Page 83 - Demo

83%u0007%u0010%u0001%u0010%u0004%u0007%u0010%u0004%u0005%u0006%u0008%u0005%u0003%u0007%u00103%u0006%u0001%u0004%u0007%u0010%u0007%u00103%u0006#,%u0006%u0009-%%u0006%u000e%u001799%u0006%u000e%u001799%u0013%-%u2018Jeff%u2019 joined the RAF in 1959 as a pilot but (was) soon remustered as a navigator. His flying experience included tours with Nos 45, 83 and 50 Sqns and instructing at No 6 FTS. Administrative and staff appointments involved sundry jobs at Manby, Gatow, Brampton and a total of eight years at HQ Strike Command. He took early retirement in 1991 to read history at London University. He has three books to his credit and has been a member of the Society%u2019s Executive Committee since 1998; he is currently editor of its Journal. Along with the rest of our Service, the RAF%u2019s current training system is a mere shadow of what it once was and, while it is now the smallest that it has been since the early 1920s, it has also been increasingly civilianised, and you may have some views on that. But it is not for this Society to debate the pros and cons of the RAF%u2019s current and future arrangements; our business is to wallow in its glory days. So, in the specific context of today%u2019s seminar, what were the international dimensions of RAF training? As will become apparent, it rather depends upon when you ask the question %u2013 and how much you want to know. As is often the case with a presentation of this nature, one is faced with the options of an overall survey, which will, inevitably, lack depth, or focusing on one aspect and digging deep at the expense of the big picture. I am going for broad and shallow, starting with WW I. Our first essay in overseas training began in July 1916 %u2013 in Egypt. Initially provided with drafts of trainees from home, the expansion of the UK8based system during 1917 made it less necessary to sustain the time8consuming practice of shipping people to and from the Middle East, so the schools in Egypt began to draw the bulk of their intake increasingly from local internal recruiting and from South Africa, much of their output being absorbed by the growing number of in8theatre squadrons. Hard statistics are a little hard to come by and those that are available are difficult to interpret but it is safe to say that the