Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ SLIPSTREAM Books by Eugene E. Wilson AIR POWER FOR PEACE SLIPSTREAM _The Autobiography of an Air Craftsman_ [Illustration: _John Haley_ EUGENE E. WILSON] SLIPSTREAM _THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN AIR CRAFTSMAN_ _by_ EUGENE E. WILSON Whittlesey House MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SLIPSTREAM Copyright, 1950, by the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. It may not be used for dramatic, motion-, or talking-picture purposes without written authorization from the holder of these rights. Nor may the book or parts thereof be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Whittlesey House, 330 West 42d Street, New York 18, New York. PUBLISHED BY WHITTLESEY HOUSE A division of the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. _Printed in the United States of America_ _To my wife_ Preface To the world at large, Berlin Airlift headlines only highlighted another crisis in the “cold war.” Yet behind those headlines lay an epochal event: commercial air transports—not combat aircraft—had become the spearhead of United States foreign policy. This dramatic incident brought renewed hope to air craftsmen who, nearly a half century earlier, had embarked on a starry-eyed crusade to utilize the airplane for the benefit of mankind. In World War I, they had helped smash the German Kaiser, only to find Hitler rising phoenixlike in his boots. Two decades later, they had strafed Hitler to earth, only to discover a colossal portrait of Joseph Stalin looming beyond a smoke curtain. Still later, as atomic bombs and lethal bacteria became weapons, they were asking themselves, “what next?” when the Berlin Airlift came up with the answer: air cargo, air commerce, air industry, air finance—air power for peace! In December, 1943, we air craftsmen had our frustrations dramatized at a banquet staged in honor of the Wright brothers on the fortieth anniversary of Kittyhawk. Orville Wright, mouselike in a dinner jacket and obviously uncomfortable, had sat through a barrage of clichés microphoned by air power advocates. When finally called on to respond, he refused point-blank. Later, in an anteroom off the banquet hall, he gave vent to intense bitterness: evil men had seized upon the airplane to make it the most lethal weapon in history; he hated everything about the airplane; he rued the day he and his brother had invented the thing.