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The Shortest Flight (page 1 of 6)
THIS ARTICLE WAS KINDLY GIVEN TO US BY A GENTLEMEN WHO WE MET THIS YEAR. IT IS HIS PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF HIS NAVY PILOT TRAINING ON THE HARVARD. IT IS VERY LONG BUT WELL WORTH READING AS IT GIVES A WONDERFUL INSIGHT INTO THE POST WAR TRAINING PROGRAMME.
After World War 2 some Royal Navy pilots continued to be trained in the United States. The MAP (Military Aid Programme) was a legacy of the war years when the States took on some of the burden of training overseas military pilots, far from combat areas.
This scheme was still in existence in 1954, with about one third of volunteers still going to be trained by the US Navy. Transatlantic passenger air travel was still in its infancy. The 20 hour flight by Constellation from a very basic Heathrow to New York, via Iceland and Gander, was an exciting experience for any young man. There were many other new experiences to come.
The candidates landed in New York, where the opulence and glitter of everything around them contrasted so sharply with the austerity left behind in post war Britain. Training took place within the US Naval Air Training Command based on Pensacola, Florida. A first insight into the immensity of this landmass came during the train journey from New York to Pensacola. For 2 whole days and one night the train rolled through the States of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and finally into Florida, with endless vistas of open country, and sometime the distant Appalachian mountains.
Flight students were just that, students, whatever their previous rank or experience. The general list lieutenants among the RN group all had 5 or 6 years service, while many of the younger American Flight Cadets were straight from college, often from the Mid West, and completely ignorant of a wider world outside. Beside the military aspects of this uprooting the transformation from life in the North to the far away south, probably felt as foreign to them, as a move from the UK felt to RN officers.
For this was the Deep South, of rigid segregation between whites and Blacks; it was Klu Klux Klan country. To a young Englishman, brought up in the UK with its Class system, where inequality did exist, but in a society which always accepted its citizens did have fundamental rights, the lack of recognition here of any human value was rather shocking.
Congress had recently abolished segregation in the Armed Forces, and there were a number of black flight cadets in the programme. On the air base they could of course mix freely with their white fellow students, but once outside the gates, were unable to join friends in restaurants, bars, or sit on adjoining seats on public transport. Blacks had to go to the back of the bus.Officer flight students were accommodated in the BOQ (Bachelor Officer Quarters). The air conditioning struck so cold that goose pimples broke out on the flesh. A Coke machine at the end of each corridor supplied drink at a temperature to near freeze the gullet.
The opposite situation prevailed as soon as one stepped outside. The Florida Gulf Coast is well known for its sweltering heat and high humidity. Officers learnt that their first job on joining a base was the ritual of checking in. The joining form required signatures from a number of authorities on the airfield, which had to be visited in turn, and nothing could proceed further until this had been completed.
The situation of course provided happy opportunities for enlisted men at each place, to be as obstructive, and near insubordinate to the visiting officer, as they could get away with. The USN operated an “Honor system” which meant that you were not supposed to cheat. It did not take the less ethical Europeans long, for there were French and Dutch pilots as well, to speed up this chore, by forging signatures which did not seem relevant to flying training, the library and chaplain perhaps.
The next most pressing priority arose during that first sweat ridden day; the need to buy a car. Miles of sun baked tarmac shimmered in the heat, and there was only infrequent routine transport because nearly everyone owned his own car.
Just outside the camp sprawled the second hand car lots eagerly awaiting the new intake of students. Gleaming rows of large vehicles, encrusted with chrome, were on offer at unbelievably low prices; pick a Dodge, Chevy, Studebaker or Ford and shortly afterwards drive away with the smartest car ever owned by a young Naval Officer.
Much as everyone longed for their first experience in the air, this was still 4 weeks away after intensive ground school; the distant sound of aero engines the only encouragement to concentrate.
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