WAFS

The Army Air Forces last week tapped the one group of experienced pilots that had not yet heard the come-hither of the armed services. To ferry aircraft from factory to airdrome, release uniformed airmen for combat service, it invited the 500 or 600 women with commercial pilot licenses, to give it a lift, sat back to await a rush of ladybirds.

Name of the new service is the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. Not yet ready to put skirted airmen into its uniform, the Air Forces will hire its new ferry service pilots as Civil Service employes (at $3,000 a year). As boss of the new squadron the Air Forces picked photogenic, 28-year-old Mrs. Nancy Harkness Love, flying wife of a lieutenant colonel in the Air Transport Command, set her up in business at headquarters at Wilmington, Del.

There Vassar-trained Nancy Love, who has sold airplanes, helped her husband operate a flying school, flown the length and breadth of the U.S., will shortly begin training her first recruits. She looks forward to the day when the WAFS will become a uniformed part of the armed forces, like their British opposite number, Air Transport Auxiliaries.

His specialized buying varies with the season and the place where he is stationed. When the Army had its pay raised there was a tremendous run on fine watches (at a little over half outside cost). There is always a run on pen-&-pencil sets, cameras, portable radios, sentimental "sweetheart pillows," with two hearts intertwined. For 3,000 standard items, Exchange Service sets a top price for P-X wholesale buying, thus does a big job of chain procurement. For the rest, the price is up to the local exchange officer. With his low markup, he knows that he will not be undercut by outside retail competition. His customers know it, too.

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