Transport: War Travel

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From transatlantic planes and ships white faces last week peered out fearfully at grey, rain-lashed waters that already cradled 18 torpedoed ships, some 200 corpses. To escape that fate Britain's proudest ocean queens dressed like drabs in grey. In the second week of World War II:

> Britain's Imperial Airways curtailed passenger flights in Europe, but maintained its transatlantic and Empire services. >Recalled from South America by their Governments were the planes of Germany's Lufthansa and France's Air France. Thus Pan American Airways became virtual cock-o'-the-walk on both North & South Atlantic routes.*

> Following the U. S. State Department's restrictions on transatlantic travel (see below), Pan American changed its European terminals to Foynes, Eire instead of Southampton, Lisbon, Portugal instead of Marseille. Same time, pleading "extraordinary demands upon the United States . . . services," Chairman Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney sought CAA permission to double Pan American's present twice-weekly transatlantic schedule, enabling it to carry nearly 200 passengers, 8,000 Ib. of mail.

> As part of the Government's neutrality program, Secretary of State Cordell Hull ordered Europe-bound U. S. citizens to submit their passports for validation, announced that only those traveling on "imperative business" would be approved. Passports of returning passengers were confiscated on their arrival.

> Hardest hit by Mr. Hull's crackdown were tourist agencies. With no tours to book, no increase in travel to non-warring countries, Thos. Cook & Son laid off 125 employes, tightened its belt, like many a competitor, prepared for a starvation diet.

>Most Atlantic steamship lines upped fares 50%.

> The Ile de France, carrying 1,777 passengers (400 more than her normal capacity), docked safe & sound after following a secret course with portholes blackened and blue bulbs burning dimly on deck. Her officers denied, her jittery passengers swore that they had spotted German U-boats. Café Socialite Grand Duchess Marie, delighted to be alive, took up a purse of $2,500 for the crew.

> The U. S. chartered all available vessels to evacuate some 17,000 U. S. citizens still stranded in Europe, but labor trouble delayed the sailings. For every U. S. seaman shipping to war zones the National Maritime Union demanded a $250 bonus, $25,000 insurance. Ships finally got under way when the Maritime Commission promised that any bonuses later agreed upon would be retroactive.

> The U. S. Government considered and rejected the idea of convoying U. S. ships in danger zones. It ordered U. S. ships, instead of slinking from U-boats or fighting back: to sail straight courses; at night to advertise themselves by a searchlight playing on the flags at their mastheads; to wear no camouflage but to paint the Stars and Stripes on their decks and hatch covers, to paint their names and flag large on their sides.