Page 87 - Demo

87signed on 17 December. The British had been obliged to suppress their reservations over the perceived limitations of the Canadians and had agreed to control over all training activities in Canada being exercised by the RCAF. For its part, Canada%u2019s residual mistrust of British ambitions was overcome by the admirable expedient of seconding Air Cdre Robert Leckie, a Canadian serving in the RAF, to Ottawa where he was given a seat on the Canadian Air Council whence he was able to direct operations.6 What is interesting, however, is the loose nomenclature associated with these arrangements. For instance, when the Riverdale Mission returned to the UK, its formal report to the British Government used the term %u2018Dominion Air Training Scheme%u2019. This typewritten report covered a copy of the formal printed Agreement which does not %u2013 referring only to the (lower case) %u2018co8operative air training scheme%u2019. In fact, while the 198page %u2018Agreement%u2019 goes on to discuss the specific obligations accepted by each of the four participating governments, it very diplomatically avoids assigning any form of title to these arrangements.7 A month later, in January 1940, a Standing Committee of the Air Council was established in order to monitor developments. To be chaired by the Under8Secretary of State for Air, Harold Balfour, it was to be known as the Empire Air Training Scheme Committee. Its terms of reference began as follows: %u2018To keep in touch with developments of the Dominion Air Training Scheme . .%u2019(author%u2019s italics).8 Despite the evident uncertainty as to the precise terminology to be used, the existence of this committee ensured that the %u2018EATS%u2019 label soon became firmly affixed within RAF circles. That this was not the case elsewhere is evident from the fact that correspondence raised by the RCAF, and by diplomatic offices on both sides of the Atlantic, throughout 1940841, used a variety of terms to refer to the activities in Canada. A trawl through the related files at Kew reveals such variations on a theme as: the Joint Air Training Plan; the Air Training Scheme Agreement; the Dominion Air Training Scheme; the Commonwealth Air Training Plan; the British Commonwealth Air Training Agreement; the British Commonwealth Joint Air Training Plan and so on.9 The one word that does not appear is %u2018Empire%u2019 and, reading between these lines, it seems that everyone was so conscious of the unfortunate connotations of the imperial tag