Wings for an Empire

George VI last week did something no British King before him ever did: he went to an airdrome and, in a hangar, personally decorated five members of the R. A. F. Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross were Flying Officers K. C. Doran, who led the raid on the Kiel Canal, and A. McPherson, who scouted for it; T. M. Wetherall Smith and John Barrett, who landed in heavy seas to rescue the crew of the torpedoed Kensington Court. To Sergeant Pilot W. E. Willits, who brought his ship out of a dive and landed it after the first pilot had been killed by a bullet, the King gave the Distinguished Flying Medal (for non-Commissioned officers). Eldest of the medalists was 26, youngest 21.

Britain intends to turn out some 3,000 new R. A. F. officers each month, and if real air war starts, 36,000 a year will be none too many for replacement. That the cramped, foggy British Isles are no place to train fliers was suggested by casualty figures released last week: killed in action, 122; killed in training, 102.

Canada is to be Britain's air-training ground. Turning out 12,000 pilots every 28 weeks is to be Canada's big contribution to the war, and this, in the opinion of Anthony Eden, "might well be the decisive factor." The so-called Empire Air Training Plan went into gear last week with the arrival in Ottawa of commissions from Australia and New Zealand. Preparatory work had been done by a committee headed by Arthur Balfour Baron Riverdale of Sheffield, 62, one of Britain's biggest, baldest, blondest, bluffest steel tycoons. Heading the Australian delegation was J. V. Fairbairn, Minister of Civil Aviation, a redheaded air fighter of World War I. Chief representative for Canada is Lieut. Colonel William Avery Bishop, V. C., honorary Marshal of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Now 45, short, chubby, softspoken, he scarcely looks today like the fierce-flying Ace Bishop who shot down at least 72 German ships in 1914-18 and once took on an entire German airdrome singlehanded, strafing its squadron one by one as they tried to leave the ground.

To train 12,000 pilots, Canada will need 1,500 ships over & above Britain's war needs. Her infant air industry, though encouraged by a $10,000,000 "educational" order from the mother country last year, is by no means equipped to supply such a quantity. Last week the Empire Training Planners waited only the embargo-lifting vote by Congress to place $100,000,000 worth of orders in the U. S., for 600 light trainers, 900 fighters and bombers. Of this cost, Britain will pay half, Canada onequarter, Australia and New Zealand one-eighth each.

Training airdromes will be built at 100 sites, mostly in wide-open western Canada. Trainers will be shipped to Canada from the other three countries, and in addition to pilots, some 100,000 mechanics, riggers, engine fitters, etc., etc., will be taught in expanded schools of Canada's youth training organization. Enlistments for all these services were reported last week to be far in excess of requirements, many more than can be handled.

Meantime Canada's air industry, too, will be spurred and expanded. Canada will build bodies into which will go U. S. or British engines. Head of Canadian Associated Aircraft Ltd., a company formed to parcel out contracts among its six affiliates, is Paul Fleetford Sise, no airman but chosen on his business record (president, Northern Electric Co. of Canada) as just the right sort of wealthy, urbane, widely acquainted executive to do a Dominion job.

The Royal Air Force turned out by Canada will be younger and older than it used to be--age limits have been dropped three years to 18, pushed up two years to 27. What used to be a ten-month elementary course has been telescoped into 16 weeks. (Many of the men will get this part at home in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain.) They know that now when they come out full-fledged, they will be given the best ships to fly that money can buy. Especially in fighters, Britain is satisfied that she is the Nazis' match, her Hawker Hurricanes being nearly as fast and twice as manageable as Germany's celebrated Messerschmitts.

Even better are the Curtiss fighters bought and proved by France, for many more of which both Britain and France were ready to bid last week (see p. 16). A story in London's Sunday Pictorial last month was certainly calculated to put into the R. A. F. any heart it may not have derived from its proved ability to handle the Germans to date. This story told of "mass executions of some of Germany's best pilots" following their refusal to fly for fear their planes had been sabotaged or because there were not enough Messerschmitts fighters to escort them on bombing missions. One mutiny was said to have occurred among three squadrons of Field Marshal Goering's pet "Swallows of Death" wing stationed at Magdeburg, who were ordered to intercept Britain's leaflet raiders. Another mutiny was located in the reconnaissance groups at Kaiserslautern, where seven squadrons balked. They, apparently, did not relish the receptions the French in their Curtisses had been extending. This week the French General Staff reported the engagement of 27 Nazi fighters by nine French fighters in which one-third of the Nazis were shot down, none of the French.

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