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The Air Ferry Routes of WWII, including North Atlantic Route, South Atlantic Route and South Pacific Route. Although many air route surveys of the North Atlantic had been made in the 1930s, by the outbreak of World War II in Europe, civilian trans-Atlantic air service was just becoming a reality. It was soon suspended in favor of military ...
RAF Ferry Command was the secretive Royal Air Force command formed on 20 July 1941 to ferry urgently needed aircraft from their place of manufacture in the United States and Canada, to the front line operational units in Britain, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East during the Second World War.
Personnel at work in the Operations Room of the Atlantic Ferry Service at RAF Prestwick. During the Second World War, Prestwick was used an eastern terminus for the North Atlantic air ferry route, one of a series of routes over which military aircraft were ferried from the United States and Canada to Great Britain, to support the war in Europe.
During World War II the United States had to move large numbers of aircraft to the European and Mediterranean Theaters via the North Atlantic ferry route, a series of short flights between Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, Iceland and the UK. Weather conditions in winter closed the route and made crossing perilous at any time.
The first aircraft landed there in January 1942, as a link in the North Atlantic air ferry route in World War II. The base had a peak population of about 4,000 American servicemen, and it is estimated that some 10,000 aircraft landed there en route to the war in Europe and North Africa.
In December 1943, the Naval Air Ferry Command was established under NATS to take over the mission previously provided by the Aircraft Delivery Units. The mission of the Ferry Command was to ferry aircraft from the factories to the fleet. The Command's headquarters were placed at NAS New York (Floyd Bennett Field) as well as the first squadron ...
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The winter of 1942-43 presented major problems all along the North Atlantic Transport Route. A high accident rate due to weather was experienced beginning in September 1942 and it continued to climb. On 22 November Air Transport Command suspended the transportation of passengers across the North Atlantic for the duration of the winter. The ...