Chugalug,
Thank you for the last post. Your point about our leaving it all to the Powers that Were (in the trusting faith that they knew what they were doing) is spot-on. Much later on in my "Jottings" (from which my Posts are filleted), I put it like this: "We lived a carefree life, going where we were sent and flying whatever they gave us to fly when we got there, not worrying our heads about the aircraft's political background or production history". It is only now, looking back with seventy years' hindsight, that I can see that we perhaps should have asked a few more questions at the time. But you don't think of it when you're young, do you? As Kipling's old soldier, going home after a lifetimes' service said (in "For to Admire"):
"The things that was that I 'ave seen,
In barrick, camp an' action too,
I tells 'em over to meself,
And sometimes wonders if they're true.
For they was odd, most awful odd."
In the same way, the BT-13 and Basic School were there, and that was all there was to it. Ours not to reason why!
On reflection, you're quite right about my name-change idea. When it's not necessary to change, it's necessary not to change!
Danny