[ARC5] Re: RAT-1 Production

[Gordon White]

     Somewhere in my research  in the sixties I found reference in Main 
Navy, probably CNO files, to use of the  RAVs and RATs in blimps at Coco 
Solo (Panama) and PBYs in Newfoundland in the period when the US was 
secretly escorting British convoys in the western Atlantic.  I think the 
situation in the 1940 period has to be taken into account when  looking 
into the use of equipment. Also, the services were all scraping for 
excuses to ramp up production of equipment so when the ball went up 
there was an industrial base here.  (One of the things I tripped over in 
my research was a report on the Brits capturing a couple of supply ships 
sent out before the Bismarck sortied.) We were hand-in-glove with the 
Brits on some levels, even while at other levels we distrusted them as 
"just protecting their Empire."

- Gordon White