Pilot Training in the UK, WW2
It was not my intention to write any further, - I was just interested to see how the training programmes differed, as I flew with so many different instructors at both EFTS and SFTS. A neighbour in the Cotswolds told me he flew with only one instructor when he trained in Texas. Thirty years later he visited him in the USA and found him still flying.
However, here goes....................
After a one week course of flying ‘under the hood’ at a Beam ApproachTraining Flight, where we flew Oxfords, fitted for the first time with radio, we were posted to 10 OTU at Abingdon. The pre-war station had luxurious accommodation and we were installed in No 2 Sgts Mess. I shared a room with George Cooke, and Don McClelland and Ivan Hazard were next door. We all had bikes, and Ivan’s sister worked in the Ministry of Supply at Merton College, where she made arrangements to park them safely, and their uncle was the Butler at xxxxx College. “Birdie” Harris at the boat station at Folly Bridge taught me how to punt, in return for helping her to park her boats and punts under the first arch of the bridge. Punt poles were very precious and she could not afford to lose them! We spent every day-off on the river, and very often with a nice hamper with a bottle of wine from some mysterious source! The Halycon Days for us, but George and Ivan did not survive the year.
One of the screened pilots at Abingdon, Geoge Abecassis, a well known motor racing driver, looked at my 170 hours and told me flew ‘ops’ on Whitleys, as a second pilot, with only 110 hours.
The famous Group Captain Massey (shortly to become SBO at Stalag Luft 111) greeted us and spoke of the work to be done. Then he stopped, “Where are the officer pilots?” The navigator officers from Jurby were sitting in the front row and the pilots sat behind. There was a silence then one pilot stood up and said, “There no pilots commissioned on our course, Sir.” Massey’s face was as black as thunder. He spoke to some of the screened pilots behind him, then continued with his talk, before we were told to form our own crews.
It was reported that Massey had said to his officers, “We must watch this lot. They must have caused trouble somewhere”
We milled aimlessly around until I was approached by a sergeant with the O wing.
We chatted and he told me he was in the army at Dunkirk, then transferred to the RAF and trained in the USA. Two Canadian wireless operators and a Canadian gunner made up the rest of my initial crew, but it quickly changed.
This may seem an odd crew but, at that time, the Whitley crew had two pilots, one acting as bomb aimer. The two wireless operators shared the radio position and the front gun turret, and the navigator and rear gunner made up the total. In the initial training the screened instructor was the second pilot, operating the undercarriage lever and the flaps. Once a pilot was cleared for solo flying, another pilot flew with him and they alternated at the controls. From OTU, a crew went to a Squadron and split up. The pilot became a second pilot to someone who had done ten ‘ops’ in the right hand seat, and the experienced man was given the new crew as his command. Then “Butch Harris” took over Bomber Command and decided he could not spare two pilots in a crew. My screened instructor, F/Sgt “Dinty” Moore ( later S/Ldr i/c ‘B’ Flight on 51 Squadron,) asked me if I could fly the Whitley without assistance, and it was quite easy.
The Canadian wireless operators were given a Morse and Radio test. The results in order of merit, were ruled off half way down the list. The top half would remain wireless operators. The bottom half would be re-mustered in the new category as Bomb Aimers.
There was a riot, and talk of appealing to the High Commissioner. Then they were told the new post would receive the same pay as the pilots and navigators. So they calmed down, and the other half were up in arms; the better wireless operators remained on the lower pay! It seemed very unfair and I don’t know how it was all settled. There should have been one pay scale for all aircrew,- the risk was the same. fredjhh.
Last edited by fredjhh; 27th Feb 2010 at 21:28.
Reason: text errors