Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 61 continued ... This airman was Corporal Joseph Harcourt Tombs, VC., (Victoria Cross). He was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Corporal Tombs was born in Melbourne, Australia, had been a sailor, and then during the First World War while serving as a Lance-Corporal in the 1st Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment, British Army, he was awarded the Victoria Cross. During World War II he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and served at the Flying School in Trenton, Ontario. A 1952 operation to remove some of the shrapnel still embedded in his stomach was not completely successful, and in 1964 he suffered a stroke. He was born in 1884 and died 28 June, 1966. The other incident happened in our barrack room. On returning from the showers one day I discovered that all my money, every cent I had, was missing. The same evening when I returned from the dinning hall I saw on my bunk bed some neatly folded bills. They totaled a wee bit more than the amount which had been stolen. No one offered an explanation and it was a few days before I learned that my companions with whom I shared the barrack room had quietly taken up a collection. Eventually our tour of guard duty came to an end. I was posted to No. 17 Elementary Flying Training School, Stanley, Nova Scotia. No. 17 Elementary Flying Training School, Stanley, Nova Scotia 18 Mar 41 No. 17 Elementary Flying Training School was part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. This was a massive air-training plan involving the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand during WW II. It remains the single largest aviation training programme in history and was responsible for training nearly half the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, air gunners, wireless operators and flight engineers of the Commonwealth air forces. Some students from other countries attended schools under the plan, including Argentina, Belgium, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Fiji, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa and the United States. If I remember correctly No. 17 EFTS was operated by the Cape Breton Flying Club. Almost everyone on staff was a civilian including the Chief Flying Instructor whose name was L. B. “Brick” Stevenson (he had red hair). The Adjutant was an RCAF Officer and there were two RCAF Officers, pilots, who had authority over the standard of flying instruction and whether the flying ability of students was sufficient to warrant a passing grade. Most, if not all of the flying instructors were American citizens. We were the school’s first class. Everything was brand new. All the buildings were spotless, inside and out. But everywhere outside there was a sea of mud. Board “duck walks” connected all the buildings and they were quite narrow. One had to be careful when meeting another person as there was barely room to pass. The flying field, aircraft parking area and the runway was fine gravel which had been graded, rolled and compacted. A Corduroy road led from the hanger area to the flying field and every morning and evening maintenance people manhandled the aircraft over the tree trunks to and from the flying field. A Corduroy road or log road is a type of road made by placing sand-covered logs (tree trunks) perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area. Although it is an improvement over impassable mud or dirt roads it is a hazard to horses due to loose logs that can roll or shift. It is known to be used as early as 4000 BC with examples found in Glastonbury, England. The school’s flying training aircraft were Fleet Finch (Model 16) known as the Fleet Finch II. They were a two-seat, tandem training biplane produced by Fleet Aircraft of Fort Erie, Ontario. They had a welded steeltube fuselage and composite metal, wood and fabric design features. They were powered by Kinner 130 hp, B5-R, five cylinder radial engines. continued ...
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