Evening star., 1945-10-28
We've Done the Europe
America 5 Big Bomber Parade
Is Giving Way to Peacetime
Argosies Of the Air.
BY w. H. shippen, Jr.

AAPPC1l, IL.
air commerce on scale that could poin.
the way to world recovery.
Returning to Washington on -,
eastward route after visiting Newfound.
land, North Africa, Europe, the Near
East, India, China, the Philippines, ia
pan and Hawaii, had the personal
conviction the United States will fritz
ter away historic opportunity If it
cuts the throttles on the Army's global
airline before private enterprise can
take up the slack.
Political pressure on the military to
demobilize. dispose of equipment and
get the boys home should never. in
my opinion, break one essential link in
an operational network of airlines that
may or not may be restored by diplo-
matte negotiation later.
Those who wish to hasten the ARMY
Air Transport Commands plans for
curtailment of operations could very
well keep this fact in view.
Advantages Should Be Held
The Army Air Forces ATC, as far a,
I can learn, has no intention of conn
petlng with commercial concerns which
can pick up the load. On the other
hand, 1t is on the ground. It has tbs
ships, 1t has the men, it has the bases.
equipment and weather warning net.
works. None Of these advantages should
De tossed into the discard until it Ia
quite clear private enterprise can take
over without political interference. for
eign or domestic.
meanwhile, our commercial flag car.
rlers are opening new overseas routes az
rapidly as equipment and personnel can
De released from military service Tt
seems likely they will lack neither mas
sengers nor cargo in volume to enable
tnem to cut rates to the size of the
average pocketbook once the wars lo1
jam is broken.
ike to think of the sights the folks
at home will see, sights long familiar tn
sons, husbands and brothers who have
been pushing heavy stuff around the
world for almost four years with the
ATC and its contract carriers. bomber
and fighter groups and ground crews
They'll Want to Show 'Em
The boys are fed up with all that
stun now-sick and tired of 1t, in fact.
But given rest back home, change
OF scene and viewpoint and they prob
ably will be first to hit the long trail
again to show the folks the dusty Eight
Ban they helped to clean up a bit.
Relegated to the past will be ths
fighters and the fax, stabbing search-
lights or the monotony of desert and
ocean-also the loneliness. Thunderous
IA Guardia will be an invitation rather
than threat. and the tang of the Maine
Woods no longer sort of farewell to
the good old United States of America.
There will be the spruce forests and
lakes OF Newfoundland washed clean
by the North Atlantic, or the wave
whipped beaches of the Azores which
are but stepping stones to places like
Casaolanca with its favor of Africa
to mention one of many routes.
Magic Morning Mists
The big four-engined Douglas Sky.
master on which was a guest of the
ATC flew eastward over the coast of
North Africa, Morocco, Algeria and
Tunisia before heading across the Med
iterranean for Naples. I still wonder II
morning mists over that city hide its
poverty and make Capri seem dream
island across the bay.
Or If the Doric columns and crum-
bling facades on the Acropolis of old
Athens flash back a clear light from
the setting sun. In Egypt the pyramids
under thin moon seemed twice as
mysterious as the guide books would
have you believe, and the hot, endless
deserts on the eastward course were
cool in the early morning hours and
flooded with weird color when the sun
rose.
In karachi, India, we had to brush
the goats aside to shop on the main
drag, and pulling out of New Delhi
few days later the pilots circled low
over the Tai Mahal before heading
down the Valley of the Ganges for
Calcutta. No doubt the jackals in the
back country still yelp over the half
cremated corpses of the natives, but
this seemed unreal in contrast to the
beauty of the temples.
Over the Hump
The famous run over the Hump, that
Himalayan rock pile" which has cost
SO many lives and turned many Yank
airman's hair gray before his time,
will be closed out by the ATC In less
than month, now that free ports
have been opened on the coast Of
China.
But last July 1t was operating full
blast. The boys ,built up their biggest
record that month, driving through
$4,000 tons of high priority stuff for
our hard-pressed ally.
We made 1t from Calcutta to Kun.
ming between clouds packed with
granite and long accepted by American
airmen as a matter of course.
From Running to Chungking was
but jump across the green valleys
and fantastic mountains of China, al-
though the long haul across the here
tofore secret missing link" from China
to the Philippines was something else
again. In blacked-out unarmed
transport, loaded with high priority
passengers and cargo, we few between
Japanese radar screens through tdr-