Senate during that period. But the interesting thing was that all the airlines that were airlines became airways and all the airways became airlines. They made a superficial change of top management. All the other personnel came back and they were essentially the same organizations. This was the way they were able to save face and put the whole thing back together again.

            Interesting enough, it was probably a blessing in disguise for the country, because finding out that the Air Corps wasn’t properly trained to do even this, they instituted training procedures. They stopped being a 9 to 5 Air Corps and learned instrument and night flying and as you know this was just about six-and-a-half years or seven years before we entered World War II. Just think, if we hadn’t had that head start through the fiasco of the airmail cancellations we would have been in very serious trouble going into World War II. So that is probably the turning point of the early era and the beginning the airlines’ progress into being what they are today.

            For a complete story on Col. Lewis B. Brittin’s problems with the U.S. Senate’s Committee to investigate airmail contracts see: Flight to the Top”, a history of Northwest Airlines, by Kenneth D. Ruble. Viking Press, 1986. The book is available through the NWA History Centre.