Warmtoast,
(Your #6898) Thanks for pointing me to the two links you posted. In both cases it illustrates how two wartime careers can start side by side, then suddenly and arbitralily take off in widely different directions. After a long time examining the first with a magnifyng glass, I comment as follows:
EDIT: Here is Warmtoast''s pic (can't copy it any bigger no matter what I do):
RAF cadets of Class 42D parade through Lakeland, Florida, USA, on Armistice Remembrance Sunday 11 November 1941
(Must have had a band in front - they're ALL IN STEP !)
The Lakeland Parade has me, frankly, baffled. The first question being: "What was that parade
for, anyway ?" The obvious answer would be "to show the flag", and to cement relations with the townsfolk, most of whom had never seen a Britisher in their lives. But I've never heard of such a thing in any of the other "Arnold" schools (although there were town parades in the BFTS, but their LACs/(pretend Aviation Cadets) would spend the whole six months in one spot, so making friendy relations with the locals much easier to grow than in the "Arnold" case, where we would be moved from one State to the next every eight weeks. (Lakeland and Carlstrom were the only two "Arnold" Primary Schools in Florida, both near the W.coast, Lakeland being some 60 miles N. of us). And the fact that Lakeland has a population of 100,000, whereas Arcadia (Carlstrom Field) only 7,600 (current figures, but I don't suppose the ratio would have changed all that much in the time since) might have had something to do with. I was only a Course ahead (42C), and don't remenber going into Arcadia even once (as there was no transport, and we were 15 miles out in the prairie).
Next thing, how was it that they had RAF uniforms ? All ours had been taken off us in Toronto: we came down to Florida in just the "Civvie" suits we had been given in Blackpool (to support the pathetic attempt to pass us off as "civilians", and so put a fig-leaf over the gross breach of US neutrality - this is a month before Pearl Harbor). All the time I was on their (three) Flight Schools, I wore nothing but flying overalls: they pinned my (Air Corps) silver wings on them at the end.
The whole of one new Course (about 120) would be on that parade, (about the same strength as my 42C Course at Carlstrom) - but they would finish only some 70-80 strong. And
who is leading the Parade ? There shouldn't be any RAF officers there, (we only sent out LACs and one or two NCOs [u/t Pilots or Navs] on the Arnold Scheme). Perhaps a US officer (tactfully clipped out of the picture). What about the two at the head of the column ? And what on earth is that chap nearest the camera carrying ? Bagpipes ? And some of them with raincoats (?) over their L. arms (?) The whole thing bristles with questions, perhaps we have on Thread someone who was there and can answer them.
The second story starts just like mine in so many ways: entry as a u/t Pilot, ITW in UK, trained at an "Arnold" school (just five weeks behind me), wings - no Commission for either of us - back to UK, Bournemouth and then Masters, fighter OTU (Hurricanes for him, Spitfires for me). But then he gets into action in N.Africa with the Hurricane he trained on; they sent me out to India (where there
were no Spitfires then); I was railroaded onto a thing of which few people had heard at the time, and no one remembers now (Vultee Vengeance). He was unlucky in his quest for a Commission, I got mine for the asking (I suspect only because the Boss was in such a huff over his several Dominion Sgt-Pilots, who were getting theirs [whether they wanted or not] planted on him without so much as a "by your leave"). Luck of the draw !
Then he winds up as a Ferry Pilot on the Burma front and seems to have seen a lot of the country. I hoped that he might have ferried a few VVs, and given me his opinion, but it seems that he was only taken back to base in one as a passenger.
Cheers, Danny.