1945-50. Navigator training during the early post-war years.
Since February 1944, the only unit in the UK still providing ab initio training for navigators and air bombers had been the ANBS at Jurby. With the closure of the BCATP at the end of March 1945, the RAF was obliged to reorganise its domestic training facilities. Less than a month after VE-Day it had established three new Air Navigation Schools, Nos 5, 7 and 10.1 With an ample surplus of overseas-trained navigators in hand, the initial function of the new schools was to provide conversion courses; Nos 5 and 7 ANSs turned air bombers into Nav(B)s, via a fourteen-week course, while No 10 ANS was allocated thirty weeks to convert WOps(air) into Nav(W)s. These and other ‘gap-filler’ activities (including, once they had been repatriated and allowed some time to recuperate, ten-week refresher courses for ex-PoWs) occupied the three schools until early 1946 when a start was made on ab initio training for straight Navs, Nav(B)s and Nav(W)s against the syllabuses at Figure 53.2 At that time the notional monthly intakes in these categories were to be thirty-one, thirty-two and four respectively.3
In the face of large-scale demobilisation, however, this was more easily said than done, since shortages of personnel, both air and ground, presented considerable practical difficulties. For instance, the manning of staff pilots at No 10 ANS was down to 33% of establishment in October 1946. But that was only part of the problem; the lack of tradesmen meant that there were insufficient serviceable aircraft and the introduction of Wellingtons at this, previously exclusively Anson-equipped, unit meant that much of the available flying time had to be devoted to pilot familiarisation.4 Inevitably, navigation courses were having to be considerably extended which had an adverse impact on ‘the morale of the pupils, as their seniority and pay dates from the day of their passing out’ and, as a result, they were ‘losing heart and becoming dissatisfied.’5
Meanwhile consideration was being given to the provision of training in the longer term. Since Canada had been the major source of wartime aircrew, the phased Canadian training sequence had become the norm, that is to say EFTS followed by SFTS for pilots, and various combinations of AOS, B&GS and ANS for navigators and air bombers. Since the run-down of the BCATP had obliged the RAF to re-establish a UK-based training system, it had also provided the opportunity to consider a fresh approach. Since the arrangements at home would be on a much smaller scale, it was concluded that it would be both cheaper and more efficient to adopt an ‘all-through’ policy, whereby a pupil would progress from initial training to ‘wings’ standard, at a single location.6
Fig 53. The syllabuses of the three basic navigator training courses introduced at UK-based schools at the end of 1945.
When the system was first introduced it was anticipated that ‘all-purpose’ navigators, the wartime sub-categories having been dropped in September 1946, would progress through an eighteen-month (allowing for leave), three-stage sequence beginning with a twenty-week initial phase (corresponding to the wartime ITW course) followed by two twenty-four-week phases covering basic and applied navigation. Flying was involved in only the last two and was to total 94 hours, 85 of navigation on Anson Mk 1s and 9 of bombing on Wellington T.10s.7 Unusually, these figures were specifically expressed as ‘aircraft’ hours per student (as distinct from the more conventional ‘flying’ hours per student) so, since all exercises were flown twice, as First and Second Nav, an individual would actually log some 200 hours during the course with the time spent in the Anson (progressively supplanted by T.21s from January 1949) gradually being reduced in favour of the Wellington.8 Pilots were to follow a broadly similar seventeen-month (plus an initial month of grading), three-stage, Tiger Moth (later Prentice)/Harvard sequence during which they too would log some 200 hours.
Standard navigation trainers during the early post-war years were the Wellington T.10 (this one is RP316/FF·OP of No 2 ANS in 1950) and the Anson T.21, represented here by VV239 of No 1 ANS in 1953. (Both MAP)
It was envisaged that the demand for ab initio pilots and navigators could probably be satisfied by four flying training schools (Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6 FTSs) and two air navigation schools (No 1 ANS at Topcliffe and No 2 ANS at Bishops Court, later Middleton St George).9 The output from these UK-based units was to be supplemented by a limited revitalisation of the wartime Rhodesian Air Training Group. The latter initially comprised Nos 4 and 5 FTSs with the navigator intake being handled by the former at Heany until January 1948 when No 3 ANS opened as an independent unit at Thornhill.
Apart from basic training, additional capacity was required to cater for a variety of refresher courses. These were run, for example, for the benefit of navigators returning to flying duties after a period spent on the ground and/or for wartime veterans re-engaging for a further stint in uniform, plus a continuing requirement for conversion courses for air bombers who needed to be brought up to a common ‘navigator’ standard. For a time much of the refresher training task, along with staff pilot training courses, was handled by No 10 ANS at Driffield but in March 1948 this unit disbanded and its resources and commitments were absorbed by Nos 1 and 2 ANSs.
It was decided to phase-in the all-through syllabus progressively during 1947, beginning on 9 April at No 1 ANS (and No 3 FTS).10 Once again, this would prove to be more easily said than done. At the time Flying Training Command was already well behind its targets, partly as a result of flying time lost due to the exceptionally severe weather.11 But of far more concern were the continuing serious manning problems created by the high release rates of demobilising instructors and staff pilots. Furthermore, the problem of poor navigator recruiting, which was to crop up repeatedly in the future, meant that the situation was far worse at the ANSs than it was at the FTSs. In March 1947 the anticipated output from the trainees that were then in the pipeline was expected to be 1,250 pilots plus a mere 175 navigators. This would provide an inservice pilot:navigator ratio of 71:1, which was a very long way short of the requirement, which was currently set at 1·7:1.12
Because some interim measures had been implemented in an attempt to improve the situation, No 1 All-Through Course was only slightly delayed, its ten (of an original seventeen) successful graduates eventually passing out from No 1 ANS on 24 August 1948. The shortfall in navigator output from the ANSs had an inevitable knock-on effect downstream at the Advanced Flying Schools where they were supposed to join newly qualified pilots to work together as crews. In a somewhat short-sighted attempt to plug the gaps, the ANSs began to allow some air bomber conversion (and basic navigation refresher) course students to pass out with less than the specified number of flying hours, some (of the former) with no flying at all, which, predictably, failed to help, as many of them simply fell at the next fence.13
That aside, so far as ab initio trainees were concerned, the numerical shortfall was being seriously exacerbated by unexpectedly high losses in training and there were certainly concerns being expressed over the calibre of the men being recruited, AOC 25 Gp noting in 1948 that many of them had not even ‘reached School Certificate standard.’14 Despite these reservations, however, they did seem to be coping with the academic and intellectual demands of the course.
The forecast wastage rate for the all-through sequence had been set at 22·5%, which proved to have been a remarkably accurate estimate. Of the ninety-two cadet navigators who constituted the intake into Nos 1-5 Courses, twenty-one (22·8%) were lost as a result of academic or air work failures, including air sickness. What had not been anticipated, however, was the excessive rate of voluntary withdrawals, no fewer than twenty-eight additional cadets exercising this right, making the actual overall loss rate 53% – more than double the predicted figure.15
Clearly, there was a major morale problem and the root cause was that trainee navigators soon came to appreciate that they had joined a ‘pilot’s air force’ and that they had very poor career prospects. They were not mistaken, of course, because they were being trained as ‘aircrew’, under the terms of the ‘1946 Scheme’, and, although short service commissions had recently been reintroduced, at the time, there were ‘no vacancies for short service commissions for navigators’ (see page 288).
The impression of ‘second class citizen’ status was further reinforced by the fact that many of the navigator instructors were wartime officers serving on extended service engagements who were only too well aware that they had little prospect of securing a permanent commission. This situation hammered a very large nail into the coffin of the 1946 Scheme and strengthened the case for navigators to be given the same status and opportunities as were available to pilots.16 This case was being actively fought at the time, at the very highest level; indeed, it had actually been won, on paper at least, as early as May 1948 (see page 289).
By this time the integrated initial training phase had already been abandoned when, in February 1948, No 1 Initial Training School (ITS) had been re-established at Wittering to handle this element of the sequence – for both navigators and pilots.17 The first cohort of navigator cadets was due to report there on 24 February but the recruiting problem meant that none were available so training did not start until 23 March, those who passed the course being posted to Nos 1 and 2 ANSs on 11 August.
These deviations aside, the aim of the all-through ab initio navigation course of 1947 had been to produce navigators who could be posted to any role. The most demanding of these involved heavy bombers, which meant that, in addition to basic navigation techniques, all navigators needed to be trained in bombing and gunnery. In short, the system was designed to produce what amounted to a WW II-style Nav(B).18
On graduation from ANS as Aircrew IVs the newly qualified navigator of the late-1940s moved on through a two-stage post-graduate sequence.19 First, an Advanced Flying School (AFS) where he would ‘crew up’ and fly in either Wellingtons at No 201 AFS or Mosquitos at No 204 AFS, followed by a course at one of the type/role-specific Operational Conversion Units (OCU).20
It is, perhaps, worth noting that the AFS course was of particular significance to navigators trained in Rhodesia because, like their EATS-trained predecessors of WW II, they needed to be introduced to European weather conditions and sophisticated aids, such as GEE and REBECCA, that were not available in Africa. Furthermore, because No 3 ANS was exclusively equipped with the Anson T.20 Rhodesian-trained navigators had had no experience of the Wellington. As a result, graduates of No 3 ANS attended an initial acclimatisation course at No 201 AFS before joining the mainstream.
In the late 1940s/early 1950s, the first post-graduate stage for navigators involved a course at No 201 AFS on Wellington T.10s (RP389), or at No 204 AFS on Mosquitos, like this FB 6 (SZ974). (Both MAP)
In the summer of 1948 HQ Bomber Command pointed out that attempting to train all navigators as de facto Nav(B)s was not a realistic proposition because the ANSs were not equipped to handle H2S, which was now regarded as a basic tool of the bomber navigator’s trade. That omission aside, it was also pointed out that it was impractical to expect a navigator posted to, say, Transport or Fighter Command to maintain his skills as a gunner and bomb-aimer, which meant that a great deal of time and effort was being wasted teaching him in the first place. Furthermore, it was Bomber Command policy to employ two navigators in each crew, one, the ‘Plotter’, being primarily concerned with timing and track-keeping while the other, the ‘Observer’, focused on map-reading and bomb-aiming.21 In the light of all this, it was argued that Flying Training Command’s effort should be largely confined to basic navigation and that role-related training should be handled by dedicated post-graduate schools.22
This approach was eventually adopted, although it would take five years for it to be fully implemented. The first activity to be dropped was practical gunnery which was deleted from the ab initio syllabus in June 1949. Bombing followed in December 1951 (responsibility for this specialisation being assumed by the Bomber Command Bombing School which opened in October 1952). To reflect these changes the revised all-through syllabus summarised at Figure 54 was published in January 1952.23
Anson T.21s of No 1 BANS. (CRO RAF Finningley)
Fig 54. The syllabus of the thirty-six-week All-Through Navigator Course as at January 1952. A four-week extension was added in the following December, although there was no change to the syllabus content.
Apart from the evolutionary changes noted above, the arrangements set up in 1947 sufficed until 1951 when the expansion of the RAF, due to the Korean War, created an urgent need for additional training capacity. This obliged the Service to turn to civil contractors, much as it had had to do in 1938.
1950-56. The Korean War expansion and the reinstatement of training in Canada.
The expansion scheme adopted by Flying Training Command in response to the crisis created by the Korean War began to be implemented with effect from 25 October 1950.24 It was anticipated that the annual ab initio intake would involve 1,400 navigators, plus 2,100 pilots, in combined batches of 135 every two weeks.
Initial calculations suggested that the throughput could be handled by two, possibly three, ANSs, although course phasing was complicated by the need to provide additional accommodation for up to twenty re-entrants at a time on twelve-week refresher courses, and for batches of National Servicemen (who attended only the applied stage – see below). In the event it was decided to open three additional ANSs.25
The domestic arrangements at the ANSs were complicated by the fact that the 1950 all-officer policy had not been implemented retroactively, so it took some time for the last batches of trainee sergeants to pass through the system. At No 1 ANS at Hullavington, for instance, the first all-through, all-acting pilot officer course, No 70 Course, did not begin until 28 June 1951; it passed out on 28 March 1952.
As intimated above, significant numbers of the expansion intake were conscripts and in order to handle them (all of them now prospective officers under the 100% commissioning policy), Air Service Training and Airwork Ltd were contracted to run Nos 1 and 2 Basic Air Navigation Schools (BANS) at Hamble and Usworth respectively. There were some minor deviations, the most significant being that the BANS were not provided with Valettas, so that all of the 103 hours of airborne time was flown in Anson T.21s, but, in essence, the syllabus reflected the basic phase of the all-through course (see Figure 54). On completion of the BANS course, National Servicemen completed their training at one of the Service-run schools.
In early 1950 planned wastage rates for each phase (for both pilots and navigators) had been an optimistic 12-5% in initial training, 10% at the basic stage and 5% at the applied stage. For the expansion programme, however, these were raised to 30%, 15% and 10% respectively. In other words, it was expected that each cohort of 135 would yield seventy-two graduates. So far as navigators were concerned, a validation exercise showed that only eighty-three cadets, from a cumulative intake of 174, had actually graduated between April and September 1950, compared to the anticipated ninety-three. The actual loss rates in each phase had been 28-7%, 18-5% and 12-9% but what was worrying was, as in 1947-48, the excessive incidence of voluntary withdrawals.26
RAF navigators trained by the RCAF in the 1950s flew in Dakotas and Expediters, like these of No 2 ANS at Winnipeg.
Some forty-two members of the sample had exercised this option and voluntary withdrawal had actually been the major cause of losses in both the basic and the applied stages at the ANSs. This pattern was not reflected at the FTSs where fewer voluntary withdrawals meant a much lower overall loss rate, the main cause for failure among pilots being air work. Once again, it was apparent that, if the Service was going to be successful in recruiting and retaining navigators, it would have to adopt a far more positive attitude towards them.
Meanwhile, with NATO having been formed in 1949 and the Cold War intensifying, Canada had agreed to reassume its wartime role of acting as ‘the aerodrome of democracy’. In a scheme reminiscent of the wartime BCATP, the RCAF undertook to train pilots and navigators for the air forces of the western alliance. The British were quick to take advantage of this scheme, the first cohort of prospective pilots leaving the UK in January 1951. A second group, this time including navigators, left in March, to be followed by further batches at roughly six-week intervals.27 Thereafter the centre of gravity of RAF navigator training shifted increasingly towards Canada.28
The establishment of the Canadian scheme made it possible to start running down the facilities in Rhodesia where No 3 ANS was the first to go, closing down in September 1951.29 A few months later a new No 3 ANS opened at Bishops Court, although its second lease of life would be relatively brief, because it was announced, in December 1952, that the conscription of navigators was to cease (see Chapter 30, Note 15). As a result both BANS closed down in 1953 and, as the last of the National Servicemen passed on through the system, the much reduced throughout permitted most of the Service-run schools to follow them into limbo.
By mid-1953 it was possible to assess the output of the Canadian scheme. There were some differences in emphasis; for instance, airborne training was considered to be wasteful in that individual sorties tended to be of longer duration while the overall course yielded some 40-50 hours less flying time than the British equivalent. There were also some misgivings over the contrast between the formality of the RAF’s officers messes and the more relaxed ‘club’ approach favoured by the RCAF, these having caused some behaveioural ‘anomalies’ among trainees returning to the UK after graduating from schools in Canada.
At the time the suspension rate being experienced in Canada was a mere 6%, compared to 21% in British ANSs. This was partly due to Canadian standards and partly to the fact that trainees earmarked for Canada were being specially selected. A decline in recruiting meant that selection would not be possible in the future and the Canadian failure rate was expected to increase as a result. The problems, such as they were, were considered to be marginal, however, and the overall assessment was that ‘RCAF navigator training is very satisfactory, and by the time a man has done the acclimatisation training in England he compares with our own product.’30
In view of this, and the problems being experienced with recruiting, in February 1954 ACAS(Trg), AVM Bandon, directed that in future all basic navigation training would, as a matter of policy, be carried out in Canada.31 Behind this edict could be heard the faint echo of a stable door clanging shut, however, because the decline in numbers had meant that, in order to maintain the commitment to the NATO programme, virtually all potential navigators had already been going to Canada since the previous October.
Meanwhile, Canadian-trained navigators had been arriving back in the UK since December 1951 to attend an acclimatisation course. The first two ten-week courses were run by No 2 ANS at Thorney Island but the commitment was then transferred to No 201 AFS at Swinderby until December 1952 when, with its duration reduced by one week, responsibility for the course was passed to No 6 ANS at Lichfield, at which point the syllabus was as summarised at Figure 55.32 With the rapid run down of training in the UK, however, this unit had disbanded before the end of 1953 and by mid-1954 the only UK-based unit still involved in navigator training was Thorney Island which had accepted its last all-through courses in 1953. Thereafter, since the bulk of the syllabus was now being covered in Canada, No 2 ANS operated in much the same way as a wartime (O)AFU, providing UK acclimatisation flying and practical experience of using aids which were not available on the other side of the Atlantic.
Fig 55. The nine-week Canadian Acclimatisation Course as at December 1952.
1954 had also seen the completion of a major restructuring of the Canadian training scheme. Having already concentrated all navigator training at Winnipeg in 1953, the RCAF closed its No 1 Air Radio Officers School at Clinton and moved radio officer training there as well to produce a three-pronged system. Everyone did a common Phase I stage but there were three Phase IIs, designed to meet the requirements of radio officers (reflecting its wartime views, the RCAF routinely commissioned its equivalent to the RAF’s predominantly NCO air signallers), AI operators (a category which had a significantly raised profile in the RCAF as the CF-100 began to enter service) and ‘plotters’ destined for maritime or transport operations. The latter category was the most appropriate for British purposes, as it would also cater for bombers, a role in which the RCAF itself did not operate. An outline of the syllabus content applicable to RAF personnel is at Figure 56.33
Fig 56. The revised navigation syllabus introduced by the RCAF in September 1954.
It is worth noting that the RAF had trained a few dedicated AI operators in 1951-53 but had abandoned that approach, just as the RCAF was adopting it (see page 323). The Canadian idea of streamed training did have a rather obvious appeal, however, and the RAF spent some time considering whether it too should go that way. In the autumn of 1953 HQ Flying Training Command produced draft syllabuses to cater for a three-pronged Fighter, Bomber and Coastal/Transport Command arrangement. By the following January the Air Ministry had concluded that, despite its superficial attraction, such a scheme would actually be uneconomic and further work stopped. In practice, of course, the question was already somewhat academic because by that time the intake to UK schools was rapidly approaching zero.
The restructuring of the RCAF’s training arrangements, and the accumulation of experience of its output, had a significant knock-on effect on Thorney Island’s Canadian Acclimatisation Course. Having been only nine weeks long in 1953, it was subsequently extended to a full three months, with the final phase tailored to emphasise the peculiar demands imposed by differing operational roles. The twelve-week syllabus followed by later courses, which was as close as the RAF ever got to seriously adopting ‘streamed’ training for navigators (until the mid-1970s – see page 342), is summarised at Figure 57.34 The acclimatisation programme ended with the graduation of No 92 Course on 30 July 1958, the last six courses having been run by No 1 ANS which had reopened at Topcliffe early in 1957.
By that time a total of 1,412 navigators had passed the course, the overall wastage rate having been a mere 4-3%. The distribution of the output to OCUs had been: 43% to Bomber Command; 26% to Fighter Command; 15% to Coastal Command and 7% to Transport Command.35
Fig 57. Syllabus of the later, twelve-week, Canadian Acclimatisation Courses. Part I was a common phase with Part II being focused on the role for which an individual had been earmarked.
Above – the Varsity T.1, in this case WL666 of No 2 ANS, began to enter service in 1951 and until 1976 it provided all navigators (and most air signallers, air engineers and, until 1973, all pilots destined for a multi-engined type) with much of their early air experience. Below – XA273, a Marathon T.11 of Topcliffe’s No 1 ANS. An unwanted political purchase, the unloved Marathon suffered from serviceability problems and served for only five years in the mid-1950s. (Both MAP)
The ValettaT.3 flying classroom (WG259 of No 2 ANS, above) had stations for ten student navigators, each provided with an API, a radio compass, GEE and REBECCA and there were five astrodomes, permitting half of the trainees to be using a sextant at any time. Practical navigation was handled by a member of staff who was on the flight deck and this was the major weakness in the concept. Only one navigator can have executive authority and it was the adrenaline associated with this responsibility that students needed most. Most of what went on in the cabin could have been simulated on the ground. (Both CRO RAF Finningley)
By 1942 ‘DR Instructors’ (see page 237) built locally at schools, OTUs and operational stations were in widespread use as synthetic training aids. This manual approach was automated after the war and became increasingly sophisticated. This picture is of an early post-war example, the pneumatic DR Trainer at Thorney Island in 1954 – ‘pneumatic’ because it employed an air compressor/pump to create analogues of pitot and static pressure which were fed to the ASI and AMU (and thence the API) at each navigator’s station. The cubicles were arranged in back-to-back pairs with a second student on the other side of the back wall, following his partner’s headings but applying the ‘actual’ winds, rather than those being found by the trainee, to plot his track made good. Since this second player knew where the ‘aeroplane’ really was, he was able to manipulate the readings on some of the instruments to reflect this and to calculate navigational information on demand, like radio bearings and the appropriate sextant ‘readings’ when the ‘navigator’ used astro. While this system was primitive by modern standards, it was very effective (when it could be kept serviceable) and provided valuable real time plotting practice for both members of each pair. (CRO RAF Finningley)
As regards aeroplanes, until 1951 all post-war RAF navigators learned their trade on Ansons and Wellingtons, although, to supplement these, work had begun on the concept of a ‘flying classroom’ in 1948. The initial proposal was based on the York and was supported by a draft syllabus which, in terms of flying time, envisaged 82 hours being flown in Ansons, 69 in Wellingtons and 61½ in the Yorks.36 The York was to have had fourteen work stations, all of them equipped with a compass repeater, an ASI, an altimeter, an API, GEE and REBECCA/BABS. The provision of H2S was also considered but it was eventually concluded that it would not be practical to attempt to feed a large number of displays from one aerial and that element of the scheme was abandoned.37 In the event the York project fell by the wayside in favour of a ‘flying classroom’ adaptation of the Valetta which began to enter service in 1951.
During 1952-53 the Ansons and the, by now rather weary, Wellingtons were supplanted by the splendid new Varsity, which was to become the Service’s all-purpose, multi-engined crew trainer for the next quarter of a century.38 By this time, however, most RAF navigators were gaining their initial flying experience at Summerside or Winnipeg on RCAF Expediters and Dakotas. On returning to the UK navigators trained in Canada flew their acclimatisation courses on Varsitys and/or Marathons. Experience of jet flying was introduced in August 1954, initially via attachments to Shawbury39 until No 2 ANS acquired some obsolete Vampire NF 10s of its own in the following year.
A Vampire NF(T) 10, WP255 of No 1 ANS, (MAP)
The creation of the V-Force and its influence on the composition of crews.
Beginning with the delivery of the first Valiants in 1955, squadrons of V-bombers, known collectively as the Medium Bomber Force, were initially to form, and later at least to stiffen, the backbone of the RAF for the next twenty-five years. The introduction of bomber aircraft which differed so radically from those which had gone before was bound to affect the policy governing the composition of their crews; a policy which had last been formally reviewed in 1942. The problems that this threw up received increasingly active consideration from 1951 onwards.
It had long been agreed that all three V-bombers would be operated by five-man crews but it remained to be determined precisely what sort of men they should be. A bombing team, comprising a pilot and two navigators, was a given, but there was some uncertainty over the other two crew members. In January 1952, harking back to the tradition established by the wartime ‘heavies’ (and sustained in some Washingtons40), HQ Bomber Command initially recommended that the right-hand seat should be occupied by an air engineer, but within a year it had changed its mind and the AOCinC, Air Mshl Sir Hugh Lloyd, proposed that the captain should be assisted instead by a second pilot.41
Although discussions continued for some time, the essentials of the composition of a V-bomber crew had been settled by the summer of 1954. The two-pilot option was readily adopted, partly because it was desirable to be able to provide on-the-job training for prospective captains and partly because it was the controls for in-flight arming of the UK’s first nuclear weapon, BLUE DANUBE were to be located beside, and operable only by the occupant of, the right-hand seat and it was considered that this responsibility meant that he would have to be an officer rather than an NCO (very few air engineers were commissioned).42 There was no dispute over the need, established since 1942, to have two men to handle navigation and bomb-aiming and it was foreseen that this would continue to be the case, even if the long-term prospect of air-launched guided weapons were to materialise. Adopting the terminology that was then current within Lincoln crews they were to be referred to as the navigator (plotter) and navigator (radar).
The function of the third back-seater was initially envisaged as being confined to the handling of communications, although it was anticipated that he might eventually have to look after Radio Counter Measures (RCM) equipment as well. At the time, and later, consideration was given to introducing the term radio officer to distinguish these men from traditional air signallers. Whatever they were to be called, however, it was considered highly desirable that they should be officers. Some reservations were expressed over simply extending the current practice of commissioning NCOs, as it was felt that this did not always produce officers of the required calibre.
In the autumn of 1954 some thought was given to dispensing with the third back-seater altogether and distributing responsibility for communications among the other crew members. This option had to be rejected, however, not least because the design of all three V-bombers had already reached a stage at which any major modification to the layout of the crew compartment would have been inordinately expensive. Furthermore, as the V-bomber projects approached the hardware stage, it became increasingly apparent that all three types were going to be ‘electric’ aeroplanes. Monitoring and control of the complex, and critically important, electrical system would be the responsibility of the third back-seater and this secured his position within the crew in the form of what became the Air Electronics Officer of 1956 (see page 312 et seq).43
________________________
1 These apparently random numerical unit identities were inherited from their predecessors. No 5 ANS was created by redesignating the ANBS (previously No 5 AOS) at Jurby, while Nos 7 and 10 (O)AFUs at Bishops Court and Dumfries respectively, became Nos 7 and 10 ANSs.
2 AIR14/16. The syllabuses were published under cover of Gp Capt A V Bax’s Air Ministry memo S.75484/TNav3 dated 31 July 1945.
3 AIR25/546. Minutes of an AOCinC’s Group Commanders Conference held on 18 February 1946.
4 AIR24/1794. HQ Flying Training Command memo, FTC/91723/Nav dated 28 October 1946, to the Air Ministry (DDTNav).
5 Ibid. HQ Flying Training Command memo, FTC/91728/Nav2 dated 31 October 1946, to the Air Ministry (DDTNav).
6 AIR6/136. The adoption of an all-through approach having been approved, in principle, by the Post-War Planning Committee as early as February 1945, the proposals had been sufficiently developed to permit AMT, Air Mshl Sir Roderic Hill, to lay them before the Air Council Standing Committee in his SC(46)48 of 1 August 1946.
7 AIR24/1795. HQ Flying Training Command Organisation Memorandum No 89/47 dated 21 April 1947.
8 For example, correspondence with AVM John Brownlow, who was a member of No 6 (All Through) Course at Topcliffe, which ran from September 1947 to March 1949, established that he logged 203 hrs 45 mins, roughly equally divided between Ansons and Wellingtons.
9 No 1 ANS was formed by redesignating No 5 ANS in April 1947, while No 7 ANS was renumbered as No 2 in June.
10 Although not specifically stated to be the case, it seems likely that the introduction of the all-through scheme was linked to the ending of the extended service scheme, under AMO A.312/1947 (see Note 21, Chapter 28), and the consequent anticipated increase in the intake of direct entrants.
11 The winter of 1946-47 had been exceptionally harsh. After brief cold spells in December and early January, the ‘main event’ persisted from 21 January to 16 March with extensive snow cover and temperatures as low as -20oC. The thaw, when it came, was accompanied by widespread floods.
12 AIR32/175. A memorandum on this file, dated 13 March 1947, provides a summary of the current situation within Flying Training Command.
13 AIR24/1796. In his FTC/91739/CNavO, dated 27 November 1947, SASO Flying Training Command, AVM F J Fogarty, stressed to HQ 25 Gp that (contrary to the usual party line – CGJ) ‘the watchword is to be quality and not quantity’ and directed that all pupils must complete the full ground and air programme called for in the syllabus.
14 AIR24/17197. Minutes of an AOCinC’s Group Commanders Conference held at Cranwell on 19 February 1948.
15 AIR32/70. Analysis of Wastage on Nos 1-5 All Through Courses presented as an Annex to HQ 21 Gp Report 21G/602/21/Nav dated 8 January 1949.
16 Ibid. A lengthy HQ 21 Gp memorandum, 21G/602/16/Nav dated April 1948, summarised the current state of navigator training, provided a number of rationales to explain the unacceptably high withdrawal rate and offered some suggestions for improving the situation.
17 AIR24/1795. For a variety of reasons (not necessarily to do with training philosophy), AOCinC Flying Training Command, Air Mshl Sir Arthur Coningham, had expressed reservations over the advisability of including the initial phase within the ‘all through’ system before the scheme had even been implemented, in, for instance, his FTC/S.91003/Air1/AOCC of 20 February 1947.
18 AIR25/546. As early as 20 July 1946, HQ 25 Gp’s ORB had noted that HQ Flying Training Command had directed that, ‘all navigators under training were to be trained as NavsB.’
19 For any cadets who had been earmarked for commissioning, there was an additional stage between AFS and OCU, a six-week course at the Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU) at Spitalgate.
20 Created from the remnants of the wartime OTUs and HCUs, the first of the new AFSs and OCUs had been established in 1947 to provide the necessary follow-on stages to the ‘all-through’ basic training scheme.
21 Within the wartime Pathfinder Force, when an eighth man was added to the crew (regardless of which badges they wore) it became common practice to refer to the two-man navigation/bombing team as Plotter and Set Op (or Nav 1 and Nav 2) but, with the post-war demise of the air bomber, two navigators became the norm. Incidentally, while it may have been policy to have two navigators in each heavy bomber crew, a chronic shortage of trained manpower in 1948 meant that this could not always be implemented. Priority was afforded to marker squadrons but, for a time, some main force crews had to make do with one.
22 AIR32/70. HQ Bomber Command’s argument was set out in a paper submitted to the Air Ministry by the AOCinC, Air Mshl A Ellwood, under cover of his BC/S.81535/CinC dated 21 September 1948.
23 AIR24/2138. The syllabus as at January 1952 was published as FTC/88848/2/Nav.
24 AIR32/70. The broad details of the scheme are summarised in FTC/S.100439/Air dated 11 November 1950.
25 All three of these units, Nos 4, 5 and 6 ANSs, proved to be relatively short-lived. This was particularly true of the Langford Lodge-based No 4 ANS which, having been established on 22 September 1952, assumed the identity of No 5 ANS on 15 November when the latter disbanded at Lindholme. Never having received any aeroplanes as No 4 ANS, the unit had no better luck as No 5 and it closed down on 31 January 1953, having contributed little of any consequence to the navigator training programme.
26 AIR32/122. HQ Flying Training Command Research Branch Memorandum No 33, FTC/88874/RB dated 28 February 1951. The loss rates in the memorandum, those quoted here, would suggest that eighty-eight students should have graduated, as distinct from the actual eighty-three. This discrepancy was caused by fluctuations in the size of the cohort as it passed through the system due to losses and to individuals being recoursed into or out of the group and the consequent need to extend the notional timeframe to allow for men from earlier intakes who joined it and others who graduated late. The raw figures for each phase (which do reflect the quoted percentages) were 50/174, 33/178 and 13/101.
27 The first batch of pilots began training on 29 January 1951, the last on 15 July 1957. The corresponding dates for navigators were 26 March 1951 and 1 April 1957.
28 When the RCAF began its international programme in 1951 navigators were trained by its Nos 1 and 2 ANSs at Summerside and Winnipeg respectively. In 1953 No 1 ANS closed down, leaving Winnipeg to handle all subsequent courses. The demand for additional instructors was met by the RCAF’s CNS which reopened at Summerside on 1 August 1951; in 1954 it too moved to Winnipeg.
29 AIR29/2152. For the last few months of its existence, No 3 ANS was embedded within No 5 FTS and on its final demise the ORB for the latter summarised the RATG’s overall navigation training activities. From an initial intake of 504 navigators, 278 had gained their ‘wings’ – a 55% success rate; there had been two fatalities. Flying hours were broken down as follows: day nav – 29,700; night nav – 15,600; day bombing – 2,700; night bombing – 1,390 for a grand total of 49,390 in the course of which 18,500 practice bombs had been dropped.
30 AIR2/12122. Brief BJ/ADT Plans/45 dated 11th June 1953 prepared in advance of the Inspector General’s impending visit to Canada.
31 Ibid. Letter CMS 1925/51 dated 17 February 1954 from AVM Bandon to AOCinC Flying Training Command, Air Mshl Sir Lawrence Pendred.
32 AIR24/2138. The nine-week Acclimatisation Course syllabus was published as FTC/88848/11/Nav.
33 AIR2/12122. A copy of the revised syllabus and associated correspondence is on this file.
34 AIR25/1581. A copy of the May 1957 syllabus, 25G/2218/11/Nav, is appended to HQ 25 Gp’s ORB.
35 AIR25/1571. Figures from HQ 25 Gp’s ORB for July 1958. Note that the 9% shortfall in output is accounted for by National Servicemen who were already too close to their discharge dates to be worth posting to an OCU.
36 AIR25/1158. A draft syllabus embracing the York concept was published as 25G/424/Nav dated 16 March 1948.
37 AIR32/71. Details of the proposed radio/radar installation in a flying classroom are contained in this file. While other contemporary references are specifically to the York, the installation scheme was actually prepared in the context of a ‘notional’ aircraft type.
38 Having first entered service with No 201 AFS in October 1951, Varsitys began to be delivered to No 2 ANS at Thorney Island and No 3 ANS at Bishops Court in July 1952 and to No 1 ANS at Hullavington in the following December. The last Wellington navigation trainer was withdrawn from service in March 1953.
39 AIR24/2133. On 31 May 1954 the Central Navigation and Control School received the first of an eventual ten Vampire NF 10s with which to provide trainee air traffic controllers with experience of handling jets. On 9 August HQ Flying Training Command’s ORB records that it had been decided to exploit these exercises by detaching selected newly qualified navigators to Shawbury for a one-week pre-OCU ‘course’ during which they would be provided with an initial exposure to jet flying.
40 The American-supplied Washington was designed for two-pilot operation but the RAF elected to make limited use of surplus air engineers to fly as co-pilots, these men being in addition to the dedicated air engineer within a crew. This practice did not read across to the contemporary Lincoln which operated on similar lines to the wartime Lancaster with a single pilot assisted, as necessary, by an air engineer.
41 (AIR 20/7385). The originals of these HQ Bomber Command letters (BC/S.85213 of 16 January 1952 and BC/S.83718 of 20 January 1953) have not been traced but DCAS (Air Mshl Ivelaw-Chapman) refers to their content in his memorandum CMS2060/52 of 13 March 1953.
42 Ibid. Minutes of an Air Ministry meeting held on 30 July 1953 on file CMS.2060/DDOps(B). Note that, despite the decision not to use air engineers, some did fly in the right hand seats of Valiants in the early days, although this is understood to have occurred only at the OCU, not on squadrons.
43 As an aside, it is often asserted that V-bomber crews had to be commissioned because they were responsible for nuclear weapons, but this was not actually the case. Although this had been one of the early justifications for, specifically, the co-pilot having to be an officer, that rationale soon evaporated, because in-flight arming was not a feature of later weapons. In practice, the recently introduced ‘100% commissioning policy’ meant that all pilots and navigators would be officers in any case and the preference for commissioned signallers was based on considerations of professional competence [although there was little, if any, difference between the technical ability of an AEO and an air signaller (A)], not custodianship. So, while it was certainly desirable that all members of a V-bomber crew should be commissioned, it was not essential and until sufficient officers were available, NCOs did fly in V-bombers – see Chapter 32, Note 27.