Airways to peace

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 9th Year

Issue

Issue No.

5

Date Released

27 Dec 1943

Length of issue (in feet)

1586

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Airways to peace

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: "Airways to Peace" is the March of Time’s account of the vital part being played in the war by America’s Air Transport Command, the difficulties it has had to overcome, and the implication, for post-war development, in the proved practicality of a global air line.

The film begins dramatically on a day in the critical summer of 1942 with the receipt of a despatch from Cairo by the United States Army Air Forces calling for the immediate delivery of 25,000 rounds of anti-tank ammunition to General Auchinleck’s army in Egypt. On that black day the Afrika Corps was but seventy miles from Alexandria, the key to the Suez and India, and Rommel must have believed victory to be within his grasp. But the cargo planes of a newly established branch of the United States Army Air Forces - Air Transport Command - delivered the goods within seventy-two hours, and the gunners of the British Eighth Army stopped Rommel’s armour in its tracks and turned the tide of battle. To-day, says the Voice of Time, the Air Transport Command is the world’s greatest air line. Its base circle the earth, and its thousands of army pilots, now flying side by side with hundreds of civilian pilots, have become as familiar with towns like Karachi and Cairo as with New York and Los Angeles. Strick priority rating, assigned by the High Command in response to the needs of field commanders, determines the character of the cargoes handled by the Air Transport Command, the most dramatic of whose duties has become the transportation of supplies of drugs to save fighting men’s lives, and the thousands of critical items of equipment needed to keep bombers and fighters in the air in distant battle zones.

When Air Transport Command was first organised its only planes were converted bombers. Then a third of America’s commercial air lines was requisitioned to be followed by specially designed cargo planes. From the U.S. air lines the A.T.C. obtained, besides planes, the invaluable services of experienced personnel, men whose knowledge covered the operating not only of America’s vast inland network of airways but also of routes across the Atlantic and Pacific, and to South America. Now that war has proved the urgency and practicality of air cargo transport, more production facilities are being directed to the marking of cargo planes with a range, speed and capacity to meet the requirements of global war. Air Transport Command’s Ferrying Division flies hundreds of planes each week from factories to operating bases in the combat zones. By this system, planes which would have taken moonths to arrive by sea are delivered in a matter of days ready for battle to bases in Britain, Australia, North Africa and even to distant China where for long months Flying Tigers have stood alone as a symbol of the air power America is pledged to provide. But all operations of the A.T.C., whether ferrying combat planes of moving priority freight, are governed by principles perfected in the past by civil air lines and adapted by the army to war conditions.

The number of cargo planes arriving and departing at A.T.C. airports increases daily. The tonnage handled is, of course, a close secret but it is rising to figures which would have seemed astronomical only a year ago. On the distant and difficult land fronts of the South Pacific cargo planes have proved their effectiveness in moving in, on short notice and in even greater quantities, arms and equipment which have been the decisive factor in the campaign. In island warfare, where surprise attacks have won for the United Nations forces strategic advantages of great importance, the speed of reinforcement which only air supply could give is proving its worth against the Japanese. No work of the Air Transport Command has been more generally praised than the swift evacuation of wounded and invalided men from field hospitals to base hospitals. Often in flight nurses and doctors have given emergency transfusions of plasma which have saved scores of lives. The flying hospitals of A.T.C. are symbolic of a post-war aviation whose chief purpose will no longer be destruction, whose aim will be to build rather than shatter. For in the work of America’s A.T.C. modern technical genius is showing how the airways of war can become airways of peace, how aviation can bring to the remote corners of the world a new conception of the world itself.
With victory still unsecured and peace still far away the miracle of the global airway which will unite and serve the world remains a promise. What benefits or problems air transport of the future may present remains to be determined by the wisdom and energy of post-war leaders. What is already apparent is the practicality of establishing and maintaining global airways. In the ... space of war time months the Allies have proved to the world that no physical obstacle can check man’s conquest of the world of air and no technical problems threaten to remain unsolved when "Airways to Peace" may be replaced by the Airways of Peace.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.10 No.1 of the US edition.

Keywords

Aviation; Aircraft; Transport

Written sources

The March of Time Promotional Material   Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.