Danny,
Sounds like you had fun integrating with your IAF colleagues,in truth the day of the Sahib was on the wane.
Petet.
You learn something every day, I was not aware that there were differing grades of AC2.
Next steo on the wya was a posting round about November or eaely December to Heaton Park in Manchester which was a transit camp for budding PNBs and from where you were supposed to proceed to the next stage of training which for me was to Air Navigation School.
My main memory of Heaton Park was being on parade every morning usually in pouring rain when the names of these selected for drafts to the flying schools in Canada,USA and Southern Africa were read out and quite a number from my intake hit the jackpot.
The powers that be did not seem to know what to do with us and so far as I recall there did not seem to be any laid down programme but we were involved in such activities as bayonet practice,grenade throwing and rifle shooting at the butts. Quite what these activities had to do with aircrew training one can only guess but it was entertaining.
The accommodation at the Park was mostly in Nissan huts and given the prevailing climate, most of the times the walls were running with condensation. In fact one of the areas in the camp was nicknamed "consumption valley".
However there was a silver lining since the fleshpots of Manchester were only a short journey away and the NAAFI club there served up some good nosh.
After a few weeks along with 20 odd others my name was called out at the morning parade. Great!! we thought, at last we are off to foreign climes only for our hopes to be dashed when we were told that we were being sent on detachment to RAF Strubby in Lincolnshire, the home of 619 Squadron for a period of 3 months.
After settling in we were all allocated to various sections, some to SHQ,those who could drive to the MT section,some to the armoury and some including me drew the short straw and were sent to work at the bomb dump. Not the best of places since it was midwinter.
There was an H2s trainer at Strubby where the navigators honed their skills and after a month at the bomb dump I was moved there as a general dogsbody and at last I managed to get near an aircraft as I would assist the radio mechanics when they carried out the daily inspections on the Lancs.
Strubby was a well dispersed station and the living quarters were a long way from the aerodrome so we were all issued with bikes which were also useful in getting to the nearest civilisation which was either Alford or Louth.
After 3 months in March 45 we were posted back to Heaton Park having experienced a little of what the real Air Force was like but no further forward in our training.