Pilot Training - General
This section of the Air Fronts web site concentrates on the pilots - or rather the Cadets - perspective of flying and learning to fly in a military environment.All Air Services maintained vast training organisations during the war. The training programs followed rather similar patterns as far as training phases and training purpose went- just the names and emphasis changes from service to service. An example (US AAF ) is given it the graphic below:
For specifics of the training establishments for each service , please consult the "Air Services" section of this web site.
The purpose of the "Pilot Training" section, is to provide the reader with some insight into the overal picture of military flight training at the time. This training had many facets and was surprisingly thorough, taking the many contraints and emergencies of an ongoing war into account.
Of course, the training process became more sophisticated over time. And more important to win the war. An issue very often overlooked. Of course, early on, the emphasis was on numbers but later quality and depth of training got the upper hand. The vocal complaints of many a theater commader notwithstanding: It was the training of the new pilots and the ever increasing standards of training, which provided the apt pilots, to overcome the odds.
Besides presenting the many technicallities of the training process - which may prove very valuable to the flight simulation enthusiast - there is one theme, that permeates the whole process:
On the one hand the perspective of the cadet, eager to succeed and earn his "Wings", and the interest of the Air Services to select the ones deemed best suited and to "wash out" the less gifted - and of course to convince those to opt for another job - like bombardier or gunner - in the same service.
The perspective of the Air Services is very well represented in an US AAF manual - believed to be the most selective - about instructions for flight trainers: "Efficient instruction will expedite the removal from training of those who are unfit and speed the progress of those who have aptitude. Care and discrimination on the part of the instructors and administrative officers insure that those who are unable to meet the school standards are quickly detected." (TM 1-210, Elementary Flying, US Army Air Corps, 1942)
Now contrast this with the Cadets view of matters: It is of course hard to get into the mind-set of the young men enlisting at the time as "wannabe" pilots in retrospective. Probably, James S. Childers is close: "The simple truth is that idealism played little, if any part in their leaving home. These young fellows left home for the reason that young fellows have always left home.
There was for them, of course, the perennial excitement of what goes on beyond the horizon. There was, for these boys of their particular generation, the accentuated glamour of battle and heroes in battle. Loving airplanes as they do, they had read scores of books and magazines about the airplanes of the last war and the famous fighters who flew them. They all knew Guynemer and Foncke and Rickenbacker and Bishop and Richthofen; they could recite by heart the tales of the great air battles. And they dreamed of themselves some day becoming as their heroes had been. ... There were others of the lot with equally personal reasons, but one of the main reasons they left home was that they, every one of them, are mad keen on airplanes and love flying above all else." (Childers, War Eagles, first published 1943).
Now just imagine: You are in your late teens or early twenties, you signed up for service in the US Army Air Corps / Army Air Forces/ RAF or any other service - for the duration of the war or for a career. Full of hopes - and the flight training is your first real test with reality. Why ? Well, the different stages of training are in place to educate the new "eagles", but at the same time the Air Forces have implemented a system to "wash out" the ones deemed unsuitable in the pilot role - of any aircraft in the service. And you do not care to end up with the engineers.
Guess, this perspective gives some "Live" to the dry and technical text books presented here.
A very enlightening personal account of this phase of a WWII military pilot can be found in: Robert S. Johnson; Thunderbolt !.
However, those who made it, had to face a unique environment very soon: Air Combat. A very special experience, which has changed little since "The Great War":
So despite the weeks and weeks of disappointment that attended my early fighting career, I appreciated even then the enormous benefit that I would reap later from these experiences. I can now most solemnly affirm that had I won my first victory during my first trips over the lines I believe I would never have survived a dozen combats. Every disappointment that came to me brought with it an enduring lesson that repaid me eventually tenfold. If any one of my antagonists had been through the same school of disappointments that had so annoyed me it is probable that he, instead of me, would now be telling his friends back home about his series of victories over the enemy. "from: Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker: "Fighting the Flying Circus", 1919
