G'day Danny,
Your eloquent writing connues to evoke a fair idea of 'how it was' - really enjoying this stuff.
If I can drag you back to when you first enlisted, just for a moment... I did go back to one of your first posts and I think it answered my question, but thought I'd ask away anyway to make sure. When you enlisted and went onto 'deferred service', did the RAF give you any pre-study to do of any kind? Australian aircrew on the Reserve, it appears, were given a series of self-study subjects to complete while waiting for their call-up - things like maths and physics, theory of flight, aircraft recognition etc. As I understand it, as each module was completed they'd send it back for marking and the Air Force would forward out the next one. Some called it the '21 Lessons' and apparently it made the first weeks at Initial Training School just a little bit easier. I've asked a Canadian mid-upper gunner I know and he can't remember anything similar (but he was originally ground crew and transferred into aircrew so perhaps he's not representative), nor can an English rear gunner. I'm beginning to suspect it was purely an Australian thing (anyone know any Kiwi veterans I can talk to??), so I thought I'd ask you.
Adam