Ian BB,
A quick PS to my #5533: rooting about on this Thread to find
Cliff's (RIP) Post on the Terrell-Darr disaster, came across p.16, #309.
Regle (RIP) tells us all about "hazing" (and the whole page is full of wonderful stuff)...D.
harrym,
Another feast to get our teeth into ! It will be very interesting to get the full details of the RCAF training schools, for I can't recall that we've yet had one complete story from Canada, although, if anything, we have almost too much on the American BFTSs and the Arnold ones.
I see that we agree on the main reason for "washout" on both sides of the frontier; disciplinary offences did cause some, but IMHO, only few. In the majority of cases, it was as you say (quote):
"....I was fortunate, for failure to surmount this particular hurdle was a major cause of suspension and only a limited number of hours were allocated for pre-solo training; the exigencies of wartime enforced ruthless standards, and time could not be wasted on slow learners...."
All this is true: but in the Army Air Corps they could (and did) enforce their
own "ruthless standards" to whittle-down the oversupply of Flight Cadets to fit the capacity of their training machine. It was nobody's fault, but our hard luck, that we had to make the best of this scheme of things, even that in the final outcome two-three thousand potential pilots may have been lost to us (but then again we got four thousand extra which otherwise we would not have got at all).
I'm going to want to know: was the RCAF syllabus the same as had previously been taught in the UK (as far as you know), or was there a different "Canadian" policy ? How much time did they give you at EFTS - and SFTS ? And then did they give you your wings there and then, and pack you straight off back to UK for AFS and OTU, or was there any further training over there ?
More questions come in: Were you on RCAF pay rates (reputedly as good as the American) or just the $ (Can) equivalent of RAF pay ? Were RCAF LACs mixed in with you, or were they purely RAF Courses ? Did you have any "Arnold" rejects for retraining, and if so, how did they get on ?
Most important of all: what were the "chop" rates (EFTS and SFTS) on your Course ? (Don't worry, I don't need the answers all at once !)
Did you ever hear the story (brought to our notice by
millerscourt - I gave the Post reference a few days ago) that some American/Canadian trainees were found to be of poor quality on return to UK ?
harry, you and I are the only living links with those days still active on Thread. I'm running as fast as I can to keep up with you. Could you please spread it out a bit so we can (as
Chugalug told me in my early days) "
savour your offerings like fine wine, a sip at a time", and thus have more time to pick the plums out of each section for admiration, addition and comment ?)
I have in mind drafting a Post on the two different routes during the war open to young hopefuls on the long march to the cockpit, but it might take a while yet ...D
Hummingfrog,
The Terrell-Darr disaster was about the worst single incident (
AFAIK) that happened during the (comparatively) short life of the Arnold and BFTS Schools ('41-'43). As I told Ian BB, I've been looking for Cliff's (RIP) account of it at Miami, Oklahoma (or something very similar), but no success yet.
The decision to send pairs of students off on a 90 mile cross-country with a base of 800 ft. - and high ground en route - was simply criminal IMHO. Your Dad was lucky that he saw rising ground ahead in time to dive up into cloud (and even luckier that the cloud didn't suddenly turn green on him before he had time to turn tail !)....D.
Hoping to get back to Shawbury soon (bear with me in the meantime, please !)
Goodnight, everybody. Danny.