Danny has some afterthoughts about Hawarden.
Cliff (RIP), in one of his Posts (# 631 - p 32), gave an excellent account of the Decompression Chambers used to convince us of the insidious nature of anoxia. I rather think that these must have been road-transportable units (rather like the ejector seat demonstration rigs which came round the stations in the fifties). I know I went through the procedure in one somewhere, and am pretty sure it was at Hawarden.
Everything was exactly as he has described it, down to the illegible scribble into which your handwriting descends a moment or two before you fall into a coma (I think my line was "Mary had a little lamb"). My "oppo" took my watch off me, and even when he handed it back, I was still insisting that I hadn't been "out" at all. It was positively uncanny. Even in recovery from general anaesthetic, you have a sense of having "been away", but there was none of that.
Looking back, it occurs to me that, if you have to go, then this is the ideal way to do it! Setting aside all questions of law, morality and religious belief, it would be a perfect way to commit suicide. Cheap, no expensive trip to Switzerland, no need for injections or even for a rope. In jurisdictions where Capital Punishment still exists, no need even to pay a hangman!
And above all, no suffering of any kind, for this method robs you of any sensation of what is happening to you or appreciation of what is going to happen next. I can recommend a session (properly supervised) as an interesting experience; but I suppose they don't do them any more, for it would give the H&S people "a fit of the screamin' ab-dabs!" now.
To change to more cheerful subjects, there are a few relevant facts which I've picked up from Google/Wiki which plug holes in my memories. (These Posts of mine are excerpts from my "Jottings" - see my #2250, p 113 - which were composed long before I got on line. I shall not feed you anything direct from the internet and pass it off as my memory, I promise you).
What did we have as kit, and when? This is what must have happened. We went out to Canada with our blues and flying kit plus the chalk-striped suits. At Toronto, it seems they took our blues off us (in one of our kitbags) and stored them against our return. So we went down to the States in just our chalk-stripes. What happened to the flying kit? I don't remember having it with me in Florida, perhaps Toronto stored that too.
In the States, it was simple. They gave us flying overalls, we wore them all the time. We would only wear our chalk-stripes when we were off camp. I suppose I went on my Wings parade in flying overalls. At the end, they took their overalls back, we put the chalks back on and got on the train to Canada.
At no time did they issue us any US uniform, although the BFTS students wore summer-pattern US kit with RAF caps.
Of course, our train bypassed Toronto and we ended in Moncton, didn't we! But by a miracle of organisation which I can hardly credit to this day, they'd got our blue kit across ready for us (after all, I suppose the RCAF was doing it, not the RAF!)
At Moncton they must have taken our chalks away; we came back to the UK with blues and flying kit only. We had our first issue of battledress when we got back.
Somewhere recently I read that at that time, at least at one US Advancd School, the AT12s had been replaced by P-40 Tomahawks for Staff Continuation Training - to sighs of relief all round, no doubt.
Reading my log, I notice that at Hawarden our training aircraft carried squadron letters - mostly PW but a fair number of JZ. The curious thing was that the PW series ran PW-A, PW-B as usual, but the JZs: JZ-22, JZ-23 etc. In any case, it looks as if only two training Squadrons - four flights - were there and not six.
Reviewing the entries, both in respect of the Arnold Scheme and at OTU, there seems to have been the odd panic to get the hours in, for there were several occasions when we flew nine days in a row - therefore no weekend - and one day at OTU I flew four trips in a day (total 5 1/2 hrs) and three trips were common. I know that is nothing in operational terms, but it didn't seem to happen in pilot training schools in the fifties and sixties.
Next time we'll sum up Hawarden and put to sea.
Ta-ta for now,
Danny42C
Stand Easy!
Last edited by Danny42C; 15th Apr 2012 at 20:06.