Abu Sueir

No 4 Flying Training School, RAF Abu Sueir, Egypt in the 1930s.1

On the 20th of April 1937 my father began his six-month course at No. 4 Flying Training School (FTS) at RAF Abu Sueir, a few miles from the Suez Canal in Egypt. This was the only RAF FTS outside the UK.2 If he successfully completed the three-month intermediate course, he would earn his RAF “wings.” This was followed by the three-month advanced course. After this, he would most likely be posted to an overseas squadron, and would not see home again for five years.

Map from 1937 edition of Imperial Military Geography, Major D.H. Cole, London: Sifton, Praed & Co, p. 305.

There were 45 men in my father’s course, about half officers, and half airmen like him. Only four years before, a course had only 30 places, and only ten of these were for airmen — but now the RAF was expanding rapidly, in belated response to the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. 3

May 1937: My father’s training course at Abu Suer. He is in the front row, second from the right.

It’s likely that many of the airmen were, like my father, ex-apprentices. Four of the officers (on the two ends of the seated row in the photograph) may well have been from the Egyptian Air Force. Many, if not all, of the other officers were new to the RAF, on short-service commissions. 4 It’s a mystery to me how these two groups, of different social backgrounds, service experience, and status mingled and blended (or not) on the same training course. I would have thought some of the airmen would have resented the unearned, elevated status of the inexperienced junior officers, and that some of the officers would have felt insecure in the company of the airmen, with their intimate knowledge of the mechanics of the aircraft and the culture of the service. But I suspect this was simply accepted in those days, as two different worlds.5

During the previous six years, my father had had rigorous training and experience in the maintenance and repair of the armament of the most common RAF aircraft. This made him doubly valuable as a pilot –- he might well notice problems before they developed, and he could make certain repairs in the field. Since breakdowns led to a lot of pilot and aircraft “wastage,” this was indeed invaluable. 

T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) confirmed this institutional respect for the non-officer pilot: “The Air Ministry recognizes a rightness in our worship of the technical engineer, by promoting sergeant or sergeant-pilot the best men from the ranks: those who have understanding of the souls of engines, and find their poetry in the smooth tick-over. They form our aristocracy of merit. Against them, over them, stand the lords spiritual, the commissioned: whose dignity comes extrinsincally, from some fancied laying-on of hands.” 6

Once qualified, however, Sergeant Pilots would invariably have been at the bottom of the pecking order among the approximately 15 pilots in their squadrons, and so would usually have had less opportunity to fly than the officers. And their social lives were separate, since they belonged to the Sergeants, not the Officers Mess. Even in the Air Force, by far the most casual of the Armed Services, social stratification was carefully maintained.7

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My father’s training was now on an aircraft type he knew well from his time in Aden: the Hawker Hart, and its very similar variant, the Hawker Audax.

Pupils receiving instruction on the Rolls Royce Kestrel engine of a Hawker Hart Trainer at No.4 Flying Training School, RAF Abu Suier. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205197303

The daily schedule was very different from the UK. Dundas Bednall, who trained at Abu Sueir in 1937-38, immediately after my father, recalls:
“The daily routine at Abu Sueir was unusual but one which I certainly liked. My batman woke me up at just after 4:30 in the morning with a steaming cup of tea and a biscuit [Bednall was one of the officer-students. I’m not sure my father would have had this treatment!]. Most of us then hurried to the central parade ground where transport was waiting to take us out to various landing grounds in the nearby desert. Others took off from Abu Sueir on the first exercise of the day, finishing at the landing ground in the desert. . . . . At about 9:30 we all flew or rode back to Abu Sueir for a well deserved breakfast.” 8

Another former Abu Sueir pupil comments:
“This dawn flying routine was general throughout tropical and sub-tropical commands. The day was still cool, there was little if any wind, the sky was cloudless and there was complete absence of turbulence; all of which sounds like mollycoddling, but flying, if not still in its infancy, was then no more than an adolescent.” 9

After breakfast, the raising of the flag, and prayers, there was ground instruction on King’s regulations, Air Force Law, history of the Royal Air Force, customs and etiquette of the service, theory of flight, airmanship, engines and airframes, navigation, meteorology, and armaments. Work ended for the day at 2:00.

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My father’s first solo on the Hart was on his fourth day of the course, on April 23rd. From then on, he went solo more and more often, with his instructor (Sergeant Johnson) flying with him for half an hour here and there. He progressed through the curriculum: takeoffs and landings, turns, sideslipping, aerobatics, spinning, instrument flying, and forced landings.

Third week at Abu Sueir: note the “Time-Up” in the left column, and the focus on Forced Landings.

Forced landings were a very important part of the early training, because of the still not infrequent engine or airframe failures. Here is Frederick Charles Richardson, who trained at Abu Sueir in 1933-34:

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On the 24th of May, my father completed the height test — climbing to 15,000 feet and staying there for half an hour. The next day, he took off at 05:40 for by far his longest solo to date: a two-hour cross-country. Perhaps he simply followed the Sweet Water Canal to Cairo and back. On the 4th of June, he practiced forced landings for almost an hour.

On the 23rd of June, he took the Flight Commander test (Flight Lieutenant Oliver), and on the 25th, the Chief Flying Instructor test (Squadron Leader McDonald), and shortly afterwards, he got his first-term assessment:

Assessment after first three months. “Average” was, apparently, the usual assessment at this stage of training.11

On the 7th of July, he was awarded his flying badge–his “wings.” 12 Now the world could see he was an RAF pilot!

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The man who signed my father’s course assessments was Group Captain Gilbert Insall, VC, MC — one of only 19 airmen to receive the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military decoration, in the First World War. Insall was a keen amateur archaeologist and frequently flew across the Red Sea to the Sinai desert “looking for signs of early habitation” — as the station Engineering Officer, Squadron Leader Edward Mole, recalls. Mole would accompany him (flying another aircraft), and they’d land at a likely site and dig.13

No 4FTS Abu Sueir: Sir Philip Sassoon, Under-Secretary of State for Air, and Group Captain Gilbert Insall, VC, MC (foreground, looking at papers) Inspecting Junior Term 1936.14

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The second (and final) three-month term at Abu Sueir focused on “applied flying” to prepare for regular squadron duty. This included bombing, air-to-ground and air-to-air firing, and cross-country flying.

On the 10th of September, “Hawker Audax K3715 spun into ground in circuit. Acting Pilot Officer G. L. Fraser was killed.” 15 APO Fraser was flying alone that day, but my father flew with him several times in August and September, alternating piloting the aircraft, including two days before Fraser’s fatal accident. Dundas Bednall remembers: “We each had to select another pupil to act as a flying team. We took it in turns to fly and be the crew.” 16 There were nearly always one or more fatalities on these training courses. Nevertheless, I imagine Fraser’s death hit my father hard.

There would have been others who, for one reason or another, did not complete the course. But my father made the grade. The six-month course ended on the 20th of October, 1937.

Final assessment at No.4 FTS. (“L.B.” = Light Bomber). My father may have been disappointed to have “average” as his final course assessment, but perhaps this was forgotten in his excitement to have successfully completed the demanding course.

The posting list came out after the passing out parade. Great excitement: where would he be posted? Pupils had been asked for their preferences, but an airman pilot with an average assessment would not get his first pick. And he knew he was very likely to stay overseas.

In 1937-8, RAF overseas squadrons were stationed in India (eight), Iraq and Aden (six — usually just one in Aden), Egypt (five), the Far East (four — Singapore mostly), Transjordan/Palestine (three), and Malta (one).17 Egypt was popular, because of pleasures ancient and modern. Iraq and Aden were regarded as tougher postings, because of the heat, and were two- (rather than the usual three-) year postings. He’d already had a short posting in Aden, so perhaps that would be taken into account . . .

India it was! Number 39 Squadron, based at Risalpur on the North West Frontier of India. I imagine him thinking, “Not bad. Not bad at all!”

Previous page: Desford Next page: India

Notes:

  1. Chaz Bowyer, RAF Operations 1918-1938, London: William Kimber, 1988, p.73.
  2. Wing Commander Ian M. Philpott, The Royal Air Force: An Encyclopedia of the Inter-war Years, Volume II, Rearmament 1930 to 1939, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2008, p.39.
  3. For an account of a pre-expansion course, see Ernest Folley, Imperial War Museum Oral History, Reel 4, 19:28 to 20:10, https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004659, accessed 22 December 2020. Folley was a Halton apprentice who trained at Abu Sueir in 1933.
  4. See, for example, Dundas Bednall, Sun on My Wings, Paterchurch Publications, 1989, pp.15-19. Bednall’s course at Abu Sueir immediately followed my father’s — from late 1937 through late April, 1938. He had only joined the RAF a few months before: he did the ab initio flying training in the UK, and then three weeks at the RAF depot at Uxbridge prior to leaving for Egypt.
  5. I have not found evidence of resentment by Sergeant Pilots of young Pilot and Flying Officers in memoirs and other accounts — but I have not yet discovered very much written by or about Sergeant Pilots during the interwar years. And the few who did write memoirs or gave interviews all became commissioned officers. One example: John Dennis Varley trained at Abu Sueir 1930-31, and then served as a Sergeant Pilot for several years before being commissioned. When asked about relations between officers and men by the Imperial War Museum interviewer, he responds, “I was always treated as an equal”–but his subsequent illustration of this shows noblesse oblige rather than equality. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004511, Reel 5, 13:10, accessed 9 February 2021. Of course, Sergeant Pilots were, as a group, what we might now call “strivers”: they were on the move, socially, and inclined to ape the habits and customs of their “betters.” My father, for example, had no trace of a Welsh accent in my memory, and had a book on elocution.
  6. T.E. Lawrence (352087 A/C Ross), The Mint, London: Jonathan Cape, 1955, p. 195. Cf. W.A. Wilkerson’s experience from flying training as an airman (non-officer) in 1939: “After a brief word of welcome . . . the regular airmen were dismissed because the Station Commander wanted to speak to the APO’s (Acting Pilot Officers) and what he had to say was not fit for our ears. Later that day when we met up in our respective crew rooms, we heard that we’d been described as the elite of the RAF while they were less than dust, and heaven help them if their behavior, at any time, left anything to be desired. This seemed unfair especially as they were, with the odd exception, an extremely pleasant crowd, but it was his way of letting them know where they stood right from the start.” One Pilot’s War, Windsor Books, 2010, pp. 41-2.
  7. See, for example, Edward Priestley, Imperial War Museum Interview, Reel 2, 27:50: Q: “To what extent did commissioned pilots and non-commissioned pilots mix?” A: “They could only mix during working hours–other than that, there was no mixing whatever.” Priestley was at Halton, 1927-30, earned his wings and became a Sergeant Pilot in 1934, but in 1936 was demoted to Corporal and taken off flying because of dangerous low flying. (What was the rest of the story? I wonder.) https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004601, accessed 9 February 2021.
  8. Bednall, op.cit., p. 23.
  9. S.J. “Beau” Carr, You Are Not Sparrows, London: Ian Allan Ltd., p.18.
  10. Group Captain Frederick Charles Richardson, Imperial War Museum Oral History, Reel 2, 10:59 to 15:21. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004583, accessed 31 December 2020.
  11. See Bednall, op.cit., p.26: “The end of the first term in February [1938] found most of us, I believe, with “Average” assessments.” But Bednall went on to win (after the second three-month course) the Cup of Honour, as the best student in the course, with the highest rating (“Exceptional”) on his final Assessment. (And a note on something curious about this assessment form: the flying totals are only for the flying at Abu Sueir — they don’t include the ab initio course flying. But this is not the case with his Course Assessment. Is this a mistake?)
  12. “The completion of his intermediate term of training brings the pupil to an important occasion. Having completed the necessary tests, which include one in aerobatic flying, he receives his wings. He will now have completed at least eighty hours of flying, and a minimum of twenty of his solo hours will have been on Service types of aircraft. Although the pupil is now certified as a qualified pilot, he has much to learn before becoming a qualified Service pilot. This he is taught during his advanced training term at the R.A.F. school.” “Training RAF Pilots,” Wonders of World Aviation, Volume 1, Part 8, 26 April, 1938, Amalgated Press. https://www.wondersofworldaviation.com/training_pilots.html, accessed 11 February 2021.
  13. Group Captain Edward Mole, Happy Landings, Airlife Publishing Ltd., 1984, p.81. Mole’s memoir is rich in detail. He did his RAF flying training in the UK in 1929, but some of his postings in the 1930s intersected with my father’s — although their status was so different that they may have never met. From January 1933 to July 1934, he took the Officers’ Engineering Course at Henlow (my father was a very junior ranker there starting from January 1934), then he was posted to Halton to supervise the basic engineering training. He was posted to Egypt the next year during the Abyssinian Crisis, and went out on the same boat with my father (who was going to Aden). He arrived at RAF Abu Sueir in October 1937, just as my father was finishing his course there.
  14. Professor David Kennedy, Aerial Photography Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East (APAAME), blog: http://www.apaame.org/2014/10/research-gilbert-insall-pioneer-over.html, accessed 24 December, 2010. Kennedy’s father was a pupil at 4FTS in 1936. (Rather a motley crew: are the un-military gents in long trousers really student-pilots?)
  15. RAF Commands Forum, http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?15906-4-FTS-Abu-Sueir, accessed 10 February 2021. The original source for this information is the 4FTS Operations Record Book.
  16. Bednall, op.cit., p. 27.
  17. John James, The Paladins, London: Macdonald, 1990, p. 249.