FLEET AIR ARM
HARD LIFE OF TRAINEES IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. SOCIAL AND OTHER ACTIVITIES. Hard work in an unpleasant climate, sums up the impressions of his new life, contained in the letters of a Fleet Air Arm trainee "somewhere in England.” The weather, especially, it appears, fails to meet with his approval. “I have started flying at last,” he writes, "but not very often. English weather is lousy, believe me. I have been here three weeks now, and have only had just over five hours in the air. “When I’m up there in the old Magister it’s grand, but this ‘mucking about’ in a crew room in full kit, merely waiting, just about browns me off.” The trainee now, however, has reached a fairly advanced stage, and even his grumbling, dictated by navy tradition, has attained a more cheerful note. He is now flying, and that, to a Fleet Air) Arm trainee, means that a lot of pre-1 paratory and apparently useless train-1 ing is now behind him. The worst is passed, and the best is still to come —ahighly satisfactory state of affairs. But the naval recruit is still entitled to grouch. “The boys are fed up with this joint, mainly, I think, because the climate is getting us down. I’ve read about it, but I didn’t think it was as bad as it is. We have had a whale of a time coming over, but I’ve earned my pay since I’ve I been in England. What with ‘Pompey’ and a fortnight ’in gaol' on the Isle ot Wight, I reckon I’ve rated more than 20s 6d a week.” There is, however, another side to it. “Here we live in the grounds of a big estate out of town, and though it is pretty rough we don’t mind much, especially after so many months in the navy. Life in the town is full enough. Besides flying and ground training, we have to fit in our social activities. "A lot of affairs—dances, social evenings and the like—are arranged for us, and the place has throngs of women, mostly gold-diggers, but not all. The food is clasey, too, which is a help. "I mentioned that I had seen Elsie and Doris Waters, plus Sarah Churchill (Winston’s daughter) in a variety show’. All quite handsome and quite amusing. Next Sunday some local lasses are taking us ((nice town, this!) to hear the •Squadronaires’- —a crack R.A.F. band with some of the country’s best in it.” There are the two sides of the trainee’s life —the grim, monotonous training and the short bursts of gaiety on leave. But both sides are subordinate to the general purpose of their activities, which is inspiring them all—" You forget all the boloney when you are hero. All you do on a grim, cold watch is to pray for Jerry to come. We can lick him, and then we can all go back home again and live among civilised people and be treated as ordinary men.”
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 May 1941, Page 3
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499FLEET AIR ARM Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 May 1941, Page 3
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