WW2 USAAF Air Transport Command, LeVelle & Co. Sterling,
logo insignia of the Army Air Forces Air Transport Command (1941 – 1948). The ATC was originally the ferrying command that the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) served in.
On May 29, 1941, the Air Corps created the Ferrying Command to fly aircraft from U.S. factories to Canada and to Atlantic ports for delivery to Great Britain. By the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the command had delivered approximately 1,350 planes for Britain.
Also, the command established air transport service between Washington and Britain. On July 1, 1941, Lt. Col. Caleb V. Haynes inaugurated the first flight in a modified B-24 by way of Newfoundland and soon the command was making regular flights to England. With Maj. Curtis E. LeMay as co-pilot, Lt. Col. Haynes began a pioneering 26,000-mile survey trip on Aug. 31, 1941, across the southern Atlantic via Brazil from the United States to the Middle East and back. Projects also began in 1941 to build airbases along a southern flight corridor from the United States to Australia. Regular service along this route began in 1942.
When the United States entered World War II, the War Department was forced to turn to the civilian airlines for aid in securing additional aircraft, developing new flight routes and transporting cargo and passengers on contract over domestic and foreign routes. Thousands of new transport planes were ordered, reservist pilots were called to active duty and hundreds of civilians were commissioned as officers and made "service pilots," a rating for which physical qualifications were lower than for a combat pilot.
On June 20, 1942, the Ferrying Command became the Air Transport Command with world-wide responsibility for ferrying aircraft; transporting personnel, materiel and mail and for maintaining air route facilities outside of the United States. By the end of 1944, ATC had more than 3,000 transport aircraft in use and had become the "life line" of the USAAF, flying to every part of the world where U.S. troops served.
