New Air Transport Command for Britain

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 60, 12 March 1943, Page 5

New Air Transport Command for Britain

IT EFFECT ON POST-WAR AIR POLICY. Received Thursday, 10 p.m. LONDON Mar. 10. The Ferry Command and the British Overseas Airways Corporation are likely to be fused into the R.A.F. Air Transport Command either as a new command or hy considerably enlarging the Ferry Command’s scope, says the Daily Telegraph’s aviation corre spondent. Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill, who commands Ferry Command, is mentioned as the first officer commanding the Ail Transport Command. The prime role of the new commam. will be to reinforce the Army, Navy and R.A.F, overseas to meet urgent needs. A secondary role may be mas.* bombing. The new Command’s initial planes will include the British Over seas Airways Corporation’s Clippers, Liberators, Sunderlands and Whitleys which will later be augmented by converted bombers such as the York and others not yet in the picture. The Times, in a leader, says the United States has become the Allied air-carrier and is likely to remain such until the end of the war. That must he so, but it may be hoped that the establishment of the Air Transport Command will stimulate the planning of British production on the right lines. The freedom of the skies requires definition and the time to act is now. Mr. Wallace, disowning the idea of Imperialistic American supremacy by air and sea, declared that such supremacy was likely to make a third world war certain. Victory will be fruitless without pooling for peace, but pooling cannot be achieved unless the foundations for an agreement are laid now.”