North Atlantic Route
The North Atlantic air ferry route was a series of Air Routes over the North Atlantic Ocean on which aircraft were ferried from the United States and Canada to Great Britain during World War II to support combat operations in the European Theater of Operations (ETO).
The route was developed as one of four major routes along which United States aircraft were ferried to the major combat areas. It originated at several Army Air Bases in New England, which permitted short range single-engined aircraft to be flown to Britain using a series of intermediate airfields in Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland and Iceland. Long-range multi-engined aircraft could be flown from Newfoundland directly using Great Circle routes to airfields in Ireland and southwest England; or via the Azores to the UK or airfields in French Morocco to support Allied air forces in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO). Later in the war, air routes over the North Atlantic were developed from South Florida via Bermuda to the Azores.
Although many air route surveys of the North Atlantic had been made in the 1930s, by the outbreak of World War II in Europe, civilian trans-Atlantic air service was just becoming a reality. It was soon suspended in favor of military activities. The increasing need for Britain and France to obtain military aircraft in the United States revived interest in intermediate airfields along the "stepping stone" of the North Atlantic. Although airports existed in Newfoundland, and Britain built an airfield in Reykjavik, Iceland (1940), the only practical way to get short-range aircraft to Europe was by cargo ship.
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