No. 2 AMERICAN AIRLINES. INC.
Also attached is a list of the trips accomplished by all crew
members, and I would like to point out here that in the Army each crew
member that completes 25 one way "hump" trips is entitled to the Air
Medel, while those who complete 25 round trips are awarded the D. F. C.
From this record and using the Army's basis of recognition, I believe
that the merit of the remarks in my last few paragraphs will be
recognized. At Lt. Col. Hardin's suggestion, a letter showing the flight per-
formence of our personnel has been addressed to him because he feels
that some Government recognition will be forthcoming and he wishes to
initiate a reccomendation. Regardless of whether our personnel gets official recognition for
their fine services, all members will have the satisfaction of knowing
that they took part in carrying out a notable and historical project
that constitutes another "first" for American Airlines as well as for
the Government. Never again will any group be able to say that they
too were a part of Project 7-A. Although those actually at Tezpur should be given full credit for
the sucess of Project 7-A, we must not lose sight of the large amount
of effort put forth by many members of the different Company departments
in order that equipment and facilities might be provided. The efforts of those at LaGuardia will be known to most of those
who read this report, however I would like to include the efforts of
personnel at Miami, Stations Nos. 159 and 133 for particular commendation.
All those groups did excellent work in expediting the movement of
equipment, personnel and supplies through their stations. By obtaining an unbelievable amount of spare parts and supplies for
transfer to the project, both Bolling at Station 159 and LeCompte at
Station 133 deserve special attention. How these men obtained some of the
supplies and parts from already harrassed supply officers, is a story
yet to be told, however, it can be said that time and again inccoming
parts from these two stations saved a shut down of both 7-A and Army
operated transports. By way of refreshing our memories, it should be stated that as far
as American Airlines was concerned, the birth of Project 7-A was announced
through a Washington telephone call on Sunday, July 18, 1943. With the
vague instructions that were then given, all departments of the Company
got busy and by Monday night the 19th plans had been formulated
for movinglO planes, 180 men and sufficient supplies from various points
in the United States and some foreign stations to a yet undisclosed base in
remote North East India. With a bale of secret instructions from all departments, I left
LaGuardia early Tuesday morning, the 20th, for Miami where Joe Healey
and I proceeded to unwind the red tape that would obtain and release
for issue every sort of Army equipment needed for 180 men who were
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