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THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 9, 1941.
HOW THE PICK ITS
GERMAN DAY-AND-NIGHT air attacks on Britain have not affected the training of pilots. This I was told by the commanding officer of one of the largest flying training schools in the country, writes Ronald Walker, "News Chronicle” air corres- pondent.
"War operations over a small country like Bri- tain have not cut down the output of pilots, as some "More and more people seem to imagine," he said. pilots are being trained."
Yesterday I wrote about the training of ground personnel. Flying training is not more important, but it cannot help but be more exciting. This is the branch which supplies to the squadrons the pilots and other flying personnel, including naviga- tors, observers, radio operators and gummers.
R.A.F
MEN
The pupil of to-day hus la This moves as the ground would work much harder than his pre- move under an aircraft, and also war comrade.
allows for wind drift. The pupil has then to drop imaginary bombs on a given spot, using the bomb and sight in the ordinary way pressing a button for the release.
Not only has the system of training been changed, but the time allowed has been reduced; the same high standards of pro- i fetency are maintained.
Under the pre-war system the pupil learned to fly at a civilian least training school, gaining at
50 hours flying experience before putting on uniform.
Young men to-day can choose flying duties, but they have first to pass a preliminary medical test. The Aviation Candidates' Selec- tion Board looks them over and tests their knowledge of mathema- tles and trigonometry. Then the doctors have a second session.
"Ginger" Course
If the candidate passes through this searching test he is passed on to a Receiving Wing to be put into uniform and taught how to
All behave in it.
pilots and flying personnel have to begin in the ranks to-day.
Now an airman, the pupil goes
The moving picture stops and a light spot shows just where the bomb would have fallen.
officer The commanding
told recruits me that the standard of is excellent.
"It was good before the war,” he said. "To-day, the standard is better than ever."
TROOPS
LEAVE DEVIL'S
ISLAND
Hollow-eyed, fever-rid-
o an Initial Training Wing, where den fugitives from Ca-
he is given an intensive ginger-
ing-up course, and elementary in-yenne, notorious prison struction in mathematics, naviga- colony in French Guiana,
tion, armament and signals.
Flying instruction begins at who have
reached St.
the Elementary Flying Training Thomas, in the Virgin Bchool, where he makes his first Islands, in a small boat,
cross-country flight and does a
LIFE WAS
SAVED BY
A MANGLE
A bomb fell on a public house in a south-east coast town-There was a blinding flash, a terrific
roar.
When the licensee, Mr. Sidney Herbert, fifty-one Lucky Old Sid to his pals became con scious again, he was in the del lar. His mouth was filled with clay. A shaft of daylight not higger than a knitting needle pierced the gloom.
Something lay heavy across his thighs, and he tried in vain to shift it.
He Shouts came from above. spat out the clay and shouted back.
Then smoke entered his lungs.
"Trapped!" flashed through his mind as he coughed and splutter- ed under a pile of debris that that would take hours to move, And there was fire near him.
Choking he struggled again to free himself, but fell back ex- hausted. "What a rotten end," he thought.
Lucky Accident
Up above him someone tugged at a floor joist and a kitchen The mangle hurtled cellarwards. rescue party held their breath.
"That'll finish old Sid." said one.
But as the mangle crashed the weight went off the imprisoned man's legs; fresh air fanned his fact. He opened his eyes, saw A foot-square patch of daylight, and shouted.
Another crash this time it was the kitchen stove.. It swept A path through the debris and landed near the mangle. Through a gap in the wreckage a head and two arms came up. In
little "blind" flying in cover-revealed that the French a few seconds "Lucky Old Sid"
ed cockpit with the instructor in front watching for trouble. It is during this period that the young pilots are selected for fight-
ers or bombers. A lad with dash, with split-second reactions, is more likely to be chosen as อ fighter. The quieter, steadier lad. with ample patience, qualifies for bombing.
Fighter pilots go to their O.T.U. and are not concerned with other personnel, but the bomber pilot is just one member of the crew of
troops and police station- was
party.
standing with the rescue
ed there have abandoned | "Good job I bought the missus the settlement in a body. that mangle after all," he pant-
They have gone to enlist under -General de Gaulle, leader of thej Free French forces.
Henri Roulet, leader of the fugitives, told the authorities) at St. Thomas that the only prisoners now remaining arc: 300 at Devil's Island. All those at Cayenne itself, he said, have been liberated. a bomber.
Many Germans and Nallans While he is under traini, ob- have arrived at Cayenne, said server-navigators, air gunners Roulet, and are trying to establish and radio operators are passed order.
ed.
EIRE GETS READY
A BAN AGAINST THE DIS- PLAY OF BIGNPOSTS COMES INTO FORCE IN EIRE ON FE-
BRUARY 1.
This is the effect of an emer
which genty Government Order through their own particular Devil's Island, one of the most makes it an offence to display any- schools. At the bomber Opera- notorious penal settlements in the where outside urban areas signs tional Training Unit the
crew world, was the place of detention indicating direction or distance to members come together.
of Dreyfus, till he was cleared, any place. Crews are selected, and from after twelve years, of the false that moment they are trained as accusation of treason.
a unit.
Close Families
the
INDO-CHINA TO MOVE CAPITAL?
A sign is deemed "displayed" if it can be seen from a highway, train or low flying aircraft.—Reu- fer.
This method of training ទទ
ed to Salgon next week. working units has been largely
Saigon is the chief town and responsible for
success of
A Shanghai report from Hanoi port of southern Indo-China and R.A.F. bombing raids.. The crews states that the capital of the Indo-is 700 miles south of Hanoi.-- of heavy bombers have become China Government will be remov- Reuter close families.
I arrived one night at a Ser- vice Flying Training School, Through low-lying mist we drove some miles to a landing ground where, to my surprise, the land- ing lights were on.
Pupils were doing night-flying practice in twin-engined mono- planes, flying. round and round the fleld, landing and taking off to the light signals from the control afficer.
It was at this flying field that a pupil pilot on a solo flight re- bam- cently rammed a Heinkel
'RED' REVIVAL
IN GERMANY
(By A Diplomatic Correspondent) Information reaching me through official com- munist channels indicates that communist activity
ber. The young pilot and all the in Germany is increasing day by day.
crew of the Heinkel were killed. When I asked the control officer
·what happened if enemy aircraft arrived, he said: "We've a job to do, and we carry on."
Mechanical Teacher
During the day the pupils divido their time between the class- rooms and the aerodrome. Their first attempts at bombing are done on the ground in the bombing
teacher;
1
e. In the roof an elaborate in-
strument projects on to the white door below an air photograpti of a strip of country.
The Communist Party there is reported to be waging a vigorous campaign of organisation and propaganda
The activity takes two forms: SECRET— “Cells" of Red workers are being formed in the factories, docks, railway centres and arsenals
OPEN Leafiets and pamphlets are appearing, cyclo-styled memorarıda are being passed from hand to hand, information is being transmitted from mouth to mouth, and slogans are appearing on the walls and hoardings.