Evening star., 1945-07-11
Chains Of Ships Mark
Atlantic Routes for
Planes
$4,000 Men Flown Bock
Since April 20; Many
Headed for Pacific

IS 900 TROOPS DUE in New York
today. Page Az
BY the Associated Press.
LONDON, July 1.-THE Allies
have bridged the Atlantic with
the greatest air-sea rescue syS-
tenn ever devised in dispatching
planes and men home from Eu-
rope. Many of the men and
machines are headed straight for
the Pacific.
The United States, Great Britain
and Brazil have marked two direct
paths across the ocean with chains
of ships, stationed like beacons to
guide planes along the way and
help any which may be forced down.
Brig. Gen. Earl S. Hoag, COM
mander of the European division of
the United States Air Transport
Command, described the mass move
ment of men and machines today as
the greatest aerial elevator of all
times"
$4,000 Troops Flown Back.
OF 4,l57 Flying Fortresses, Liber-
ators, two-engined bomberS and
transports starting across the At
lantic, only two have been lost with
out trace.
More than $4,000 troops have been
flown home since April 20. Another
&c, 900 will fly home this month, most
of them battle veterans with enough
points for discharge, or specialists
en- route to the Pacific. In August,
10000 will fly home.
The American 9Th, 9th and 18th
Air Forces are moving en- masse
Many bombers which survived rough
raids over Germany are headed for
Japan. Although combat veterans
flying long water stretches usually
is new to bomber pilots. They are
given brief instructions in celestial
navigation and the chains of ships
stand out as traffic signals along
the way. Naval men say the ships
have been important psychologically
Much of System Secret.
Much of the air-sea rescue system
still is secret. The number of ships
cannot be disclosed but third are
British, seventh Brazilian and the
rest are American. The Brazilian
cruiser Bahia sank last week while
on air-sea rescue duty, presumably
after hitting a floating mine.
Two evacuation routes have been
marked. The northern passage be-
gins at the British Isles and passes
through Iceland to the Azores or
Newfoundland. The southern route
starts at Marseille, carries to Casa
blanca across the hump of Africa
over the Ascension Islands to Natal,
Brazil. 1t swings through the Carib-
bean to the United States.
Ships standing watch have a. te-
dious job, broken only by exchange
signals and greetings to the homing
air crews. Unlike the old anchored
weather stations along the United
States Atlantic coast, naval ships in
the transatlantic chains move over
small area on patrol. They keep
in constant touch with planes over
head, giving weather instruction or
sounding alerts.
Flying Boats Stand Ready.
Long-range flying boats such as
the American Catalinas and British
Sunderlands stand ready on both
sides of the Atlantic and on islands
in between to speed to the scene of
any crash.
Naval and air force officials said
the idea of transatlantic chain
of ships would not be very practical
in peacetime because of expense.
The safety element already is high
in regular commercial ocean flights,
they said. The present redeploy-
ment requires special precautions.
however, because the majority of
planes involved are fighting craft
rather than transports. and the type
of flying is strange to pilots whose
training has been for combat.