I spent 12 months on that DC3 being berated, sworn at, threatened, by the toughest Pilots in the world, the blokes that survived Bomber Command. I can not think of a better training (in that era) for a young pilot,
I think you need to divest yourself of the rose-tinted glasses. It was precisely because of those being berated, sworn at and threatened attitudes by so called "captains" that CRM and it's ilk was brought into the training system.
Are you telling me that a working environment where the boss can make dirty passes at his female employee, swear at her perceived lack of competence, act the tough John Wayne captain of movie star fame, is seriously conducive to good training? Sounds like you may have been the victim of Stockholme Syndrome?
I flew four engine bombers at Townsville. Albeit, thank goodness, after the war. Yet the former wartime captains I was privileged to crew with were the very opposite to the cretans you were caught up with.
The pilots I crewed with in the 1953 era were in general reasonably sound pilots (with the odd exception) and none I knew were rude, shouters or generally mean bastards to me or my fellow Sergeant copilots. This obnoxious attitude you struck (and enjoyed?) in those long ago days, seems to be peculiar only to gold braided civilian airline captains where company and union seniority ruled and new first officers were treated as a mere bum in the RH seat. I for one never struck these types in the RAAF. Their lights would have been punched out after hours.
Some people (pilots) may learn more when screamed at by bullies on the flight deck. Bully for them
Personally I have nothing but sheer contempt for that "style" of captaincy which eventually many years later cost the lives of over 500 innocent passengers at Tenerife.
In later years, I met a couple of these idiot captains who were legends in their own minds, when I spent a few days doing an F28 conversion with Ansett Airlines of West Australia (formerly McRobertson Miller Airlines). These nutters were loathed by their own first officers for just the same habits displayed in your loving description of the hardened "veterans" you crewed with at 250 hours.
Apologies for the rant - nothing personal but screaming skulls on the flight deck get right up my hairy nostrils.
Cent