Back in the fold...
It is good to be back and thank you all for your good wishes, especially my good friend, Andy, for keeping you "au courant". So where were we...
After two wonderful weeks in Toronto we entrained for the two day journey to Albany, Georgia. Reluctantly we discarded our RAF uniforms and it was back to the grey suits and the pith helmets ( only we didn't quite pronounce it like it was written).
Albany was a very small Southern town and, in 1942, still very much part of the Confederate States who had seceded from the Union. We quickly learned that anyone from the Northern States was still referred to as "Damyankee" and that was all one word. The accent was quite different from any that we had previously encountered and completely charmed us. We had the luxury of a communal lounge/mess and the phone would ring , one of us would answer and it would often be a girl's voice ..."Are y'all a British boooy ? Would y'all just tolk ?" They would not believe us when we told them that it was they who had the accent, not us.
We learned how to fly and we learned the hard way. General Arnold, when he proposed the scheme that bears his name, had made it quite clear that we would follow the very tough itinerary prescribed for the U.S. Army Air Corps, as the U.S. Air Force was then known, and that standards would, in no way, be relaxed despite the crying need for pilots in the U.K. We got the full peacetime training comprising two hundred hours on three different types of aircraft at a time when some unlucky people were going straight on to Hurricanes and Spitfires with some twenty hours on Tiger Moths in their log books! I have forgotten the times that I have said that I am still here today because of that training (and a lot... I mean a LOT of luck) and I am eternally grateful for it.
Of the five hundred, or so, cadets who started training in the Southeast Training Center (as it was called and spelled),only one hundred and twenty of the class of 42A (The US College system i;e the first class to graduate in 1942) were awarded the coveted silver wings. Many of those who were "washed out" , sometimes for the most trivial "disciplinary reasons" were sent up to Canada where, often, their training was continued or changed to another category i;e Bomb Aimer, Navigator etc. and were flying operationally in England long before we returned.
The school, Darr Aero Tech., was run by civilian Instructors, Flying and Ground School. There were two or three US Army Officers as Check Pilots and one US Army,very West Point Officer responsible for the whole unit. Discipline was maintained by the Class ahead of us 41F. They were all Americans and were used to the West Point "Honour System" which consisted or reporting anyone who committed one of the many misdemeanours possible to the 41F Discipline committee. This included reporting yourself. There was a trio of the Class of 41F who used to go to the lounge after hours to practice "Barbershop" singing and then report themselved to the Committee !
We, as the first class of British "Caydets" had this Class of 41F over us to administer the discipline and the "hazing" that is part and parcel of American College life. At meals an Upperclassman would tell the unfortunate Lowerclassman (us!) "Take a square meal, Mister" and the poor underdog would have to bring the food to his mouth and insert it at right angles throughout the
meal while sitting on the obligatory front six inches of his chair which is all that we were allowed to use whilst we were Lowerclassmen. Room inspection , always carried out by the Uppers (I will use this in future to save my finger, n.b. singular !) . This involved the running of white silk gloves over cupboards, beds and floor..the lot. One speck of dust and a "gig" (demerit) would result. A nickel (5c) would be thrown on your stretched out blanket and it had to "ripple". The turnover of the sheet had to measure exactly six and a half inches and this was measured carefully. So many gigs and our only free time away from the camp (We were not allowed off the Camp except Saturday from noon until Sunday at 1800 hrs.) was curtailed by hours of marching in full uniform (Hastily supplied ny the U.S after one look at us all paraded in our grey flannel suits). As the temperature was always around thirty degrees C with 110% humidity,you can imagine the spirit of unrest that was running through the entire course, especially amongst the several "remustered" Sergeants and Corporals, some of them hardbitten veterans of the bombing of Biggin Hill and other targets of the Blitz. Some of their replies to the Upper were "Get stuffed" "Belt up" and those are the printable ones. Those who survived, and many did not, did not see much of Albany during the six weeks of being the Lowerclass. The "Special Relationship" wore a bit thin at times and the R.A.F liaison Officer, Flt/Lt. Hill, who visited us frequently had his work cut out to persuade us to grin and bear it for the sake of Britain's desperate need. There was a patriotic song at that time. It started off "Off we go, into the wild blue yonder.. "and finished "Nothing will stop the Army Air Corps." Whereupon the whole of us "Lowers" would come in en masse "Except the weather" with the "Except" being long drawn out. There was sometimes quite a lot of blood spilt after such an evening with the Uppers.