Halton

On the 13th of January 1931, a month shy of his 16th birthday, my father started a three-year apprenticeship at the Royal Air Force’s No. 1 School of Technical Training at Halton in southern England.¹ The curriculum was a mix of traditional schooling and technical apprenticeship in the various air force trades such as engine maintenance and repair, and airframe rigging. The School was one of the key building blocks of the young service, and was the brainchild of Lord Hugh Trenchard, who was universally known as “the Father of the Royal Air Force”. Graduates of Halton were known as “Trenchard’s brats”.

He wanted to fly

My Welsh grandmother died when I was very young, but one of my Welsh cousins told me “she always wanted more”. She was no doubt ambitious for her eldest son. He was a student at the best secondary school in the area, West Monmouthshire School for Boys. And now, she thought, he was going to throw it all away, and become a mechanic! My father would have seen this very differently: he wanted to leave the smoke behind and soar into the clouds.

But . . . Halton was not a school for learning to fly

Halton was a school for learning how to maintain and repair aircraft, not for learning how to fly them. The whole idea was to provide the best possible technical training for career ground crew.

And pilots in those days were not sons of village chemists. RAF pilots were overwhelmingly the sons of the upper middle class, who had completed secondary school (nearly always “public” – i.e., private — school) and then trained at RAF Cranwell, to learn to fly and graduate as officers, with a good chance of ultimately reaching the highest ranks in the service.

This class barrier was effectively enforced by the cost. The upper middle-class young men at Cranwell had to pay. “You needed to be able to put down a non-returnable cash payment of £150 on entry . . . and after that there were fees of £100 a year for two years. The down payment was certainly a large sum for those days.” ² There were no fees at Halton.³

So why did he want to go to Halton?

The bright, eager young men who went to Halton in those days believed, against the evidence, that they would ultimately be selected for flying training.

There was a chance of becoming a pilot by going to Halton, but it was a pretty slim one in 1931. There were two ways this could happen. The top two to four Halton graduates from each entry (about 1%, that is) were awarded full scholarships to Cranwell for officer and pilot training. And there were about 350 airmen (non-officer) pilots in the RAF in 1931, and most of these were recruited from ex-apprentices. It took a couple of years or more after completing Halton to become eligible — you had to demonstrate “a high standard of education and efficiency” and the qualities of “pluck, reliability, alertness, steadiness, keenness and energy”.⁴ I estimate the probability, when my father started Halton, of him becoming a pilot was well under ten per cent.⁵

Despite these steep odds, a near-contemporary ex-Halton apprentice (1927-30) remembers: “we all, in some measure, hoped to become Sergeant Pilots–after all, the money was good. In those days, a Sergeant Pilot was putting in about 5 pounds a week when an LAC [Leading Aircraftman] fitter was getting about 29 shillings a week, and that was an awful lot of difference in an income [an increase of almost 250%!] . . . But they trained very few, the intake of trainee-Sergeant Pilots was very small.” ⁶

Life at Halton

In their first few days at Halton, the new apprentices were assigned to particular technical trades. Of the 311 apprentices in his Entry who successfully completed the three-year apprenticeship, 90% were fitters, aero engine (141) or metal riggers (138). But my father was one of just 18 apprentices who trained as Fitters, Armourer. I don’t know whether he made this unusual choice, or if it was chosen for him.⁷

Most of the ex-brat memoirs I’ve read are by engine fitters, and they make clear that their trade had many practical applications outside the service — in repairing their motorcycles, or (when they were promoted and had more money) their cars, for example. My father’s armourer trade would have had much less civilian application. He had to learn how to maintain and repair all the weapons used in the RAF at that time.⁸

I have vague memories, almost certainly embroidered with the passage of time, of him telling us about certain challenges the boys made with each other to make a little extra money. Putting a wireworm on your tongue, biting it in two, and then swallowing it. Hanging on the bars in the bathroom for an impossible length of time (I remember it was all night, but that’s certainly not possible!).

The Imperial War Museum has several audio recordings of Halton “brats” from the late-1920’s and early 1930’s remembering their time there decades afterwards. They all remember meeting other cadets for the first time waiting for the train from London — and how new it was to meet people from other parts of Britain. They all remember the routine of marching on the parade ground, of laying out their bedding and kit just so for daily inspection in the barracks, and so on. And they all make positive comments about the quality of the curriculum and the instructors. The general impression is that it was a very disciplined and austere environment, but that they found ways to enjoy themselves.

Half-way through the course, in August 1932, my father was made a Leading Apprentice, which meant he had some authority over a barrack room of more junior apprentices. He completed the three years at Halton on the 23rd of December, 1933. Of the 311 apprentices who passed out that day, 17% were classified as Leading Aircraftmen, 70% as Aircraftmen 1st Class, and 9.6% as Aircraftmen 2nd Class (“10 were not examined owing to sickness”). Three exceptional young men were awarded cadetships for the two-year officer- and flying-training college at RAF Cranwell. My father passed out Aircraftman 1st Class, but was promoted to Leading Aircraftman (LAC) ten months later, in October 1934. He did not win a cadetship or any of the prizes.¹¹

He was then posted just 30 miles away to the RAF Home Aircraft Depot at Henlow, and reported for duty there on Christmas Eve.

RAF Henlow: “a year to work with men”

T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) joined the RAF in 1922, anonymously — although everyone apparently knew who he really was — as a regular non-commissioned recruit, the lowest of the low. In his account of this experience, he wrote (in a chapter called “Classes”):

“There is rising up a second category of airman, the boy apprentice. They disrupt us now: for the men don’t like the boys: but this inevitable phase is a passing phase. Soon the ex-boy will be the majority, and the R.A.F. I knew will be superseded and forgotten. Meanwhile there is jealousy and carping. The boys come fresh from school, glib in theory, essay writers, with the bench-tricks of workmen: but they have never done the real job on a real kite: and reality, carrying responsibility, has a different look and feel from a school lesson. So they are put for a year to work with men. An old rigger, with years of service, whose trade is in his fingers, finds himself in charge of a boy-beginner with twice his pay. The kid is clever with words, and has passed out L.A.C. [Leading Aircraftman] from school: the old hand can hardly spell, and will be for ever an A.C.2 [Aircraftman 2nd Class]. He teaches his better ever so grumpily.” ¹²

My father’s “year to work with men” was 18 months at H.A.D. (Home Aircraft Depot) Henlow.¹³ This was the first air force repair depot, and no doubt filled with old hands.

The principal functions of the Home Aircraft Depot at this time were mainly the repair of engines and airframes for the squadrons in the UK, and the training of airmen in the repair and maintenance of engines and airframes for squadrons both in the UK and overseas. I assume there was also some weapon repair and and maintenance, and that my father received practical experience in this at Henlow.¹⁵

Ex-Halton apprentice Lawrence David Frith (Halton 1926-29) describes the Spartan living conditions and the work of the aero engine section when he was at Henlow in the early 1930’s:

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Less than a year after my father arrived at Henlow, Britain faced one of the consequences of its dominant interwar foreign policy of maintaining peace in Europe at all costs. In November and December 1934, British-backed Ethiopian troops clashed with Italian soldiers from Italian Somaliland at Wal Wal, a fort built by the Italians 50 miles inside Ethiopia, in clear violation of a 1928 treaty. Over 100 Ethiopians, and 30 Italians and Somalis died. Both sides appealed to the League of Nations, but “Britain and France stayed largely uninvolved because they were concerned about whether Italy would oppose Nazi Germany’s rapid militarization.” ¹⁷ The following summer, as Mussolini continued to dramatically increase Italian forces in Italian Somaliland and Eritrea, Britain took steps to reinforce its colonies in the region. My father would shortly be on the move.

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Notes:

1. His group was the 23rd Entry at Halton (there were two Entries a year). This Entry was the first of the smaller groups admitted during the Depression years, prior to the RAF’s expansion (from 1936 on). According to the school magazine, The Haltonian, this Entry was “small in number–some 350–but their educational standard was above average”. (Vol 2, No 1, Summer 1931 http://www.oldhaltonians.co.uk, accessed 8 November 2020).
2. The Paladins, A Social History of the RAF up to the Outbreak of World War Two, John James, London: Macdonald, 1990, p. 139. In those days, there were three ways to join the RAF as a career, and each was, with very few exceptions, specific to a particular class. Working-class boys, usually with only an elementary school education, generally went into low-skilled trades with basic training only. Lower middle-class boys (for example, sons of skilled tradesmen, such as joiners or chauffeurs, or shopkeepers, such as bakers or chemists), with some secondary education, could compete nationally for places as an apprentice (at Halton), and joined between 15 and 16 1/2 years old. They became skilled technical ground crew, and most likely, in time, senior non-commissioned officers (Sergeants and Warrant Officers) in charge of the ground crews. And the sons of the upper middle class, after completing secondary school (nearly always “public” – i.e., private — school) could interview for places at RAF Cranwell, to become pilots and officers, with a good chance of ultimately reaching the highest ranks in the service.
3. In addition, the apprentices had virtually no personal expenses during term-time, and were paid enough to have money to spend during the breaks between terms. See, for example, Imperial War Museum Oral History with Lawrence David Frith (Halton, 1926-29), Reel 1. He remembers the pay then as seven shillings a week, of which four shillings was kept back till the end of each term, and that this was raised to ten shillings and sixpence in the third year, of which five shillings was kept back. (There were 20 shillings in a pound.) https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004592, accessed 4 February 2021.
4. James, op.cit., pages 112-113.
5. This is my own rough estimate. When these non-officer pilot positions were created in 1921, the Sergeant Pilots flew for five years, and then returned to their ground trades. So perhaps as many as 20% of these 350 positions turned over every year: 70 openings. Let’s say 60 of these were filled with ex-apprentices. And let’s assume the window of eligibility was about five years. In the years leading up to 1931, about 1,000 apprentices had graduated each year. So each year for this five-year window, ex-apprentices would be competing with 5,000 of their peers for 60 openings — that is, a 1.2% chance each of those five years. As things turned out, my father’s odds were considerably better than this, because the apprentice program contracted abruptly the year he joined as a result of Depression-era budget cuts, and then the whole service began a very rapid expansion starting in 1935, when the threat from Hitler became obvious. So there were both more pilot openings and fewer eligible ex-apprentices with sufficient experience. But of course he did not know any of this when he signed up in early 1931. See also: two near-contemporaries, John Searby and Joe Northrop completed Halton in December 1931, two years before my father, and went on to distinguished careers in the RAF. They were both selected for flying training in 1935. The Everlasting Arms, The War Memoirs of Air Commodore John Searby, DSO, DFC, edited by Martin Middlebrook, London: William Kimber, 1988. Joe, the Autobiography of a Trenchard Brat, Wing Commander Joe Northrop, DSO, DFC, AFC, Worcester: Square One Publications, 1993. And Frank Tams (later Wing Commander Tams, OBE) was in the 22nd Entry at Halton, and passed out in August 1933, four months before my father. He started his flying training in July 1936. (A Trenchard ‘Brat’, Bishop Auckland: Pentland Press, 2000, p.211.)
6. Imperial War Museum Interview with Ernest William Young (Halton, 1927-30), Reel 4. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004593, accessed 4 February 2021.
7. Flight magazine, 28 December 1933, p. 1319.
8. See Jim Rowland’s memoir of his training in the late 1930’s as a fitter, armourer apprentice at Halton, and then Cosford, and his subsequent RAF career https://ajlrmemoirs.wordpress.com/author/reneerowland/page/5/, accessed 30 July 2021.
9. I believe the young man standing next to my father is William “Jack” Grisman, who was shot down in 1941, and executed by the Gestapo in 1944 for taking part in the Great Escape. Sean Feast, Halton Boys, London: Grub Street Publishing, 2020, pp. 123-129.
10. Imperial War Museum Oral History with Ernest Folley (Halton, 1927-30), Reel 1, 09:28 to 12:10. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004659, accessed 4 Feb, 2021.
11. Administrative details of my father’s appenticeship are from his official Record of Service. Passing-out details of the 23rd Entry are from Flight magazine, op.cit., p. 1319. For information about the RAF careers of a few other members of this Entry, see Halton Boys, op.cit.: Gerry Blacklock, pp. 75-84; William “Jack” Grisman (mentioned in the footnote above), pp. 123-125 and pp. 128-129; Ian Swales, pp. 89-90; Harold Vertican, pp. 98-99; and this sobering information about the three top apprentices from this Entry who won cadetships at Cranwell: “Ted Bunting, A.A. Kelk, and L. “Tommy” Atkins. Bunting was invalided out, Kelk killed in a motorcycle accident and only Tommy finished the course.” p.76. Atkins was already a Squadron Leader by September 1940, and seems to have survived the war: http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?PHPSESSID=gmmm2npim318mirp002bvmfj14&action=search2, accessed 14 November 2020. For information about the 48 apprentices from this 23rd Entry who died during World War Two, including two (Rodolphe Broadhurst and George Greenley Witty) who passed out with top prizes or the highest marks, see https://www.oldhaltonians.co.uk/in-memeriam-1939-1945, accessed 3 August 2022. Thirty-eight of these casualties were pilots, and five were other aircrew. I don’t know how many of the 311 apprentices who passed out from the 23rd Entry became pilots, but clearly my father was lucky to survive the war.
12. T.E. Lawrence (352087 A/C Ross), The Mint, London: Jonathan Cape, 1955, p. 195. Lawrence later served as an RAF ranker on the North West Frontier of India, ultimately at Miranshah, nine years before my father was there. See also a similar comment from Group Captain Edward Mole in his memoir Happy Landings, Airlife Publishing Ltd., 1984, p.57: “It was rather unfortunate that on posting to various RAF stations after passing out from Halton, the enthusiasm of these bright young lads was frequently deflated by old sweats of Sergeants who resented the arrival of highly educated young aircraftmen. As one Sergeant Major said to me, “Those Halton brats seem to think that the sun shines out of their arses”. He would then hand them out brooms and tell them to sweep out the hangar.” No doubt, the term “Trenchard’s brats” or “Halton brats” was initially purely pejorative, but gradually took on a positive connotation as the brats themselves adopted it, with pride, and the proportion of ex-apprentices to old sweats shifted. My father’s Halton contemporary, Frank Tams, wrote about his experience when he finished his flying training and was promoted: “The members of the Sergeants’ Mess were not . . happy: invaded by young Sergeant Pilots who had come from the ranks to become members of a Mess occupied by SNCOs [Senior NCOs] who had served for many years with little promotion and had been members of the Mess for longer than those newcomers had served. They resented the fact that the newcomers were on equal terms with the ‘Old Sweats’, a term which I think they richly deserved.” op.cit., p. 65.
13. I learned to fly a glider at RAF Henlow (still a grass airfield) in the summer of 1967 on a high school camp. I was 16. I had some vague idea that my father had a connection to the place, but, typically, he didn’t say much at all about it.
14. Royal Air Force Henlow at 90, the first ninety years, 1917-2007, Sixth Edition, Crown Copyright, 2002, pp 12-13.
15. This was the beginning of a time of profound change in the RAF. It had become clear that Hitler was determined to rearm Germany. “The three years from 1933 to 1936 were going to witness the beginnings of a massive expansion of the RAF following the failure of disarmament talks at Geneva [the Geneva Disarmament Conference].” Wing Commander I.M. Philpott, The Royal Air Force 1930 to 1939, An Encyclopedia of the Inter-War Years, Volume II–Rearmanent 1930 to 1939, Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books, 2008, p. 33. Henlow was just beginning to expand its charge when my father was there.
16. Imperial War Museum Oral History Lawrence David Frith, Reel 1, 20:37 to 22:51. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004592, accessed 5 February, 2021.
17. Quentin Colin Holbert, unpublished master’s thesis, University of Calgary, 2019, Regional Influences on the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934-1938, p. 19: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/110477, accessed 19 March, 2021