AIR TRANSPORT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25172, 12 March 1943, Page 3

AIR TRANSPORT

NEW BRITISH COMMAND TWO-FOLD PURPOSE (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 11. 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 by considerably enlarging the Ferry Command’s scope, says the Daily Telegraph’s aviation correspondent. Air Chief Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill, who commands the Ferry Command, is mentioned as the first officer commanding the Air Transport Command. The prime role of the new command will be to reinforce the Army, Navy, and R.A.F. overseas, and to meet urgent needs. The secondary role may be mass bombing. The new command’s planes will include the British Overseas Airways Corporations’ Clippers, Liberators, Sunder lands, 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 an Allied air carrier and is likely to remain such until the end of the war. That must be 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. Freedom of the skies requires definition, and the time to act is now. The Vice-president of the United States, Mr Henry A. 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.