When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the commercial airlines of the United States were operating 341 transport planes. Almost at once the Army and Navy began to take over transport planes from the airlines for war service. The Army organized the Air Transport Command. This new branch of the Air Forces, under the command of Major General Harold L. George, a former Air Plans officer, started in the Spring of 1942 in a one-room office with a personnel of three men. Since that time the Air Transport Command has grown to be the world’s largest airline. In addition to operating Army transport planes, the Air Transport Command contracted with the country’s major airlines to fly Army men and materials. Thus many of the transport planes which in peacetime flew over our countryside went into war service and began to fly over distant lands. All the major airlines contributed planes and crews to the vital needs of war. DC-3’s, which a few weeks before had been flying between our big cities, began to fly over oceans and mountain ranges in every quarter of the globe. At the start most of the planes used for Air Transport Command cargo were Douglas DC-3’s and DC-2’s and a few Boeing _Stratoliners_. The new Douglas DC-4’s being built for the airlines when war began went right off the production lines into service for the Army or Navy. The Navy also developed their own air transport service and operated in a manner similar to the ATC. This group was known as the Naval Air Transport Service or NATS. The Army Air Transport Command operated its own weather stations, radio ranges, and airfields in the same manner as the commercial lines did in peacetime. Planes flew vital war cargo and personnel on systematic airline procedure. Millions of miles were flown daily by planes rushing tons of men and materials to the far-flung battlefronts of the world. Practically every bit of matériel taken into China during the first three years of war was flown in over some of the worst flying terrain in the world. The work of the Air Transport Command, the Naval Air Transport Service, and the major airlines has been one of the truly magnificent jobs of the war. Pan American’s first transatlantic competitor, American Export Airlines, started its first service in 1942 flying wartime cargo. The research and safety devices developed in peacetime by our commercial airlines played a tremendous part in the success of our world-wide wartime transport service. Not only did the airlines furnish planes and crews for the war effort, but they also set up schools and trained hundreds of transport pilots, crews, ground service men, and operations men for the military transport service.