I have to take issue with the number quoted of Americans who flew in the RAF ? Over 5,000 ? Not likely. More like 500 or so. And the RAF was looking for pilots who had 200 hours in their log books, not untrained rookies with no flying expeience at all.


The vast majority of the American flight volunteers went to Canada, which was a lot closer and more acessible than the UK was. They joined the RCAF and went thru the flight training program. Not every one was either smart enough or had the needed physical standards to be a pilot. Remember that a Sterling, Halifax, or Lancaster had a six or seven man crew, with ONLY one pilot, not two as in the USAAF. So aircrew meant navigators, flight engineers, bomb aimers, radio operators, and air gunners, not just pilots. Fighter pilots had to be the VERY best candidates, both in intelligence and physical health, and untill 1943, the RCAF wanted all pilots to be University grads, too.


When the USA finally joined the war in December of 1941, all of the Americans in both the RCAF and the RAF, were given the chance to transfer to the USAAF. Some did some didn't. A further thing to remember is that many Americans joined under a " assumed name " to get around the US Neutrality Act " that forbid service in a "foreign army ". Some died under that identity too , and are buried with that name on their grave stone.

The British Commonwealth Air Training Program, which was operated by Canada, and which was paid for by Canada, saw over 135,00 men trained as pilots and aircrew, from 21 different nations of the allied cause. The BCATP required a massive emergency construction program to build over 300 airfields and 110 training camps, in less than 12 months time. And of course all those guys had to be fed, housed and provided with medical and dental services and transported from one base to another as they progressed thru the training courses.

Imagine over 100 De Havilland Tiger Moths and Gypsy Moths all flying in and out of a field, all trying not to run into each other, while the advanced classes were off doing "cross country " flights in their Harvards and Yales, and the twin engine giuys were on navigation and bombing flights over the countryside,

Busy ? You bet, and cold and snow were not a reason to stop flying all year round. Open cockpits in the Tigers and Gypsys in January at Flin Flon, Manitoba, at minus 20 C ? So why not ? There is a war on, you know ?

Why Canada ? Wide open spaces, far from Europe, and any possible Nazi intervention.

Jim B. Toronto.