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For the rest of the staff (except for the personnel and administrative boss, Colonel James H. Douglas, Chicago lawyer) George went to the airlines again. Chief of operations is TWA's Larry Fritz (who flew one of the freighters to India last week); chief of domestic transportation and training, Colonel Harold R. Harris, who had organized Pan American Grace (Panagra); United Airlines' Colonel Ray Ireland, chief of priority traffic; Northwest Airlines' Colonel George Gardner, foreign operations; Pan American's Colonel Grant Mason, chief of plans; American Airlines' Lieut. Colonel James G. Flynn, communications.
ATC's wing commanders, the men who run ATC's various theaters of operations, are largely Air Forces career men, but their commands too are liberally salted with many an airline expert in flying, operations, meteorology, airport construction and maintenance.
Airlines' Flyers. Having drafted his executives, Hal George went after the airlines' practical know-how. Today U.S. airlines are flying under contract about 60% of ATC's overseas loads (Army pilots ferry all combat planes).
For the duration the airlines will continue to work for ATC. But ATC is expanding so rapidly that by year's end the airlines' present 60% of overseas freight flying will amount to only 10%. The Army's own airmen will do the rest. They are now being trained by the new Airlines War Training Institute in the flying opera tions procedures that have made U.S. air lines the safest in the world.
Transport's Planes. Air Transport Command is still sadly short of the planes it needs. Beyond the old reliable DC-3, it must largely rely on Liberator bombers, converted to cargo craft and thus long on power and short on freight space. But planes are on the way. Douglas, besides turning out the veteran DC-35, is also producing the C-54, a four-engined mon ster with a payload of ten tons. Curtiss is turning out the powerful two-engined Commando ("Dumbo" to airmen) which made the mass flight to India.
By year's end ATC men expect that 95% of their craft will be planes built for freight hauling. They will have to look farther for the bigger, longer-range craft that aviation must have for the postwar world.
Today ATC has some 50,000 men to fly and service its planes, maintain its far-flung bases, forecast the weather, operate its communications system. In the words of their chief, "All of them are too young and too dumb to know what's impossible, so they do it." They are only the beginning of the force ATC will have by year's end. By then Hal George will, be able to say, with even more conviction than he does now, that ATC will have laid the pattern for something more than winning the war. It will also be a structure for international trade, travel, understanding among nations.
The Great Circle. Even among airline men there are a few who still see no prospect of the air-navigated world en visioned by Billy Mitchell. They are astride a fence that airmen like Harold George have long ago taken in a hurdler's stride.
To the true air-power man, even the great international airlines of today still show evidences of aviation's youthful weaknesses. Because cruising ranges are still relatively short, the lines pursue zig zag courses from terminal to terminal.