Walter, your:
...It became galling that we were hanging around with nowhere to go. Trained aircrew, but with inappropriate skills!...
strikes a chord with me ! A bunch of us, some 36 strong, landed in India in late '42. All had come straight from Spitfire or Hurricane OTUs (about 50/50) in the UK, and were keen to put our specialised training to good use. The fighter-trained Hurricane boys were mostly used in ground-attack or as ferry pilots; the Spitfire contingent were even worse off, there were no Spitfires out there at that time, and it was only for the providential arrival, some months earlier, of the unwanted Vultee Vengeances, that we had anything to fly at all !
In fact, I never flew a Spitfire again until I came back in in '49 - seven years later. Luckily, it was like riding a bike - you never forget.
Danny.