AIR TRANSPORT-2: WWII brief

AT LA GUARDIA FIELD, AMERICAN AIRLINES PILOTS WALK UNDER NOSE OF PLANE, READY FOR FLIGHT
At Shreveport, La. at 1:45 in the morning, the plane takes additional cargo aboard.

At San Antonio the engines are overhauled. Cargo and passenger for Panama are transferred to a different transport.

Over a Mexican peninsula, freckled by white cumulus clouds, goes the transport. Pilots are now experienced Braniff Airline fliers but plane itself belongs to the Army.

The smoking volcano of Santa Ana, called "Smokey Joe" by Americans, passes by.

At a field in Nicaragua the transport is fueled, while P-39's stand guard behind. The Army mechanic in charge of the operations is armed with a pistol in case of attempted sabotage.

Over the high Costa Rican mountains and jungles the transport continues on its way toward the south.

***

THIS IS AN ARMY FLIGHT TO PANAMA

On hundreds of airfields all over the world, the big brown planes come and go. With the regularity of the morning sun American ferry pilots land in China, Russia, Egypt and Australia. Men and material from the U.S. span mountains and oceans, drop into airports carved out of jungles and ice fields. Officers and men have dinner in England, breakfast in New York. College roommates bump into each other on the streets of native villages in Africa or the South Seas. Never before has the world been so narrow.

The planning and operation of all these worldwide routes, serving a world at war, is the job of General George’s Air Transport Command. The map on pages 78-79 shows approximately where some of the ATC’s air routes now go and where some additional routes may go in the future. But because most of the routes are restricted military information, no map can give an adequate idea of the tremendous operations of the ATC. All that can be said is that it is bigger than any airline ever conceived and that no part of the world is unfamiliar to it.

The pictures here show an ATC flight from New York to Panama. They also show that not all the flying is being done by Army pilots. The flight from New York to San Antonio was made by American Airline pilots; that from San Antonio to Panama by Braniff pilots. Such an arrangement is typical of most ATC routes. As far as possible, the experience and know-how of the airlines is being put to work by the Army one day, may be back on a civilian route the next.

The LIFE photographer on this trip was William Vandivert. Alternately sitting on the hard floor of his C-47, a converted DC-3, or lying strapped to cargo boxes, he found it a tough, rough trip, considerably changed from the luxury air trips of civilian days.


Life February 15, 1943