Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II

[Danny42C]

Warmtoast,

Thanks for the steer to Dr.Guinn's description of the Lakeland Armistice Day parade. I have relied on him for a lot of the statistics on total number of "Arnold" students and what happened to them, but had not come across this particular article.

What he says about uniforms surprises me. At Carlstrom my "special flying kit" amounted to a plain khaki overall plus cloth helmet and goggles. Leather flying jackets ? - you must be joking ! (why would you need them in warm Florida, anyway ?). So 42D at Lakeland had their RAF blues, they must have been a special case, for we certainly didn't have ours. And our USAAC officers wore lightweight summer uniforms all the time (perhaps they hadn't heard of the Army Regulations - or just ignored them).

And we had to march to US drill: (Hup-two-three-four .... To the rear March !) At Advanced School (Craig Field, Selma, Ala) we did US arms drill as well, with old Springfield rifles. Never could get the hang of "Changing shoulders on the March" (there is no magazine sticking out below as on the SMLE, so you carry the Springfield right way up on one shoulder or the other, to order). ♫ "You're in the Army Now/You're not behind a plow !" ♫

So our chap soloed after 4½ hours dual (presumably on a PT-17). Didn't he do well ! (8 hours was the norm). Perhaps he'd had some TM hours in UK before coming out.

My dates as 42C started 30.8.41., left 3.11.41. at Carlstrom (66 days), I would think all the Arnold schools would start about the same time; 35 days later 42D would have joined us around 4.10.41., 35 days after that 42E about 8.11.41. The Armistice Day parade on 11.11.41. would consist of 42D plus the newly arrived 42E.

Whaddya mean: "at weekends" and "on Sundays" ? Don't you know there's a war on ? At Carlstrom weekends had gone out of the window !

♫ Off we went, into the Wide Blue Yonder ! ♫

Cheers, Danny.