Chugalug (#11261),
Too true. The Luftwaffe pilots had sworn allegiance to their Fuhrer, and loyally did their duty to him, as we had and did to our King. It was just their misfortune to have "Hitched their wagon" to an evil star. There should be no animosity between us - they were just doing their job. As for Hanna Reitsch, would I have shoe-horned myself into and test-flown a Me163 rocket ship ? - No, thanks !
MPN11 (#11282),
Me and my big mouth ! And, y'all, don't get me wrong about the 10-hour thing. I do not defend the USAAC system, but merely point out that they were working a 7-day week to a tight schedule, and if you did not solo at average time, they might not be able to get you through the Primary phase before it was time to ship you off to Basic School somewhere else.
Our instructors were not at all fazed by the enormous chop rates, which leads me to believe that their own cadets suffered a similar wastage rate. It may have been that a USAAC Cadetship was a highly prized thing (like a West Point cadetship): (I think you needed a Congressman's recommendation and two years "college" to apply).
For that reason they were able to recruit far more than the full training system could absorb, and so used Primary Schools as "Grading Schools" to whittle the numbers down. Whatever, the result was that we lost a potential 3,000 plus "Washouts", many of which could've been perfectly good pilots for the RAF if only they had been given more time at solo stage.
All this is "off the top of my head" of course. It has always been my hope that one day we will find an old Colonel, sipping his mint julep in a rocking chair on the back porch of his antebellum mansion, who was on General Arnold's staff, and can give us the low-down on this !
Cheers, both, Danny.