§ 43. Flying-Officer Bowdenasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if those airmen who have completed their overseas tour by January 1946, will be repatriated to the United Kingdom in time for Christmas, especially those men whose release groups have been retarded.
§ Mr. StracheyI wish we could do this but we simply have not got the air-lift or the shipping. The number of men involved is considerable; because of the reduction of six months in the overseas tour of duty for single men 24,000 extra men have to be brought home this winter.