Good enough . It was the Return Ferry Service, for moving the many pilots of aircraft delivered from the USA to Europe, back to North America. It was actually run as a quasi-civilian operation by former pre-war airline execs, led by the former Air France base manager for very many years in London, Jack Bamford, whose autobiography contains a great detail about it all. There had been an initial expectation that such aircraft would be flown over by crews being posted to Europe; after too many losses en route it was recognised that specially trained and skilled crews were required. Returning them to the US was initially by ship as there were no aircraft going westward, this was very wasteful, then Bamford (by now in the RAF) was asked to set up a regular operation for this, and was assigned a couple of Consolidated Liberators, with UK civilian registrations for this (I don't think the Liberator was fully civilian compliant then, but not seen as an issue). Effectively a BOAC service, inbound aircraft turned up wherever, Bamford or his team used to go and meet them with a bottle of whisky for each crew member and a railway ticket to Prestwick. The Libs ran a couple of times a week back to North America, to Gander or Halifax, from where the crews were flown on internally (Generally by Beech 18) to the aircraft production plant for another run. All run from a onetime little hotel just outside Prestwick called Orangefield, later in the 1960s disappointingly demolished in the expansion of Prestwick.

When Churchill met Roosevelt in Washington in late December 1941 Bamford got the job of taking all the important government papers over to them. All the Liberators were grounded by icy weather but they took a twin-engined amphibian Catalina from the sea off Prestwick nonstop to Halifax NS, a 24-hour flight at Catalina speeds.

The RFS later split in two, UK and USA. The US operation then progressively translated into the early TWA transatlantic operation, and the UK side to the BOAC one. Reading Bamford's autobiography, I think he was a bit wistful of letting his pioneering efforts get commercialsied like this.

So that's us done with my little supplementaries !