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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 1514.PDF
668 FLIGHT, 20 November 1953 THE FLEDGLINGS OF RHODESIA An Instructor's Recollections of a Unit in the Empire Air Training Scheme By C. NEPEAN BISHOP DURING the past two years readers of Flight will have become only too familiar with the Government's policy of closing down the civil-operated Flying Training Schools in this country; so they will have been in no way surprised to read the announcement, made earlier this year, that the same policy is now being extended to the Service proper and that the Rhodesian Air Training Group would be closed down. The final "wings" parade was, in fact, held a few weeks ago. The present Group, which started operations in January 1947, is the successor to the first bearing this name, one which came into being as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme early in 1940. Very little has been written about the stations of Southern Rhodesia during the period of hostilities, so the following personal recollections may be of interest. It was in May 1940 that the first unit started operations, at Belvedere Airport, Salisbury—No. 25 Elementary Flying Training School, equipped with de Havilland Tiger Moths and under the command of W/C. David. The second unit to open was No. 20 Service Flying Training School (at Cranborne, another airfield near the capital), initially equipped with Harvard 1 and Oxford aircraft and under the command of G/C. Chick. Attention had meanwhile been turned to other parts of the colony, and in August 1940 No. 26 E.F.T.S. opened up at Guinea Fowl, near Gwelo, flying Tiger Moths and commanded by W/C. Marlow. A month later the Group's second S.F.T.S. opened up at Thornhill, also in the Gwelo area; this unit, No. 22 S.F.T.S., was commanded by G/C. Chick (who originally led No. 20 at Cranborne) and, like the former station, was equipped with Oxfords and Harvard Is. Next it was Bulawayo's turn to take part in the operation. No. 21 S.F.T.S. opened up at Kumalo, flying Oxfords, under G/C. Dalzell; and one month later, in November 1940, No. 27 E.F.T.S. started flying their Tiger Moths at Induna, also near Bulawayo. Other units to open up about this time were the THE station crest of No. 28 E.F.T.S., Mount Hampden, Rhodesia, included the words, in local dialect, "Pana Mazinana ano Bururuka"— "Here Fledglings take Wing." That it was an appropriate motto is shown by this historical sketch of the wartime operations of the Rhodesian Air Training Group in general and of the Mount Hampden school in particular. Appended to Mr. Bishop's account are some notes —by a member of our staff who received his flying training there— on the post-war history of the R.A.T.G. Central Maintenance Unit under W/C. Lovell and "Works and Buildings" under S/L. Mazaratti. Both were located in the Bulawayo area, as was the Initial Training Wing at Hillside, to which all pupil pilots were sent before joining their schools. The year 1941 saw continued expansion within the Group. No. 28 E.F.T.S. (Tiger Moths) began operations at Mount Hampden, some 12 miles outside Salisbury, under the command of W/C. N. C. Hendrikz, a local man who had been commissioned in the R.A.F. some years previously. This unit started flying on April 1st, and was followed by 23 S.F.T.S. at Heany, Bulawayo, in August of the same year, the CO. in this case being G/C. French; the aircraft were the ubiquitous Oxfords. An Air Obser vers, Navigation and Gunnery School was opened, this being at Moffat, in the Gwelo area, under the command of G/C. Summers; initially it was equipped with Battles, Oxfords and Ansons. Final arrangements at the advanced schools led to Thornhill and Cranborne being equipped with the Harvard 2, 2a and 3, whilst Kumalo and Heany became Oxford schools. Moffat was finally equipped with Ansons, though it still had Battles up to early 1945. By 1941 the effect of many pupil-pilots was beginning to make itself felt on the aircraft of the Group, so No. 31 Aircraft Repair Unit was opened at Cranborne to deal with Harvards, whilst a little later No. 32 A.R.U. was started at Heany, the commanding officers being W/C. Bullen and W/C. McGrath respectively. The last airfield to begin operations in the Group opened up at Norton, in the wilds of the bundu—as the veldt is called in Rhodesia—and to this station came the Central Flying School, Southern Rhodesia, a unit which, under the name of No. 33 Flying Instructors' School, had formerly been based at Belvedere. The school—which, of course, had every type of machine used in the Group—was commanded by G/C. Craig. Also in the Salisbury area were Rhodesia and Nyasaland Air ways, and the Communication Squadron, these being stationed at Belvedere. It was a little difficult to determine where one began and the other ended, for the personnel—who were, in the main, drawn from the Southern Rhodesian Air Force—flew the same civil-registered Rapides, Leopard and Hornet Moths; and, except when flying to Beira in Portuguese East Africa, they flew in Service uniform. Last in the scheme of things there were sundry old Hawker Harts and Gloster Gauntlets in various areas of the command. They were used on the "met. climb" which took place at regular intervals, the frequency depending on the season of the year. For the record, the old Hart was originally K3888 of the Royal Air Force and survived until the middle of 1944, when the advent of some Hurricanes caused it to be written off charge. Headquarters of the Group were in the capital at Salisbury, the commanding officer being A.V-M. C. W. Meredith, C.B., C.B.E., A.F.C., who before the war had been Director of Civil Aviation in the colony. Affiliated to R.A.T.G. was the training unit of the Royal Hellenic Air Force, which flew as part of No. 28 E.F.T.S. at Mount Hampden. To start with they had a special flight of their own under F/L. Jack Collins, but were later divided amongst the other four flights at that station. They were under their own adminis tration, had their own senior officers at Group H.Q., and carried out no station duties whatever. They also broke aeroplanes with the same gay abandon as others among our gallant allies, but they were good fellows and we liked them. So much, then, for the constitution of the Group. Southern Rhodesia being in the latitude of some 20 deg S, and at a height of around 4,000-5,000ft above mean sea level, has a The Tiger Moth is one of several Australian-built examples. The machine shown was used at Mount Hampden and sported 56 Squadron "dicing." The Cornells were Canadian-built and the trio shown came either from Induna or Guinea Fowl.
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