In addition to these, approximately 2,00 officers who have had experience in flying, wireless or other qualifications will be required. These will mostly be former officers of the Royal Canadian Air Force who are qualified to take over such duties. For wireless training, telegraph operators in commercial work will be enlisted where available and also those who have practised wireless telegraphy as amateurs. duties will be from 18 to 49 years.
Air Marshall G. M. Croil, chief of the Canadian air staff, stated in a recent press interview that the train-the ing set-up has been planned along Gemocratic lines. All recruits for air crews will be enlisted as airmen. In the four weeks in the initial course they will be divided into pilots, air observers and air gunners, At the end of the training they will be listed in the pool. Only then will some of them be given commissions and the others will be listed as noncommissioned officers according to their showing during training.
The British Commonwealth Air Training scheme originally called for the establishment of thirteen element tary flying schools, but this number has been increased to 26 schools of smaller size. Smaller size of the schools will permit the use of smaller fields and reduce the amount of construction required. The change brings the number of schools actually required in the training programme up to 71 as against 58 decided upon formerly. In addition there will be six schools for the training of instructors, technicians and ground staffs, Tribute to Character Capt. Harold Balfour, M.P., British Under-Secretary for Air described his recent visit to Canada in connection with the British Commonwealth Air Training scheme, said that "Canada was fully war conscious in her preparations to play her part in the struggle before us. And I don't believe this could be so unless the citizens of Canada didn't feel just as strongly as we do in England, as to the justice and as to the truth of the events leading up to the war and the causes of the conflict. With less actual close touch to the conditions of war, I feel it is a tribute to the breadth of character and depth of feeling that the Canadian people are every bit as determined as we are in this country to throw their all into the fight."
Young men of Canada, like the young men of all other parts of the Empire, were only too anxious to know how they "can best serve and help," stated Captain Balfour. "I hope and I believe that this Empire Air Training Scheme will, to a considerable extent, give the answer to this question to those young men.
From what I know to be the intentions of the Canadian authorities who are going to be responsible for running this scheme, every young man can look forward to a happy and interesting training period during which he is going to be made to feel at home in the Dominion on whose territory he is going to be doing his
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.