By Greenland's Icy Mountains

One reason the United Nations often appear to be losing the war is their shortage of shipping. But in one important respect that shortage may soon mean little. The U.S., along with Canada, is perfecting a chain of Arctic and north Atlantic air bases. Already bombers and patrol planes can give convoys continuous air protection, all the way across the North Atlantic. U.S. fighters as well as bombers may soon be delivered to Europe by air.

The Chicago Daily News last week reported news of this new U.S. air front. In a dispatch datelined "A Labrador Air Base," Newsman B. J. McQuaid told how construction crews waded ashore from ships off Labrador, cut down trees and built rafts to float their first equipment ashore, then built a corduroy causeway to the ships, then hauled enough tools and material ashore to build a dock. Afterward, in 20-ft. snows, they cleared a roadway 100 miles inland, built an airport complete with runways, hangars, living quarters.

Canadian airmen and planes now use the Labrador airdrome for Atlantic patrol; U.S. air forces will soon arrive.

Labrador's air base is merely one in a string, stretching northward from Newfoundland to Baffin Island. From Newfoundland and Labrador planes fly a constant anti-submarine patrol. The Labrador fields, although north of the Army's bases in Newfoundland, are better off for all-year flying than those in Newfoundland. Reason: Newfoundland's persistent, plaguing fogs, which have often interrupted but never halted bomber deliveries to Britain. Even Greenland's vast, inland icecap is not the hazard which most people suppose it to be. Says the U.S. Army Air Corps Arctic Manual (published in 1940): ". . . Greenland is practically one continuous and nearly perfect landing field for planes equipped with skis. Most of the inland ice is good for wheels, too. . . ." Greenland's chief obstacle is not cold, snow or ice, but variable, stormy winds which whip the high plateau.

The Atlantic conveyor belt may start moving soon. According to reports published last fall, and in the Daily News last week, Army fields in Greenland are or soon will be ready for use. The Army already has airfields in Iceland, where U.S. Major General Charles Hartwell Bonesteel has taken over the command of all troops from Britain's Major General Henry Osborne Curtis. Last week General Curtis received the Distinguished Service Medal, first U.S. decoration awarded to a Briton in World War II.

Between known airdrome sites, fighters equipped with extra fuel tanks could easily hop the Atlantic to Northern Ireland. Their longest over-water hop would be about 950 miles, well within the range of this year's U.S. fighters.

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