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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 0916.PDF
/J20 FllC HI APRIL 301 H, 1942 t NORWEGIAN A little showmanship to please the visitors. Two Norwegian Spitfires indulge in a game of " follow my leader." finally, because he was promptly dis patched to Canada for flying training, and only arrived back in this country a short while ago. Training Scheme The training in Canada is carried out at the expense of the Norwegian Government (the revenue comes mostly from the lease of oil tankers and other -shipping to the United Nations) at "Little Norway," which used to be the Toronto Island Airport. It is now equipped with barracks, messes, school buildings and a hos pital. Training at "Little Norway" began in 1040 and, in like manner to our Commonwealth Air Training Scheme, the fully trained men are sent to this country and posted to opera tional units. The Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Norwegian Air Forces is Rear Admiral Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, the explorer, who was second in command of the Amundsen-Ellsworth expedition by aircraft to the Arctic in 1925, and also took part in the Amundsen-Ells- worth-Nobile airship expedition across the North Pole in the following year. In 1928 he flew from Spitsbergen to search for survivors of Nobile's '' Italia '' expedition when the Italian explorer met disaster in an attempt to reach the North Pole. He also com manded the search for Amundsen when the Norwegian explorer was lost trying to bring help to the Italians. Admiral Riiser-Larsen escaped from Norway in 1940, and reached London bv wav of Moscow, the Balkans and Italy. ' At the moment there are three squadrons which are fully operational. One is a naval squadron flying North rop N.P.3 seaplanes from an Iceland base under Coastal Command. This unit was formed in April, 1941. By the end of July in the same year the first all-Norwegian army fighter squadron was established with Hurri canes under R.A.F. Fighter Command. It was later given Spitfires and is still in England. The third squadron also belongs to the Norwegian army and is equipped with cannon-armed Spit fire Vs. It has been operational for just a month, and while, of course, as a squadron it has yet to gain experi ence, the CO. has been flying with an R.A.F. fighter squadron for some while. It is while making fightej»~ sweeps and on bomber escort duty here and during the fighting in Nor way that he has gained the necessary experience of flying against the enemy to nurse his new squadron through that difficult period which changes a first-class flying unit into a first-class fighting unit. * Home from Home The Norwegians take their national characteristics with them wherever they go, and this is revealed by a peep into the pilots' room by anyone who has travelled in Norway. In the same way that bus and tram tickets are not just dropped on the floor or the pave ment in Norway, so the floor of the dispersal hut is not littered by cigar ette packets and stub ends—that is, it was not so until the Press arrived. On a table in the centre of the room is a most treasured possession. A miniature silk flag of Norway which was brought over by one of the officers. It immediately took one back to Scandinavia where they have trie delightful habit of putting on the table miniature flags of the countrv M eu*>\\<* ' « 1 • ¥ - ) 1 •i.-.~»-*Wjtffc"l ' ia^.lL J^| A private conference between the pilot and the ground crew on the virtues of the newly acquired cannons. A Spitfire V taxies out from its dispersal point to the take-off runway. Ground crews take the same pride in the achievements of their particular pilot and machine as do their R.A.F. colleagues.
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