Initial success did not mean that progress would then be steady. Robert Stanford Tuck was a confident young man whose long face, athletic build and pencil moustache made him look like Errol Flynn. He had lead an adventurous life in his teens, escaping the mundane horizons of Catford in south-east London for a career in the merchant navy before being accepted for a short-service commission. Tuck started off well. But he found it difficult to progress beyond basics and develop the instinctive ease of handling, the feel that was essential if one was to become a serious pilot. Tucks cocky judgement after his first go at the controls was that flying was easy. So it is, if restricted to the basic manoeuvres of take-off, straight and level flight, shallow turns and landing. But after that the learning ladder is steep. Diving, looping and banking tightly are disorientating. Mistakes lead quickly to panic as the actions required to retrieve the situation are usually counter-instinctive. Tuck found he was the dud of his intake, snatching at the controls, over-correcting and suffering potentially fatal lapses of concentration. He began to fear that something he had come to love would be snatched away from him. It was only when he learned that flying did not require great physical effort that his performance started to improve. The secret lay in relaxation, avoiding sharp movements and settling oneself into the fabric of the machine so as to become part of its nervous system. You had to feel the aeroplane. For the fighter pilots of the First World War, buttocks had been an important sensory tool. Pilots felt they lost something when, in 1927, parachutes, which they were obliged to sit on, became standard equipment.
By the time war broke out the RAF was mass-producing officers. The privately run elementary flying training schools dotted around the country taught a basis in practical flying, with a grounding in navigation and gunnery, that prepared pupils for an advanced course at one of the RAFs own flying training schools. The idea was that, unlike in the previous war, when half-trained men were expected to learn while on squadron duty, pilots would now arrive at their units ready for operations.
The initial flying was done in biplanes. Pupils underwent twenty-two stages of instruction, starting with air experience the first flip through to aerobatics during the eight- to twelve-week course. Emphasis was placed on learning to recover from a spin, and there was a compulsory practice every week. It was the only manoeuvre, apart from straightforward flying, that was taught previous to the first solo, which came half-way through the course. Most pupils got off alone after between eight and ten hours in the air. Alan Deere was so impatient to do so he forgot the last words of his instructor to fly for only ten minutes and to attempt only two landings. I was really straining at the leash by the time he had delivered these homilies and, thinking he had finished, banged the throttle openand so into the air, solo at last. One, two, three landings, around again and again I went, the ten-minute limit completely forgotten in the thrill and excitement of this momentous occasion.23
Aerobatics were promoted to give pupils complete confidence in their machines as well as preparing them for the stomach-churning reality of aerial combat. Flying blind, encased in a hood, relying only on the instruments, was also taught. Later this hair-raising method was replaced by means of an earthbound flight simulation trainer, the Link. The cost of elementary training was expensive at £5 per pupil per hour (double for advanced training) and those who showed little aptitude were weeded out early on. Those who finished the course successfully went on to a stint at the RAF Depot at Uxbridge for two weeks of drilling, physical training, familiarization with the limited administrative duties required of young officers and learning the niceties of mess protocol. During the fortnight, tailors arrived to kit out the fledgling officers and provide an opportunity for a laugh. Blond, raffish Paddy Barthropp remembered the response to the inevitable question, as they were measured up for their uniforms, which included mess kit with very tight-fitting trousers. When the cutters asked their customers which side they dressed the reply would come. Just make them baggy around the kneecaps.24 The new officers were given £50 to cover everything, including uniforms, shirts, socks, two pairs of shoes and a cap not enough if you went to the better outfitters.
Before candidates moved on to the next stage of training, the chief instructor at the elementary flying school made a recommendation as to whether a pupils abilities best suited him to fighters or bombers. Flying anything required delicacy. Flying fighters required a particular softness of touch. Horsemen, yachtsmen and pianists, the prevailing wisdom held, made the best fighter pilots. The decision was made on the pilots flying ability but also on his temperament. Success depended on a combination of discipline of the sort needed to maintain the flying formations beloved of the pre-war RAF, with the audacity and nerve inherent in the dazzling aerobatics which the service also prized as an indication of worth and quality.
The pilots themselves had a say in their fate. To some, like Dennis David, it seemed the choice was preordained, feeling from the outset that it was inevitable that I was to be a fighter pilotfrom the start I was a loner. It was just me and my aeroplane hoping that neither of us would let the other down.25 Alan Deere felt the same certainty, had always determined to be a fighter pilot and pressed his superiors to be posted to fighters.
Fighters were not the automatic choice for all young pilots. The strategic thinking of the previous two decades had its effect on ambitious trainees. Most of Deeres contemporaries thought bombers offered a better career and he was one of only four to go to a fighter squadron. But for the majority fighters offered a degree of freedom and individuality that was not available in a bomber crew and, as was clear even before the war began, a greater chance of survival. Brian Kingcome, who after Cranwell was posted to 65 Fighter Squadron, considered that only a man brave beyond belief would ever want to go into bombers. Us cards all went into fighters.26
After leaving the depot, the half-formed pilots moved on to one of the flying training schools to learn on service aircraft. In the early days of expansion, trainee fighter pilots started out on biplanes like the Hawker Hart or the Audax. These eventually made way for the Miles Master and the North American Harvard. The latter was a twin-seat, single-engined trainer with half the horsepower of the new breed of fighters, but which none the less gave a taste of what it would be like to handle a Hurricane or Spitfire when the time came.
The instruction was testing. Deere lost his temper after his teacher scolded him for his clumsy performance of the highly difficult manoeuvre of spinning a Hart, first one way, then the other, with a hood over his head to blot out vision. The tantrum nearly lost him his commission and he was told he had been given another chance only because the Royal Air Force has already spent so much money on your training.27 The pilots were taught set-piece attacks against bomber formations, each one numbered according to the circumstances. There was some gunnery practice, a small part of which involved using live ammunition on towed aerial drogues.
The student pilots lived in the mess and dressed for dinner each night in mess kit, dinner jacket or lounge suit, depending on the day of the week. Saturday was dress-down day, when blazer, flannels and a tie were permitted. After successful completion of the first half of the course, pilots received their wings, a brevet sewn over the tunic pocket that announced their achievement to the world. It was a great moment, the most momentous occasion in any young pilots career, Dennis David thought. Al Deere felt a thrill of achievement and pride as he stepped forward to receive the badge.
The student pilots lived in the mess and dressed for dinner each night in mess kit, dinner jacket or lounge suit, depending on the day of the week. Saturday was dress-down day, when blazer, flannels and a tie were permitted. After successful completion of the first half of the course, pilots received their wings, a brevet sewn over the tunic pocket that announced their achievement to the world. It was a great moment, the most momentous occasion in any young pilots career, Dennis David thought. Al Deere felt a thrill of achievement and pride as he stepped forward to receive the badge.
Finally, on completion of training, the new pilots were posted to a squadron. In the first years of expansion, units did their best to preserve what they could of the civilized atmosphere that had prevailed before the shake-up. At Hornchurch, where 65 Squadron was stationed, Brian Kingcome enjoyed a most marvellous lifeif I wanted to take off and fly up to a friend of mine who had an airfield or station somewhere a hundred miles away for lunch, I would just go. It went down as flying training. I didnt have to get permission or [check] flight paths. I just went. If you wanted to go up and do aerobatics, you just went.28 Hornchurch was a well-appointed station, built, like many of the inter-war bases, in brick to a classically simple Lutyens design. The mess, where everyone except the handful of married officers lived, was separate from the main base across the road and in front of the main gates. It stood in its own grounds, with a large dining room and bedrooms. Kingcome found it luxurious beyond beliefthe food was superb; you had your own batman and quarters. There was no bar in those days so you did all your drinking in the anteroom with steward service. The gardens outside the mess were beautifully kept with pristine lawns and flower beds. There were also squash and tennis courts and a small croquet lawn. Pilot officers the lowest commissioned rank were paid fourteen shillings (70p) a day, from which six shillings (30p) went on the cost of mess living. That covered food, lodging, laundry and a personal batman.
The rest went on drink and cars, which the junior officers clubbed together to buy to visit country pubs and make the occasional trip to London, less than an hour away. The frequency of nights out depended on two considerations: the price of drink and the price of petrol. To initiate a pub crawl, Kingcome and three or four friends would each put half a crown (121/2p) into the kitty. They would then board one of the jalopies (cost £10 to £25) held in loose collective ownership by the squadron. Petrol cost a shilling (5p) a gallon for the best grade, or tenpence (a little over 4p) for standard grade. After having downed several drinks costing eightpence (4p) for a pint of beer or a measure of whisky, they would still have some change over to share out at the end of the evening. Ten shillings (50p) would cover a trip to town, including train fare if no car was available, and the bill at Shepherds, a pub in Shepherds Market in Mayfair. It was run by a Swiss called Oscar and became one of Fighter Commands main drinking headquarters in London. For a pound the evening could be rounded off in a nightclub.
Biggin Hill, which like Hornchurch originated as a First World War station, was rebuilt in September 1932 to a similar design. It became home to two fighter units, 23 Squadron and 32 Squadron. Pete Brothers arrived in 1936 to a nice little airfield, a lovely officers mess. The station had a reputation for joie de vivre, and its members enjoyed, when they were not flying, a life of sport, of visits to London and being entertained at surrounding country houses. Because of the airfields location, 600 feet above sea-level, unexpected visitors aboard civil airliners often dropped in when Croydon was closed by fog. One day in 1936 an Imperial Airways airliner landed carrying the American Olympic team, including Jesse Owens, fresh from his triumph at the Berlin Games. On another occasion a party of French models arrived after being diverted there on their way to a London fashion show. Churchill, whose home at Chartwell was only a few miles away, arrived unexpectedly one evening early in 1939. We were having a drink in the anteroom when the door opened and in walked Winston, Brothers, who by then was a twenty-one-year-old flight commander with 32 Squadron, recalled. We all got up and said, Good evening, sir, can we get you a drink? The waiter brought him a dry sherry and he asked if we could turn the radio on so he could hear the news. We listened, then he said, Are you enjoying your Hawker Spitfires? We didnt like to say, Youve got it wrong, theyre Hurricanes.29
Behind the military briskness there lurked an atmosphere of fun. Jokes were not always in the best taste. In 1936, at the height of the war in Abyssinia, Biggin Hill, like every other station, put on a display for the annual Empire Air Day. To demonstrate bombing techniques a Hawker Tomtit dropped flour bombs on an old car carrying two native figures. One, disguised in a black beard, dressed in a white sheet and wearing a pith helmet, was unmistakably supposed to represent Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Abyssinia who had lost his throne after the Italian invasion. The crowd loved it but the Air Ministry was not amused. There was jovial rivalry between the Biggin units. A new squadron, No. 79, was formed around a core of pilots transferred from No. 32 while Peter Brothers was there. There were games. We decided wed have a contest to see who could do the shortest landing. We had to pack it up when some chap hit the hedge and turned his aircraft over and smashed it up.
Tangmere, at the foot of the South Downs, was a particularly pleasant post. A dreamy, prelapsarian atmosphere seems to have permeated the place in the last years of peace. Billy Drake, arriving there aged nineteen in the summer of 1937 as a newly commissioned pilot officer, found life was sweet. The summer routine involved rising at six and flying until lunchtime in Hawker Furies. Afternoons were spent swimming or sailing at Bosham and West Itchenor. Then there would be a game of squash or tennis before dinner and bed. Social life centred on the mess, furnished like the lounge of a luxury liner, where Hoskins and Macey, the white-coated stewards, shuttled back and forth with silent efficiency. There were good pubs nearby; like the Old Ship at Bosham, where on a summer evening you could sit with fellow pilots or a girlfriend and watch the sun going down over the estuary. Conversation concerned aeroplanes, cars, sport and parties, rarely politics. What was happening in Abyssinia, Germany or Italy was hardly mentioned. If the drums of war were beating, the pilots affected not to hear them. Drake had barely considered the implications of his decision to apply for a short-service commission. I simply wanted to go flying, he said. The fact that it might involve going to war never occurred to me until 1938 or 1939.30
Life was not so congenial at every fighter base. Conditions around the country were variable. The fast rate of the expansion meant accommodation often lagged behind needs. Desmond Sheen, a nineteen-year-old Australian who joined the RAF on a short-service commission from the Royal Australian Air Force, arrived at 72 Squadron at Church Fenton in Yorkshire in June 1937 to be told he was living in a tent at the end of the airfield while the mess was being built. We stayed there until November when the fog and the mists drove us out and we moved into hangars until the building was completed.31 When Arthur Banham reported for duty to 19 Squadron at Duxford in Cambridgeshire after finishing his training in August 1936, he was put with nine other junior officers in a hut which acted as a dormitory. The whole place was a mess, with trenches all over the place where they were laying foundations for the new buildings. The officers married quarters werent built and most officers lived out of the aerodrome altogether.32