EMPIRE AIR TRAINING

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 123, 19 February 1944, Page 7

EMPIRE AIR TRAINING

Gradual Slackening Off . • OTTAWA, February 17. ' The Canadian Press Association says that following discussions with Captain Balfour, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Air, the Air Minister, Mr. Power, told the House of Commons that the principal objective of the Empire air training plan of 1939, to. establish a training organization on which to create air forces equal in size and superior in quality to the enemy’s, has been reached. “We have been increasing air superiority in every theatre of war, over land and sea,” said Mr. Power. “Moreover, tens of thousands of air crews are going through the Empire’s training schools. Our long-term war plans entail certain reductions in the numbers of entrants to the air-crew training schools. The current entrants will not engage the enemy for a comparatively long time, because the increased complexity of modern aircraft requires long training over an ever-jwidening range of subjects. “Consequent on the reduction in the intake of trainees, there, will be a gradual and progressive closing of a certain number of training units and schools in Canada, beginning with the R.A.F. transferred school, whose personnel will be transferred to an operational theatre in England.” “The air effort that is going into the forthcoming invasion of Europe will not interrupt the continuous saturation raids on distant targets like Berlin,” said Captain Balfour at a Press conference. “The Germans still possess a powerful air force capable of much fighting yet, but their weakness has been that they have built up a powerful front-line force and powerful second-line reserves, but have not had a joint air training plan that went deep like ours.”