Re: How US pilots joined the RAF
I thought you might enjoy this excerpt about the training in Canada, and in particular part of the story told by an American about their training into the RCAF.
From Reader’s Digest, Canada at War Volume 1, Chapter “Airdrome of Democracy” pp 91 to 93
The U.S. magazine Fortune reported the plan [British Commonwealth Air Training Plan] was “the most conspicuous and universal expression of Canada at war.” It added:
“…From the Maritimes to Vancouver Island, from Windsor to Saskatoon one sees the brass-buttoned blue of air force uniforms, and hears day and night the drone of yellow-winged Harvard trainers and box-kite-like Tiger Moths taking off, circuiting, landing in endless repetition. Youngsters – kids of 18, 19, 20 – on the trains and in hotel lobbies and taverns, strutting a bit because of the white tabs in the caps that set them apart as aircrew students (as distinct from ground trades). Youngsters from England, homesick and tense, who sometimes weep uncontrollably the first day they sit down to mountainous stacks of food. Youngsters from Australia, rawboned and rambunctious, easily spotted by their distinctive dark blue uniform (“passionate purple,” they call it), who can down a bottle of ale at a gulp and chase it with another. Youngsters from New Zealand who howl for beefsteak at breakfast. Youngsters from the Unite States, breezy and self-assured, who would not take their own air corps “No” as a reason for staying out of the war. And most of all – seven out of ten – youngsters of Canada, proud and determined, full of consciousness that in World War I four Canadian airmen shot down more than any other four Allied aces; and that one of them, “Billy” Bishop, wears the uniform of air vice-marshal today.
They are everywhere in Canada. At Mossbank, a station so remote that it serves as a place of banishment for the unruly. At Jarvis, on Lake Erie, dubbed the “banana belt” because the winter blasts there are a few degrees less congealing than at most stations. At Uplands, handy to Ottawa’s fancy Chateau Laurier, where newly-fledged graduates, chest buttons popping, joyfully “wet their wings” – as often with beer or Coca-Cola as with whisky…At Penfield Ridge, N.B., where navigation students learn that “the Maritime Provinces treat you swell”; and whence they move, shortly, a step farther east to Halifax and embarkation for service overseas…”
Aircrew were the glamour boys of the war and competition to become one was keen. Len Morgan, born in Terre Haute, Ind., was one of hundreds who came up form the United States. In his book The AT-6 Harvard, a story about the famous aircraft used to train fighter pilots, he tells what it was like to be 19 years old and “on your way to realize a lifelong dream”;
“…A truck drove along a country road near St. Catharines, Ont., on a summer morning in 1941. In the back, a dozen boys faced each other over a pile of kit bags. They wore blue uniforms and made a great deal of noise laughing, shouting and waving at pretty girls. The truck turned into a narrow lane leading to a gate over which hung a sign, “No. 9 Elementary Flying Training School.” It stopped and the driver spoke to the guard.
“Another load of Americans come to save us from the Nazis.”
“Winston will be relieved. I’ll call him right away.”
A short, red-faced British sergeant waited for the noisy riders to climb down. Noticing him, they formed a rough line. The sergeant regarded this pitiful effort with an expression of utter disdain. Finally he spoke to himself quietly: “My bloody nerves.” He shook his head the way people do at funerals.
He walked around his new charges, peering into every face. He paused to sight along the uneven rows of heads, closed his eyes and shuddered. Suddenly he strode to the front and bawled, “Tennnnnnn-shun!” An uneasy minute paused before he spoke.
“If this is what His Majesty’s air force has come to, God help us. My name is Flight Sergeant Maxwell and you chaps are going to get to know me very well indeed.” He paused for emphasis.
“I know you’re here to learn to handle these bloomin’ airplanes but first you’re bloody well going to learn how to march.” He regarded the recruits with fresh distaste. “You look like a lot of sloppy navy people! This is the Royal Canadian Air Force, and we expect much more than the navy. Is that clear”
Receiving no reply, he pulled a paper from his pocket.
“All right then, answer to your names. Woods?”
“Here.”
“Morgan?”
“Here.”
“Vogel?”
“Here.”
“Wendt?...Vogel? Wendt? Are you sure you’re reporting to the right station?”
We laughed and this pleased him for he imagined himself to be – and indeed he was – a man with a genuine sense of humor. Old Bloody Nerves was all right and we knew it that moment. He was no one’s fool, mind you, but a fair man and all that a good disciplinarian should be.
The clumsy scene we played before him that day had its bizarre twist. We were Americans, citizens of a nation at peace, enlisted in the service of a nation at war. We were never asked to swear allegiance to the King. We signed agreements to serve “for the duration and a period of demobilization of up to one year,” contracts from which we were immediately released when the chance came later to join our own country’s forces. About 5500 Americans took this quicker way into the air. We were there because we were too young for the peacetime U.S. Air Corps, or too old, or did not have the required two college years – or something. We were there for one reason, to learn to fly. None of us, at that stage, had strong feelings about the war.
Our dozen men were joined at No. 9 by Canadians, Australians and Englishmen who did have strong feelings about the war. Each new load of arrivals was promptly dressed down by Sergeant Maxwell and sent off to wax the barracks floor.
Our class of 41 was nearly a third American and the sign over the main gate was altered one night to read “Royal California Air Force,” a stupid stunt that cost us, including the puzzled English, two hours of extra drill.
“California? Where’s this California, Rodney?” one Englishman asked.
“One of the islands we own n the Pacific, old boy, somewhere near Pitcairn, I’d say.”
“Of course, one of the colonies.”
The class was split into two groups. One attended ground school while the other flew. If you flew in the morning you took signals, navigation, aero engines, parachutes, instruments and other studies in the afternoon.
Elementary flight training in Canada then utilized the famous de Havilland Tiger Moth and the Fleet Finch…. The surviving members of our class were split into two groups, half going to multi-engine training in Ansons, the rest of us to Harvards. My crowd reported to No. 14 Service Flying Training School at Aylmer, Ont. We were divided into units, ours – 13 American and 14 Canadians – becoming C flight….
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