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

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

Old 3rd Jun 2014, 17:58
  #5741 (permalink)  
Danny42C
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Ormeside28,

In my class in the Arnold Scheme (42C, starting at the beginning of September '41), at Primary School they logged time to the minute (presumably because the civilian contractor was being paid by the minute for the provision of flying training hours).

At Basic and Advanced (both wholly Army Air Corps Schools, with Air Corps officer instructors), we logged to the next five minutes.

Made the totting-up much easier !

D
 
Old 3rd Jun 2014, 18:28
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Danny42C
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Petet,

The N.S.2 "Certificate of Registration" is a '41 issue. But the link you give "The 1939 National Identity Card" brings up pictures of the fold-over card we all had to carry at all times.

D.
 
Old 3rd Jun 2014, 19:39
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Registration Cards

Danny


The point I was trying to make was that the Identity Card formed part of the September 1939 registration process, with a card being issued to every man, woman and child on the census record.


Registering for National Service was an all together different process requiring men to attend their local employment / labour exchange on a specified Saturday based on their DOB. They would receive their National Service registration card and then be instructed to submit themselves for a medical before being placed on the register for those available for service with the armed forces (as you describe in your post)


I hope that clarifies


Regards


Pete
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Old 3rd Jun 2014, 20:29
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1939 ID Card

I was 3 months old and I don't remember having one !
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Old 3rd Jun 2014, 21:16
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Danny42C
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Pete,

Point taken ! (it was "apples and onions" - two different things)...D.

gzornenplatz,

Try the European Court of Human Rights - you should stand a good chance...D.

Cheers both, Danny.
 
Old 3rd Jun 2014, 22:19
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Apples and Onions

Apples and Onions ... do you mean that pears were not available due to rationing!!??


.... anyway, keep up the good work Danny et al .... still loving the thread and learning something new every day


Regards


Pete
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 02:59
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Registration Card Number

gzornenplatz
You certainly had a Registration Card and now you've lost it!
Luckily for you as Petet's link The 1939 National Identity Card explains they will for 42 quid provide a copy of the information if you are dead. Even more lucky for you the need to have and carry your card ceased when the Identity Card was finally abolished in February 1952.
Further should you wish to take this to Brussels as Danny suggests , a good starting point is your NHS identity number this the same number as your original Registration Card Number.

Plenty of interesting reading in that link.
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 08:20
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No idea what my NHS number is without looking it up but BJBP 2484 is forever imprinted in my mind. Dad was 2481, Mum 2482, big sister 2483. God only knows how they made out for a double digit family.
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 08:40
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26er rest assured you've just quoted your NHS no.
Incidentally listed as BJBP/248/4 in those pre-computerised days so .../10 would not have been unacceptable.

P.s. Also forever imprinted in my mind, as is my National service no. 51900012 but when I needed recently my National Insurance no. nearly a complete blank ZW?????????????A with a 124 in there somewhere!

Last edited by Pom Pax; 4th Jun 2014 at 08:51. Reason: Add ps
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 10:22
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Hi again - a couple of pictures of the Stearman from Dad's album - I believe they were painted yellow?

HF


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Old 4th Jun 2014, 11:05
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POM PAX


It was my NHS number at one time - I had a card with it on - but it has now become a ten digit number, but nobody told me. Must have been some twenty years ago.
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 13:10
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A couple of visitors to Terrell. A Grumman J2F Duck I believe as well as one of a formation of US Navy gliders who descended on Terrell. I am surprised that the US Navy had gliders as I wonder what purpose they served - unless they were used to train Marine glider pilots?

HF

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Old 4th Jun 2014, 14:09
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And half a Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing off the port wingtip of the Duck
Lovely photos Hummingfrog(s).

Ian BB
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 17:42
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Abbreviations etc

Danny42C - having looked up your encounter with Sir Basil Embry and mindful of my own experience re questions on Rugby Football, I did often feel that its supposed mystique had undue influence on certain elements of the RAF hierarchy; in fact the game was often responsible for rendering some of its more enthusiastic followers unfit for duty through injury, with the result that others had to then do their jobs for them - sometimes at personal inconvenience, not to mention any to the RAF (plus loss to the taxpayer for hospitalization etc).

The two routes available to prospective pilots & navs, so far as I recall, were either the usual one by volunteering directly for aircrew, or the University Air Squadron scheme whereby one spent six months at selected Univs covering the ITW syllabus plus an academic subject of choice; at the end, a few weeks was spent square-bashing at ITW before proceeding to Grading School. This system had the advantage, for those who might have wanted in the normal course of events to go to Univ, that it got your name on the college/University books and thus secured the right to go back there after the war if one so desired.

As for abbreviations: AFU & OTU are I think well known, TSCU stood for Transport Support Conversion Unit, GPU for Glider Pick-up Unit
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 17:58
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Pete,

"Apples and Pears" - of course ! (What's the matter with my memory ? - as if I didn't know !)....D.


26er,

Mine was "NZVM/79/3". How come we can all remember these numbers so well ? In principle, I suppose there is no reason why we should not have had "ABCD/12/10-11-12 etc"...D.


Hummingfrog,

I think ours were blue fuselsges, yellow wings and tails in the AAC (like this - courtesy of Wiki).. ...D.



Boeing Stearman E75 (PT-13D)


harrym,

In all fairness, I must admit that Sir Basil had common sense on his side in my case. A Flt.Lt. Pilot with so little seniority that he might have got his scraper at 40, was not really what he wanted in his Command.

On the recruitment question, I was thinking more of the hoi polloi like myself, and what might have been my chances if I'd waited for call-up, been lucky to get the RAF, then volunteered (successfully) for aircrew (as I suspect had been the case for the two RAF Sgts in S/Ldr McKinnon's crew) [RIP all].....D.


Cheers, everone. Danny.

Last edited by Danny42C; 4th Jun 2014 at 18:23. Reason: Add Text.
 
Old 4th Jun 2014, 20:51
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Yes, the numbers game. My ID card was EKBB1384, ATC number 304xxxx, RAF 350xxxx, Op number at a RAF Y station 661, I have both a 10-digit NHS number and a Hospital Patient number Fxxxxx. I can quote each correctly at the drop of a hat except the NHS one. Oh, I forgot, there's yet another one, ZL xx xx xx C, which the tax man knows. I probably also have one squirreled away in some office in Brussels, until UKIP take over.
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 23:15
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Pin Nos., ID nos., NHS nos., NI nos., all defeat me when my memory is called upon, as often as not. What I shall always be able to chant at the drop of a hat however is my Service Number, and that goes for everyone else who has served or indeed is serving. The combination of always having to recite it when required and, in the beginning anyway, probably being on a charge if unable to do so, concentrates the mind wonderfully. God forbid that HMRC should get such ideas...

harrym, thank you for the decode. Interesting that Transport Command were already using the term 'Support' back then, for they were later to be subsumed into the new Air Support Command of course. GPU had a totally different meaning later, as a sort of superannuated Trolley Acc, but your GPU is far more intriguing and we await a full explanation when you reach that chapter of your story.

Hummingfrog, what a strange pair of visiting aircraft at Terrell! The Duck amphibian would seem by its appearance to be alien to all three of its environments, whether it be the air, on land, or afloat. Yet it obviously flew into Terrell OK and presumably just as easily flew out again. I guess if it flies like a duck, swims like a duck, and walks like a duck....

As to the glider, the mystery is not only what use the US Navy made of them (recreation, airmanship training?), more as to why it was at Terrell (just ran out of thermals?), why it should have arrived as part of a formation, and how it was ever going to get out again (unless of course the Duck...).
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Old 4th Jun 2014, 23:31
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I am surprised by how modern the glider looks. The equivalent used by the ATC in the fifties and sixties looked like bamboo bathtubs.
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Old 5th Jun 2014, 11:00
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Having just returned from holiday (reading, but not posting) ... Ahh, the old ID Card

Here's mine (no Form number, surprisingly) , issued in Dec 44, and helpfully listing all my home addresses until the scheme expired. I must visit Google Street View to see what squalid places I lived in as a child ... there was a war on, you know!

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Old 5th Jun 2014, 17:20
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I/D cards etc

Chugalug2 - Re service numbers, was the RAF the only service to use one's 'last three' as an extra aid to identification? Dunno about the Navy, but asking a squaddie for his last three would inevitably be answered by a look of total bafflement. As to cards in general, somewhere I have my RCAF I/D card that was issued to us all in lieu of the usual F1250 - will post a pic thereof, if I can find the d--- thing! The GPU memoir will show in due course, but as it's the last of the lot I'm afraid you may have to wait for a while - but not too long, I hope.

The subsummation of Transport Command into Air Support ditto did not occur until around 1970, and I for one regretted the day that our shiny VC10s exchanged the proud transport title for something that suggested being part of the Equipment branch. Fortunately this did not last very long, the latter part of the hated title being deleted so that we ended up as plain Royal Air Force - much better, and quite unambiguous.

Danny42C - Just as well you did not wait for call-up, as I think it's generally true that the volunteer is more likely to get what he wants - which is why I volunteered as soon as I had left school. It certainly worked for me, but perhaps I was lucky!
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