NAVAL AIRMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 13, 15 July 1943, Page 3

NAVAL AIRMEN

DOMINION'S PART

RESULTS REVIEWED

Three years ago-r-on July 15, 1940, the first draft of naval airmen, second class, left New Zealand under what is known as Scheme F for service in the Royal Navy. Since then nearly 700 young men from many parts of the Dominion have gone overseas to be trained for service in the Fleet Air Arm. The requirements of the service are exacting and the course of training is a strenuous one. On arrival in England the lads are posted for two months to H.M.S. St. Vincent, in which ship they go through courses in navigation (sea and air), seamanship, general naval duties, wireless telegraphy, signalling, and. field training. Then follow two months at an elementary fly-, ing training school and a further four months at a service flying training school. Those who qualify are then given their "wings" and granted commissions in the Air Branch, Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve. The fledgling officers then undergo operational training for three months, after which they are posted to operational squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm, based ashore or afloat. NEARLY 500 COMMISSIONS. A recent report from England discloses that during the last three years 480 commissions in the Air Branch, R.N.Z.N.V.R.. have been granted to New Zealandevs who have gone overseas under Scheme F and are now serving in the Fleet Air Arm. At the date of the report 117 New Zealand naval airmen were still undergoing training for commissioned rank. Of the total of nearly 700 recruited under Scheme F, only 98 failed to qualify as pilot or observer, and of these 53 were transferred to general naval service as ordinary seamen, a good proportion subsequently gaining commissions in the executive branch, Royal Ne*v Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve. Service in the Fleet Air Arm as an integral part of the Royal Navy is, of course, world-wide and New Zealand ers have operated aircraft over' many seas. They have done duty over the Arctic. Atlantic. Pacific, and Indian Oceans, over the North Sea, the English Channel, and tha, Mediterranean, as well as the shores of North Africa, East Africa, India, and Ceylon. VARIED SERVICE. By far the greater number of them are the fighter pilots who may be serving in aircraft-carriers or from land bases. Others again operate tor-pedo-bombers and minelaying aircraft, on anti-submarine duties, and in striking forces and reconnaissance patrols. There is service, too, in amphibious aircraft, mainly cruiser-based and employed pn reconnaissance and screening duties as well as spotting gun-fire from capital ships and cruisers. Recently aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm co-operated with the North African armies and in the operations against Pantelleria, Sicily, and Sardinia. It has been said that one of the most hazardous of all duties in the Fleet Air Arm is that of the pilots of a car-rier-based aircraft which may have operated over thousands of square miles of sea. Somewhere in the vast expanse of ocean is a. tiny speck, the aircraft-carrier, the only aerodrome which offers safety to the flyers. The ship must be contacted or the fate of aircraft and crew is swift and certain. And when it is reached —possibly in darkness and stormy weather—there is the lan ding-on to be made on a narrow, heaving deck, surely a job that requires not only the utmost skill, but nerve as well. This phase of a fighter pilot's activities was mentioned recently to a Fleet Air Arm officer who is home on leave in New Zealand. His comment' was that the difficulties of landing-on at sea were never thought of as it was such a huge relief to know that they had made it and that their carrier was below them. The Distinguished Service Cross has been awarded to six New Zealand officers serving in the Fleet Air Arm,

and five officers have been mentioned in dispatches. These awards cover service with convoys to Malta and North Russia as well as general convoys, the landing in Madagascar, and co-operation in the North Africa campaigns. During the last three years 38 New Zealanders serving in the Fleet Air Arm as pilots or observers have lost their lives.