Chapter 24

UK-based Observer training to 1942.

The state of observer training immediately prior to the outbreak of war was reviewed on pages 178-182, but by then changes were already in hand to define the range of courses that would be required by the various early wartime air crew categories. This had involved publication, in October 1939, of a completely revised edition of AP1388 which, with some minor amendments, governed the conduct of all aspects of navigation training until 1942.¹

It would take some time to introduce all of the wartime arrangements but the first stage was achieved on 1 November when the ten Civil Air Navigation Schools were restyled as Air Observers Navigation Schools, an eleventh, and last, being opened on 20 November. Despite their new titles, however, these units continued to be commercially operated, although reports of civilian instructors experiencing disciplinary problems with uniformed trainees led to most of the instructional staff being commissioned into the RAFVR on 1 January 1940.²

Meanwhile, the internal recruiting of observers had ceased abruptly in September 1939 and by the end of the year the last of the peacetime regular intakes had passed through the system. Thereafter the role of the Service-run Air Observer Schools was confined to providing armament training for direct entrant air gunners and for direct entrant observers who had previously been trained in navigation by the civilian-run schools. So, to reflect this change in function, during November and December, seven AOSs were progressively redesignated as Bombing and Gunnery Schools (B&GS).

The grotesquely inadequate pre-war CANS syllabus (see Figure 26 on page 180) had been extensively revised by the October 1939 edition of AP1388; it continued to be refined thereafter and its content as at April 1940 is summarised at Figure 36.³ A further seven hours of flying time had been added (to the sixty authorised at the end of 1939 – see page 200), although, as with the October 1939 syllabus, the 480 hours specifically allocated still leaves unspoken for a substantial proportion of the 608 hours that were available on a sixteen-week course. It is reasonable to assume that this time will have been devoted to those ‘non-aviation’ activities, such as drill, PT, parades, organised games and 48-hour passes that were essential elements of any wartime RAF course and which would eventually come to be specified as a matter of routine once the procedures to be followed when drafting a formal syllabus had been more precisely defined.

Fig 36. The syllabus for the sixteen-week AONS course as at April 1940.

The notional training sequence followed by direct entrants for the first few months of the war comprised two weeks at a Reception Centre, eight weeks at an ITW, sixteen weeks (67 flying hours) at an AONS, eight weeks (12 flying hours of gunnery and 16 of bombing) at a B&GS and four weeks (30 flying hours) of astro at the SAN, for a total of thirty-eight weeks of formal instruction and 125 hours of airborne experience. There were some deviations from this pattern and, for most trainees, the dedicated astro course was soon deleted, reducing the overall duration to thirty-four weeks (95 flying hours), plus an indefinite period, but typically a further six weeks, with a Group Pool.

By the spring of 1940, the B&GS course had been extended by a fortnight but, despite the apparently generous amount of time being devoted to the training of observers, the quantity versus quality problem raised its head yet again and there was constant dissatisfaction with their capabilities during the first year of the war. Indeed, on more than one occasion, Bomber Command directly challenged the wisdom of a policy which had given observers responsibility for navigation (see page 201).

The criticism of observers was undoubtedly justified, but the Air Ministry took the view that it was not the policy that was at fault so much as its application. The process whereby observers were being selected was considered to be insufficiently rigorous and their subsequent training was ill-designed, too short and inadequately carried out. The efficiency of the civil schools was also being viewed with some scepticism, as it was suspected that there might well be a conflict of interest between commercial considerations and the Service’s needs. There were, for instance, misgivings over Scottish Aviation’s use of three large Fokker airliners at its school at Prestwick. These ‘flying classrooms’ permitted pupils to be flown in batches of up to thirty at a time, which was plainly a very cost-effective way of providing each individual with his contracted allocation of flying hours. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether many of them gained very much from the experience.

G-AFZR, the civil-registered F.XXXVI, one of three Fokker airliners (the other two were F.XXIIs) acquired by Scottish Aviation and operated from Prestwick as navigation trainers in 1940.

Witness George Gray who recalls that ‘the early flights in the Fokker – twenty of us at a time – were somewhat frustrating […] he (the instructor) detailed us, two at a time, to go to the baggage compartment, where we lay on our belly to take the drift’, the point being, of course, that the other eighteen were not taking drifts.4 Then again, Cliff Alabaster recollects that, ‘When the instructor asked the trainees to record a reference point, the observers on one side would log a different position from those on the other side.’⁵

These personal observations aside, evidence of dissatisfaction can also be found in contemporary official correspondence. For instance, in response to a late-1940 trawl of training units in Bomber Command seeking feedback on the quality of observer training, No 13 OTU at Bicester commented on ‘poor knowledge of map reading, especially pupils from Prestwick’, while No 20 OTU at Lossiemouth noted, quite specifically, that ‘Prestwick pupils have spent too much time on Fokker aircraft.’⁶

By the end of 1940 several AONSs had already been closed down while others had been transferred abroad. To compensate for this loss in domestic training capacity it would have been necessary to increase the intakes into the five schools which were still operating in the UK. Insufficient seems to have been done in this respect, however, and, as a result, the output of observers had failed to keep pace with the expansion of the front line and operational losses. In January 1941 it was calculated that, if nothing were done to remedy the situation, there would be a shortfall of 227 observers by June rising to 630 by September. To produce the numbers required it was calculated that it would be necessary to increase, as a matter of some urgency, the intake into the remaining AONSs by some 540 cadets per month.⁷

In fact HQ Flying Training Command, which was fully aware of the impending crisis, had already taken action by making arrangements for the population of trainee observers to be increased by 420 before the end of March and a further sixty during April. At the same time the opportunity was being taken to investigate the possibility of improving the quality of the training being provided. It was decided to try combining the navigation and armament phases and conducting the whole sequence at a Service-run school. The idea was tried first at Millom where, from February 1941 onwards, No 2 B&GS’s facilities were to be dedicated solely to 240 observers (vice the previous 210 air gunners).⁸ The experimental consolidated course was to last twenty weeks (twelve of navigation plus eight of bombing and gunnery) during which each trainee was expected to fly 100 hours on Bothas and Battles.⁹

By June the Millom experiment had successfully demonstrated that a Service-run school could turn out a better product in slightly less time, while avoiding the more unsatisfactory aspects of using a civil organisation. In the light of this experience, a syllabus was prepared for a combined eighteen-week course, which now incorporated a substantial element of astro and, perhaps surprisingly, an introduction to the SCI¹⁰ (see Figure 37).¹¹ This syllabus was progressively introduced at other selected B&GSs during the summer and, since this made them responsible for instruction in navigation, they were redesignated (again) to become a new generation of Air Observers Schools (AOS). With the transfer of navigation training to Service-run schools, the remaining commercial enterprises gradually closed down, the last of them (No 6 AONS at Staverton) on 17 January 1942.

Fig 37. The June 1941 syllabus for the eighteen-week combined navigation and armament course for air observers introduced with the second generation of AOSs.

Although civil organisations no longer handled professional instruction, it is worth noting that, for a time, several of the second generation AOSs continued to rely heavily on commercial concerns, No 1 AOS at Wigtown, for example, being supported by Airwork. Unfortunately, experience soon showed that there were many points at which friction could occur. Disputes most commonly arose in the areas of discipline, working hours, restrictive practices and pay, in all of which the conditions of servicemen compared unfavourably to those of civilians.12

It was eventually concluded that a training unit could be either civilian- or Service-manned but that joint-manning was impractical. Since the RAF continued to harbour reservations over the quality of civilian instruction, there was little option but to terminate civilian involvement. This seems to have been a popular decision. When Marshalls gave up its catering and maintenance contracts at Bobbington on 31 June 1942, for instance, No 3 AOS recorded that ‘the changeover to Service personnel has caused great satisfaction among the personnel on the station.’¹³

Fig 38. Syllabus of No 1 EAOS as at October 1941.

By mid-1941 a substantial flow of overseas-trained observers was arriving in the UK. This began to relieve the previous shortage and the improved manning situation made it possible to consider lengthening the time devoted to training. As early as May 1941 Gp Capt L K Barnes had proposed the insertion of a preparatory phase of academic training for observers between completion of their ITW course and reporting to an AOS. This was finally achieved on 1 October when No 1 Elementary Air Observers (later Navigation) School (EAOS) opened at Eastbourne under the command of Gp Capt J H Dand with Wg Cdr D Bennett as the Chief Ground Instructor.¹⁴ A year later the unit moved to Bridgnorth where it continued to operate until January 1944.¹⁵

The six-week EAOS course provided a ground-based introduction to navigation, including ‘groundflights’ or ‘dry swims’, ie plotting practice in the classroom in real time. When the school opened, the syllabus content, which specifically embodied the principles noted on page 205, was as summarised at Figure 38.¹⁶

Above, the model of a DRI – a Dead Reckoning Instructor – built by the NSTDU to show the proposed classic six-student layout. The centre cubicle houses an epidiascope that projected photographs onto the common-user screen. Below the instrument display that was maintained by each ‘pilot’. The upper row of instruments are read outs of altitude, airspeed, course (ie heading) and air temperature. The fifth dial indicates cloud cover and visibility.

The introduction of synthetic training devices.

Having been using the Link Trainer to assist in the training of pilots since 1938, the Air Ministry decided to explore the potential for doing something similar for observers. This resulted in the formation of the Navigation Synthetic Training Development Unit (NSTDU) in 1941.¹⁷ It would eventually produce a range of devices that facilitated ground-based training in map-reading, astro and other techniques. The first to be introduced, as early as June 1941, and the only one to be discussed here, was the Dead Reckoning Instructor. Designed to be constructed locally, the DRI would become familiar to all trainee navigators until well into the post-war era when it was eventually replaced by broadly similar devices that incorporated an increasing degree of automation (see pages 307, 341 and 344).

In the manually operated DRI the navigator ‘flew’ a route, paired with a colleague acting as pilot and WOp. This second player kept the large instrument display behind his chair up to date, while plotting the track made good using the actual wind velocity. Since he knew the aircraft’s real position, he was able to provide loop bearings on request and indicate to the instructor operating the epidiascope which photograph (from an extensive library that provided for lateral displacement from planned track) to project onto the central screen when map-reading was deemed to be available.

The ubiquitous Anson provided the backbone of the global observer/navigator training organisation throughout WW II. This Mk I, W2083, was flying with the RAAF’s No 2 AOS at Mount Gambier, South Australia.

A more sophisticated extension of this concept, the Crew Procedure Trainer, was used at Bomber OTUs from 1941 onwards. A Ground Operational Exercise, or ‘Grope’, involved a pilot, navigator and WOp ‘flying’ a simulated mission using actual radio equipment and a means of taking astro sights, along with appropriate sound effects and simulated searchlight beams and Flak. 18

The creation of the Empire Air Training Scheme.

The history of the EATS, has been sufficiently well documented elsewhere to permit a brief summary to suffice here.¹⁹ The possibility of carrying out flying training in Canada (and elsewhere) had been proposed as early as 1936 in a memorandum submitted to the Director of Training, Air Cdre A Tedder, by a member of his staff, Gp Capt R Leckie. Little tangible progress had been made before war was declared but in October 1939 a British delegation, led by Lord Riverdale, set off for Ottawa. There it was to meet Canadian, Australian and New Zealand representatives with a view to setting up a joint system to train British and Dominion air crew.

The training scheme which had operated in Canada during WW I had been a British-run affair and, since London suspected that the tiny RCAF lacked both the expertise and the organisational capacity to handle the task, it was envisaged that any similar scheme would also have to be supervised by the RAF. Despite Britain’s wish to control affairs, however, it was hoped that the other governments could be persuaded to underwrite a substantial proportion of the cost. Such an attitude failed to take sufficient account of ‘colonial’ sensitivities, however, the point being that Dominions were not colonies.

Since Canada (unlike Australia) had not formed an air force of its own during WW I, all Canadian airmen (and New Zealanders and many Australians) had served in British uniform. As a result, Canada felt that her substantial contribution to the first war in the air had been largely overlooked and that her sovereignty had in some way been impugned. This still smarted and in 1939 Prime Minister Mackenzie King was determined to ensure that this should not happen again. Australia and New Zealand were in full sympathy with Canada over the question of national recognition. Furthermore, while the RAAF and RNZAF were content to take advantage of the potential offered by the proposed joint scheme in Canada, they fully intended to sustain and expand their own independent training organisations at the same time.

A British-built Anson I in service with the RCAF’s No 6 AOS at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan in 1941. (RCAF)

After lengthy negotiations, the Riverdale Agreement was eventually signed on 17 December, bringing into being, what was initially referred to (at least by the British) as, the Dominion Air Training Scheme.²⁰ The British had been obliged to suppress their reservations over the perceived limitations of the Canadians and had agreed to the control of (almost) all training activities in Canada being exercised by the RCAF. For its part, Canada’s residual mistrust of British ambitions was overcome by the admirable expedient of seconding Air Cdre Leckie, a Canadian serving in the RAF, to Ottawa where he was given a seat on the Canadian Air Council whence he was able to direct operations.²¹

The negotiations had also revealed significant practical difficulties in ensuring that the efforts being made by the various national authorities would be adequately recognised. This aspect was addressed by Article 15 of the Riverdale Agreement but the sensitivities involved were such that it took until January 1941 to decide exactly how its provisions were to be implemented. In brief, in addition to expanding, manning and operating their own national air forces, the Dominions undertook to raise entire squadrons to serve under RAF command.²² They also agreed to furnish additional trained air crew to fly with British units but, rather than being subsumed into an ‘imperial’ air force, Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders who served with the RAF would do so as RAAF, RCAF and RNZAF personnel.23

It is interesting to note that, in January 1940, a Standing Committee of the Air Council had been established in order to monitor developments. To be chaired by the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Harold Balfour, it was to be known as the Empire Air Training Scheme Committee. Its terms of reference began as follows: ‘To keep in touch with developments of the Dominion Air Training Scheme …’²⁴ Despite the evident uncertainty as to the precise terminology to be used, the existence of this committee ensured that the ‘EATS’ label soon became firmly affixed within RAF circles. This was not so elsewhere, however, and it is a little surprising to find that such a large-scale, international enterprise seems to have operated until 1942 without the benefit of a universally recognised title.

While the RAF was content with its ‘EATS’, correspondence raised by the RCAF and by diplomatic offices on both sides of the Atlantic, throughout 1940-41, used a variety of terms to refer to the activities in Canada. These included such variations on a theme as: the Joint Air Training Plan; the Air Training Scheme Agreement; the Dominion Air Training Scheme; the Commonwealth Air Training Plan; the British Commonwealth Air Training Agreement; the British Commonwealth Joint Air Training Plan and so on.²⁵ Reading between the lines, it seems that most agencies were so conscious of the unfortunate connotations of the imperial tag and were at such pains to avoid using it that they could not even acknowledge that they were doing so; as a result it appears to have been too embarrassing even to raise the question of a formal title.

It should be understood that, initially at least, what the British meant by the EATS embraced only the arrangements covered by the Riverdale Agreement, ie the training of RAF, RAAF, RCAF and RNZAF personnel under Canadian-run arrangements in Canada. This informal ‘definition’ gradually expanded to include the training under domestic arrangements of additional RAAF and RNZAF air crew for service with the RAF and later developments within the evolving Canadian system. For example, it had been agreed that, apart from the schools being run by (or on behalf of²⁶) the RCAF, the RAF would also be permitted to establish and operate its own training organisation on Canadian soil. Although some of the schools involved in this arrangement would actually be formed in Canada, the basis of the organisation was created by moving a number of units, the so-called ‘transferred schools’, from the UK. While this British-run affair was obviously heavily reliant upon Canadian goodwill and administration, strictly speaking it did not operate under the auspices of the EATS.

Although the Canadian enterprise was the largest, the British developed other joint overseas training facilities, notably under bilateral arrangements with Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. In addition, while they were chiefly concerned with IAF personnel, some of the capacity of training schools set up in India was also used to train RAF air crew.

Widely employed as a pilot trainer, the SAAF also used some Oxfords to train observers. (MAP)

The concept of the Rhodesian Air Training Group (RATG) was broadly similar to that of the Canadian undertaking, which it actually pre-dated, in that it provided both for the training of British air crew and for the supply of Rhodesian (and Australian) personnel to fly with the RAF.

The South African arrangement was somewhat different because, although (after a hasty change of leadership) its government had declared war on Germany in September 1939, Pretoria was not prepared to participate actively until the Union itself was directly threatened.²⁷ In anticipation of that event, however, the South Africans recognised that they would need to build up their own armed forces and while so doing they were content to assist with the training of British personnel. As with the Canadian case, the negotiations were complicated but the ‘Van-Brookham Agreement’ was eventually signed on 1 June 1940.²⁸ As originally drafted it had been envisaged that any RAF-run training units would operate independently of SAAF schools but, in practice, the two organisations were progressively merged and the de facto combined arrangements were endorsed on 23 June 1941 by the signing of the Joint Air Training Scheme in South Africa Memorandum of Agreement – the JATS.

At the Ottawa Training Conference in 1942, the British agreed to relinquish control of RAF-run training units in Canada to the RCAF. This organisational change was significant enough to warrant changing the name of the whole Canadian enterprise or, to be more accurate, seemingly agreeing to give it a mutually acceptable name for the first time. Thereafter it was officially known as the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, the Dominions clearly being far more comfortable using the co-operative-sounding ‘commonwealth’ rather than a title with imperial overtones. Strictly speaking, therefore, it was now app-ropriate to refer to the arrangements with the various Dominions as the BCATP, the JATS and the RATG.29

Some idea of the scale of the Canadian enterprise can be gauged from the fact that, apart from the 1,528 British-built Anson Is that were shipped across the Atlantic during the war, the Canadians built a further 1,832 Jacobs-engined Mk IIs followed by 1,049 Mk Vs, which featured a moulded plywood veneer fuselage, like this one which was operated by the RCAF’s No 4 AOS at London, Ontario. (MAP)

Because they alone were involved in all three of these activities, however, from their strictly Anglocentric perspective, the British needed an umbrella term to embrace all of these arrangements and by 1942 it was generally understood that the ‘EATS’ meant virtually all training being conducted ‘overseas’ on behalf of the RAF. It was such a convenient and familiar tag that, rightly or wrongly, the British persisted in using it to describe training in Canada, and elsewhere, for the remainder of the war. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that most Canadian writers tend to describe all wartime training activities in Canada as having been conducted under the BCATP from the outset³⁰ while their British counterparts still tend to use the EATS label somewhat indiscriminately (as this one will from here on).

Observer, Navigator and Air Bomber training under Commonwealth arrangements.

The first Canadian-run training units became operational, on schedule, at the end of April 1940, with the first RATG school opening a month later. These units were concerned with pilots, although those dealing with other air crew categories were running only a few weeks behind; the first observers to be trained under the EATS, all of them Canadians, graduated on 24 October and the first air gunners four days later.

While the Dominions had been establishing the schools that they were to run, substantial material assistance was being provided by the British. Apart from large numbers of aeroplanes, this had included the men and equipment necessary to set up a number of complete RAF units – the ‘transferred schools’. In the specific context of non-pilots, during 1940-41 sufficient resources were sent abroad to establish a total of nine schools.³¹ This contribution was dwarfed by the efforts of the host nations in every case and by the end of 1942 the Canadians alone had commissioned: ten Air Observers Schools, two Air Navigation Schools, a General Reconnaissance School, four Wireless Schools, nine Bombing and Gunnery Schools and their own Central Navigation School.

Because the system was constantly evolving, it can be only a snapshot, but it may be of some interest to consider the planned training sequences to be followed by RAF navigators and air bombers in the ‘post-observer’ summer of 1942. After selection and induction, they were to attend an eight-week ITW course followed (apart from air bombers) by four weeks at the Elementary Air Navigation School. The majority of cadets would then sail for Canada to undergo their professional training. The various courses are outlined below.

a. Navigators. Navigation training only, involving twelve weeks at an Air Observers School plus four weeks of astro, generally at an Air Navigation School.

b. Navigators (B). A six-week course at a Bombing and Gunnery School followed by fourteen weeks of navigation at an Air Observers School, including four weeks of astro, generally at an Air Navigation School.

c. Navigators (W). The category of Navigator (W) was unique to the RAF so these men spent the first twenty-four weeks of their professional training at a Radio School in the UK before sailing for Canada where they underwent the standard sixteen-week navigation course at an Air Observers School and/or an Air Navigation School, including four weeks of astro.

d. Air Bombers. A six-week course at a Bombing and Gunnery School followed by six weeks of basic navigation at an Air Observers School or an Air Navigation School.32

Pan American Airways’ flying boat base at Dinner Key.

Until 1944, the training of radio operators (air), observers (radio) and navigators (radio) represented something of a diversion from the mainstream. These special cases are discussed on pages 263-264.

Observer training in the USA.

Having already inaugurated a variety of training schemes within the Commonwealth, and with plans to establish a network of flying schools in the vicinity of Vendôme (in France) rapidly becoming unravelled, in May 1940 the UK began to explore the possibility of training additional air crew in the USA. The initial approach came to nought for a variety of reasons. One was that, despite his sympathy for Britain’s plight, President Roosevelt needed to avoid exacerbating isolationist sentiment in an election year; another was a lack of capacity, because the Americans were embarking on a major expansion programme of their own. Part of this scheme involved the innovative (to the USAAC) use of civil flying schools, much as the RAF had been doing since 1935. Under one of these arrangements, the US Army announced on 10 August 1940 that it had contracted Pan American Airways to train a total of 850 flight navigators by the end of 1941.³³

By this time (partly due to the publicity generated by the Battle of Britain) some American politicians were beginning to regard the UK as the USA’s first line of defence, making it possible to view the RAF’s requirements in a more favourable light. By October the Americans felt able to enter into formal negotiations with a view to training RAF air crew.³⁴ The offer included the training of observers using the Pan American Airways (PAA) school which operated under the aegis of the University of Miami.³⁵

To circumvent its Neutrality Laws, Washington required that all trainees should be civilians so that they could be represented as being trained for a civil air transport company.³⁶ The State Department also preferred that they should be provided from the Americas and specifically requested that the first batch, at least, should be Canadians. Since they were already operating a comprehensive training organisation of their own, however, the Canadians declined to become involved south of the border. Another proposal, involving the provision of cadets recruited in the West Indies, foundered on the rock of American racial prejudice. This problem delayed matters for several months until it was finally agreed that British cadets could be accepted, so long as they had been notionally discharged from the RAF before leaving the UK and subsequently entered the USA via Canada, wearing civilian clothes. The first ten-man observers course eventually began on 22 March 1941.³⁷

The PAA school was located at Coral Gables, just outside Miami. Trainees were accommodated in the San Sebastian Hotel, alongside US Army navigators who were attending similar courses. Practical exercises were flown from the flying boat base at Dinner Key. Unfortunately, the airline insisted on retaining responsibility for the syllabus, which had been designed by PanAm’s Charles Lunn, who had very firm ideas on how navigation should be conducted. These ideas were at variance with those of the RAF but, since early political sensitivities made it impossible to involve RAF instructors, the British were initially unable to exert much influence over the content of the twelve (later fifteen) week course. As a result, the training provided turned out to be something of a curate’s egg.

The curriculum, which concentrated heavily on oceanic navigation, placed great emphasis on the use of astro. As a result the theory of celestial navigation was well-taught, although such practical work as was done involved the use of a US-pattern octant, rather than a British sextant. Unfortunately, practically no instruction was provided in such crucial, to the RAF, skills as map-reading, log keeping and the air plot technique. Furthermore, being a peacetime commercial organisation, PAA had little awareness of applied navigation in a military context and provided no instruction whatsoever in tactical matters. Thus, the course offered little or nothing relating to reconnaissance techniques, search procedures, signalling, photography and so on. The practical aspects of the course also left much to be desired as only four aeroplanes (Consolidated Commodores) were available for airborne work. The contract called for each cadet to spend fifty hours in the air (half of them at night) but, flying in batches of up to ten at a time, only four or five of these hours were spent as ‘navigator in charge’.38

One of Pan American Airways’ Consolidated Commodores, the type used to provide airborne experience for RAF observers being trained at the company’s navigation school in Miami.

Despite its limitations, however, the RAF was more than content to take advantage of the PAA school and from July 1941 onwards intakes were increased to 150 per course. At the same time, it became possible to increase the number of RAF Liaison Officers and these were able to provide tuition in some of the subjects which were missing from the original syllabus.³⁹ Nevertheless, Miami graduates still had much to learn before they could be regarded as being fully trained to RAF standards. The most obvious need was for additional instruction in bombing and gunnery, topics which it had been hoped would be covered by the RCAF. In the event, while the Canadians were able to handle the output of the first two (ten-man) courses, at No 2 B&GS at Mossbank, they could not cope with the later ones which, even allowing for an anticipated 20% wastage rate, were expected to amount to 120 cadets every eight weeks from the autumn of 1941 onwards.⁴⁰

Some thought was given to solving this problem by transferring an RAF B&GS to Canada but it was eventually decided to return all Miami graduates to the UK and to provide them with their additional training there. Forward planning at the end of 1941 anticipated that forty of each batch of 120 would go straight to No 3 Radio School at Prestwick to become observers (radio). Forty-eight would go to Nos 1, 2, 9 or 10 AOSs before moving on to No 3 School of General Reconnaissance at Squires Gate and thence to a Coastal Command OTU. The remaining thirty-two, who were destined for Bomber Command OTUs, were to do a similar AOS course, preceded by a month’s armament training at Manby.⁴¹

The last British course to use the facilities at Miami graduated on 17 October 1942, by which time Pan American Airways had trained a total of 1,177 observers for the RAF.⁴² These were not the only observers to be contributed by the USA, however, as a further 538 had been trained by the US Navy at Pensacola (Florida) under the Towers Scheme. The first thirty-strong course arrived there at the end of July 1941 but only one more ‘Towers’ course was despatched from the UK. All subsequent batches of observers (and WOps) to be trained by the US Navy were composed of cadets who were already in the USA but who had been suspended from flying training as pilots.

It had originally been intended that, having received their basic training at Pensacola, these observers would go to Norfolk (Virginia) where, crewed with RAF pilots and WOps, they would spend some time flying with US Navy patrol squadrons after which they would be deemed to be fully qualified. Unfortunately, the first sixty cadets had completed their ground school at Norfolk, but had yet to begin flying, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Americans promptly adopted a more warlike posture and became too preoccupied with operational patrols to be able to cope with a major training programme. Since they had done the second-stage ground school, the RAF staff at Washington put in a bid for the first sixty trainees to be recognised as sergeants or commissioned, but the Air Ministry were not prepared to grant such a concession and directed that they were all to be returned to the UK to complete a B&GS course.43

These complications aside, the US Navy’s syllabus was similar to that offered by PAA inasmuch as it was long on theory but short on practice, airborne time (in Catalinas) being of the order of thirty hours, none of it at night. As a result, Navy-trained observers, subsequently produced exclusively by Pensacola, were regarded as being less than fully qualified and, like those emerging from Miami, they too completed their courses still as unbadged LACs. Since the US Navy scheme ended in July 1942,⁴⁴ it would not have contributed to the anomalous complication of the batch of badged LACs who graduated from Miami at about that time (see pages 222-223). It should be recorded, however, that despite their incomplete training, their lack of both rank and experience and the lack of an air crew badge, some of the ex-Pensacola men (and some of the ex-Miami men) found their way back to the UK by navigating an aeroplane across the Atlantic. It might be considered that this was, almost too literally for comfort, a case of being thrown in at the (very) deep end.⁴⁵

Changes in the role of UK-based observer training units and the publication of a definitive syllabus.

While the EATS had been working up to speed, the UK-based system had initially continued to run in parallel. Over time, however, an increasing proportion of basic training was carried out in the Dominions and, under the New Deal, it had been agreed to transfer practically all of this activity overseas. By the end of 1941 large numbers of fully trained men were already beginning to arrive in/return to the UK and, to aviators who tended to be accustomed to flat terrain, relatively clear weather and empty skies, the frequent (and sometimes rock-filled) cloud cover, the black-out, the balloon barrage and the generally crowded airspace of wartime Britain represented something of a culture shock.

It was clearly going to be necessary to provide acclimatisation training and, at much the same time as this was becoming increasingly apparent, consideration was being given to revising the composition of heavy bomber crews (see pages 216-220). In response to these developments, AMT had set about revising the flying training system to provide both observers and pilots with more flying hours before they gained their ‘wings’, plus additional pre-OTU flying time in the UK. His proposals envisaged that observers would now accumulate 130 hours (up from 104 – see Figure 37 on page 236) and pilots trained on single and twin-engined aeroplanes 120 or 150 hours respectively (up from the current 107 and 122). Newly qualified airmen returning to (or arriving in) the UK from abroad would then attend a post-graduate course at one of the newly created Advanced Flying Units (AFU). These were to provide observers with a further 30 hours and pilots 30 or 60. At the time, the exact nature of the prospective ‘bombardier’ had yet to be defined but it was clear that, if it was decided that he was to be a dedicated crewman, rather than a mere ‘assistant navigator’, this would require a further expansion of training capacity.⁴⁶

The resources for the new UK-based facilities were found by converting the existing AOSs (and SFTSs) which, were becoming redundant in their original role(s). Over the next several months specific courses, generally of four to eight weeks’ duration, were developed to meet the requirements of the various categories of navigator and of air bombers and (and, in some cases, the needs of UK-trained WOp/AGs). To signify its new role, as each AOS switched to acclimatisation and familiarisation training it became an (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit [(O)AFU], the first in February 1942, the last of them two years later. With the demise of the air observer half-way through this process, yet another wave of redesignations – to (N)AFU – would have been in order, but, curiously enough, this never happened.

It is perhaps worth observing that, when summarising the extension of the flying training sequence, including the introduction of the AFU concept, for the benefit of the Air Council in early April 1942, Air Mshl Garrod had presented these changes in the form of ‘proposals’. In fact, most, if not all of them, were already well underway. No 1 AOS at Wigtown, for instance, had become No 1 (O)AFU, on 1 February, preceded by the first (P)AFU, No 14, as early as 26 January. Furthermore, in the specific context of observers, AMT’s reported ‘proposal’ to provide observers with 130 flying hours had actually been implemented in the previous October when it was ‘to be brought into force forthwith’ (see Note 4 to Chapter 22).

The transitional period while the New Deal was being introduced must have been rather confusing for the UK-based units. Some impression of the flow of traffic passing through the system during the early months of 1942 can be gauged from the records of No 1 AOS/(O)AFU.⁴⁷ No 6 Course consisted of forty Miami-trained LACs who arrived at Wigtown on 7 February via an armament course at Manby’s No 1 AAS; they moved on to their OTUs (presumeably, by then as sergeants) a month later. No 7 Course, forty sergeants who had been trained by the US Navy, followed them out on 16 May. In the meantime, on 17 January thirty-two pilot officers and forty-eight sergeants, all of them EATS-trained, had arrived from No 3 PRC for acclimatisation training. They were split into two batches and labelled as Nos 1 and 2 AFU Courses. No 2 AFU Course was posted out on 14 March but No 1 seems to have been put on hold for some reason and did not start training until 3 May; they left on the 30th.

At much the same time, No 3 (O)AFU had received a batch of thirty WOp/AGs on 11 May along with its first consignment of seventy air bombers.⁴⁸ Forty of the latter reached Bobbington via Bournemouth. Having recently passed through EATS schools, they will have required only a relatively brief acclimatisation course. The other thirty came direct from grading at an EFTS and, as ab initio trainees, they will have needed comprehensive instruction in both bomb aiming and navigation. It is interesting to observe, however, that the unit’s records state that this was the first official notice it had received of the establishment of the new air crew category of the air bomber, so one wonders just how well prepared it was to train these men.

By late 1943 the situation had more or less stabilised. Most AOSs had become (O)AFUs which were now offering separate four-week courses tailored to meet the specific requirements of navigators, air bombers and wireless operators, each course being intended to provide some thirty hours of airborne time.49 The notional capacity of the (O)AFUs in December 1943 was 2,550, comprising 840 Navs, 40 Nav(B)s, 810 air bombers and 860 WOp/AGs.

It goes, almost without saying, that there was an exception to the rule. In this case it involved No 5 AOS at Jurby which, instead of becoming an (O)AFU, was renamed the Air Navigation and Bombing School (ANBS). By the spring of 1944 it was the only UK-based unit still carrying out basic training in navigation and bomb-aiming, part of its function being to provide a yardstick against which to measure the product of the overseas schools.

During the first half of the war, the approach to navigation training, and to the syllabuses associated with it, were constantly being refined and revised as the system groped its way towards the right answer. The last major milestone was passed in October 1941 when the training sequence was redefined in terms of four ‘stages’.⁵⁰ A year later this was spelled out in considerable detail when the first edition of AP1388C was published in September 1942. There were, inevitably, subsequent amendments but, in essence, this remained ‘the bible’ at home for the rest of the war and, with only relatively minor, Air Ministry-sanctioned, deviations, overseas.

The academic content of the various stages is summarised at Figure 39, with the flying element at Figure 40.⁵¹ In the specific case of UK-based training, instruction was to be delivered in four stages, the last three of which were intended to take no more than forty weeks. They were as follows:

a. Stage I was a preliminary phase, largely to do with ‘General Service Knowledge’ and ensuring that all prospective navigators (and other air crew) could meet a common minimum academic standard. In many cases this was achieved via membership of the ATC or a UAS (topped up, where necessary, by a stint with the ACTW or in the PACT scheme – see page 231).

b. Stage II introduced formal classroom instruction on topics directly related to aviation. This might begin in the ATC but it was consolidated at either a UAS or, and far more commonly, an ITW.

c. Stage III comprised further ground work but this time involving demonstrations of, and handling, real equipment and the use of synthetic trainers. This element of the syllabus was delivered by the Elementary Air Navigation School (and later by No 50 ITW).

d. Stage IV introduced air work, was carried out at an AOS and involved putting all of the classroom work and theory into practice.

Fig 39. The academic content of the Standard War Syllabus for Training Navigators as at September 1942.

Fig 40. Note that, although 130 flying hours had been introduced (for observers) in October 1941 – see Note 4 to Chapter 22 – the more specialised post-July 1942 Nav and Nav(W) did no practical bombing or gunnery, limiting the flying content of their courses to a notional 100 hours

While the run-down of home-based ab initio training complicated the issue slightly, the overall principle remained in force, with Stages I, II and III still being provided in the UK, responsibility for delivering Stage IV being progressively assumed by the EATS.

It is evident that the syllabus, as originally drafted, was based on the job specification of the old-style air observer and thus his later counterpart, the Nav(B). It was, therefore, necessary to make appropriate alterations for the other categories. Thus the Nav(BW) and Nav(W) omitted the signals element, because both would already have been trained to a far higher standard than the relatively pedestrian eight words per minute required at an AOS. Neither the Nav(W) nor the straight Nav were required to be experts in armament so they were allocated only 59 hours on this subject in Stage IV, compared to the standard 160, did no practical bombing and received only ground instruction in gunnery, limiting the flying content of their courses to only 100 hours.

Fig 41. Global output of RAF observers, navigators and air bombers trained to ‘wings’ standard between 3 September 1939 and 2 September 1945.

Fig 42. Total numbers of observers, navigators and air bombers who qualified to fly with the British Commonwealth air forces during WW II.

Despite their title, when this system was introduced Nav(R)s were not, strictly speaking, part of the ‘navigator family’ in that they were not trained against the standard syllabus. At the end of 1943, however, they were brought into the fold and thereafter Nav(R)s were conventional straight Navs who acquired a post-graduate qualification as an AI Operator (see pages 263-264).

The Balance Sheet.

As shown by Figure 41, some 49,000 observers, navigators and air bombers gained their RAF air crew badges during WW II.⁵² While these numbers ostensibly represent British personnel, they do include a few who were not. The totals include, for instance, French, Dutch, Polish, Greek, Yugoslav, Belgian, Czech and other refugees who were trained to fly with the RAF and/or with the embedded free allied air forces.⁵³ The figures also embrace a handful of SAAF personnel who were trained by the RATG, specifically for service with the RAF. These ‘British’ figures also include foreign nationals who elected to serve in the RAF as volunteers. Thus, for instance, a New Zealander who enlisted in, and was trained by, the RAF will be reflected in the totals at Figure 41, despite the fact that he may subsequently have transferred to the RNZAF.

As can be seen, the output of the various Commonwealth schools, was more than three times that of the UK-based system. At first sight, this marked difference in performance might suggest a lack of national efficiency or capacity, but it was actually a consequence of the New Deal. Until the end of 1941 the numbers of observers emerging from British schools had more or less matched those gaining their air crew badges overseas but thereafter, with all basic training being progressively transferred abroad, the numbers qualifying overseas continued to increase while the domestic product entered a relative decline. The numbers trained in the UK peaked at 3,232 in the twelve months to September 1943. By that time, however, only two AOSs were still functioning and by February 1944 the only navigator/air bomber training facility remaining in the UK was the Air Navigation and Bombing School at Jurby. Total output of the much-reduced UK system during the last two years of the war amounted to only 1,198 navigators and 130 air bombers, a mere 2·7% of the global wartime RAF total.

Since, apart from the above caveats, Figure 41 represents only RAF personnel, Figure 42 has been provided to put these numbers into perspective. Figure 42 records the overall numbers of observers, navigators and air bombers trained by and/or for the various Commonwealth air forces.⁵⁴ These raw figures present a slightly misleading picture, however, as many of these men were trained elsewhere. Of the RNZAF total, for instance, only 165 qualified for their air crew badges at home, the vast majority of New Zealanders being trained in Canada under the EATS/BCATP.

Then again, while the time and distances involved had made it impractical for the British to ship cadets to and from Australia, this did not preclude the RAAF’s training Australians specifically for service with the RAF. This contribution amounted to some 6,271 observers, navigators and air bombers (73% of the RAAF total). Some of these men were fully trained in Australia; others were part-trained there before being transferred to Southern Rhodesia or Canada to complete their qualification. As with this Australian contingent, large numbers of personnel from the other Dominions actually flew with the RAF while wearing the uniforms of their ‘own’ air forces, many others serving under RAF command in one of the squadrons raised under Article XV of the Riverdale Agreement.

________________________

¹      AIR10/1931. The September 1939, 5th Edition of AP1388, the Standard Syllabus for the Training of Pilots, Air Observers & Air Gunners at Training Establishments (Peace and War) was actually published in October. The 6th Edition of July 1940 (AIR10/2315) differed only in detail.

²      This innovation led to the creation of a discrete Navigation Instructors element within the GD Branch, this having its own section within the Air Force List. A chronic shortage of instructors meant that these men had to be screened from operational service until the manpower situation eased but AMO A.658/1943, of 8 July, eventually offered any appropriately qualified/experienced instructors who were able to satisfy the age and fitness requirements the opportunity to fly as navigators or navigators (B). See also Note 15.

³      AIR29/598. A copy of the syllabus published by HQ Reserve Command on 5 April 1940 is appended to the ORB of No 11 AONS.

⁴      Tom Docherty, Training for Triumph (2000), p116.

⁵      Adrian Alabaster, A Quintet of Alabasters (1997), p216.

⁶      AIR2/8077. Memorandum summarising the responses to HQ Bomber Command letter BC/S.23829/TRG dated 26 November 1940.

⁷      AIR6/61. Figures taken from the minutes of an Air Ministry meeting convened on 14 January 1941 to consider aspects of flying training. This document was later submitted to the Air Council by AMT, Air Mshl A G R Garrod, as memorandum AC 6(41).

⁸      AIR29/544. HQ Flying Training Command letter FTC/55575/40/Nav dated 9 January 1941.

⁹      Ibid. Minutes of a conference held at HQ Flying Training Command on 4 February 1941 to discuss the implications of the Millom experiment.

¹⁰    The SCI (Smoke Curtain Installation) was a means of laying a smokescreen (or, more sinisterly, delivering poison gas) which required familiarity with a series of calculations to do with airspeed, the wind and distribution patterns. For a time in 1941 it was evidently considered appropriate to deal with this technique at the basic training stage.

¹¹    AIR14/16. A copy of the combined syllabus, covered by HQ 25 Gp letter 25G/4/49/Air(6) dated 10 June 1941, is on this file.

¹²    AIR19/297. These problems were considered by the Air Council at a meeting held on 2 April 1942, following which the discussion was summarised in a lengthy minute prepared by the Secretary of State’s Private Secretary, R H Melville. The outcome was that all EFTSs and Nos 4, 5 and 6 Flying Instructors Schools were to remain under exclusively civilian management, as was No 2 Signals School at Yatesbury, while the previously joint administration and operation of No 3 School of General Reconnaissance at Squires Gate and Nos 1, 3, 6 and 10 AOSs, at Wigtown, Bobbington, Staverton and Dumfries respectively, were to become wholly RAF responsibilities (the other two AOSs, No 4 at West Freugh and No 5 at Jurby, were already RAF-run, as were all of the B&GSs).

¹³    AIR29/544. ORB for No 3 AOS.

¹⁴    Although this unit was designated as No 1 Elementary Air Navigation School, there never was a No 2. The student population stood at more than 1,000 cadets for most of 1942, but it had dwindled to 325 by the end of the following year. Responsibility for this sort of pre-training (Stage III training as it came to be known – see page 244) was eventually transferred to the collocated No 50 ITW and the Elementary Air Navigation School ceased trading on 28 January 1944.

Apart from raising the overall standard of navigation training, the opening of the Elementary Air Observers School had significant additional implications in the context of RAF certification and civil licensing (see Annex J).

¹⁵    The expansion of the navigation content at Stages II and III, ie the preflying phase (see page 244), of the training sequence exacerbated the scarcity of instructors referred to at Note 2 and, to alleviate this AMO A.94/1942 of 29 January introduced the Group I trade of the Navigation Instructor. These were qualified NCO observers who, having been declared permanently unfit for flying on medical grounds, were remustered to the new trade for employment as sergeants at ITWs and the EAOS. Similar employment opportunities were available to NCO observers who were temporarily grounded, although these retained their air crew status.

¹⁶    AIR2/8077. The original syllabus for No 1 EAOS was covered by HQ Flying Training Command letter FTC/67624/Nav dated 25 August 1941.

¹⁷    Located within the Philips & Powis (ie Miles) factory, at Woodley, the NSTDU opened for business on 7 May 1941 (the ‘Navigation’ was deleted from the title in 1942). Commanded by Wg Cdr J J Owen, a graduate of No 17 (1936) Spec N Course, its two RAF officers, a draughtsman and a typist were eventually joined by five more civilians who could draw on the factory’s staff and facilities for construction work.

¹⁸    The Crew Procedure Trainer had been conceived shortly before the war and was devised and manufactured by the Redifon division of Rediffusion.

¹⁹    For additional detail, and atmospheric anecdote, see, for instance, Aircrew Unlimited by John Golley and By the Seat of Your Pants by Hugh Morgan; for a particularly Canadian perspective, try Wings for Victory by Spencer Dunmore, The Plan by James Williams and Aerodrome of Democracy by F J Hatch.

²⁰    AIR8/3160 contains a copy of the Report (to the UK Government) on the Riverdale Mission to Canada, dated December 1939, which uses the term ‘Dominion Air Training Scheme’, plus a copy of the Agreement itself, which does not, referring only to the (lower case) ‘co-operative air training scheme’. In fact, while the Agreement outlines in some detail the obligations accepted by each of the four participating governments, it is interesting to note that it diplomatically avoids assigning any form of title to these arrangements. Lord Riverdale of Sheffield was, incidentally, the erstwhile steel magnate Sir Arthur Balfour (no relation to Harold Balfour who was then Under-Secretary of State for Air).

²¹    After flying with the RNAS during WW I, Robert Leckie stayed on in the post-war RAF. By 1940 he was stationed on Malta as an air commodore and AOC RAF Mediterranean. From there he was posted to Canada to oversee the implementation of the Riverdale Agreement. In 1942 Leckie transferred his commission to the RCAF, eventually becoming its CAS as an air marshal, 1944-47.

²²    There would eventually be more than seventy of these so-called ‘Article XV’ squadrons.

²³    This provision applied only to Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders enrolled in their ‘own’ air forces. It did not apply to those who had elected to enlist directly in the RAF.

²⁴    AIR2/1360. Office Memorandum 15/40 dated 23 January 1940 announcing the setting up of the EATS Committee.

²⁵    AIR46/7. This file contains the international correspondence dealing with the implementation of Article XV. It includes numerous variations on the theme of the title of the project covered by the Riverdale Agreement, all of which studiously avoid using the words ‘empire’ or ‘imperial’.

²⁶    The operation and staffing of many wartime Canadian training schools was carried out by civilians under contract to the RCAF.

²⁷    This circumstance was not considered to have arisen until the start of the East African campaign in June 1940, and even then the SAAF was confined to operations on the African continent until mid-1943 when it was eventually permitted to cross the Mediterranean to fight in Italy. Despite these constraints, as early as 1940 SAAF personnel were being permitted to volunteer to serve with the RAF, and others were later seconded to fly on operations in theatres as remote (to South Africa) as North West Europe and Burma.

²⁸    This agreement, the ‘Memorandum on the Expansion of Training Facilities in South Africa’, was named after the chief negotiators for each side, General Sir Pierre Van Ryneveld for the Union of South Africa and Air Chf Mshl Sir Robert Brooke-Popham for the UK.

²⁹    To be pedantic, Southern Rhodesia actually had the constitutional status of a self-governing colony. This gave it such a degree of autonomy, however, that in practical terms it tended to regard itself, and be treated, as ‘the fifth white Dominion’.

³⁰    F J Hatch’s officially sponsored history of the Canadian enterprise, Aerodrome of Democracy, for example, does not even include ‘EATS’ in its glossary.

³¹    During 1940 Nos 5 and 7 AONSs and No 1 SofGR were despatched to South Africa where the resources of the two AONS were used to establish, what eventually became, an Air Observers School and a Gunnery School. In November 1940 these were redesignated as Nos 45 and 46 Air Schools and the SofGR, which retained its original function, became No 61 Air School. At much the same time, No 1 (originally ‘the’) School of Air Navigation was transferred from St Athan to Port Albert (Ontario) where it became No 31 Air Navigation School. Canada also received the makings of two more Air Navigation Schools (Nos 32 and 33), No 31 Bombing and Gunnery School and No 31 General Reconnaissance School. In 1941 a Combined Air Observers School (later No 24 Bombing, Gunnery and Navigation School) was set up in Rhodesia.

³²    AIR41/70. Appendix 66 to AHB narrative, Flying Training During World War II, Vol 2, Pt 2; Basic Training Overseas, outlines the planned sequence for Canada-trained navigators and air bombers as at June 1942.

³³    Like the RAF, the USAAC had relied on pilots to handle navigation between the wars and, again like the RAF, albeit rather later, when it began to expand it concluded that it would need to employ dedicated non-pilot aircrew, hence PAA’s being contracted to train navigators. The first class graduated in November 1940, still as cadets, because it had not yet been decided what the status of navigators was to be. It was July 1941 before they were commissioned in the rank of lieutenant, formally establishing in the process the category of the ‘aircraft observer (aerial navigator)’. For an account of the evolution of the navigator in the USAAF/USAF, see Air Force Navigators Observers (various contributors, Turner Pub Co: Paducah, KY, 1997).

³⁴    Long before they had entered the war themselves, the US Government would sanction the presence of six British Flying Training Schools (BFTS) on US soil. Apart from participating actively in the establishment of these schools (for pilots), the Americans absorbed a large proportion of the cost of the project under Lend-Lease. In addition, they undertook to train British air crew at US military and naval flying schools. The US Navy-sponsored Towers Scheme was named for Vice-Admiral J H Towers (Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics), the US Army’s corresponding Arnold Scheme for General H H Arnold (Deputy Chief of Staff, US Army and Commanding General, US Army Air Corps).

³⁵    AIR2/8065. The first formal offer to train RAF observers was notified to London by signal X.1593 transmitted from Washington by the British Air Attaché on 17 October 1940.

³⁶    In November 1941 the civilian clothes stipulation was withdrawn and subsequent British intakes to US aviation schools, of all varieties, were permitted to wear RAF uniforms.

³⁷    These ten prospective observers were actually the first RAF cadets to be trained in the USA, the first batch of pilots (of whom we inevitably hear so much more) starting their courses, somewhat later than planned, in June (under the BFTS and Arnold Schemes) and July (under the Towers Scheme).

³⁸    AIR2/4459. This file contains a number of reports on the competence of early graduates of the PAA School, a particularly informative example being that raised by No 23 OTU on 6 January 1942 and appended to HQ Bomber Command letter BC/S.24606/Trg dated 19 January.

³⁹    AIR2/8065. On 7 July 1941 the Air Ministry agreed to amend Establishment WAR/MISC/107 to reflect the provision of a flight lieutenant and three flying officers at Miami, in addition to a wing commander and a flight lieutenant who were already there. All of these officers were to be N or SN annotated. The personalities involved were: initially, Wg Cdr W E Oulton, who maintained a watching brief from Washington and who was later relieved by Wg Cdr C N Fleming, who was actually resident at Coral Gables; the instructors were Fg Off (later Flt Lt) W H Trewin and Fg Offs C L Turner, R E W Pemberton, G O Faulkner and T Lupton; administration was in the hands of Flt Lt N C K Dibble assisted by Sgt L A Bailey.

⁴⁰    In the event the wastage rate was nowhere near this, only 4% of the 1,219 cadets enrolled at Miami failed to pass the PAA course.

⁴¹    Although four AOSs were initially nominated to participate in the instruction of US-trained students, most appear to have been channelled through No 1 AOS at Wigtown. This commitment was later transferred to No 3 O(AFU) at Bobbington where an eight-week course, specifically tailored to the requirements of American trainees, was on offer by September 1942.

⁴²    This figure, is taken from the official British accounting, as published in AP3233, Vol 1. In his painstaking, and much later, analysis of the Arnold Scheme, The Arnold Scheme (2007), Gilbert S Guinn calculates, with persuasive confidence, that the actual output from the PAA school was only 1,170 trained observers, as opposed to the official 1,177.

⁴³    AIR2/8184. The correspondence relating to the problem encountered in December 1941 and the Air Ministry’s decision is on this file.

⁴⁴    The last batch of RAF observers trained under the Towers Scheme graduated in July 1942 followed by the last WOps in September but pilots continued to be trained until September 1944.

⁴⁵    A case in point was LAC (later Flt Lt) Arthur Spencer, an account of whose experience was published in the RAF Historical Society’s Journal 28 (2003). Spencer navigated a Ventura non-stop Gander-Prestwick in May 1942. After languishing briefly at Bournemouth, he completed five weeks of an eight-week (O)AFU course whereupon he was unceremoniously issued with three stripes and a flying ‘O’; one day later he was posted to a Bomber Command OTU.

⁴⁶    AIR6/62. AMT submitted his ‘proposals’ to the Air Council in his Note AC27(42) dated 5 April 1942.

⁴⁷    AIR29/544. ORB for No 1 AOS which became No 1 (O)AFU with effect from 1 February 1942.

⁴⁸    Ibid. ORB for No 3 AOS which became No 3(O)AFU with effect from 11 April 1942.

⁴⁹    AIR40/2116 covers a copy of the (O)AFU syllabus FTC 76889 dated 1 June 1943.

⁵⁰    AIR20/1367. Syllabus for the Basic Training of Air Observers in War, dated October 1941.

⁵¹    AIR10/2317. AP1388C, The Standard War Syllabus for Training Navigators, including Navs(BW), (B) and (W).

⁵²    AIR20/5764. The figures presented at Figures 41 and 42, and those which crop up elsewhere within the narrative of this chapter and Chapter 25, have been derived from statistics compiled by AHB which were subsequently refined, condensed and published in AP3233, Vol 1 (AIR10/5551).

⁵³    In all, some 8,750 foreign nationals were trained under such arrangements, mostly as pilots, only 200 or so becoming observers, navigators or air bombers.

⁵⁴    It may be of interest to note the corresponding figures for pilots who gained their ‘wings’ with one of the Commonwealth air forces during WW II. There were 117,669 of them, 62,909 of whom wore RAF uniform. As with observers and navigators, however, responsibility for training having been transferred overseas, the output from UK-based schools during the last two years of the war amounted to just 1,000 pilots, a mere 1·6% of the wartime national total. Sources as Note 52.