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===South Africa=== (from Legacy Section)
- MacDonald, J.F. The War History of Southern Rhodesia 1939–1945. Bulawayo, Zimbabwe: Authority of the Government of Southern Rhodesia, 1947.
- Becker, Captain Dave. Yellow Wings: The Story of the Joint Air Training Scheme in World War 2. Pretoria: The SAAF Museum, 1989. ISBN 0-642-99503-6.
The South African Air Force Memorial at Swartkop, Tshwane, includes a memorial to the Royal Air Force members who died in South Africa during the Joint Air Training Scheme.
The Port Elizabeth branch of the South African Air Force Museum is still housed in the original 42-Air School Air Gunnery Training Centre used during the Joint Air Training Scheme.[1]
On the outbreak of war in September 1939, the Government of Southern Rhodesia made an offer to the British Air Ministry to run a flying school and train personnel to man three squadrons (44, 237 and 266 (Rhodesia) Squadrons), which was duly accepted.[2] The Rhodesian Air Training Group (RATG), operating 1940–1945, was set up as part of the overall Commonwealth Air Training Plan. In January 1940 the Government announced the creation of a Department of Air, completely separate from that of Defence and appointed Ernest Lucas Guest as Minister of Air.[3] Guest inaugurated[4] and administered what became the second largest Empire Air Training Scheme,[5] beginning with the establishment of three units at Salisbury, Bulawayo and Gwelo, each consisting of a preliminary and an advanced training school.[3]
Rhodesia was the last of the Commonwealth countries to enter the Empire Air Training Scheme and the first to turn out fully qualified pilots.[6] No. 25 Elementary Flying Training School at Belvedere, Salisbury opened on 24 May 1940. By August 1940, the schools could train up to 1800 pilots, 240 observers and 340 gunners per year.[7] The original programme of an initial training wing and six schools was increased to 10 flying training schools and bombing, navigation and gunnery school and a school for the training of flying instructors as well as additional schools for bomb aimers, navigators and air gunners, including stations at Cranbourne (Salisbury), Norton, Gwelo and Heany (near Bulawayo). To relieve congestion at the air stations, six relief landing grounds for landing and takeoff instruction and two air firing and bombing ranges were established. Two aircraft and engine repair and overhaul depots were set up as well as the Central Maintenance Unit to deal with bulk stores for the whole group.
The trainees came mainly from Great Britain but also from Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, Yugoslavia, Greece, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Fiji and Malta.[8] There were also pupils from the Royal Hellenic Air Force in training. Over 7,600 pilots and 2,300 navigators were trained by the RATG during the war.
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Despite the prewar South African Air Force (SAAF) expansion plans, the start of the Second World War in 1939 caught the SAAF unprepared. New flying schools were established at Pretoria, Germiston, Bloemfontein and Baragwanath, while a training command under Lieutenant Colonel W.T.B. Tasker oversaw the SAAF's overall training programme. With the establishment of the Joint Air Training Scheme (JATS) 38 South African–based air schools were employed to train Royal Air Force, SAAF and other allied air and ground crews. Aircraft and other equipment required for the training were provided to South Africa free of charge by the United Kingdom.[9] Under this scheme, the SAAF, by September 1941, increased the total number of military aircraft to 1,709 while the personnel strength had grown to 31,204, including 956 pilots. During its five-year existence, the JATS turned out a total of 33,347 aircrew, including 12,221 SAAF personnel.
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A relatively large number (given the tiny size and population) of islanders from the British colony of Bermuda (now termed a British Overseas Territory, and as such neither then part of the old Commonwealth of Dominions nor today a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, other than through Britain's membership) served as air and ground crew in the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force during the First World War. Despite the importance of the Royal Naval Dockyard and the use of the colony (located 640 miles off North Carolina) in both World Wars as a forming-up point for trans-Atlantic convoys, attempts to raise a Royal Air Force Reserve in the colony from RAF veterans between the wars did not meet with success. Nonetheless, with the outbreak of the Second World War (the first Bermudian to be killed in the war was Flying Officer Grant Ede, DFC, a fighter pilot lost in the 8 June 1940, sinking of HMS Glorious, during the Battle of Norway), it was decided to create a flying school on Darrell's Island (where a marine air station had been built in the 1930s to enable Imperial Airways and Pan American World Airways to operate flights between the United States and Bermuda, and onward across the Atlantic), which was taken over as an RAF air station for the duration of the war.[citation needed]
The purpose of the Bermuda Flying School was to train local pilots for the Air Ministry, which would assign them to the RAF or the Fleet Air Arm. The school was in operation by the summer of 1940. It operated a pair of Luscombe sea planes, paid for by an American resident of Bermuda, Mr Bertram Work, and a Canadian, Mr Duncan MacMartin. Its location in the heart of an RAF Air Station used by RAF Transport Command and Ferry Command afforded considerable opportunity to gain experience on the Consolidated Catalina and other flying boats at the station. Staff and trainees were also frequently used by nearby Royal Naval Air Station on Boaz Island to fly Supermarine Walrus anti-submarine air patrols. The school was placed under the command of Major Cecil Montgomery-Moore, DFC, the Commanding Officer of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE), who had transferred from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) to become a Royal Flying Corps fighter pilot during the First World War. The chief flying instructor was an American, Captain Ed Stafford.[citation needed]
The first class, of eighteen students, was in training by May 1940. The BFS only accepted applicants who were already serving in one of the part-time army units of the Bermuda Garrison (only whites were accepted, barring most of the potential applicants from the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Militia Infantry, which recruited from the coloured population, although a number of coloured Bermudians from these units were to become aircrew after the RAF's bar on coloured recruitment was lifted in 1943),[10] which had been mobilised for the duration of the war to protect the Royal Naval Dockyard and other sites important to the war effort. Successful students were released from their units and allowed to proceed overseas, usually as members of the crews delivering flying boats from Bermuda to Greenock, Scotland.[11]
Although the school was originally run as a purely local effort, under the colonial Government of Bermuda, it was quickly incorporated into the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. While most of the pilots it trained continued to come from the local population, eight citizens of the United States of America who volunteered to serve with the Royal Air Force were sent to Bermuda to train at the Bermuda Flying School. These Americans were required to enlist into the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, from which they were discharged upon the successful completion of their flight training.[citation needed]
By 1942, the Air Ministry had a glut of trained pilots, resulting from the fear created by the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. Desperate for pilots, too many had been allowed to train, or had been placed on backlists to await slots for induction and training. This would continue to be a problem as late as 1944, when the British Army was forced to disband a division after Operation Overlord due to a shortage of manpower. At the same time, the Air Ministry had the equivalent of a division of civilians waiting aircrew training slots, and already had more aircrew than it had aircraft available for them to man. This would lead to pilots being transferred to the Army's Glider Pilot Regiment, and to the lists of civilians reserved for aircrew training being cleared of men who were then able to be conscripted by the Army.[12]
In Bermuda, the excess of pilots meant that the BFS was advised in 1942 that no further pilots were required. By then, eighty pilots had been sent to the RAF and Fleet Air Arm. Although the school was closed, Bertram Work and Major Montgomery-Moore oversaw the conversion of its administration into a recruiting arm, the Bermuda Flying Committee, for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), sending sixty aircrew candidates to that service before the War's end. Sixteen Bermudian women were also sent to the RCAF to perform roles including Air Traffic Controller.[13]
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BCATP Summary Plaque
Sky Harbour Terminal - Goderich Airport
BCATP Lancaster Cairn
Commandos training at Sky Harbour in 1943.
Flyover and the BCATP buildings, between 1940-1944.
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The Royal Air Force in American Skies: The Seven British Flight Schools in the United States during World War II Tom Killebrew
| RCAF Station Dunnville | |
|---|---|
 No. 6 SFTS in the 1940s, with Dunnville in the background | |
| Active | 25 November 1940 – 1 December 1944 |
| Country | Canada   |
| Branch | Royal Canadian Air Force .svg){kind=small} |
| Role | British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Aircrew training |
| Part of | No. 1 Training Command |
| Schools | No. 6 Service Flying Training School |
| Commanders | |
| G/C | Alan H. Hull - 1940 |
| Aircraft flown | |
| Trainer | North American Yale North American Harvard Avro Anson |
Royal Canadian Air Force Station Dunnville was a Second World War British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) station located near Dunnville, Ontario. The station was home to No. 6 Service Flying Training School and is usually known by that name.[note 1] Service Flying Training schools trained Pilots, either single engine or multi-engine, and 6 SFTS was a single engine school. After graduation the new pilots were assigned various duties, which might be overseas in the RAF or an overseas RCAF squadron; or in Canada as instructors or staff pilots in the BCATP, or for duty in RCAF Home Defence squadrons.
The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was a temporary wartime measure that ended on 29 March 1945. No. 6 SFTS opened 25 November 1940 and closed on 1 December 1944, and during this time 2,436 airmen received their wings at Dunnville.[14]
Like most of the BCATP airfields, No. 6 SFTS was located in a sparsely populated rural area close to rail lines, highways, and a town. The 400 acre site for No. 6 was three kilometers south of Dunnville near the mouth of the Grand River in Lake Erie. It had two relief fields, RCAF Welland, and RCAF Cayuga, both five or six minutes flying time away, and within twenty four minutes flying time there were more RCAF airfields - Brantford, Burtch, Dufferin, Hagersville, Jarvis, Mount Hope, St. Catharines, Tillsonburg, and Willoughby. The site lay on the air route from Buffalo, New York to Detroit, Michigan, used by American Airlines and Bell Aircraft. The Fleet Aircraft factory was nearby in Fort Erie, Ontario. This gave the pilots and trainees at Dunnville many places to land if they got lost or had a mechanical problem, but it also meant there was a lot of air traffic in the area.
The airfield was a standard BCATP triangle layout with double runways, five hangars, and a fifty acre camp. The sports and recreation fields were on the east side of Port Maitland Road, across from the main entrance. No. 6 was one of the earliest training airfields and its hangars were constructed of steel columns and roof trusses covered by a rough wooden frame, diagonal planking, and wooden shingles; whereas hangars built later in the program used laminated wooden columns and roof trusses. There was a bombing target eight kilometres northwest on the Grand River, and a triangular bombing and gunnery range near Mohawk Island in Lake Erie.
A Service Flying Training School like Dunnville was the intermediate step in a Commonwealth pilot's training program. Trainees had already learned to fly during the fifty hours they spent at an Elementary Flying Training School. At the SFTS they studied advanced techniques like formation flying, low flying, bombing and gunnery, night flying, instrument flying, and radio work, and became familiar with the administration and procedures associated with operating and maintaining military aircraft. At the end of their SFTS course they were presented with their RCAF "wings", and moved on to an Operational Training Unit to train on the actual equipment and techniques they would use on operations.
When the school opened in 1940 trainees stayed there for nine weeks, and by 1943 the length of the course increased to sixteen weeks. At the peak of activity in 1943 roughly 1,500 people were stationed at Dunnville, and sixty four Harvard Mk. IIs, thirty six Harvard Mk. IIBs, eight Mk. II Ansons were in use, with a further six Harvards in storage.[16]
Flying Officer (F/O) Ross P. McLean, an instructor at No. 6 SFTS, was Commended for Valuable Services in the Air on 26 October 1943.
Five months later, on 12 March 1944, McLean was taxiing his aircraft when he saw a Harvard crash on another runway and catch fire. He taxied over to the burning Harvard and with the assistance of Leading Aircraftman (LAC) Norman F. Wolgast, pulled the pilot out of the flames just before the burning aircraft was completely destroyed. McLean was made a Member, Order of the British Empire, and Wolgast, from the Royal Australian Air Force, received the British Empire Medal.[17][18]
Some of the more noteworthy pilots who trained at this station include:
- Sir David Evans, RAF, Commander, Order of the British Empire; who rose to Air Chief Marshal after the war
- Clarke Walter "Wally" Floody, RCAF, Mention in Despatches; Member, Order of the British Empire; who was the principal engineer of the tunnels used in the Great Escape
- John Alexander "Jack", Spence, RCAF, DFC and Bar; who rescued seven down airmen with his Supermarine Walrus[note 2]
- William Herbert "Bill" Swetman, RCAF, DSO, DFC; who was the youngest commanding officer in the RCAF in World War II.
Most of the BCATP stations suffered casualties, many in flying accidents, and the toll at Dunnville was particularly high. Forty seven lives were lost at the station; twenty five trainees, eighteen instructors, and four others. These men are remembered by the memorial at the public library in Dunnville, and, at the old airport, the plaque on Port Maitland Road near the entrance, and the magnificent memorial in front of the hangars. These memorials are maintained by the No. 6 RCAF Dunnville Museum, located in Hangar 1.
Harvard 2766 at the library
Harvard 2766's plaque
Ontario Heritage Trust plaque on Port Maitland Road
The memorial in front of the hangars
The Royal Canadian Air Force retained the airfield after No. 6 SFTS closed and it became a detachment of No. 6 Repair Depot in Trenton. Harvards, Chipmunks, and Lancasters were stored at the field until the RCAF disposed of the property in 1964. One of the last aircraft stored at Dunnville, RCAF Lancaster FM212, was moved to Windsor, Ontario by barge and in 2016 is being restored by the Canadian Historical Aircraft Association.[19]
The Cold Springs Turkey Farm took over the property in 1964, and many years later it became the Dunnville Airport.
In 2003 the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering designated the Dunnville Airport property as a National Historic Civil Engineering site.
- the standard short form is No. 6 S.F.T.S.. also shortened as No. 6 SFTS or 6 SFTS.
- the Guelph Civic Museum has Spence's meticulously documented scrapbooks, which include photographs and notes from his time at Dunnvville, as well as medals and other items related to his wartime service.
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