We were accommodated in small cell like rooms in what had been, before the war, luxury flats but were now crammed with two tier bunk beds, some positioned over windows, and we had our meals in one of the London Zoo refreshment rooms. During the next two weeks we had further medical examinations and other tests, were inoculated several times, kitted out with our uniforms, subjected to a service style haircut and instructed in basic drill. In addition we were warned of sexual diseases and shown a film about the same. I suppose this was necessary but I am sure that over 90% of us  had yet to have experience of such matters although a few did brag about their conquests.

Our rate of pay was 2/6d per day ( twelve and a half pence in new money) but, at my mother’s request, I had 1/- per day deducted and sent to her as a weekly allowance. That left me with  10/6d  (just over 50p) per week that  was given to me at the weekly pay parade which, with two or three hundred airmen, took hours and went as follows :-

“Vince”
“Sir, 035”  (the last three figures of my number)
“Ten shillings and sixpence”
Smart step forward and salute
Gather up money, salute again and march away with 10/6 to last a week for cigarettes, tea, cakes, haircuts, shoe polish, writing paper, stamps, soap, toothpaste etc.

Young airmen under training did not have the time or money to get into trouble. We were always broke long before pay day.

Fom Lords to the seaside for initial training in basic skills.  I, with about 60 others, entrained for Paignton, Devon where we were accommodated in a number of small hotels, facing the promenade,  which the RAF had taken over. A large country mansion with its outbuildings, which included an indoor swimming pool, was used as a Training Centre. Drill parades were held on the promenade and weapon training on the grass between the hotels and the promenade. This was a period during the war of sneak raids  by enemy fighter aircraft flying from France at wave top height to attack coastal towns,so, during drill parades, sentries with whistles were posted on the wall of the promenade to give warning of such attacks.

The senior physical training instructor, Flight Sergeant “Chang” Warner was a tough nut whose ambition, so it seemed, was to prove to us how unfit we were but, like the majority of young men, we were very competitive and nobody wanted to be the first to drop out or fail to perform a test. One of which was to jump into the swimming pool from the 14 feet diving board wearing flying kit, put right an upturned dingy and climb into it.  I was not, and am still not, a very good swimmer and would have been more than happy to have avoided such a test but I duly jumped in clothed in flying kit, sat on the bottom of the pool, came up spluttering and climbed into the dingy after righting it. One afternoon each week we played team games  -  soccer, rugby etc.

In addition to basic training in drill, weapons, P.T. etc. we also had classes in navigation, the theory of flight and other flying matters and there were Church Parades on Sundays. The weeks passed very quickly and in November, with the course completed, we were given our first leave with instructions to report to the Aircrew Dispatch Centre at Heaton Park, Manchester at the end of our leave.

I arrived home for the first time in my RAF uniform with all my kit and duly made the rounds of relations and friends to the time honoured greeting of “Hello, nice to see you, you are looking well, when are you going back ?”

November 1943, Heaton Park, Manchester.  The first of many visits I was to make to this RAF Station during the next eighteen months. This Manchester park had been taken over by the RAF and was used as a holding unit between  courses for trainee aircrew and it was from there that we were posted to other training camps in the UK or formed into drafts for overseas training in Canada, South Africa and America.  My next training school was to be a “Grading School” where I would receive 12 hours instruction in flying a Tiger Moth in order to assess my potential capabilities as a pilot. However, for two or three evenings I was able to sample the ample entertainment available to servicemen in central Manchester with its many cinemas, pubs, clubs and theatre.

With twenty or so other aircrew cadets I travelled from Manchester to Fairoaks airfield near Ascot and from there to an outlying airstrip near the village of Winkfield. The airfield was nothing more than a large field which had been part of a farm with newly erected accommodation huts, an ablution block, a kitchen and dining room, a Flight hut, a hangar and a small guardroom at the entrance. The Flight Commander and the other flying instructors lived at Fairoaks and travelled daily. The only people living on site were two service policemen, two cooks and we aircrew cadets who, in addition to learning to fly, carried out all the everyday administrative tasks such as sweeping up, preparing vegetables for cooking, lighting and maintaining the coke  boiler for the ablutions  and the coke fires in the huts and, also, mounting guard at night.

One of the Corporal policeman took the morning roll call before the Flight Commander arrived and gave out any notices.  One day he said,  “I have some free tickets for a dance in the village hall tonight.  Who hasn’t got any          
money ?” Six hands are raised, including mine.  “Right then”, said the policeman, “You won’t be able to buy any beer will you ? So you can do guard duty and the rest can go to the dance”.  Lesson 1 - Never volunteer.

We stayed at Winkfield for about 4 weeks, including the Christmas period, in order for each of us to complete 12 hours flying instruction in Tiger Moth aircraft. These are ( they are still flying) small single engine bi-planes with two open cockpits, one behind the other, the minimum of instruments and controls and with voice communication by speaking tube.  We dressed in flying overalls, gloves and helmets and carried parachutes which doubled as seat cushions.

In addition to the Winkfield strip we used a large grass area in Great Windsor Park ( known as Smiths Lawn) to practice take offs and landings. However, it did not take me long to find out that I was a poor judge of height having almost removed  the chimney of the flight hut when taking off and attempting to land from twelve feet up on several occasions. It was therefore no surprise to me that, on our return to Heaton Park from Winkfield, I was informed that my future training would be as a Navigator/Wireless for combined navigation and wireless flying duties in aircraft manned by two aircrew ( pilot and navigator) such as Mosquitos and Beaufighters.  I was promoted to AC1 and my pay, which included extra money for flying duties,  increased to 7/9d per day.

My next course was to be a five months wireless course at No. 1 Radio School, Cranwell, Lincolnshire followed by a navigation course overseas.
   
The RAF is always very thorough in its training and we started from scratch with the basic laws of electricity onwards to the end result when we could carry out small running repairs to wireless equipment during flight, receive and send Morse code at 18 words per minute under adverse conditions, obtain “fixes” using transmissions from fixed radio beacons and use an Aldis lamp for transmitting Morse by light. I spent many hours in the air firstly in twin engined bi-planes which were flying classrooms with an instructor and then in single engined aircraft with just a pilot and  myself sitting side by side. I was airborne in one of these aircraft on D Day 1944 when there was a tremendous amount of wireless traffic to be heard.

We used two types of aerials. A fixed one on top of the aircraft and a trailing one, with a lead weight on the end, which we had to reel out when airborne and reel in again before landing. If anyone forgot to reel in the aerial before landing it would snag on trees and fences on the landing approach run and break off. That would cost you  the price of a new trailing aerial.

Cranwell was a large RAF Station with several airmen’s messes, a large NAAFI, a  Sally  Anne ( Salvation Army Canteen) and a variety of places of entertainment including a cinema. However, of the ten or so RAF Stations on which I served during the war, the food in our aircrew cadets mess was by far the worst I had, and have, ever tasted; and the thought of liver  cooked to resemble leather and macaroni cooked in water and served as a pudding with just a dash of cold milk on top has put me off eating either of then again. One happy result of the poor food was that my mother sent me food parcels containing home made cakes and fruit pies which I shared with my friends.

Our barrack block was adjacent to the Aircraft Apprentices barrack block and raids on each other’s rooms took place after lights out and when the blackout screens had been removed and windows opened.. The attackers would jump in through the opened windows on the ground floor and overturn beds etc.  All good clean fun.

After lunch on Sundays we often visited Lincoln as tourists and have tea in a cafe near the Cathedral. On one visit, with three of my friends, we met four girls of about the same age as ourselves who had just arrived in Lincoln as part of  a theatre touring company for a week’s booking in the local theatre. They were in the chorus and they suggested that we attend the show the following Saturday evening, go backstage afterwards and then go out for a meal together. So, the following Saturday we went back into Lincoln, saw the show, then walked, rather adventurously, round to the stage door to find that we were expected and shown, by the doorkeeper, to the chorus’s dressing room. Although we did not know what to expect when we knocked on the door and entered the dressing room, we were totally unprepared to find ten to twelve young girls naked from the waist up and with smiles on their faces.  No further comment.

During our five months at Cranwell we members of the signals course got to know one another very well and, in the barrack room in the evenings we would talk and scrap ( nothing serious) like any other collection of young men.  The majority were grammar school boys who were Conservative or Liberal in their politics. I was one of the small minority who did not go to grammar school and, in addition, was a supporter of the Labour Party, so we argued, discussed and compromised.