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INTRODUCTION
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On
23rd December 1941, I became the proud possessor of a pair of Royal Air
Force "Wings". I had just completed several months flying training
at various Air Force bases in England, under what was known as the 'Empire
Air Training Scheme', or EATS for short. Also known as the British Commonwealth
Air Training Plan, most countries of the old British Empire were participants
in the scheme, designed to produce many thousands of pilots and other aircrew
in rapid time, in the great fight against Nazi Germany in World War II.
It had been my hope to be able to train in Canada or Rhodesia, along with compatriots from those countries, and from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. I didn't visit any exotic training centres, but flew instead from Meir, near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, Little Rissington in Oxfordshire, and Church Fenton in Yorkshire. Early darkness in the late afternoon of 23rd December saw my arrival by train at Kings Cross Station, London, in my uniform as a Sergeant Pilot, with a warm greatcoat rugging me up against the English cold of pre-Christmas. Collar upturned in forbidden and quite unmilitary fashion, the inevitable cigarette in hand, I leaned against my kitbag and awaited the arrival of my father, who had arranged to collect me by car. A full-time Major in the Middlesex Home Guard, he had useful access to official transport. I was duly picked up, with heart-warming congratulations from my father, and soon whisked away to our home at 8 York Road Chingford. My mother, and young sister Pamela (age 10) received me joyfully, and we were all set for a very special Christmas. Little did we know the anguish and suffering the members of the family would experience over the next 3 years or so before the war ended. 1941 was the last Christmas on which I would see my mother, who was then only 38 years old. |