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Show KNOW YOUR ' vjy NEIGHBOR " RA.U. WIATION IN LATIN AMERICA WELDS HEMISPHERE SOLIDARITY "Wings over South America" in pre-war days was a magical phrase for vacationists, conjuring fascinating pictures of shining planes flying over towering, snow-clad snow-clad mountain peaks in strange lands. Wings still fly over South America, Amer-ica, but today, great ships of the air often take off from emergency landing fields in remote regions, laden with strategic war materials. mater-ials. With the drastic curtailment of steamship service between the Americas, transportation has been thrown almost wholly on air lines, for mail, passenger, and even light shipping service. The speedy, efficient ef-ficient air schedules linking the United States with the Latin American republics, with a network net-work of routes serving 30 nations and colonies in the hemisphere, crossing and re-crossing the Caribbean Car-ibbean and Central and South America, are not only contributing vitally to essential war effort, but to hemisphere solidarity as well. South American countries have for a number of years been the center of pioneer aviation. Chile, with one of the longest national air routes in the world, has been an air pioneer since 1913, when its Military Air school was founded. found-ed. Chilean aviators were the first the fly over the mighty Andes. Colombia more than 20 years ago inaugurated the first airplanes on regularly scheduled commercial operations. Peru, faced from time immemorial with the transportation transporta-tion of crossing the high and rugged rug-ged ranges of the Andes, also early ear-ly turned to air communication, most notable advancement has perhaps per-haps been made in Brazil, whose previously inaccessible interior has been pushed far westward as a re-4 suit of air transportation. From the United States, Pan American Airways spread its wings southward, first, in 1927, in a little American-made Fokker plane on a short, 90-mile airline between Key West, Florida, and Havana. Since then, Pan American Ameri-can airplanes have written history in the skies as they have penetrated penetrat-ed deeper and deeper into the vast-ness vast-ness of the South American continent, conti-nent, with consistently shortened flying time, until today, the mouth of the Amazon, a distance of 4200 miles, lies two short days of air travel from New York. Over 48,000 air miles cover the Latin Americas, from Mexico through Central America to the Panama Canal; thence down the South American Pacific coast through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and still further south to Chile. Followed then the scaling of the mighty hump of the Andes to Buenos Bue-nos Aires, and Uruguay. Previous travel schedules have been slashed from days and weeks to hours. One of the most vital and effective effec-tive measures which have served to uid Latin American republics of German and Italian controlled air lines, a source of great danger to the United States, was the quick and efficient manner in which the national lines of the Americas gained control of the Axis-operated companies. In 1939, the Axis powers had controlling operations in 26,000 miles of airways in the Latin American countries. Both the United States and Latin American Amer-ican governments acted quickly to rid hemisphere solidarity of this menace. One by one, the countries "rooted out" the Axis-dominated lanes, and as their routes were vacated, Pan American planes stood poised to lift their wings in the wake of fast-disappearing ships of Nazi powers. American air networks in the southern republics are two and I one-half times greater than those serving the United States. In present pres-ent war emergencies, this ready communication with the great South American continent constitutes consti-tutes a weapon which will go far toward welding war efforts of the Americas into ultimate victory. Whenever a racketeering idea is worth more money than character in professional life there is something some-thing wrong with the profession. |