GREAT RUSH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 158, 9 July 1935, Page 2

GREAT RUSH

ALLDAY QUEUE OUTSIDE RECRUITING OFFICE YOUNG MEN SEIZE CHANCE OF A CAREER. LONDON, June 2. Hundreds of young men will in a few days’ time be leading a life entiiely different from the ■one they have known before. They are the men who are enrolling in the Royal Air Force, as pilots or mechanics, in response to the nationwide campaign to recruit 22,500 men under the new expansion scheme. All day yesterday there was again a queue of applicants to enrol, and the doors of the recruiting depot at Victory House, Kingsway, have been for many the gates opening from a life of anxiety and hardship to a cheerful new world of financial security, happy activity, and cheerful companionship. The experiences of these may be typified by that of one joining as a rigger. Education Test. He fills in an enlistment form giving full personal particulars, and is then called upon to pass an elementary education test. He may be asked, for instance, to do three arithmetic sums, write a short essay on any subject, name six of the largest towns in Great Britain, and explain several well-known abbreviations. Should he pass this satisfactorily, he fills in a medical form, and undergoes a routine medical examination, one of the most important features of which is an eyesight test. He later undergoes a trade test, and if he passes all these preliminary examinations he is drafted down to the great. R.A.F. depot at Uxbridge, Aliddlesex. His First Uniform. An official of the Air Alinistry, describing the further progress of a recruit, said: "There he is given his first uniform, medically examined, and allotted quarters in the barracks. "For several weeks he goes through a course of training in drill and physical exercises, with the object of making him thoroughly fit and teaching him discipline. Even at this early stage of his career the practical nature of his future duties is kept in mind, and there is some preliminary training in the specialised work which he w'll be called upon to do. Depot Training. •‘When he has passed through the course of training at Uxbridge he will be drafted to an air depot such a.s Mansion, Kent, where he will be given a thorough training in his work as an aircraft rigger. Later he will be posted to an aerodrome as a fully trained and qualified man. "In the case of a young man join ing as a pilot officer the preliminary stages are greatly different, because he, will learn to fly before he is actually a uniformed officer. Learning to Fly. "After he has gone before a selection board, and has passed a thorough medical examination, he is taught to fly at one of the civilian flying schools, such as those at Hample, near Southampton, or Hatfield. "When he is passed out he goes to the depot at Uxbridge, where he wears uniform for the first time. He is there for about a fortnight, and then is sent to one of the flying training schools, where he is given a full training as a Service pilot. "This, of course, is the case of a,

man joining as a short service pilot officer. ’l’hose joining as cadets have a ’course at the Cadet College at Cranwill.” So many men applied to join at the recruiting office in Kings wav yesterday that only a small proportion could be given the various preliminary tests on the spot. The remainder were asked to fill in the forms, post mem to the office, and await a summons to complete the tests. Other depots are to be established as soon as possible at: Glasgow, Al a Ilchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Belfast, and Leeds.