THE AIRPLANE TURNS ALL ROAD SIGNS NORTH
TO THE WORLD'S NEW ARCTIC CROSSROADS
DISTANCES IN STATUTE MILES
LOOK AT THE TOP of the globe and you find a
sea as landlocked as the Caribbean and as cen
tral to important land areas as the Mediterranean.
In the Arctic the land masses of Asia, Europe and
North America most nearly adjoin.
If only the world were in a different geologic age,
tfiis Arctic ocean might be teeming with ships—
something that Arctic ice and Arctic climate has
prevented.
Now the airplane promises to change all this.
With planes built and building, airmen can fly
across the Arctic 4,500 miles from Detroit to Lenin
grad. The shortest routes from America to China
and to Russia, our most populous allies and the ones
that need war goods most, lie over polar regions.
Across the Arctic, too, are short lines for attack.
Military air freight is on a "crow flight" basis
and speed gives air transport the advantage over
other transport in war times.
Supplementing the airways are ship lanes. Ship
routes reach up past Norway to Murmansk at ail
seasons, and Russian ice breakers during several
months of the year have pushed them on around
the Arctic circle and through the Bering Sea.
With new rail and highway routes soon to be
completed, Alaska might well become a depot for
air shipments to Russia and China.