Flight To Everywhere [With Illustrations] Vol. II

By Ivan Dmitri

A PICTURE JOURNEY OVER 12,000 MILES OF AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND ROUTES THROUGH JUNGLE, DESERT AND ARCTIC

First published in 1944, this is the first part of a stunning book that provides an in-depth look at the far-flung operations of the Air Transport Command and Army Air Forces, and provides a valuable contribution to the understanding of America’s heroic air accomplishments.

Richly illustrated throughout with photographs and sketches by Ivan Dmitri. A renowned U.S. artist and colour photography pioneer, Dmitri produced the first ever color photograph gracing the cover of the Saturday Evening Post’s edition dated May 29, 1937, and his second cover in 1944, depicting his photo of General ‘Hap’ Arnold with B-17’s flying overhead, proved so popular that the United States used the photo image to print a very rare World War II war effort poster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valmy Publishing
• Release date: Mar 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789121056

Ivan Dmitri

Ivan Dmitri (1900-1968), born Levon West, was an American artist and author. Born in Centerville, South Dakota, his father was a Congregational minister who immigrated from Armenia. The family changed its surname from their Armenian name of Assadoorian to West during World War I, and Levon West adopted the pen name of Ivan Dmitri to use for his color photography (although his etchings and watercolors were always done under Levon West). Dmitri moved often as a boy, as his father preached in a series of North Dakota towns. The family settled in Harvey in 1918, where Dmitri graduated high school as valedictorian. Following service in the U.S. Navy during World War I, he graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1924. He then studied at the Art Students’ League in New York, where he formed an aviation corporation with friends servicing planes at Roosevelt Field on Long Island. Dmitri’s etching from his sketches of Charles Lindberg’s Spirit of St. Louis plane on a record breaking trans-Atlantic flight made the front page of the New York Times, leading to a series of successful etchings and national prominence. He was also a skilled watercolorist and pioneer in color photography, landing the first color photographic cover on the Saturday Evening Post magazine in May 1937. Dmitri helped to gain acceptance for photography as an art medium, and established one of the first photography exhibits at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1959, he founded Photography in the Fine Arts. He was a recipient of the North Dakota Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award in April 1962, the third person so inducted. He passed away in 1968.

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Text originally published in 1944 under the same title.

© Valmy Publishing 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

FLIGHT TO EVERYWHERE

BY

IVAN DMITRI

Volume II

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2

BENGASI, LIBYA 3

TUNIS, NORTH AFRICA 114

PALERMO, SICILY 120

ALGIERS 160

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO 178

NORTH ATLANTIC 189

GOOSE BAY, LABRADOR 201

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 257

BENGASI, LIBYA

It was bloody and historic country over which we flew on the route to Bengasi. There were Matruh and El Sollum, both within the boundaries of Egypt. We entered North Libya and soared past the battered town of Tobruk, now little more than a large pile of rubble. Not far beyond lay Bengasi.

We heard a familiar click of steel. The giant rubber-tired tricycle which is the landing gear swung out below the belly of our C-87 Army Transport plane and locked firmly into place.

Blue wastes of water beneath us were rimmed by a tiny margin of whitecaps where the Mediterranean laps against a bright yellow beach. A green strip, 10 miles wide, along the shore line, then tawny wastes of sand stretched endlessly southward. A few white patches, glittering in desert sunlight, grew to the outlines of a city. We circled the Bengasi airport and, engines softly throttling down, came in with all the ease of an airliner landing at La Guardia Field.

Quite differently had the big Libs, Douglases, and other planes of the ATC set down their passengers and cargo a few months before. The runways then had been gouged with bomb holes and the pilots of these unarmed sky trucks, scorching to avoid attack, found no perfect strip of concrete to accommodate their 20-ton ships. A prayer—or a curse accomplished the trick in those days.

Rommel was gone now, gone for the last time and Bengasi was having a necessary breather. The British had taken the town from Rommel on Christmas Day, 1941; a month later the enemy recaptured it and held it until November, 1942, when Montgomery again ejected them, this time, permanently.

Driving in a jeep on our way to the IXth Bomber Command headquarters was like driving through a movie set—buildings with one wall standing or entire fronts gone, open rooms staring at us in surprise, dirt and rubbish everywhere. It was too overdone to be authentic.

Natives, trudging along with their camels, did not share our interest in these things—they were returning home. Bengasi, to us a weather-beaten wasps’ nest fast falling to pieces, was sweet to them, as is any home, however wrecked. A steady stream of Libyans shuffled endlessly toward the town. The camels looking bored, as camels always do, had their backs piled high with household belongings. Bright shawls and rugs, baskets, jugs, stew pans, kids, everything owned by these Okies of the African dust bowl were being borne aloft by these compliant beasts.

We passed a group of Senussi. At least the youth of North Africa could muster a grin for a stranger—little girls delicately featured and with skin like ripe olives, flashed gleaming, happy smiles at us and waved gaily. Tattoo marks ornamented their faces, the Arab version of cosmetics without which no young girl of that region could consider herself even presentable, not to mention attractive.

Again, more wreckage. Twisted guns, smashed tanks, crazy-angled broken-off plane wings, tails or noses told us we had arrived at the junkyard of North Africa. Every old battlefield in this war is a heap of junk, a place where men and machines perished together. Now, only metal skeletons remained, red with rust, and the paint peeling—the whole resembling an excavated burial ground of winged pre-historic monsters.

Command Headquarters, a group or buildings near Bengasi, is one of war’s wonders, it has served the same purpose for both sides so often that count is lost. The buildings, considering their vulnerability, are exceptionally well preserved. In one, the British found a book left by the Germans containing the names of visiting Axis dignitaries. Though departure had been hasty, the Germans had written on the flyleaf: Keep this book in order. We’ll be back.

The British not only kept the book, they used it as their own registry for visiting brass hats. A month later, when at Rommel’s insistence they had to leave, the book remained. When the British again occupied Bengasi GHQ, there was the book, with added German signatures. Doubtless it will wind up in the British Museum, but what a find for an autograph fan!

At Command Headquarters I discovered that here as everywhere else in the war areas the visitor on special assignment, take myself, is on his own. Attention, courtesy, and helpful information you’ll get, but you’ll lug your own water and forage for your own water can.

The Adjutant General and A2 Intelligence cast the usual penetrating eye on credentials and then a supply officer produced a cot and two blankets and ordered a 90-pounder for my occupancy. This was the tent which was to be my home for two weeks. It was eight by twelve feet and had been pitched not over 100 yards from the Mediterranean. It had no floor, and a cot was the only furniture. But weeks of living with the ATC had taught me how to use the things at hand. Two flashbulb cases made an excellent table. My helmet had been lost in the shuffle so I made a wash basin of an empty rusted tin can.

My one luxury item made up for many discomforts. Louise, my wife, had bought some candles at Abercrombie’s on my last day in New York. I had lugged them 26,000 miles to China and back and many times had considered saving their weight. But now, in the desert, candles were priceless. They enabled me to climb into bed with less danger of stepping on an uninvited guest. The scorpions have a sting that lingers. They take up lodging in shoes, pants legs, beds, open duffle bags, and every other likely spot about a tent. They do their prowling at night, thus walking around barefooted is practised by only the uninitiated.

As ATC was to pick me up in a fortnight, my stay could be no rest period. I tossed my luggage and most of my paraphernalia onto my cot and, camera in hand, hurried to join Colonel Keith Compton for my first inside glimpse of a bomber command at work.

We’ve been here so long there isn’t much we’ve missed, the Colonel said. And indeed the IXth Bomber Command’s record is unparalleled in history of desert warfare. In June, 1942, the command took part in that raid on the Italian fleet which virtually disposed of Italy as a sea power in this war. Our fliers had pounded Rommel’s supply line. They had bombed the north coast of Africa from Tobruk and Bengasi westward to Tripoli, Sfax, Tunis, and Bizerte.

Axis convoys had made port on the bottom of the Mediterranean as a result of these sorties. Harbors in Sicily, the Italian mainland, Greece, Salonika, Crete—all this has been our happy hunting ground, the Colonel told me.

Yet in all this time the IXth had never been bombed or directly attacked. One February night, however, a Nazi bomber had followed a wounded Liberator home. As the big ship limped into its landing field, the Nazi swooped down and let it have everything.

Colonel Nero says that Lib had more holes than Carter has pills, Colonel Compton laughed.

Nero should know, he has to put them together again.

Upon Lt.-Col. Ulysses S. Nero’s shoulders rested the responsibility of salvaging those parts of battle-damaged Liberators that could be put to