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103%u0010%u0013%u0016%u0017)2%u00061 TNA AIR1/683/21/13/2234. This file includes an AHB pr%u00e9cis tabulating the monthly output of trained pilots. It does not embrace the whole of WW I, but it does record that, in Egypt, the first cohort of pilots graduated in November 1916 and that by 15 April 1918, the total had reached 852. TNA AIR1/408/15/240/2 contains a good deal of contemporary statistical information up to November 1918 but, because of the way in which the figures were recorded, it is difficult (if not impossible) to interpret them to produce, with any confidence, a definitive total of pilots trained in Egypt. 2 Kostenuk, S and Griffin, J; RCAF Squadrons and Aircraft (Toronto, 1977) p2. 3 Chris Hobson%u2019s very comprehensive Airmen Died in the Great War 1914?1918(Hayward & Sons, 1995) features appendices providing a statistical breakdown of fatalities, not all of which were air8related, of course. The combined RFC/RAF total comes to 8,417, only 6,305 of whom died in aeroplanes. Allowing that some of these were %u2018passengers%u2019 and that most of the 2,112 who succumbed to other causes, notably including influenza, will have been groundcrew, it is reasonable to assume that the number of aircrew who died will have been of the order of 5,500. 4 Lord Riverdale of Sheffield was the erstwhile Sir Arthur Balfour. 5 Dunmore, Spencer; Wings for Victory (Toronto,1994) p41. 6 After flying with the RNAS/RAF during WW I, Robert Leckie had returned to Canada for a brief period but, like several of his compatriots, he opted to remain with the RAF. By 1940 he was AOC RAF Mediterranean, an air commodore with his HQ on Malta. From there he was posted to Canada to oversee the implementation of the Riverdale Agreement. In 1942, by then an air vice8marshal, Leckie transferred his commission to the RCAF, eventually becoming its CAS as an air marshal, 1944847. 7 TNA AIR8/3160 contains a copy of the Report (to the UK Government) on the Riverdale Mission to Canada, dated December 1939, and a copy of the Agreement itself.8 TNA AIR2/1360. Office Memorandum 15/40 dated 23 January 1940 announcing the setting up of the EATS Committee. 9 TNA AIR46/7. This file contains the international correspondence dealing with the implementation of Article XV of the Riverdale Agreement. It includes numerous variations on the theme of the title of the project, all of which studiously avoid using the words %u2018empire%u2019 or %u2018imperial%u2019. 10 As in the UK, the operation and staffing of many wartime Canadian training schools was carried out by civilians under contract to the RCAF. 11 Starting in late81940, by 1942 a total of twenty8five RAF flying training units had been established in Canada, some of them by moving an existing unit across the Atlantic. They were: six elementary flying training schools; ten service flying training schools; three air navigation schools; one bombing and gunnery school; one general reconnaissance school and four operational training units. 12 While this paper is concerned only with basic flying training, to illustrate the extent to which the RCAF could exercise authority over RAF units, it is interesting to note that, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Air Force Headquarters directed that No 32 OTU (an RAF unit training torpedo8bomber crews)