Bates published this photo in the Freshman Catalog of December 1941 to publicize “up-to-the-minute transportation available to Bates students.” The airport is either Portland or Auburn/Lewiston, while the identities of the Bates men boarding the plane are unknown. (The pencil notation on the Kodachrome slide says, “Frosh boarding plane,” and a small Bates pennant can be seen on the luggage of the student at right.) With the U.S. entering World War II the very month the photo was published, commercial air service nationally was mostly grounded. With the outbreak of war, the airline pictured here, Boston-based Northeast Airlines, used its prewar experience flying from Boston to Maine and Vermont to forge a regular military route, the first of its kind, from Presque Isle to Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, Iceland, and Great Britain.