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Show DREW PEARSON Air Force Faces Failure Now that the election hubbub Is quieting down, we have to face the cold and unpleasant fact that the Berlin airlift Is in danger of buckling. buck-ling. Top military strategists are still hanging on to a grim hope that the airlift will hold out until spring, but It will take cold cash and sheer guts and American lives to do it. Here is what the airlift is up against: 1. MOST SERIOUS, the air force is desperately short of cargo planes. More than half of its elephant-bellied C-54s now re flying the Berlin run. Elsewhere Else-where the air force has been furced to cut its normal transport trans-port service. But the worst fear is that all these cargo planes, flying right under Russia's nose, might be the target for a Pearl Harbor of the air in case Russia Rus-sia decides to strike. As the U. S. navy was paralyzed at Pearl Harbor, so the U. S. air force could be paralyzed at Berlin. Ber-lin. 2. THE AIR FORCE Is out of money. Its budget experts al- ready are working on a deficiency deficien-cy appropriation. The air force also has no money to build new cargo planes, has committed every available dollar to build bombers and fighters. S. WINTER IS sure to harass the airlift more than the Russians. Rus-sians. In the past Germany's severe weather has grounded better planes than those now flying the airlift. The air force already has alerted its public-relations public-relations officers to prepare for an increase In accidents. 4. THE PROBLEM of maintenance mainte-nance is still serious, though not critical. One-fourth of the planes assigned to the Berlin airlift are constantly in the pipeline pipe-line between Germany and the United States for repairs. This policy of rotation has been working work-ing better than expected, is one of the factors that has encouraged encour-aged air force chiefs to predict that the airlift will finally squeak through the winter despite de-spite everything. . |
