I recently found the following letter amongst some old paperwork of my late father. Kenneth was one of his friends, all of whom were of the generation whose lives were completely changed when they enlisted during World War II. Kenneth joined the Royal Air Force, and the letter has been written during the course of his training at Cranwell. I have left it word for word. The opinions are his, like them or not, and they died with him. It gives a rare insight into the thoughts of a young man who has become accustomed to hiding his real feelings with a kind of false jollity, but who will share some of his thoughts with his friend.
No 25 Course
Royal Air Force College, Cranwell, Lincs
19th June, 1941
Dear Noel,
Many thanks for your screed. I had been meaning to write you
but was not sure where you would be now. The unconfirmed rumour as to my
whereabouts is quite correct and Cranwell is proving, in the balance, very
satisfying. It is now just an S.F.T.S. fundamentally like any other except that
we all live in the college, have a batman and use the officers’ mess. Usually
about 60% of the chaps pass out with commissions though it all seems very
chancy. There is oodles of bullshit in the shape of ceremonial parades and
conventions of the college but it is a treat to be served at meals with good
food instead of ladles of spoiled food. Fortunately they don’t seem to have
heard of rationing. The work though is really frightful, and at times I really
wonder that there are any qualified pilots at all. This is by far the most
concentrated part of our training so far and I really can’t imagine why we
didn’t start some of the stuff before. The navigation syllabus seems pretty
colossal and in addition there is armaments, (including Browning Guns, Vickers
G.O., Revolver, Bomb sights), Theory of bombing & Pyrotechnics, Theory of
flight, airframe & engine construction and maintenance, signals and
wireless, Airmanship, Meteorology, Link Trainer and of course actual flying by
day and night below, in and above cloud and formation flying.
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| Airspeed AS10 Oxford |
After Magisters [trainer aircraft] these Oxfords are
rather dull. They cannot be acrobated but, of course, they are comfortable to
ride in, and we certainly get around the county. Most of our cross country
flights have been down in Somerset, Oxford and Bucks. We do quite a lot of
flying with other pupils which proved excellent opportunity for going where we
wish. Last Monday my sparring partner and I got off our map and lost, and
finally had to land in Hertfordshire being short of fuel. We managed to get 110
gallons of petrol but no lunch and consequently arrived back here jolly hungry.
Our best effort really was losing the tail wheel of our machine when low
flying. We hit a goods train, I think, though we cannot be sure because we felt
nothing at the time.
I can’t imagine myself now on the ground (P.B.I.). I should
be scared stiff at the prospect of attack from the air and the Army has no air
arm of its own yet, and I really cannot see that it is likely to have during
this war unless the RAF is pretty seriously weakened which would be pretty
disastrous. The RAF are doing now a hell of a lot more than is generally
thought and every plane is wanted. I really think that the Army wants tanks
even more than air support, and that certainly the latter without the former
would not help a lot. What it all seems to boil down to is simply that
everybody wants RAF assistance.
I wonder what Turkey has been up to lately. I don’t distrust
her, but I think she is and could be damn all use to us. Those poor
money-grabbing Frenchmen could be more helpful but I don’t envy their position.
Russia, too, would not help us much, I fancy. Hitler would smash them just as
Hindenburg did if they start anything, or oppose him actively. Well, all this
chatter is really nonsense. I find that nowadays there is little enough time to
do just what one is told to do in the way one is told to do it, and I expect it
will be the same when I get on to operations. I expect you find that politics
in the mess is barred. We have to be content to gaze at a solitary tree in this
bloody forest.
I hope to get a week’s leave about the middle of July: to be
precise 19/7 – 26/7, when we are finally finished here and, with luck, get our
wings. Can’t you arrange to get your leave then? It would be grand to have a
reunion at home and go places once more. Lord knows, though, a week is not
long. Fortunately we can, if lucky, get air transport to sundry places when
going on leave which saves no end of time.
Well, I must get to bed. I am perpetually tired these days.
All the best and hope to see you soon. I suppose you haven’t
an aerodrome near you where we could land and meet for a chat?
Keep smiling
Yours ever
Kenneth
