AIR FORCE EXHAUST

Arawa Guerilla, Issue 16, 1 July 1943, Page 12

AIR FORCE EXHAUST

Why I Joined the A.T.C. It was a newsreel that first put the idea of joining the A.T.C. into my head. It showed a flight of cadets in England marching past an officer. The first rank passed, the middle passed, the end of the flight passed, and then a diminutive little person, marching as though his life depended on it and sporting chevrons, flashed into the screen. That decided me. I waited a few months until I was near enough to sixteen and, before handing in my application, debated with myself my reasons for joining.

My first reason was that if I worked hard and got promotion I could get into the Air Force at seventeen and a-half. Once there, train again, and when the war finished enlist for a short term of five years. In other words, I wanted a good grounding so as to make a success of a career in the Air Force. My second reason was purely a vain-glorious one. A cadet was issued with a natty uniform. I was always imagining myself swaggering round with three stripes and a crown,

a beautiful crease in my trousers and a smug, complacent look on my face. However, all that was knocked out of me once I was assigned to a squadron. I realised it was the pull together that distinguished any flight, squadron or wing. I considered again the educational part of the training. It would stand me in good stead after the war. With a knowledge of aeroplane engines, wireless, rigging and theory of flight I would have a pretty broad and extensive education when all the services were demobilised. My third reason was indefinable. I most certainly can’t explain it on paper. It may, be patriotism, conceit, ambition or the urge to do great things, but it is definitely there. It was one of the deciding factors that urged me to join in the first place. Also the monotony of coming home from work feeling tired and having nothing to do was having no good effect on me. It was a blessed relief to get my mind on something tangible, something that required constructive thinking, that required concentration, and the work-out in the gymnasium every week was very welcome. The A.T.C. allowed one to express oneself in all ways, mentally‘ and physically.

In this essay I believe I have expressed all my reasons in a concise manner. I have exhausted all my material so here I will end, with a parting phrase. The A.T.C. is the first reserve and not the last resort of the Air Force. —Cadet Pierre Danzil Meuli. *' * * Pilot: I wish I’d had some autogiro instruction. Gunner: Why? Pilot: Because our wings just fell off.

HABIT The pilot had been transferred from fighters to seaplanes. The first time he took his seaplane up he flew over his old ’drome and was just going to land on the hard, hard earth when the yells of his crew stopped him.

So he flew off again. He took the machine over the sea, came down gracefully onto the water, climbed out of his cockpit and stepped into the sea.