Shortly after the outbreak of the war, the Army had issued orders to halt all production of transports, a mandate that was revoked only after a Congressional delegation had intervened. Later, in a quick turnabout, the Army tried to take over the airline transport system intact. Yet even after it had absorbed nearly half of the airplanes in service, along with a large number of key men, the commercial airlines stepped up their plane utilization to the point where they were carrying more passengers than ever before but with half the equipment. On January 19, 1942, the Navy organized the Naval Air Transport Service, or NATS, and on June 1, the Army followed with the Air Transport Command, or ATC. Out of the confusion as to the functions of air transport, these two military services emerged to become indispensable to the prosecution of the war. After this, the Douglas four-engined transport project was revived and rushed into volume production. Almost overnight, Army and Navy C-54’s, and the commercial version, DC-4’s, began winging all over the world to carry important people and critical materials to meet desperate situations. Now as this service expanded, it hurdled the submarine blockade and became in fact the safest means of transport, as well as the most expeditious. Of all the various world services, that across the Himalayan Hump became the best known, but the over-all performance of the military air-transport services and the commercial operators was so outstanding as to lead to the conviction by many that economic air transport had arrived. In United Aircraft, we lived in mortal terror of a sudden cessation of hostilities which, like that following the Armistice, would lead to disorderly reconversion, and the extinction of the private aircraft-manufacturing industry. For by now we were blown up so far beyond any size warranted by our own resources or possible for postwar production that we could not possibly survive the deflation. As a hedge against this debacle, we decided our only recourse was to build new engines as the basis for new and more economical commercial aircraft which would replace the war-surplus DC-4’s and put the airlines in position to make money under peacetime conditions. In face of the feeling of certainty among our engineers that they just could not undertake any further developments with their current war load, management took responsibility for the decision and we set up the project. With a view to strengthening our research division we made a number of changes. Frank Caldwell moved over from Hamilton-Standard. My old friend Dr. Lucke, now retired from active teaching but very much alive to new developments, joined John Lee on a consulting basis. To utilize the experience and facilities of scientific institutions, we farmed out numerous research projects pertaining to jet propulsion. As a final accomplishment, we enlisted the help of Charles A. Lindbergh.