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Show CAUSE FOR PRIDE One of the most fantastic stories of the war has not boen told and will not be told, until the guns are still. That is the itory of air transport. Much of the fighting now taking ;lace in far-away comers of the globe, in steaming jungles ind on minute islands, primarily is to determine who shall oontrol the strategic air routes of the future. Fortunately for this country, the commercial airlines had progressed far ahead of any other nation, and with the arrival of hostilities were in a position to render invaluable service. It is largely airplane pilots who, in close cooperation with the air transport command of the army under the leadership of Major Harold Lee George, are blazing trails over the seven seas and all the continents. These pilots and the managments back of them who built the airlines, can rest assured that the danger and tribulations they suffered in pioneering air operations were not in vain. As the United States News obsorves: "The number of planes leaving each day for Alaska, for England, for South America, for Africa, for India, for China and for Australia is a military secret. But it is no secret that the schedule calls for hundreds of flights every day, and that the number is growing swiftly. It is no secret that the fleet of hundreds of cargo planes in service this year is expected to grow into thousands by the end of another year." the duration are losing their American perspective. If the the duration, are losing their American perspective. If the airlines had failed to measure up to the tasks imposed on them, such a position might be justified. But they have not failed. We are fighting this war to save private enterprise, not to destroy it. Every pilot who wears the uniform of a commercial airline can be doubly proud. He is carrying on a military mission against the enemy, and as a civilian he is helping mightily to preserve a nucleus from which the airlines air-lines can expand in the peace to come, over the entire world, bringing to all peoples a good example of what the free institutions in-stitutions of America can do. |