EMPIRE AIR SCHEME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 September 1941, Page 6

EMPIRE AIR SCHEME

MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO VICTORY BROADCAST BY DUKE OF KENT TRIBUTES TO THE MEN IN TRAINING. AND TO PEOPLE OF CANADA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.25 a.m.) RUGBY. September 17. The fact that airmen are now passing out from the Empire Air Training Scheme schools in thousands was disclosed by the Duke of Kent, in a broadcast. The Duke returned by air on Saturday from a three weeks' tour of Canada, the main purpose of which was to gain personal knowledge of the amazing development of the air training scheme. The Duke said: “I believe it can safely be said that in this great air training organisation, which is to play one of the major roles in the ultimate victory of free people over tyranny, there is to be found a manhood which is not surpassed anywhere in the world. I found everywhere among these future pilots, observers, wireless operators and air gunners an admirable spirit of comradeship and a deep consciousness of the gravity of the crisis which confronts us, and an eagerness to get on with the job and see it through, no matter what personal sacrifices it may entail. I was glad, on my return, to be able to tell the King what I had seen and what I had heard in Canada. He told me it brought back to him unforgettable memories of his own visit to Canada. “It was not the first time I had been to Canada, but it was the first time I had seen Canada at war. The magnificent spirit and resolution of the whole Canadian people impressed me deeply. It may be because I have been in the new world in the past few weeks that I am able to separate my thought, temporarily at least, from tragic events of the present and to look forward to the day when, the whole world will once more be pursuing the paths of peace. I believe that out of this conflict there is surely being born a friendship and union of those people who cherish freedom for freedom’s sake. This understanding, founded as it. is on a common spiritual conviction, will mean not only the preserving of the hard-won privileges of liberty, but of retaining those simple fundamentals of life—honesty and fair dealing between men and nations —upon, which any new and better order must be founded.