Gerald W. Smith Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Gerald W. Smith 95
A. That was part of the route, yes. Tne North Atlantic base ultimately;
the North Atlantic route of the Air Wansport Comd ulthately included the
National Airport Operation of AT' in Washington, D. C., a small base at
LaGuardfa Field in New York, a field at kchester, New Hampshire, a field at
Bangor, Presque Isle Fleld, a small operation at Montreal, a smll operation
- - an errergency base - - on the North sfde of the St. Lawrence River, then
Gander Lake in New Foundland and Goose Bay in Labrador, two bases on BaffYn
Island and two bases in Greenland, the base at Iceland and a base at Prestwck,
Scotland, which subsequently was transferred to the European Division. Then
on a more muthemy route we picked up the Bermuda Islands and the Canary
Islands for a more Southemily route, so that was the base over which North Atla-
tic operated .
Q. How about the Azores?
A. Yes, we had the Azores, I'm somy it was the Azores and not the Canary
Islands, I correct wself, Bermuda and the Azores.
Q. Well, I flew over f'mm Washington to Gander to the Azores to Prestwich
in 1945.
A. Yes. The kinds of transportation that c a thro@ ~ us were mde up, first
of all, of the aircraft moving to the war zone; in the smmr of 1942 that was
to North Africa; and we had going across the North Atlantic that summr the El7"s
and, oh, the other big bomber . . .
A. Tne B-24's and the B-17's and the &25 attack bombers, and the B-26 l s.
Then we had another rather interesting operation that first smr. In the
surrnner of 1942 they experimented with flying the P-38 flghter over, escorted
by either a El7 or a E24 for P-38's flying off the wing of a El7 or a B-24.
It turned out not to be a very practical operation and they did not pursue it
after the first year because the weather conditions were so uncertain and we
had such pat difficulty, particulwly in the earlier years, with the
electronic interference wiith our co~cations. Somtims these P-38 s would
sit at a place like Greenland for ten days or two weeks befo~ we would have
a combination of weather and comnunication that made it possible to fly the
next hop to Iceland, for example; we'd get them on our base and maybe weld
send them off to FYestwck, Scotland, a couple of tLrnes and two or three hours
af'ter we sent them off, they'd corn back and it would take us maybe a week. It
was easier between Iceland and Scotland than it was between Labrador ad Iceland.
So we had first of all the M&ter, that type of aircraft,. Secoqdly, we
had a continual fli@t of the Ferry Divlsion of the com~and, which wag the
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flying of replacemmt aircraft over to Eurr,pe. The fighting aircraft of course,
were always being flown by very young and inexperienced fli@;ht perso 1, some
of them had very little fliet before they started that trip across t ocean.
?he Ferny Division was made up all of experienced flyers, almost with t exception,
taken fmm the regular airlines and so they were expe~ienced an they
flew, of course, much mre regularly, with mch less interference fro the weather.
Then, we had the alrcraft flown under contract service with the alrli s, which
were aircraft taken over flvmthe airlines, painted tke olive drab, b flown
mrrbers of the airlines. Tnese were the alrplanes that provided the ssenger
service and the f'reight flights and, of course, they cam and went a1 the th.
So these were the kinds of alrplanes that we had to receive. We might receive
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