NO WOMEN WAR PILOTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23953, 31 October 1939, Page 13

NO WOMEN WAR PILOTS

MORE THAN SUFFICIENT MEN SUPERIOR TO THE GERMANS (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON. Oct. 6. There will be no women pilots in the Loyal Air Force during the war, it has been stated officially. The personnel available to the R.A.F. was now more than sufficient to meet present requirements. , The types _>f young men coming forward for the various branches of service in the Air Force are the best since military living began In the view or the authorities, they are superior to the Germans in the light of events in Poland and on the Western Front. The high official of the Air Ministry who revealed these facts went on to contrast the thorough training given to the R.A.F. with that of the German Air Force. He maintained that the complicated character of modern aircraft made it impossible to send men into aerial warfare after the short training that sufficed in the last war. “To-dav our pilots get 10 times the amount of training they received then, he said. “ To-day we think in terms of crews rather than pilots. “ The- outbreak of war found us inevitably with a large number of Pilots, gunners and observers in the R.A.F. Reserve ir various stages of training. Our arrangements had already been made to fit them into the war training organisation It was a bit of a iigsaw puzzle, but it ha? worked quite smoothly. "The R.A.F. plans had been based on the assumption reached before the war that the change-over from peacetime organisation to a war basis would have to be carried out in face of enemy air action and the resultant confusion. That change has been made without a hitch and without a single day’s interruption of