Ferry Command

[pbfoot]

Just watched a documentary about Ferry Command and learned an interesting fact the RAF wouldn't supply pilots to ferry the aircraft as they thought it couldn't be done so Beaverbrook and the Austrailian Bennett were forced to recruit pilots bush pilots and crop dusters or those with low time and few skills to ferry aircraft across the North Atlantic . Another interesting fact was up to this point fewer then 100 flight had transited the pond.

[ndicki]

Lots of women, too - look for the ATA.

[pbfoot]

The ATA did great work but mainly delivered aircraft short distances flights I've seen log books for the ATA and in the UK the average flight was under 25 minutes but the Ferry Command guys ferried over 10000 aircraft around the world thats a huge difference pioneering the North Atlantic. Flying aircraft across the Atlantic with no navaids to a land that was blacked out hoping the weather at their destination was as forecasted with the limited met facilities available

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeap the US also used a lot of women as ferry pilots.

[ndicki]

Interesting little link:

The Royal Air Force - History Section

This one has more pictures:

British Airways Museum Collection - ATA
British Airways Museum Collection - ATA Images

And apparently, the largest foreign contingent was American!

[pbfoot]

Not to demean the women but ferry command pilots flew aircraft long distances from the factories in North America to the theatres of operations flying an aircraft from the US to India or Austrailia is much more difficult then flying from Manston to Debden. The fact being the women get more credit then the guys who pioneered trans oceanic but I guess we must be politically correct

[dmoores]

Thanks for the info. Any idea who made it? Does Gander NFLD feature in it?

Cheers

DM

[pbfoot]

heres a link to the documentary it was on the CBC or Canadian Broadcasting Company and to clarify something there were no women in Ferry Command
CBC-TV: Doc Zone - Ferry Command

[Magyckman]

Along those same lines, I have a very interesting little booklet titled The Atlantic Bridge published in London in 1945 by His Majesty's Stationery Office. I paid a nice little price for it to an Air Canada pilot who fetched it back across the pond for me when I was working in Alberta a few years ago. I'd have to reread it to recall the details, but it's quite an interesting read and "jumpng the pond was no small feat then." These men played a vital role in the war effort.

[Krabat42]

And don't forget the russians. They had their own "ferry command" with lots of pilots picking up planes in Alaska and flying them to Siberia. AFAIK they were using women too. I remember a book about this topic. I have to check for the title though.

[Wildcat]

Another interesting and lesser known operation was conducted by QANTAS and the RAAF starting in 1943 called the Indian Ocean Service. Because the Japanese had captured Singapore, a new route across the Indian Ocean was needed, therefore QANTAS flew via Sri Lanka (Ceylon). The distance from Perth (western Australia) to Sri Lanka was 5632Km (3513miles). These flights were initially made by Catalina's and later Liberators in complete radio silence (Japanese a/c were active in the area) and without any radio navigation. Apparently this was the worlds longest non-stop over water service at the time.

[Magyckman]

I don't remember offhand which WASP it was, but one of the WASP who flew P-39's and P-63's to Great Falls to be flown on to Russia sat across from one of the Russian women in the chow hall who had came to pick up a 'Cobra . There's an interesting little anecdote about the WASP not knowing who the Russian woman was and sticking her foot in her mouth.

You probably already know this, but the Russians used a lot of women in combat in WWII. One group flew old Po-2's and harrased the German troops by droping small bombs on their barracks every night. A lot of the women burned to death in those old crates when they were hit by the guns of German night fighters. The Germans despised them and named them the "Night Witches."

[Nonskimmer]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

...the CBC or Canadian Broadcasting Company

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Sorry. Bad habit, picking on useless sh*t like that. Always drove the wife insane.

Wasn't there a national history ad on TV a couple of years back, celebrating some Canadian female ferry pilot during WWII? Remember, in the ad she was delivering a Spitfire to an English field somewhere, in heavy fog? I forget her name already, that's how interested I was.

[Pike]

The outfit was called The Air Transport Auxillary and their story is told in a book entitled possibly "The Thin Blue Line"

[david_layne]

From "Atlantic Bridge"