My father did his basic flying training for the Fleet Air Arm at Luton in 1940 on Miles Magisters. He once told me that his abiding memory of Luton was being machine gunned by the Luftwaffe as he went to lunch one day! My dad survived the experience only to be blown up in the Blitz in Portsmouth in late 1940. Ironically it saved his life as he was subsequently invalided out of the service. He was the only survivor of his flying course.