AIRCRAFT
Next to the manufacture of ordnance, the production of airplanes and
balloons and their accessories was the largest war enterprise of
American industry. A hundred thousand workmen toiled in the aircraft
factories, the business of which was represented by over 5,000 war
contracts with a face value of several hundred million dollars. For
the airplanes themselves, the contracts involved the War Department
in the sum of $196,000,000, but this branch of the industry was but
a small part of the entire air program. Merely for motor trucks the
Air Service entered upon commitments reaching a value of $45,000,000.
The investment in flying fields, balloon schools, and other physical
installations erected during the war in the United States was, on
November 11, 1918, approximately $75,000,000. Nearly 20,000 men had
been trained to fly, and the Air Service numbered all its officers
and men at 175,000--an organization larger than the regular army
establishment in 1916. On Armistice Day the Air Service had spent
$43,000,000 in the production of spruce for our own airplane factories
and those of the Allies. For this investment it had to show a great
logging equipment, including sawmills, three railroad systems (with 130
miles of trackage), hotels, and the housing for thousands of woodsmen.
It was heavily involved also in plans for the production of other raw
materials used in the manufacture of airplanes--$30,000,000 invested
or obligated in the development of a chain of chemical plants for
producing “dope,” the varnish that stretches and waterproofs the fabric
of airplane wings; and $8,000,000 tied up in the fabric itself or in
raw cotton for weaving into fabric. The Service spent over $25,000,000
for gasoline and oil. The largest enterprise of all was the production
of airplane engines, the contracts for which reached a total value of
$450,000,000.
These figures are cited to show the enormous size of our air project,
to show, also, how small a part of a balanced air program is the
manufacture of the airplanes themselves, and, finally, to controvert
and refute the widespread, the almost universal, impression to-day that
the whole air program of America in the war was a failure, a scandal,
and a blot on the fair name of our war industry.
The average American, if he has not examined the record of our war
aircraft program, probably holds the opinion that a billion dollars
or more appropriated for aircraft vanished into thin air during the
war, and that all we had to show for the enormous expenditure was a
few hundred airplanes of inferior design. To this day such statements
are still being made by irresponsible journalists and other careless
critics of the conduct of the war. Against such assertions we oppose
the statement that the production of aëronautical materials during the
war was as successful as any other great branch of war industry, that
we got value received for our money--“war value,” that is--and that the
losses incurred were the natural and inevitable losses to be expected
by any nation unprepared for war. The general charge of shocking waste
and failure reposes upon nothing more substantial than rumor and muddy
impression. Behind the rejoinder we are able to marshal the facts,
which are, with the demobilization of the industry virtually complete,
now to be evaluated as a whole.
[Illustration:
_Photo from Packard Motor Car Co._
PREPARING LIBERTY ENGINES FOR STORAGE]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
ASSEMBLING PLANT AT ROMORANTIN]
In the first place, how much money did we actually spend in the
prosecution of the great aircraft program? A billion and a half? A
billion? Not at all. The war appropriations for the air were widely
advertised; the acts of Congress covering back into the Treasury the
unexpended balances, the transfers of air service funds to other
purposes, and the recoveries and reimbursements from the sales of
surplus materials were not so well advertised. The well-advertised
appropriations came to a total of $1,691,854,758. But the greater part
of these appropriations was made when the Air Service was a branch of
the Signal Corps, and a considerable sum went for the procurement
of signaling materials not connected with aircraft at all. Moreover,
when the armistice came, several hundred million dollars of these
authorizations were as yet untouched by those procuring the aircraft,
and Congress revoked all such appropriations. When the subtractions are
made on account of the Signal Corps’ proper business and on account of
revoked appropriations, we find that the net appropriation on account
of the air program was $1,158,070,773.
[Illustration:
_Signal Corps Photo from drawing by J. André Smith_
FLYING FIELD AT ISSOUDUN]
[Illustration:
_Signal Corps Photo from drawing by J. André Smith_
LAME DUCKS]
But this vast sum is still far above the sum actually spent. On the day
of the armistice there were great unexpended balances in practically
all the appropriations granted to the Air Service, and these balances
remained great after the liquidation of the industry. Since the
unexpended balances eventually will be recovered into the general funds
of the Treasury, it is proper to subtract them here; and by making the
subtraction, we find that the war expenditure for the aircraft program
was approximately $868,000,000. Yet even this was not net expenditure.
From this amount there is still to be subtracted the millions received
from the sale and transfer of surplus materials, the reimbursements
on account of overpayments to contractors, and other items. The full
subtraction of these credits leaves us with a net war expenditure for
aircraft of approximately $720,000,000.
This figure, indeed, is an estimate; but it is a close estimate. It
is an estimate because, at the time this is written (July, 1921), the
liquidation of the war aircraft industry is not yet quite complete.
Four contractors’ claims are still unsettled, and surplus worth less
than $18,000,000 remains unsold. Therefore, even if the estimated
cost of settling the claims and the estimated recovery from the sale
of surplus are grossly inaccurate, such errors cannot greatly affect
the total estimate. The last official financial statement on the war
business of the Air Service, dated April 23, 1921, showed that the net
cost then was $738,133,972.28, leaving in the Treasury at that time an
unexpended balance of $419,936,801.20, and this cost was still to be
reduced by recoveries from the sale of surplus and by reimbursements
of overpayments made to contractors in the settlements.
Thus we have, as the cost of the war air program, the figure
$720,000,000--not half the billion and a half alleged by the critics
to have been wasted. But what happened to the $720,000,000? Was it
wasted? What did we get for it? The answers to these questions may be a
revelation to those who have accepted the common misstatement that the
whole project ended in a colossal failure.
First, airplanes. For the money spent the Army received, not a few
hundred airplanes, but approximately 19,000. When the money was
appropriated, those in charge of the air program, and the public,
too, expected these funds to produce airplanes in numbers sufficient
to darken the skies. Well, here was the sky-darkening cloud of
them--19,000 planes, produced and delivered to the Army. And at least
half this number consisted of “service” planes, as distinguished from
training machines. The average value of an airplane without engine may
be conservatively placed at $6,000. Thus, the planes delivered on the
war orders were worth $114,000,000, a sum which accounts for nearly
one-sixth of the total war expenditure made by the Air Service. In
round numbers, the American industry produced 12,000 of these planes
before the armistice, and afterwards, during the termination of the
work, completed production on 1,500 that were unfinished. The remaining
5,500 were purchased from the French, British, and Italian industries.
Those who criticize the administration of this branch of our war
industry commonly lose sight of the fact that all the foreign airplanes
procured by us were bought with the funds appropriated for the Air
Service.
Planes, however, are a small item compared with some of the other
materials procured with the $720,000,000. The American industry
produced 30,000 aviation engines before the armistice and more
than 11,000 afterwards on war orders during the termination of the
industry--the exact figure, representing the total war production,
being 41,590. Of these, 20,478 were Liberty engines, 15,572 of
which were produced before November 30, 1918. The Liberty engines
alone represented over 8,000,000 horsepower. In addition, from the
$720,000,000 spent, we bought several thousand aviation engines in
Europe. In all we received approximately 45,000 engines for our money.
At $6,000 apiece--a fair average price--this procurement accounted for
$270,000,000 of the money. Planes and engines together accounted for
$384,000,000, or more than half the total expenditure.
This was all value received. But we have still to consider many
important items of expense necessary to the prosecution of an air
project such as ours was. It took, for instance, $190,000,000 to
maintain the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Forces. The
appropriation procured 1,100 balloons both before and after the
armistice, at a cost, say, of $11,000,000. As we have noted above,
$75,000,000 went into buildings for the Air Service in this country,
another great sum into motor trucks, still another into fuel and
lubricating oils, and upwards of $80,000,000 into the development of
raw materials for airplane manufacture--spruce, dope, and fabric.
This last was a necessary and justifiable expenditure, in that it
sustained the airplane industry, not only of the United States, but of
the principal Allies as well. Too, the development of raw materials
was on a scale which anticipated great expansion of the manufacture of
airplanes in 1919 and 1920. And so we can go, item by item, through
the list of sub-enterprises in the aviation project and find that we
received great value for our money and that almost the only wastes
were the to-be-expected war wastes, largely due to our unpreparedness
for war. These wastes were represented in the high prices paid for
materials produced in such a hurry on such a scale. These high unit
prices, of course, took care of the cost of creating almost the whole
manufacturing equipment of the industry. However, we secured the
materials.
We may pause here, too, to correct another misapprehension which has
had some currency: namely, that not only was a billion shamefully
wasted on aircraft but it was wasted by the so-called dollar-a-year men
called to Washington and placed in charge of the aircraft program. The
only dollar-a-year men connected with that program in a conspicuous
capacity were the civilian members of the Aircraft Board--Mr. Howard
E. Coffin, chairman, and Messrs. Richard F. Howe and Harry B. Thayer,
the other two members. But the Aircraft Board was advisory only in
function and possessed absolutely no administrative or executive
powers. It acted as a clearing house in the effort to coördinate the
aircraft production of the War and Navy departments. The actual work
of procuring aircraft--designing, contracting for, inspecting, and
receiving materials--was always in the hands of the uniformed services.
The Aircraft Board had no control of the spending of appropriations,
except that of the relatively insignificant appropriation of $100,000
granted to it by Congress to cover its office expenses.
The industry which wrote the records of aircraft production was
attaining great momentum when the armistice was signed, although it
had not yet reached capacity production. It had, however, in the
final thirty-one days of active hostilities, produced 1,582 airplanes
(1,081 of which were De Haviland service planes for use in France),
5,177 engines (of which 3,034 were Liberty engines), and 249 kite
balloons. The business of terminating this industry was difficult.
The liquidation plan adopted was essentially like that used by the
Ordnance Department. Before the armistice the production branch of
the Air Service was organized into eight manufacturing districts,
with headquarters respectively at Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Dayton,
Detroit, New York, Pittsburg, and San Francisco. Five thousand persons
were employed by the district organizations. After the armistice the
district production boards became district claims boards for the Air
Service, and they conducted most of the actual work of terminating
production and arranging settlements with the contractors. Their
settlements went up for approval, first, to the Air Service Claims
Board and, finally, to the War Department Claims Board.
The air service contracts outstanding on the first day of the armistice
obligated the Government to accept completed materials to the value
of $767,423,308.50. Completed materials and raw and semi-finished
materials accepted by the Government in the settlement with the
contractors after the armistice reached a value of $259,733,874.30.
Thus the contracts and parts of contracts terminated in the liquidation
accounted for a cancellation of work to the value of $509,689,434.20.
In addition to accepting and paying for the materials, the Government
paid in cash to the producers in settlement of their claims the sum of
$94,013,776.51. Hundreds of contractors accepted the statutory $1.00
and relieved the Government of all financial obligation.
For the sole or leading purpose of creating reserves for future use by
the Army, there was little or no production of air supplies after the
armistice. Leaving aside all questions of the obsolescence of design,
no major class of military supplies is less durable in storage than
aircraft materials. Like an egg, an airplane or a balloon cannot be
slightly bad and still be usable. It must be 100-per-cent perfect,
or it is dangerous. The life of rubber is short even under the most
favorable conditions. The rubber in balloon fabric does not escape
this swift impairment. The rubber tires of airplanes deteriorate with
equal rapidity. The laminated and glued joints of the wooden wing
beams of airplanes expand, contract, and work loose in the varying
humidity of the surrounding air and are soon weakened below the safety
point. Propellers are also highly sensitive to changes in humidity and
temperature. Storage batteries, when stacked together in storage, wear
out in a few months, each cell apparently working upon and adversely
affecting its neighbors. Bolted wing cloth, when left folded, becomes
weak along the creases. Of all aviation supplies, engines are the least
susceptible to deterioration in storage.
In view of these considerations, such production of aircraft and
aviation supplies as was permitted after the armistice was undertaken
almost solely in the interest of the contractors and their employees.
Most of the factories were allowed to continue in operation under
war contracts only until they had used up materials in process of
manufacture when the armistice was signed. Even this operation was
conducted at a reduced rate. The airplane contracts had called for a
delivery of 27,000 planes in all. The production under these contracts,
in exact figures, amounted to 11,754 planes before the armistice and
1,732 afterwards, a total of 13,486 airplanes produced by the American
factories. Contract terminations canceled the production of about an
equal number.
The post-armistice production of airplane engines was somewhat greater,
both proportionately and in numbers of units delivered. This was due
partly to the greater momentum acquired by the engine project, partly
to the fact that engines could be stored safely and would retain good
military value for years to come, and partly to the necessity of
keeping the engine makers at work while their factories were turning to
normal production. The total American production of aviation engines
on the war contracts was as follows: deliveries to October 31, 1918,
28,509; deliveries thereafter, 13,081; total war production, 41,590. Of
these engines 20,493 were Liberty engines, of which about 5,000 were
produced after the armistice.
About 300 observation balloons were produced after the armistice before
the manufacture could be terminated.
In one important particular the policy adopted in the demobilization
of the war aircraft industry was exactly the opposite of that used
in demobilizing the ordnance industry. In working back to a peace
footing, it was the policy of the Ordnance Department to reserve
complete manufacturing equipments and to set up stand-by plants for the
manufacture of some of the most important materials in ordnance supply.
On the other hand, in demobilizing the airplane industry it was the
policy for the Government not to retain any manufacturing facilities
whatsoever. There were strong strategic reasons behind both these
policies. For field guns, for recuperators, for shell, and for other
important ordnance, there is little or no normal commercial demand;
and the only way the Ordnance Department could guarantee the future
existence of facilities for producing these materials was to retain
the equipment created during the war. But there is, or can be, some
commercial demand for airplanes, and some day there will undoubtedly
be a great commercial demand for them. It is important to the military
welfare of the United States that this country take a foremost place
in the improvement of designs and in the production of flying machines
for commercial use. Only through the development of a great independent
aircraft industry in this country can the Government be assured of the
existence of facilities upon which it can rely to give this nation
great power in the air. As conditions now are, the Government itself
must be the chief customer of the airplane industry, and on the
government orders the industry must live until commercial flying begins
to develop on a scale comparable at least to the early development of
railway transportation in the United States. If the Air Service were to
have retained the war manufacturing facilities as government producing
and stand-by plants, that act would have dealt a staggering blow to
the infant commercial industry in the most uncertain period of its
existence.
Only one exception was made. During the war the Wright-Martin Aircraft
Corporation developed a plant in Long Island City for the production of
Hispano-Suiza engines. This plant was purchased by the War Department
and is being retained as a stand-by plant under the name of the United
States Aëronautical Engine Plant. The future of this establishment,
however, is uncertain.
Although it ruthlessly dispensed with the war manufacturing facilities,
the Air Service retained in the demobilization a considerable part of
the physical plant created for it during the war. Of the twenty-six
flying fields used in the training of the war aviators, six have been
retained as flying fields. These are the Bolling, Langley, Mather, and
Kelly flying fields and the Carlstrom and March pilot training fields.
The present equipment also includes three balloon schools, three
balloon fields, one mechanics school (Chanute Field), one observation
school, various stations for the defense of our island possessions and
for the patrol of the Mexican border, nineteen supply, storage, and
repair depots, and various other stations.
The storage of reserve supplies retained by the Air Service afforded
some interesting problems, since nearly every class of supplies
required special treatment in storage. Engines, for instance, were
thoroughly covered inside and out with a heavy rust-preventing grease
compound before being stored away in dry, cool concrete warehouses.
Reserve balloons were dusted with talc, rolled carefully so as to put
as little weight as possible on creases and folds, enclosed in sealed
rubber envelopes, packed in wooden chests, which were then sealed up
so as to be practically waterproof and air-tight, and then stacked in
dry rooms in which air at a medium temperature circulates constantly
among the chests. Even so, no long life for the balloons is expected.
Wing fabric, both cotton and linen, was unbolted, rolled upon cardboard
tubes, wrapped in paper, and suspended on racks in rooms heated in
winter. Aviators’ fur and woolen clothing was stored in fly-proof and
moth-proof tar-paper-lined rooms, the floors of which were thickly
covered with naphthaline. Fabric was stripped from airplane wings
before storage in order to permit the free ventilation of the wood;
glued joints were given an extra coat of varnish; all metal parts were
painted with red lead or white lead; and the wings were stored in racks
designed to keep their edges straight. Thousands of propellers were
stored at the aviation supply depot at Middletown, Pennsylvania, in
a room in which moisture sprayers maintain a constant humidity and a
thermostat a constant temperature.
The aircraft contractors’ claims proved to be fairly easy to adjust
except one, the so-called castor bean case. This proved to be one
of the most vexing settlements which came before the War Department
Claims Board. From its humble position as an unwelcome medicament
of the nursery, castor oil jumped during the war to the eminence
of being an indispensable lubricant for the rotary engines used in
driving airplanes. The prospective demand in 1918 for castor oil
far outstripped the world supply. We needed 6,000,000 gallons by
July, 1919. The Air Service therefore took the unprecedented step of
attempting to grow castor beans in America, although castor beans, in
merchantable quantities, had never been grown here before. Still, in
the Southern States we had the correct climate, and no obstacle seemed
to stand in the way of a successful crop.
Accordingly, through twenty-three prime contractors, the Air Service
arranged with some 12,000 southern farmers to plant castor beans in
100,000 acres of land. Glittering prospects were held forth: thirty
bushels an acre was only an average yield, and the Government would
pay handsomely for the beans. Thus castor beans won 100,000 acres
of good American soil away from rice, cotton, and corn, even at the
war prices of these commodities. About planting-time in 1918 all was
ready--fields, husbandmen, and tools--all except seed. After all, the
farmers had to have seed; and to get seed the Government seized a cargo
of castor beans from India, originally committed to a more sinister
purpose. These beans the Government distributed among the 12,000
prospective producers, who planted them; and then, as the cartoonist so
aptly says, the fun began.
Certain of the growers, like suburban gardeners, watched for bean
shoots that never appeared. Some of these alien beans seemed to derive
a sort of floral madness from the heady gulf loam and sent up veritable
trunks twenty, thirty, and forty feet in air. But never a bean pod
crowned such luxuriant growth. Whether because of the growers’ lack
of experience, unfavorable climate, or, more likely, defective seed,
there has seldom been an American crop failure more nearly total than
this. By gleaning every bean, the producers managed to gather 181,000
bushels, or 1.8 bushels to the acre.
As soon as the fell result was known, 12,000 angry farmers besieged the
Government with demands for reparation. The claims aggregated millions.
Not only did the farmers hold the Government responsible for the crop
loss, but they also, dozens of them, put in claims for property damage
and restoration costs, maintaining that in clearing their lands after
the bean crop they had had to use stump pullers and dynamite to rout
out the enormous stalks. One farmer sarcastically credited the War
Department with his winter’s supply of firewood, which he said he
had been able to cut from his bean patch. The War Department finally
settled the claims for a total of $1,540,638, which was at the rate of
$8.50 a bushel for the beans received. Thus ended the first lesson in
the American cultivation of the castor bean. It will be some time yet
before the Department of Agriculture will have to create a branch to
gather statistics on the domestic castor bean crop.
The work of demobilizing the Air Service of the American Expeditionary
Forces ramified into several main branches: the cancellation of
our foreign contracts and the settlement of our accounts with the
governments of the Allies arising from the mutual purchases of
materials; the sale of the installations and surplus movable property
acquired by the Service during the war; the salvaging of worn-out
equipment; and the shipment to the United States of airplanes and
other equipment retained by the Air Service for future use. Most of
the surplus property of the Air Service abroad went to France in the
bulk sale of all surplus A. E. F. property, although some was taken
by other governments in Europe in smaller purchases. These sales were
consummated by the United States Liquidation Commission, which also
concluded the financial settlements of our air service accounts with
the Allied governments. These transactions are to be explained in some
detail in a later chapter. The disposition of all aircraft materials
retained by the A. E. F. was accomplished by the Air Service itself.
The A. E. F.’s production center before the armistice had been at the
great flying field at Romorantin, near Tours. Here all new airplanes
acquired by the A. E. F., either from the American industry or from
the factories in Europe, had been received, assembled, equipped, and
dispatched to the front. It had taken more than 10,000 officers and
enlisted men to do this work. After the armistice Romorantin was made
the concentration depot for all American air service supplies in
France, and here all materials for return to the United States were
boxed and forwarded to the ports. About 1,000 airplane engines were
shipped to the United States and 2,097 planes, of which 347 were
German, 1,139 British and French, and 611 American De Havilands.
Merely the packing of this equipment was a work of great size. It
required, for instance, 7,500,000 board feet of seasoned lumber for the
crates, besides large quantities of nails, bolts, clamps, wire cable,
paint, and roofing paper, and also tools for the packers. A lumber mill
employing 195 operatives was set up merely to resaw, tongue, and groove
the lumber for boxes and crates.
The 2,000 airplanes returned to the United States represented
practically all of the great aërial equipment of the A. E. F. which
was saved for use after the war. The sales of our used airplanes
abroad after the armistice, to either governments or individuals,
were practically nothing. The remaining thousands of airplanes which
had once borne the American insignia aloft were stripped of their
salvageable materials and burned in great bonfires, the pyres of
original investments running up into millions of dollars. This seeming
profligacy was harshly criticized by those in this country who did
not understand the conditions; but, when those responsible for the
destruction had put in their defense, the criticism ceased.
The life of airplanes in use or in storage is short at best. Thousands
of the A. E. F. planes had given considerable service, either at the
training fields or at the front. The average life expectancy of these
ships was probably less than three months. There was no sale for
them abroad--France already owned many more airplanes than she could
possibly use up, and the attempts of the Air Service to sell used
planes to individuals ended in complete failure. To knock down these
machines, box them, subject them once more to the deteriorating effects
of the salt humidity of a transatlantic voyage, and to reassemble
them in the United States, would still further impair their condition
and still further abbreviate their average life. There was also to be
considered the expense of maintaining soldiers in France to protect
this _matériel_ for several months, the expense of preparing it for
shipment, and finally,--the chief cost,--the expense of transporting it
to the United States. The question was whether it was good business
to spend all this money for the sake of returning to the United States
materials which at best would have a useful life of only a few weeks,
and which, because of the surpluses of new or little used airplanes
already on hand, might never be used at all. The War Department did
not hesitate in its answer. It ordered the sale or destruction of
all A. E. F. airplanes of this class; and, since sale proved to be
impossible, the order meant their destruction.
Those in charge of the work, realizing that criticism would be likely
to follow, proceeded most carefully. Only the newest, least used,
and best conditioned planes were reserved for shipment home. The air
squadrons with the Army of Occupation were given a plentiful supply
of airplanes. The rest, destined for destruction, were given several
inspections by different committees and boards of survey, in order that
the Chief of the Air Service might have a plentitude of expert opinion
on which to base his condemnation orders.
The Class D material, as this condemned property was called, was
concentrated in three centers--Romorantin, Issoudun (where the
A. E. F. had operated the largest flying school in the world), and
Colombey-les-Belles (the demobilization depot for the zone of advance).
Here were conducted the final inspections. Many of the condemned planes
presented, to the unpracticed eye, a perfect appearance. Storage space
in the zone of advance after the armistice had always been short,
and these apparently good machines had suffered from exposure to the
weather. They were water-soaked; glued joints had given away, wooden
parts were warped, and so on. They would have had to be completely
rebuilt to be safe. Others had broken struts and cross braces and other
damaged parts. All such machines were set aside for salvage.
[Illustration:
_Photo from Air Service_
AMERICAN AIRPLANE WRECKAGE]
[Illustration:
_Photo from Air Service_
FUEL FOR THE BONFIRE]
The condemned airplanes then passed from crew to crew, who dismantled
them. All miscellaneous metal parts were stripped out and sent to the
quartermaster depots for sale as junk metal. Engines were removed and
saved, as were also propellers, landing gears, wheels, tires, axles,
cowls, gas tanks and oil tanks, controls, instruments, radio apparatus,
machine guns, bomb racks, and many other serviceable articles. Even
complete wings, when in good condition, were removed and packed for
shipment to the United States. The remaining débris, consisting of
little more than the highly inflammable wooden construction members and
dope-covered wing fabric, was piled in great heaps and burned. More
than 2,300 airplanes were thus disposed of.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
GERMAN LOCOMOTIVE TAKEN OVER BY A. E. F. ENGINEERS]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Signal Corps_
ENGINEERS CONSTRUCTING BEAUNE UNIVERSITY]
One hundred observation balloons were ripped up and used for
tarpaulins, wagon covers, and the like. The rest of the A. E. F.
balloons were returned to the United States.
Airdromes on leased lands, occupied by small aviation units of the
A. E. F., were turned back to the owners of the property after troops
had dismantled all the war structures. With the exception of these,
the entire plant equipment of the Air Service in France, consisting
of training stations, observation schools, supply depots, and the
like, was taken over by the French Government. The American surplus of
aircraft in England was disposed of by the British Government, acting
as agent for the United States.