AIR TRAINING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 133, 8 June 1942, Page 4

AIR TRAINING

EMPIRE SCHEME

MZ. COMMITMENTS

The new Empire air training agreement is welcomed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Fraser) as another important step along the road to victory, Mr. Fraser said last night that though the plan remained basically the same, the scope of training would be greatly enlarged to meet the demands of the increased scale and complexity of modern operational flying.

"The agreement signed in Ottawa on June 5 by the representatives of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia. end New Zealand," said Mr. Fraser. "provides for a renewal and extension of the original Empire Air Training Scheme agreement made in December, 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war, and I am sure tliat it will be received with the, gr< I test satisfaction.

"The output of trained men under the original scheme has done much to make the Air Force what it is today, and the increased scale and severity of our air attacks, as has been so strikingly demonstrated in recent vast raids on Germany, has been due to the preplanning of the British Commonwealth in building aircraft of the best quality, and training air crews and * ground staffs of equal quality to man and service them.

"New Zealand will continue to participate to the greatest possible degree In the air training programme, and our original commitments will p© maintained, despite the increased demands for trained air crews to man th© additional Boyal New Zealand Air tforce squadrons now being formed in the Dominion," continued Mr. Fraser,

"Of one thing we can be certain, and that is the quality of the personnel who are receiving their full or initial training in New Zealand. Reports from overseas speak in the highest terms of our airmen, and the fact that to date over 220 awards have been won by New Zealanders is, without doubt, a remarkable tribute to the calibre' of the men and the training they receive."