant to admit they've made a mistake, so they won't check in with their base to confess they're lost. When that aoes happen, operations officers at the fields have their troubles in getting planes headed in the right direction.
 GERMANS FAKE SIGNALS
 To make matters worse, the Ger mans on Norway have set up ra- dio range station sending fake sig nals on the same frequency as al- lied stations in the United King dom. The idea, of course, is to lure planes over towards Norway and shoot them down there. To guard against that, squadron of fast fighter planes has been based on the northern coast of Scotland just to chase after planes off course and get the wandering pilots head ed back towards where they're sup posed to be going.
 Operations offices at bases in Newfoundland, Greenland and Ice land will keep track of every plane until 1t gets safely to its next des- tination. Here at Meeks Field three big bIackboards surround 8 desk which keeps track of the plane movements.
 All these aids of communications direction finding and navigation are of course intended to make veteran transport pilots out of young crews living the ocean for the first time The old hands at the business-the transport pilots operating for A. T. O.. or for Northeast, American, and Tfanscontinental and Western Air. lines which operate as contract car- riers on this northern route, and have crossed the ocean as often as twice . month or even more-don't have to De briefed in this elaborate fNt1.