Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat

by Brian Carlin

  The recollections of a

  Royal Air Force “Brat”

  by

  Brian Carlin

  Second Edition (First eBook Edition)

  Second Edition (First eBook Edition) © 2011 Brian Carlin

  First Edition copyright © 2006 Brian Carlin

  Cover/product image design and art © 2006 Brian Carlin

  ISBN: 978-1-4116-9433-0 (First Edition only)

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information, contact Brian Carlin, 12856 Texana St., San Diego, CA 92129. email address: BCARLIN@san.rr.com

  Published by Brian Carlin (1st edition in conjunction with Lulu Press. 2nd edition as an eBook in conjunction with Amazon).

  Product image design by Michelle Carlin, art by Allan Knox.

  This book is based on the actual experiences of the author. The names of certain individuals portrayed in the narrative have been disguised to protect their privacy.

  “You're in the Air Force now!” Yelled the corporal drill instructor, and with those chilling words what had begun as a boyish adventure suddenly became a very serious, grownup type of situation. But, there was no turning back - certainly not after accepting the Queen's shilling - even if you were only 15 years old. The author takes us on the absorbing true story of his induction and passage through rigorous months of military training as a Royal Air Force Boy Entrant, which would mould and shape him and his fellow 15 and 16-year old “brats” into valuable service members, whose destiny was to become the “backbone” of the 1960s Royal Air Force as its future NCOs and officers.

  To my daughters Michelle and Sarah, and to my grandchildren Jacob, Brenden, Lucas, Sophia and Dylan.

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER 1: Achieving Escape Velocity

  CHAPTER 2: The Oath of Allegiance

  CHAPTER 3: Out of the Frying Pan

  CHAPTER 4: Recoil on the Range

  CHAPTER 5: Home Sweet Home?

  CHAPTER 6: Life in the Wings

  CHAPTER 7: Farewell to the 26th

  CHAPTER 8: The Seductive Call of the Trumpet

  CHAPTER 9: The Royal Tournament

  CHAPTER 10: Coffee and Biscuits with Mr. D

  CHAPTER 11: The Final Test

  CHAPTER 12: The Passing-Out Parade

  CHAPTER 13: Manhood Delayed

  EPILOGUE

  APPENDIXES

  APPENDIX 1: Life After Boy Entrants

  APPENDIX 2: The fate of the Woodvale Spitfires

  APPENDIX 3: Poem High Flight by John Gillespie

  APPENDIX 4: 29th Entry St. Athan Graduates

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  1 Pre-war Boy Entrants in training

  2 The Elegant Lines of the Hawker Hunter

  3 Off on an RAF Career

  4 The Boy Entrant Wheel Badge

  5 Ready for Kit Inspection

  6 Boy Entrant Trainees at Work

  7 “At Home” in the Billet

  8 The Dreaded Form 252

  9 Testing a Bombgear Circuit

  10 A Colour Hoisting Parade at Summer Camp

  11 A Brave Pilot Officer

  12 Whitsun at Barry Island

  13 A Real Two Bob Bit

  14 Sir George Inspects the 27th

  15 Working on Aircraft

  16 Taking an Oral Board

  17 Trainee MT Mechanics

  18 Fanfare

  19 Group photo, 29th Entry, 3 Squadron

  PREFACE

  The first edition of Boy Entrant did not contain a preface, which many authors include as an explanation of how their book came about. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to do so. Therefore, I seek to correct that omission with the second edition (first eBook edition), so here goes.

  In 2005; a year before the 50th anniversary of my recruitment into the RAF as a Boy Entrant, I began to feel twinges of nostalgia for the time I had spent undergoing the rigorous training that resulted. As I grew older, it had become increasingly clearer that those 18 months of training at No. 4 School of Technical Training, RAF St Athan, had shaped my life for the better, and in ways that I couldn’t have imagined at the time. Surely someone must have written a book about it, I told myself, so I patiently set about searching the Internet for such a tome. But after much fruitless searching, the realization slowly dawned on me that no such work existed. Yes, there were books that did include aspects of the boy entrant experience, but the few that were out there either used the boy entrant training as a backdrop to the book’s main topic, or contained only a brief mention of the writer’s boy entrant pedigree. As search after search turned up nothing that could be considered completely definitive of what it had been like to have endured boy entrant training, a small voice in the depth of my subconscious became increasingly louder and more insistent, forcing its way up into my conscious grey matter. Its message was very simple; if you can’t find a definitive work on what it was like to be a Boy Entrant, it said, you’ll have to write it yourself. And that is the genesis of this book, which on the surface was written as my personal story, but also with the understanding that it needed to speak for many. After all, we former boy entrants are a disappearing breed, and if nothing is documented about our experience, we will fade into the mists of history, never to be remembered.

  Since first publishing the book in 2006 – the year of my entry’s 50th anniversary of entering the service – many former boy entrants have kindly phoned or written to me to express their thanks for writing and publishing Boy Entrant, which has been most gratifying and has been my main reward for undertaking the task. A recurring comment from most correspondents is that it was also their story and, in reading it, they had enjoyed reliving a part of their lives that had partially been forgotten. Many said that they had purchased copies of the book for their offspring to underscore and confirm their own similar experiences. Ironically, a few former RAF apprentices also wrote to say that the book mirrored their experiences too. Many of those who wrote or phoned complimented me on my memory of the events of those far-off days, and whilst it is true that I remember quite a lot of what happened, it still took input from the recollections of a few others, and considerable research, in order to put the whole story together, including a visit to the scene of the crime itself; 4S of TT, St Athan, which was not quite as scary my first arrival there, back in 1956.

  In the few years that followed publication of the first edition, it became apparent that there was a need for some minor revisions. The opportunity to re-publish the second edition of Boy Entrant as an eBook has finally given me an opening to incorporate these updates. In particular, the story of the fake two-bob bits needed a considerable makeover, since one of my correspondents was actually the former boy who instigated the whole episode, albeit innocently. Even after all these years, he prefers to remain anonymous, but he did fill in some of the details of events, and explained how it all came about. In the story (chapter 10), he is identified as Henry, but that is not his real name.

  Also, whilst exchanging correspondence with another former boy entrant, the individual happened to mention that he had been the 26th entry Sergeant Boy in 3 Squadron, 2 Wing. Since that was also my squadron, and the 26th was senior entry when we moved into the Wings, it dawned on me that he was the Sergeant Boy mentioned in chapter 6, who had put Butterworth and me on our first charge after catching us smoking in the billet one morning. At the time of writing the book, I couldn’t remember his real name and so invented one for him. Also, in retrospect, my description of him seemed a littl
e harsh. Both aberrations have been corrected in the revised chapter 6.

  One other revision is the addition of Andy Wiles’ name to the 3 Squadron, 29th Entry graduation group photo at the end of the book. Somehow, his name was omitted from the first edition.

  Last, but not least; since publishing the first edition in 2006, one more family member has joined the clan – my grandson Dylan was born in December of 2007 and his name has been added to the dedication page in this edition.

  Brian Carlin,

  May 2011

  Illustration Credits

  Illustration 3; this photograph first appeared in the Northern Whig and Belfast Post and has been provided by the British Newspaper Museum. It is included in this book by the kind permission of the copyright holder, Northern Whig Ltd, and the British Newspaper Library.

  The photographs listed as Illustrations 1, 4; 5; 6; 8; 9; 14; 15 and 16 kindly provided by the Officer Commanding, No. 4 School of Technical Training, RAF St. Athan.

  The photographs listed as Illustrations 10 and 13 were first published in the St. Athan Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4 (December, 1957) and are reproduced by kind permission of the Officer Commanding, Royal Air Force St. Athan.

  Illustrations 2; 7; 11; and 12 are from the author’s personal files.

  Illustration 17; this photograph was kindly provided by former 29th Entry Trumpet Major, Michael Williams.

  Illustration 18; The No. 3 Squadron, 29th Entry Graduation group photograph was kindly provided by Tom Dee and restored by Roger Gatti.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without help from a number of sources, including a few of my fellow ex-Boy Entrants - Richard Butterworth, Charlie Cunningham and Eugene Gilkes who filled in my memory gaps, the late David Williams for lending his copy of the December 1957 edition of the St. Athan Magazine, Michael Williams for specific information and photos relating to the Boy Entrant Trumpet Bands, Tom Dee for the group photograph (Illustration 17), and Norrie Hathaway for lending his Electrical Mechanic (Air) training notes.

  Others also lent substantial help - Wing Commander David Orme, former Officer Commanding of No. 4 School of Technical Training, RAF St. Athan, and his staff Anne Dawson and Colin Bramley for extending warm hospitality to Charlie Cunningham and me during our visit to St. Athan in 2003, and for providing most of the photographs of Boy Entrant activities that appear in the book. Jane Bissett, RAF St. Athan Media Communications Officer, for providing excerpts from the 1958 edition of the St. Athan Magazine and a copy of the “early years” RAF St. Athan Station layout, and my nephew Brian Wisener, for tracking down the copyright ownership of the photograph, “Off On An RAF Career”.

  I also wish to acknowledge the help and encouragement of Cheryl Leedom, Charlie Cunningham and my friend Judy Bowen, all of whom read over all or some of the first draft and provided constructive comments. I am deeply indebted to both Cheryl Leedom and Julie Claydon for proof-reading the second draft, and to my friend Dorothy Eilbeck and my daughter Michelle Carlin for their diligence, dedication and eye for detail in editing the final draft. My thanks also to Michelle for creating the front and back cover designs of the first (print) edition (which is also the product image for the second eBook edition), to Allan Knox for creating the Boy Entrant figure and Judy Bowen for her suggestions that helped give “him” the appearance of a teenage boy.

  Finally, I would like to thank my wife Pam for being so patient with me as I burned the midnight oil nearly every night to record this formative period of my life.

  INTRODUCTION

  In pre-war and immediate post-war Britain it was considered normal for working class teenage boys to join the workforce after completing their basic secondary school education at the age of 14½ (later raised to 15½ circa 1950). At best, they became trade apprentices and at worst, manual labourers.

  In 1934, the Royal Air Force instituted a training scheme that recruited suitable teenage boys between the ages of 15½ and 16½ to be trained in a limited number of trades. The teenagers were required to take the same oath of allegiance to the Crown as the regular servicemen, and were considered to have enlisted for a specified term of service following their training. But because they had entered the RAF before becoming adults in the eyes of the law, they were assigned the rank of Boy Entrant. As such, they were accorded special status within the service. Boy Entrants were subject to normal service discipline, with a few additional regulations thrown in, and could not voluntarily rescind their enlistment after having taken the oath of allegiance to the Sovereign.

  Encouraged by the initial success of the Boy Entrant scheme, the RAF expanded it in 1938 to include training for several additional trades, only to suspend all training in 1939 at the outbreak of hostilities with Germany. Many of those Boy Entrants who had completed their training went on to serve during the war. Some became aircrew, some became ground crew, and several of them made the ultimate sacrifice for King and Country.

  The Boy Entrant training scheme was resumed in May 1947 when the first post-war intake of young lads was designated the 1st Entry. It was at this significant milestone in Boy Entrant history that boys were first assigned service numbers beginning with the “19” prefix. Thereafter, this distinction was reserved exclusively for Boy Entrants.

  Recruitment of boys intensified in the 1950s when manpower shortages anticipated by the approaching termination of National Service needed to be offset. By this time, training in virtually every trade was offered to prospective Boy Entrant recruits. RAF stations Cosford and Hereford became Boy Entrant training schools in 1950 with RAF St. Athan being added in 1955 when the training of several trades was moved there from Cosford.

  Boy Entrants wore the standard “other ranks” RAF uniform, but with certain distinguishing marks. The most obvious was a two-colour chequered hatband worn around the service dress (SD) hat in lieu of the black hatband worn by adult servicemen. A brass “wheel badge” (actually a four-bladed propeller within a circle) was worn on the left upper sleeve and usually backed by a coloured disc. Other basic sleeve markings consisted of up to three miniature inverted chevrons worn as “proficiency badges” on the cuff of the left jacket sleeve. These were often supplemented by other badges signifying such distinctions as marksmanship, participation in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and band membership.

  Discipline and organization were administered by a permanent staff of officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs), who were ably assisted by the appointment of Boy NCOs who wore miniature NCO chevrons surmounted by a wheel badge on the upper sleeves of both arms.

  The training period for Boy Entrants lasted for 18 months. The first three months were spent in the Initial Training Squadron (ITS) learning basic military drill, undergoing intensive physical training and being taught the fundamentals of ground combat training that included the safe handling and actual use of live firearms.

  General education was not neglected during this initial period. Half of the boys’ time was spent in the classroom continuing their education in such subjects as citizenship, current affairs, mathematics, English, geography, mechanics and science—particularly as it related both to the Theory of Flight and fundamental principles associated with their trades. In addition, one period of “Padre’s Hour” was set aside each week for Religious Instruction.

  At the conclusion of Initial Training, the boys commenced trade training at well equipped workshops-cum-classrooms. Basic workshop practice in the use of common hand tools and practical trade-related work on actual equipment shared equal time with theoretical instruction, whilst individual performance was closely monitored by weekly classroom testing and periodic end-of-term practical and written examinations. Training concluded with exhaustive written and oral tests independently administered by the RAF Trade Standards and Testing Section. Those who were successful—and much to the credit of the quality of instruction they were in the majority—passed out of Boy Entrant service into the regular Royal Air Force as qualified tradesmen
, standing firmly on the first rung of a promising career. The few who failed to qualify on their first attempt were usually given a second chance, through relegation into the next upcoming entry. However, if these individuals failed to pass the exams a second time, their training was terminated.

  The Boy Entrant training scheme gave many a young lad the basic trade skills and personal discipline necessary to pursue a successful career and rewarding life. But alas, all good things come to an end. The scheme was terminated in July of 1965 when the final entry, the 51st, passed out of training and into Royal Air Force history.

  This book is the personal recollections of one who underwent the rigours of Boy Entrant training. Whilst being subjective in nature, the story is representative of the experience of thousands of other youngsters who chose to allow their future lives, characters and careers to be moulded by the training they would receive as Boy Entrants.

  Former Boy Entrants, many of whom reside overseas, keep in touch with each other through the Royal Air Force Boy Entrant Association (RAFBEA), which maintains an interesting and informative website at http://www.rafbea.org that was the main source of the information included in this introduction.

  Brian Carlin

  Former Boy Entrant, 29th Entry at No. 4 School of Technical Training, Royal Air Force Station St. Athan, South Wales

  CHAPTER 1

  Achieving Escape Velocity