Aircrew Training in Rhodesia
There is a fascinating and long running thread on the PPRuNe Military Aircrew Forum which was started about 5 years ago entitled "Gaining An RAF's Pilots' Brevet in WWII". There have been many informative reminiscences by RAF airmen trained in the UK and the USA, etc. Sadly there are fewer of those men around now and naturally the thread has progressed onto post war airmen's experiences. Despite hundreds of posts no one appears to have step forward with their experiences wartime flying training in Rhodesia.
The Rhodesian Air Training Group operated from 1940 until 1954 training, mainly pilots, but also Navigators, Bomb Aimers and Gunners up to April 1945.
To quote Wikipedia:
"The trainees came mainly from Great Britain but also from Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, Yugoslavia, Greece, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Fiji and Malta. There were also pupils from the Royal Hellenic Air Force in training. Over 7,600 pilots and 2,300 navigators were trained by the RATG during the war."
The aircraft used in this scheme were similar trainer types to those most common in the wartime flying schools around the British Isles, i.e., Tiger Moth, Harvard, Oxford and Anson , but with one stranger to these shores, the Fairchild Cornell in use from late 1943 to 1946.
One of the Air-Britain quarterly house journals is currently publishing a series on the RATG 1940/54. The series author is Dave Newnham but I am assisting him in the collection of Cornell data which has proved sadly brief from the usual RAF records. The copies/scans from logbooks of the RATG students and their flying instructors are now the best sources for our research.
Though I am specifically interested in the RATG Cornells, I know Dave would welcome all RATG logbooks - covering which ever type, school or period.
I would like to ask any former RATG students and Instructors, or their descendents, if they can help would they kindly contact me through this forum.
Thank you, M-62A3