 Rana Singh and other volunteers have joined the Indian Army to halt a Chinese Communist invasion in the north. They have plenty of spirit and discipline, but they are desperately short of rifles and machine guns. Judy Rollins, the daughter of an American soldier stationed in Germany, is the victim of a heart ailment that requires immediate surgery. The delicate operation should be performed at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. But Washington, D.C. is 3,000 miles away. Dr. Thomas Woodruff and other members of the Scientific Expedition at the South Pole are faced with an unusually severe winter and a shortage of supplies. Time and the weather do not permit the use of sea and overland routes. Colonel Cullis, the commander of an army battlegroup in Fort Riley, Kansas, and his 1,500 infantrymen, are urgently needed in Europe to support NATO forces. Rail and ocean transports would get them to their battle stations in about two weeks. The time units of modern war, however, are hours and minutes. To think in terms of weeks is to invite disaster. Weapons, medical aid, supplies, and troops are needed in four corners of the globe in a matter of hours and minutes. The Department of Defense has assigned the job to the Military Air Transport Service called briefly, MATS. This is the U.S. Army's salute to MATS, quarters at Scott Air Force Base near Belleville, Illinois. At a master control center, contact is maintained between higher headquarters in the Pentagon on the one hand, and all elements under MATS control on the other. This Colonel Trio, activate the command post immediately. Stand by to implement Sugar 4 Charlie and notify Commander MATS. Hello, East-Aff command post. This is headquarters, MATS command post. East-Aff, the Eastern Transport Air Force at McGuire Air Force Base, is one of the two main airlift elements under MATS headquarters, and is in direct control of all bases and transport units in operation up to a global dividing line in Saudi Arabia. This is East-Aff command post. Execute Sugar 4 Charlie. Acknowledge, please. Maintains an aerial force that can change directions immediately to meet emergencies anywhere in the world. A routine scheduled flight becomes an emergency non-scheduled flight. Base, 10 planes have been assembled for the Indian Arms Airlift. Other cargoes are quickly unloaded, the planes refueled, crews alerted and briefed, and tons of infantry weapons pushed aboard. The MATS jet strato-lifters are loading arms for the Indian Army. At the same airfield, another strato-lifter equipped for medical air evacuation is taking aboard litter cases headed for the United States. These patients are members of the four armed services, their dependents, and in cases of extreme emergency, American tourists and nationals. Judy Rollins is one of the patients on this flight. There are two scheduled aeromedical evacuation flights from Rine, Maine every week. Additional non-scheduled flights are added when necessary. Not only do the patients need specialized medical care in the United States, but specialized medical care on the way. The airborne nurses have the equipment and the training to make them as comfortable as they might be in any hospital on Earth. As the 600 mile per hour C-135 jet ambulance heads east across the Atlantic, a C-124 Globemaster has arrived in Antarctica. This MATS airlift to scientific stations near and directly at the South Pole was appropriately named deep freeze. Scientists studying the meteorological and geological features of the vast ice-covered continent down under are supplied with diesel generators, building materials and scientific instruments. Local transportation to research sites was included in the airlift supplies. Eastern transport maintains contact with mission deep freeze and at the same time another special mission being coordinated with the Western Transport Air Force at Travis Air Force Base, California. Hello, West Staff. The first of our aircraft has departed McGuire at 0900 Zulu as to meeting a rival at Fort Riley at 1140 Zulu. Pro 695. This is a West Staff command post. Be advised that you are to return. I say again, return. O'Cullis's 1500 infantrymen are to be moved by air from Forbes Air Force Base near Fort Riley, Kansas over the Great Circle Polaroot to Frankfurt, Germany. Each giant plane will carry 100 fully equipped soldiers. The entire battle group will be airlifted by 24 aircraft. Part of one of the safest air transport services in the world. As East Staff and West Staff are following the progress of the four special missions to India, the United States, the South Pole and Germany, they are also keeping track of routine flights to Wake Island, Guantanamo, Shannon, Ireland, Leopoldville, Tripoli, Rome, Naples, and many other aerial ports on five continents. Aerial transport has all but eliminated time and space separating nations of the world. Skip over time and space to leave the present and head back to the past to the time when Matt's was given its first assignment. We would arrive at the year 1948. West Berlin had been cut off from the West by communist forces in preparation for eventual occupation. Railroads, canals, we're all closed to traffic, two and one half million people isolated. The city cut off from its sources of power and its daily supplies to be driven by hunger and disease to the communist cause. Piercing the blockade. Big West radar bearing. Baker easy 3-4. This is temple off radar. You're drifting out of the corridor. You're approaching Russian territory. Come left to a heading of zero to zero. Forced to fly in narrow corridors only 20 miles wide, Matt's crews were still able to land planes at temple off airport as often as every three minutes 24 hours of every day. Sky trains, commandos, and lift masters inherited from World War II transport commands and organized into one command performed an aerial feat unparalleled in history. The massive airlift continued for 15 months. Two and one half million tons of food, fuel, and medical supplies were flown into West Berlin. City survived the blockade. As a direct result of the ability of Matt's to keep the entire population of West Berlin supplied solely by air, the Russians called off the whole dangerous game. Combat ready, global air transport came of age to play a major role in the defense of the United States and to affect the course of world history. The South Koreans received the next blow dealt by the communists. United Nations forces contained and drove back the invading North Koreans. 90% of all casualties were moved by air and twice as many wounded survived this war as compared to World War II. Matt's planes flown in from every corner of the globe, including the naval air transport wings, took the wounded out and brought in thousands of replacements. Far Eastern delivery of 70 tons of cargo per month was stepped up to 100 tons of cargo per day, which was routed through Japan and then sent to United Nations and South Korean forces in the front lines. The lift support for the armed forces in other parts of the world was increased. It was also possible to give emergency aid to friendly nations. Matt's planes brought medical supplies into Dum-Dum Airport, Calcutta, India for the victims of an earthquake. This humanitarian mission helped to train crews to operate in areas far from their regular air route. 1553, the coastal regions of Holland were flooded by the raging sea. Abitants of the lowlands were in danger of being swept away or stranded without food and fresh water. They were sent to rescue missions and dropped in materials for sandbags to reinforce the crumbled dunes. Tons of urgently needed supplies. Operation wounded warrior. Matt's evacuated 500 French soldiers wounded in the battle for Dien Bien Phu. These soldiers had been surrounded for months without food, medicine and finally without ammunition. They were flown three-quarters of the way around the world from the far east to the United States and finally to Paris. Operating in a reverse direction, Matt's planes brought Hungarian refugees to the United States. These refugees had fought the occupation forces in Hungary with homemade bombs and stones until tanks finally overran their positions. On the other side of the world, the Lebanese government was attacked by an armed force within the country that threatened the peace of Lebanon and the peace of the entire Middle East. Tons of army troops at the request of the Lebanese government. The army and the Marines landed by the Navy restored peace and order in a very short time without firing a shot. While residents of a coastal city in Florida were sunbathing or taking sightseeing tours, Matt's weather crews were in the air investigating a violent storm in the Caribbean. These aerial weathermen called hurricane hunters flew right into the winds of the storm. Winds which sometimes reached 150 miles per hour with violent up and down drafts. Our scope revealed as much violence as a hundred hydrogen bomb explosions. In the relative calm of the storm center, an electronic detector was dropped by parachute. The airborne spy sent back temperature, pressure and humidity readings to the aerial weathermen. The information was relayed to the meteorologists on the ground. The speed, intensity and direction of the storm plotted on a weather chart. The hurricane was evidently headed for the coastline with about 48 hours advanced warning. Its might against the beaches, harbors and homes of the city, the loss of life and property was held to a minimum thanks to an early warning by the Matt's Hurricane Hunter. In 1958, Matt's loaded F-104 fighters aboard their globe masters. The Chinese Nationalist Air Force was being driven out of the skies by the Chinese Communist Air Force flying new Russian planes. The early F-104s did not have the range to make the long jumps across the Pacific, but the globe masters did. Force showed up on the Chinese Communist radar screens. The aerial threat to Formosa evaporated. In the southern hemisphere, earthquakes had remade parts of a mountain area in Chile. Remote mountain villages were almost completely destroyed. In an operation called Amigo Airlift, Matt's planes made the longest trip they had made up to this time, 4,000 miles. 800 tons of emergency supplies including two complete army field hospitals, 700 doctors, nurses and medical technicians were air delivered. Without temporary homes or a need of more advanced medical treatment, were taken to other cities to be cared for. That same year, in addition to carrying Thor, Atlas, Titan and other missiles, Matt's took aboard Iron Lungs, donated by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. It had broken out on one of the northern islands of Japan, where 600 victims of polio in one small region. The Iron Lungs were airlifted in time to save many of the victims crippled by the disease. The airlift of Iron Lungs became a standard life-saving assignment for Matt's, whenever and wherever they were needed. The next year, a different kind of foreign aid cargo. Matt's loaded 240,000 pounds of the new American insecticide on 10 planes and sent them off to Cairo, as being slowly eaten away by insects. Egyptian crop dusters took over the delivery of the insecticide and an estimated two million bales of cotton. Egypt's main source of income were saved. Further south in Africa, the inhabitants of the Ruizhi River Delta in Tanganyika were threatened with starvation. Floods had ruined the crops and washed away the regular supply routes. Two Matt's globe masters made 77 flights in 30 days, dropping 20 tons of corn per flight. Enough grain to keep an estimated 50,000 people alive until new crops could be harvested. In that same year, delivery of paratroopers was added to Matt's global mission. In an exercise called Quick Kick, Matt's planes practiced drop 2,000 U.S. Army paratroopers of the 18th Airborne Corps on a split-second time schedule. Sartillery and ammunition were sent floating groundwork. Units and equipment dropped exactly where they were supposed to be dropped, were quickly assembled and put into action. Hurdling the ocean and another year, we arrive in Dublin, 1960. Irish troops bound for the Congo prepare for a 5,000-mile journey to a strange country torn by civil war. The chance to stretch their legs, the chance to stretch their lungs, buying in support of the United Nations mission in the Congo, delivered troops and supplies from Sweden, Ghana, India, Canada, Malaya, Indonesia, Nigeria, Argentina, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Denmark and 11 other countries. Some of the round trips totaled 23,000 miles, and the average trip was 12,000 miles. The longest airlift in history, both in distance and in duration, balance and disorder which had plagued the cities and villages of the Congo, was brought under control by the United Nations police force. The Congo airlift is still going on. The time at the East Ave Control Center is again the present. Yet straddle lifters have arrived at Dung Dung Airport, Calcutta, India. The infantry weapons are immediately unloaded and rushed to the volunteer soldiers. The balance scales of war were tipped in favor of the Indian people. It was Air Force Base near Washington, DC, after a comfortable eight-hour aerial journey. And hours have elapsed from the time she left an army hospital room in Frankfurt, Germany, until the time she arrived in another army hospital room in Washington, DC. With the help of the heart specialist at Walter Reed Army Hospital, she will soon be well. That's glove master has reached the South Pole. Just by survival problems, we're tackled once again. The same straddle lifter that airlifted part of Colonel Cullis' army battle group to Europe for the NATO exercises is unloading part of another army battle group at McCord Air Force Base near Fort Lewis, Washington. Troops from Fort Riley, Kansas, flown to Germany. Other troops return to Fort Lewis, Washington, Operation Long Thrust. Four missions to four different parts of the globe have been completed on schedule. Hundreds of other Matt's planes are still in the air over the ice fields of the Arctic and the Antarctic. Over the vast expanses of the Pacific, the dense jungles of South America, populated cities of Europe and the Far East, the sands of the African desert. Every minute of every day, Matt's planes are in the air somewhere in the airlines of the world on routine support missions for the armed forces. They are all ready to change course. This is E-staff. All present missions are canceled. Implement recall and execute phase one. Repeat. Implement recall and execute phase one. In any spot in the world, one Matt's plane can become 100 planes, 100 tons of cargo, 10,000 tons of cargo, 10,000 men, 100,000 men. Matt's will support and supply these men wherever they go. In the hours and minutes it takes the fastest jet transports to fly the airways of the world.