Last Word on the Arnold Scheme Losses in WWII
One last word on this subject, as we are still left with a lingering insinuation (by contemporaries and later historians), that the early draconic "washout" rates in the Arnold Schools were in part the fault of the "bolshie" RAF cadets' attitude to the novel customs and military procedures to which they now had to accustom themselves.
Look at how it must appeared to the individuals. They'd set their hearts on becoming RAF pilots. Against long odds they had been selected, waited patiently until the RAF was ready for them, gone through their Reception Centres and ITWs, and now they were ready for the great day when they'd take to the air at last!
But wartime Britain was no place for elementary flying training ! We were now reliant on the Empire Flying Training Scheme (mainly Canada and Rhodesia). And then came this wonderful gift from the (officially neutral) United States, in the person of General "Hap" Arnold, commanding the South East Flying Training Center of the United States Army Air Corps. He offered the use of a large part of his training organisation to the RAF. This generous offer was snapped up at once !
Not only that, but the US Government authorised the setting up, at the same time, of British Flying Training Schools (providing airfields, camps, aircraft and civil (later allowing RAF) instructors, in the SW States. And all this started in midsummer '41, when USA was still a Neutral ! It must have been one of the most helpful results of Roosevelt's policy of "All Aid short of War".
And so it was that Danny (and the thousands who were to follow him) found himself across the Atlantic, and ended up at Carlstrom Field in Florida under the "Arnold Scheme". And was introduced to the "Stearman", and to a kind and pleasant South Carolinan (Bob Greer), who cannot have been more that two or three years my senior. Together we started my great adventure (and the rest you know).
But the US Army Air Corps had set the bar very high for their own Cadets, and saw no reason to lower it for us. After some ten days some of our comrades started to come back, one by one, and then by twos and threes, at the close of day, ashen-faced, to tell us that they'd been "chopped". Mercifully, they'd be on the train to Canada first thing in the morning, in their chalk-striped grey suits, (for they were officially "civilians").
This blood-bath lasted about a fortnight, then tapered off. That 2/5 of us had disappeared would be a fair estimate, IMHO. At around the 15-20 hr point, we dared to hope that we might yet get through, and in fact most of us did: there were only one or two more (like my room mate, who'd day-dreamed, at circuit height, through an active RLG circuit) who didn't. For we'd heard, on the grapevine, that once through Primary we were nearly safe - the Holy Grail (our Wings) was in sight ! (And so it proved).
What sort of fool would you now need to be to put all this in jeopardy (and maybe lose it all), by some act of foolish buffoonery, or "kicking against the traces", merely to register your annoyance with some American regulation or other which you thought to be pettyfogging and unnecessary ?
The huge bulk of the losses happened as I've described, and in no other way, What about from 42E on ? - maybe they lowered the bar. Don't know.
Danny42C.