New Route, New Factory

There are only two airlines in the world which cancel flights when the weather is too good. They are both in China--Eurasia Aviation Corp. (partly German-owned) and China National Aviation Corp. (partly owned by Pan American Airways)--and the reason for their idiosyncrasy is that their courses lie over Japanese-held territory, and Japanese aviators like to shoot down any Chinese plane in sight, civil or military. Each line has had one plane shot down, several wrecked on the ground, many chased by the Japanese. Fourteen passengers have been killed.

Despite the fact that these lines fly mostly at night, usually in filthy weather, over terrain which alternates fantastic Chinese-print mountains with treacherous rice-paddy terraces, they have had no serious accidents which were not brought on by Japanese guns. Because traditional modes of transportation in free China--oxcart, ass, camel, over miserable roads--are unbearably slow, and because trucks so often break down in Chinese hands, these lines are so heavily booked that some passengers have to wait a month for a seat. The planes are always filled to maximum capacity. Eurasia flies Junkers, C. N. A. C. flies Douglases, and both use German Telefunken wireless compasses and direction-finders--among the best in the world.

Last week C. N. A. C. inaugurated a new service between Chungking, capital of China, and Rangoon, capital of Burma. The famed Burma Road is the most important ground line of communications between free China and the outside world, and for those who must see that China gets the essential materials of war, the parallel air route is indispensable.

Most interesting to the 14 passengers on the inaugural flight was a stop they made, in a cut in the Burma jungle just outside the China border. There, miles from civilization of any sort, they found a community of 15 U. S. experts, their families, nearly 1,000 Chinese workers, living in a modern town with electric lights, running water, bungalows, playgrounds, and a $4,000,000 plant of U. S.-owned Central Aircraft Co. which will produce fighting planes to help China win.

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