AMERICAN AIRCRAFT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 104, 12 February 1940, Page 3

AMERICAN AIRCRAFT.

ARRIVAL OF SHIPMENT. PRECAUTIONS FOB SAFETY. LONDON, January 31. The decks and holds of more than 45,000 tons of British shipping now in a west coast port are packed with warplanes from America. Not one U-boat challenged their passage across the Atlantic, says the “Daily Express.”

Grey-green camouflaged bombers, with the red, white and blue circles already painted on their sides, are lashed across the decks fore and aft. Gx-een .canvas and thick weatherproof paper covers the engines, cockpits and gun turrets. Every movable part is sealed.

The aeroplanes are held to steel posts by wire rigging,'which is now a permanent fitting of the merchant navy’s aircraft-carrying fleet.

“Every boat of my company is , now carrying aeroplanes,” one captain said. “Aeroplanes and parts are given priority over all other cargoes from American ports. While in American ports we had armed, uniformed guai’ds at the bows, amidships, and aft day and night.” At the English port stevedores unshipping the machines hold . special identity cards. Plain-clothes detectives are on continuous duty and visitors to the ships pass a sentry with fixed bayonet. When the bombers are landed they are taken on 30-foot Royal Air Force lorries to a secret destination. Their route is patrolled by polic-o.