6 AUGUST 1948, Page 4

The loss of the big French flying boat en route

from Martinique to Dakar calls to mind one of the minor anomalies of aviation in the Caribbean, which is that there is no airfield in the French West Indies, unless you count a primitive air-strip on the French half of St. Martin (the other half of this thriving smuggling centre belongs to Holland). The result is that all air communications with and between Martinique and Guadeloupe are by seaplane or flying- boat, and as no other air-line in the islands uses machines of this

type, Air France are the only people who call there. * * * *