Albuquerque Heard From

Although Albuquerque, N.Mex. is 5,269 air miles from London, it was very close to World War II last week. On Albuquerque's huge airport ("the largest commercial field in the country") opened a new and important battle of that war--the battle to man U.S. bombers-for-Britain, get them from factories to fighting areas as soon as possible.

To train pilots and navigators for the bombers, Transcontinental & Western Air Inc. (T.W.A.) had established and staffed a post-graduate flying school at Albuquerque. Its students: U.S. Army pilots who will fly the bombers from U.S. factories to transatlantic take-off points in Canada; British and U.S. civilian fliers, who will then deliver the planes to the British Isles.

Last week the first class of 18 Army pilots began a T.W.A. course in advanced navigation, meteorology, and the handling of two-and four-engined Lockheed, Consolidated, Boeing bombers. Also begun was the enrollment of civilian pilots and navigators. Soon, at the T.W.A. school and another (for pilots of smaller ships) at Barksdale Field, La., 100 graduates will be turned out each month.

All this is part of a selfish, thoroughly practical form of U.S. aid-to-Britain. The Army pilots assigned to delivery duty are members of a new Army Ferry Command. Under the U.S. Army's famed Colonel Robert Olds, a big-bomber fiend who started out as a private in World War I, this organization has complete responsibility for delivering all U.S.-made British aircraft in Canada. While speeding up deliveries, the new system will also give Army pilots priceless experience in flying big bombers. Because so many U.S. bombers are going to Great Britain, the Army itself is woefully short of ships for such training.

Once in Canada, the planes will be handed over to Great Britain's civilian Atlantic Ferry Service ("Atfero"). Officially, no U.S. Army pilots will fly bombers across the Atlantic. Unofficially, it is no secret that since the transocean ferry service was started last year, at least 100 U.S. Army pilots have made the trip. In Great Britain, scores of U.S. Army fledglings are flying in their own school squadrons, learning all that World War II can teach them about combat piloting (nominally in "noncombat areas"). If some of Colonel Olds's ferrymen get similar experience in transatlantic bombery, nobody in The Army Air Forces will be surprised.

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