Air Transport Command (ATC) into active duty with the RAF Although the ATA was administered and clerked by British Airways civilians, it was nonetheless put under command of the RAF, and its pilots were issued an RAF-style uniform As military pilots were pulled from RAF ferry duties into combat, the ATA took up the load of flying urgent supplies within Britain, then the still more urgent business of ferrying aircraft from factories and storage facilities to forward air bases ATA tasks included long-haul ferries of Lend-Lease aircraft manufactured in the United States and flown to the southern UK via Newfoundland, Iceland, and Scotland Despite early RAF resistance to allowing women pilots into the ATA, a group of eight women began ferrying single-engine Tiger Moth trainers as early as November 1939—wartime necessity proved a partial gender equalizer By the end of the war, 166 women pilots served in the ATA They ferried all types of RAF aircraft during the war, including several Meteor jets Twelve women qualified to fly four-engine heavy bombers, while 82 were certified on various medium bombers Other women served as ATA grounds crew or mechanics ATA male pilots ferried combat aircraft directly to bases in France from mid-1944 They were joined in that duty by female pilots from September Civilian pilots of the ATA— representing 30 Allied nationalities—ferried 300,000 military aircraft by the end of the war See also logistics; Women’s Airforce Service Pilots AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND (ATC) The USAAF air transport system It was established as the “Air Corps Ferrying Service” in May 1941, principally to ferry Lend-Lease military supplies and aircraft to Britain It was recommissioned as the Air Transport Command in July 1942 and made responsible for rushing critical aircraft, supplies, and personnel to the Pacific theater of operations It cooperated fairly effectively with the U.S Navy once the usual interservice arguments were resolved The ATC ferried Lend-Lease planes and supplies to the Soviet Union across the Atlantic through Iran and via the Alaska–Aleutian route to Siberia It flew a smaller operation over the Hump to supply the Guomindang in southern China ATC transport planes were used to ferry troops and supplies deep into combat zones during combat emergencies The ATC operated numerous overseas forward bases in all major theaters of war, carrying in supplies and reinforcements and ferrying out the most seriously wounded men Its 200,000 personnel ultimately operated a constant fleet of over 3,500 aircraft, in addition to ferrying 250,000 military aircraft to various theaters of operations See logistics AIX-LA-CHAPELLE See Aachen AKTION REINHARD A Schutzstaffel (SS) “honorific” given to an extermination program carried out in new death camps designed and built under the authority of Reinhard Heydrich The program conducted mass killings of Jews following 32