Trades Training - 1944 RNZAF Series

[Dave Homewood]

I just came across a series of articles in the New Zealand Herald about RNZAF Trade Training. This first one comes from the 4th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE'S WORK

MAGNIFICENT SYSTEM

VISIT MADE TO SCHOOLS

No. I.

Unknown to the public, whose money has been spent on it in millions of pounds, is the presence in the Dominion of a Royal New Zealand Air Force technical trade training organisation which has been built to impressive stature under wartime urgencies and difficulties. Without it this R.N.Z.A.F. could not expand or fly in safety. With it every squadron which can be trained in New Zealand or sent into the Pacific to fight becomes completely self-sufficient in the skilled tradesmen upon whose precision, knowledge and wits depend the lives of the men who go into the air.

Thousands of New Zealand people have seen their sons and husbands disappear into the eager maw of the R.N.Z.A.F. and later emerge with strange badges on their arms to denote their degree of skill in one of a multitude of technical trades. But while they may have some knowledge of the places to which their men have been sent, and be partly aware of what they have been taught, none of these people has the means of seeing the complete picture of the tremendous organisation into which the men have been fitted and trained.

Men Trained In Thousands
A representative of the Herald spent a fortnight visiting a majority of the technical schools which have been established to provide the Air Force with the thousands of tradesmen it needs every year. The visit began at the Wellington headquarters office of the staff officer in charge of technical training and spread thence by air along several of the various arms of the training organisation:- To the Preliminary Technical Training School in the Wellington area; its big brother, the Technical Training School, divided into Basic, Air Frame and Engine schools, near Nelson; to the Ground Training Unit and Radio Selection Pool at a station near Christchurch; to the Elementary Radio Training Squadron and its big brother, the Electrical and Wireless School, at another Canterbury station; and to the Armament School in the Wellington Province.

Astonishing Results
These and the several other technical schools in New Zealand represent a very sound planning, along rational and progressive lines, of the methods needed to give the Air Force the tradesmen it has to have, and of the stages through which the men under training can be taken to give them the essential degree of expertness. In the scheme there is a very wise and careful blend of theory and practice, a happy combination of school education and trade instruction, and from it the men progress naturally to that further indispensable requirement — experience under service conditions on a station.

Astounding results have been gained. They become even more amazing when it is appreciated that the Air Force no longer has available a constant supply of recruits with technical training in civilian life, and now spends most of its time making craftsmen out of thousands of individuals of many ages who have never before had the slightest acquaintance with the highly skilled trades into which they have been placed.

Recruits From 'Many Occupations
They were farmers, salesmen, clerks, warehouse hands, hat-blockers, plasterers, labourers, architects, youths with no occupation at all, linotype operators, gold miners, drapers. Now they are becoming wireless operators, radio mechanics, flight riggers, flight mechanics, drivers petrol mechanics, machine tool setters, telegraphists, instrument repairers, fitters, one of scores of trades which the Air Force has to have if its air crews are to fly and fight.

Hundreds of men who before had intimate knowledge of cows, pencils, dress materials, book-keeping, hairdressing, the usual skills of farms, shops and offices, now pry delicately and with increasing expertness into the bewildering complexities of aircraft radios, wiring, engines and construction — a multiplicity of jobs which would have frightened them into speechlessness a year or 18 months ago, but which they now take in their stride.

Scientific Method of Selection
Once the clerks and farmers, accountants and salesmen, hat-blockers and plasterers were chosen for training in a technical trade under a more or less haphazard system in which school education, civilian experience and personal preference were the chief guides to the selecting officer's decision. Now selection is surprisingly scientific and exact. Aptitude and intelligence tests, export assessment under trial of personal possibilities, of willingness to learn, capacity for manual dexterity, ability to study, and of reactions to responsibility: all these have superseded the former rather hit-or-miss methods.

The old ways achieved results, especially when there was a well of trained civilians from which to draw, and hundreds of tradesmen went out to stations and overseas duty. But the new ways are better. Misplacement and wastage ratios have been cut to the bone at a time when they might well have been expected to be greater. This means much to the Air Force in enabling it to fill its trained manpower quotas and as much to the public in the saving of money which otherwise would have been spent in fruitlessly trying to make many square pegs fit as many round holes. (To be continued) 

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 5th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE'S WORK

WORSHIP OF ACCURACY

MANY HARD COURSES

No. II.

It would be completely incorrect for anybody to think it is easy for a man to become a Royal New Zealand Air Force flight mechanic, flight rigger, wireless operator, radio mechanic or one of a number of other technical tradesmen upon whom air crews have to rely implicitly for their safety. It would probably be more correct to think it is easier to become a pilot than a radio mechanic.

No one can visit the technical trade training schools which the R.N.Z.A.F has established in various parts of New Zealand without forming the conviction that the courses of instruction demand a man's maximum power of willingness, concentration, study and application. Nothing like it is to be found in civilian trade training.

Responsibility Taught

If any two features stand out they are the demand for a sense of responsibility and the worship of accuracy. This must be so. Anyone who has flown in an aeroplane knows how much depends upon the mental outlook of the man or men who made that aircraft serviceable for flying and, equally, how much depends upon their precision. A fetish must be made of both. To the R.N.Z.A.F, not the aircraft but the lives of the men inside it matter the most. Wherever the visitor goes in the classrooms of the Air Force's technical training schools is met the instructor's insistent emphasis upon the tradesman's responsibility tor the safety of the air crews.

Whatever the craftsmanship — no matter how major or how minor — which the service tradesman has to put into his job, it must always be completely honest and absolutely accurate. Not inches, but thousandths of inches, are pursued with relentless determination.

A Repetition of Tests
Therefore, throughout the training organisation the rhythm of the instruction music, the beat of the big bass drum, is formed by one word: Test.

The song is teach, practise, test; teach, practise, test. From the time he is swallowed by the training organisation until the day he is remustered or hallmarked with the rank of his qualification, the man under training is being constantly subjected to a test of his aptitude and capacity.

He starts by having his potential ability for any of a number of trades carefully measured. Thereafter his growing ability is regularly and carefully checked. He goes from one examination of his "work to another, and he finishes by having an independent and visiting expert body, the Central Trades Test Board, come along to his final training school and sit in judgment upon his proficiency.

Even then his days of testing are not over. From the graduating training school, if he has been successful, he goes to an air station and to the work for which he has been trained. He undertakes it in a growing measure of independent responsibility, and finally, one day, there comes to him the greatest test of them all. He sends into the air an aeroplane the serviceability of some part or parts in which he has guaranteed by his signature on a simple paper form. That signature will be his seal of acquittal or mark of condemnation if things go right or wrong while the aircraft is in use.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 6th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE SCHOOLS TESTS OF APTITUDE

MECHANICS AND RIGGERS

No. III.

Hundreds of men who become Royal New Zealand Air Force tradesmen start their training at the Preliminary Technical Training School in the Wellington area. For the most part they form the pool from which is drawn the services flight mechanics, flight riggers, driver petrol mechanics and men for allied trades related directly to the engines and construction of aircraft and to motor transport.

The P.T.T.S., as it is called, is not their introduction to the Air Force. Some may have been remustered to technical training after having tried their strength in other branches of the service, but the majority come to the school within a few weeks of leaving civilian life.

First Real Testing Ground
They have been to a ground training depot for such things as instruction in the customs and demands of the service and have passed thence to a pre-entry educational course which they take at an Otago station. This latter course is becoming increasingly necessary because of the declining numbers of recruits with civilian technical training and secondary school education.

However, the P.T.T.S. is their first real testing ground for the technical trades. Its main function is to test the aptitude of its students for such trades as flight riggers and flight mechanics, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to pass the wheat on to the Technical Training School in the Nelson Province.

It takes the men for several weeks. In that time they are given a carefully divided proportion of theory by educational lectures and practise in the workshop, the period being split into fortnightly terms with examination at the end of each period.

Always Under Assessment
Their school is a vast building. It has been subdivided into lecture rooms and workshops, fitted with desks and benches, equipped with tools and machinery.

In command is a flight-lieutenant of the R.A.F. who has been trained as an engineer officer both in New Zealand and in the Royal Air Force. He has as instructors men who were for the most part either manual training teachers or qualified tradesmen.

He and they are constantly measuring the aptitude of the men under training—not only their capacity for manual dexterity but also such other fundamental requirements as their willingness to learn, their capacity to study, and their devotion to their task.

The school teaches such necessary subjects as mathematics, electricity and magnetism, applied mechanics and physics, not to a high standard, but to give the men the necessary groundwork for understanding what they do in the school and for preparing them for the training they will receive at the Nelson station.

A system of individual cards is used to keep a check on every man's ability and to inform the latter station of his capacity when he is sent on there.

An Impressive System
The system is extraordinarily impressive, not only as a means of separating the wheat, but also as a method of ensuring fairness of treatment for the man. None of the men is rejected summarily, further chances are always given, but one thing is certain — an unwilling horse is better removed, and there are sometimes unwilling horses.

In the workshops the men learn the use of certain simple tools, their care and the need for precision in using them, but here again the underlying purpose of the exercises goes beyond the teaching of manual dexterity to the testing of aptitude.

Tools and Accuracy
One of the exercises is easily described. The man is given a small square of metal. He has to face it, that is. smooth it down by filing, then he has to square it exactly to given measurements by using micrometers and Vernier gauges, then he has to cut a simple pattern in such a fashion that the pieces cut out can fit with equal precision a number of ways and in several places. He also has to drill a few holes. The exercise thus teaches him the use of tools and starts him along the road of pursuit for thousandths of an inch.

He is also taught simple turning on a lathe, soldering, bending, and several other workshop and forge practices that will always stand him in good stead as he progresses from stage to stage in his training.

Use of Visual Education
In the school there are two showcases containing examples of work by men who have passed through the school. Some of the exercises require a very great degree of precision, and the demonstration pieces are examples of workmanship which could not be bettered.

Encouraging the entrants who have never had experience of metalwork in their lives are the tickets under the examples, which reveal that those responsible for them were salesmen or farmers or carpenters and so on in private life. One is by a W.A.A.F. who was a commercial photographer.

Holding an important place in instruction is visual education. A projector room has been fitted and it is typical of the Air Force that, here and at the other schools visited the use of films to show and demonstrate some of the things being taught is receiving every sign of attention.

This, then, is a rough outline of the P.T.T.S. If the men survive the measuring which is always being made of their potential capacity, they are posted by the commanding officer to the next stage of their training. For the majority of them, the future flight mechanics, flight riggers and driver petrol mechanics, this is the Technical Training School in the Nelson Province.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 7th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE METHODS

DIFFICULT COURSES

NELSON PROVINCE SCHOOLS

No. IV.

The future Royal New Zealand Air Force tradesmen who are to be found in the Basic, Engine or Air Frame Schools of the Technical Training School in the Nelson Province have had several weeks' preparation for their courses at the Preliminary Technical Training School before they are posted there. Now they receive a few months' intensive instruction in courses which have been stripped to the bare bones from peacetime training that might have taken several years. This is a fair measure of the difficulty of the courses and the need for their utmost willingness and application.

On arrival they are separated into the groups — riggers, mechanics or driver petrol mechanics — which the aptitude tests have suggested are most suitable for them. They do not all succeed. Understandably, they are not potentially much good basic material as the men who earlier in the war could be drawn from civilian technical trades, but even so the instructors are confident of their ability to make good and satisfactory riggers and mechanics out of any material if the material is willing.

Some Do-Not Succeed
Some are unwilling and fall by the wayside. Some become sick and cannot complete the courses. Some get entanglements of the heart and lose concentration. But, nevertheless, wastage is surprisingly small. Part of the course wastage is remustered to service tasks more suitable for their abilities or mental outlook; part is given a further chance to succeed.

It would be impossible to detail the courses, but some idea of their demands can be outlined. Flight riggers, whose duties are far more comprehensive than people imagine, so transcending the repair of holes in wings, fuselage and tail planes that most persons who saw them at work would think they were mechanics, start at the basic school.

Intensive and Comprehensive
Here they learn such things relevant to their trade and their understanding of it as can be gained from lectures and practice on, in or with tools, metallurgy, bending, riveting, splicing, lashing and the theory of flight.

They progress to carpentry and the training in the practical use of tools, fitting, assembly, cleaning off and inspection of metalwork exercises, applied mechanics, stresses and strains, minor repairs of longerons, methods of setting out, cutting and shaping, fitting, assembly and gluing.

They go to lectures on timbers, grain deviation, defects, testing, conversion and seasoning, practical splicing and jointing, glues, plywoods, timber shrinkages, fabric and rigging. They learn types of fabric, ladder stitching,  repairs by darning, insertion patches, dopes and doping, rigging tools and basic principles of aircraft construction, spars, cantilevers, ribs, jacking and dismantling.

Then they learn hydraulics and finally the maintenance of aircraft by inspection and overhaul. They learn procedure, how there are Air Department forms which they as flight riggers have to fill and sign when, after they have passed out and been posted to stations, they are given individual tasks in the regular inspection and maintenance of operational aircraft.

All these and other subjects are taken in sequence, so that as they progress through the course what they learn and what they do fits in by application to a sound understanding of the job which they are being taught.

Many Aircraft Used
They have a great deal of equipment to help them. More is constantly being sought, which is a sign that the school itself is always trying to improve itself, but what there is there now would have staggered the instructors themselves 18 months ago and would amaze anybody who could see it now.

There are many aircraft which not so long ago would have had to be flying because of the emergency needs of that day.

There are Vincents, a Hudson, an Airspeed Oxford, Hawker Hinds, Moths, a Harvard, fabric covered, plywood. metal, and into their construction and controls the riggers delve with increasing knowledge and comprehension.

The Oxford was built up by the Training School itself in the days when it was located in the Wellington area and was flown to its present location.

In rooms behind the hangar there are mock-ups of the under-carriages of several types of aircraft, so the riggers can study very easily the hydraulics of the retractable under-carriages and of the wing flaps.

The school will soon be taking a group under instruction in safety work. This concerns itself greatly with dinghies and rescue gear and an excellently-fitted-out section is fast being prepared.

More Advanced Work
In addition to the riggers the school trains fitters 2A, men who as riggers have had experience on operational stations and have now come back to take the university course of their trade. They do much more advanced work than the riggers and are expected when they have passed out to be able to undertake the complete overhaul of all the sections of an aircraft which are the riggers', as distinct from the mechanics', responsibility.

However, neither the flight riggers nor the fitters 2A pass out from the school until they have undergone their final ordeal. Always under test during their training and periodically examined in what they have learned, they now face the Central Trade Test Board, a visiting group of experts who have the authority to give every man the degree of his qualification in his trade, that of Aircraftman II., Aircraftman I. or Leading Aircraftman. This examination underlines what has already been emphasised, the rigidity of the Air Force's wise requirement that every man must be tested and tested and tested in his training, or complete thoroughness and accuracy will never be achieved.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 8th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE SYSTEM

SPECIAL ENGINE SCHOOL

VISIT TO NELSON PROVINCE

No. V.

The companion of the Air Frame School at the Technical Trade Training School on the Royal New Zealand Air Force establishment in the Nelson area is the Engine School. This trains flight mechanics, whom it takes again later after they have had experience at an operational station and advances them to the more highly skilled degree of fitters 2E.

Housed in or near buildings that contain the Engine School are two other sections of the men sent to the station for instruction. They are photographers, who for the most part come from commercial, practice, and machine tool setters.

The school also takes drivers, petrol mechanics, men who will be used and will be responsible tor the driving and maintenance of Air Force transport. They include a fairly good proportion of skilled mechanics from civilian life, but they have to be trained to the exacting service standards.

Row on Row of Engines
The Engine School as equipped for the training of flight mechanics contains a number of lecture rooms and row upon row of aircraft engines, such as the simple Gypsy, the Pegasus, the Kestrel, Wasp, Allison and a large number of others, either "in-line" or radial types.

There is a Rolls-Royce Merlin, which has been "sectionised," as it is called, or so cut that the complete running of the engine can be seen, and even a Daimler Benz engine from a Messerschmitt 109.

Hudsons, Liberators, Fortresses, many famous types have helped to give the school the equipment it has to have, for mechanics cannot be completely trained to maintain and overhaul engines they have not seen, even although the principles of the many engines of the various types may be the same.

Men Start in Basic School
As with the flight riggers, the mechanics go first of all to the Basic School to prepare themselves for the harder work of the Engine School and to learn the elementary knowledge and fundamentals of their future trade.

They progress thence, after thoroughly learning the use of tools and taking lectures in a number of subjects, such as metallurgy, to preliminary engines. The Gypsy gives them a comprehensive grasp of a typical and simple aero engine and they learn how to dismantle it and how it runs. They go on to the components of engines, learning all the parts, their uses, their structure and their significance. Carburetters then receive the men's attention, and after that they progress to the maintenance and installation of engines.

For this part of their training, in addition to the many engines that stand in rows in the hangar they have the benefit, of a number which have been made mobile by fitting to old trucks. They can be taken easily to some distance from the men in the lecture rooms and spaces, and there can be run as much as is needed without fear of disturbing anybody. There is also a mobile test bench to which can be fitted any engine at all for various necessary trials.

Various Aircraft Used
In addition, the school has at its disposal much the same number and range of aircraft as are possessed by the Air Frame School. There are two long rows of Vincents and Hawker Hinds, or Variants as they are often called, a Harvard, Hudson and a few others. On these machines the flight mechanics work as they would have to work on an operational station, checking the engine and the other parts for which mechanics are responsible according to the tasks assigned to them, and learning procedure by duly signing the necessary forms to certify that the job has been done.

Much the same progression of instruction is followed when the flight mechanics later return to qualify as fitters 2E. They start with basic fitting, go on to engine repair, studying particularly the Pegasus and Kestrel engines, then proceed to components, after that spending a week on carburetters, devoting much time also to magnetos and finishing with installation. They are expected when they leave the station to be capable of undertaking the complete overhaul of any aircraft engine.

As with the Air Frame School, this is no more than the merest outline of the Engine School and the training it gives. The work done in both the schools can be appreciated properly only when they can be seen and inspected. Both take men from almost any occupation and transform them into tradesmen who are so sufficiently qualified that the school has won golden opinions for its work. A few months' training is not a long time, but by stripping the syllabus to essentials the output has been maintained without damage to the aircraft placed under the men's care when they reach operational stations.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 10th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE SCHOOLS

ELECTRICAL AND RADIO GROUP IN CANTERBURY

No. VI.

A group of three technical trade training schools is centred on two stations of the Royal New Zealand Air Force in Canterbury. As with the schools in the Wellington and Nelson provinces respectively, they are arranged in such a pattern that the men progress naturally from the most elementary to the most advanced stages of their instruction by passing from one to the other.

The kindergarten of the group is the Radio Selection Pool, in the Christchurch area, to which the men for the electrical and radio trades are posted either from a ground training unit nearby or from various small pools at the different stations throughout New Zealand. The majority are men earmarked for or seeking to enter this group of trades, but some are trainees who have been remustered from other trades or duties.

Use of Aptitude Tests
In command of the pool is a pilot-officer who was an engineer in civilian life, and his staff includes schoolteachers, who specialise in the sorting out of the men by the results of special tests, of a vocational guidance nature, that are designed to show for discard men who would be unsuitable for the electrical and radio trades.

This "weeding out" is the principal object of the pool. The policy of selection is, wherever possible, to give the airman his own choice of trade, subject to his having enough technical and practical capacity to enable him to pass out from the advanced school which forms the pinnacle of the group.

However, this does not mean that only men with civilian experience of the electrical and radio trades are taken into the school. Far from it. Supplies of trained men dwindled away to negligible proportions many months ago, and the pool spends most of its time testing the aptitude of men who come from almost every civilian occupation.

Personal Interviews Important
Selection is on tests of intelligence, aptitude and comprehension, topped off by a personal interview with the commanding officer for the purpose of testing the willingness and other necessary qualities of the individual. This means that the results of the tests are themselves tested or confirmed.

The method, is scientific to a degree undreamed of by the public. Intelligence tests, based largely on papers which require simple answers to a variety of simple questions, and the completion of a number of both simple and difficult diagrammatic patterns, fall into three groups. The first is to measure the man's intelligence quotient; the second, or G.V.K. tests, have the threefold purpose of measuring his analytical and verbal intelligence and his practical mindedness; and the third, or "N" test, is to weigh his mechanical ingenuity.

Variety of Tests
In addition mathematical tests are given to determine the airman's previous standard of education and, his potential mathematical ability, for the reason that mathematics form the larger part of the radio mechanics' educational qualifications.

Comprehension tests are also given to find the ability of men to absorb technical knowledge, and Morse aptitude tests for possible wireless operators and telegraphists are designed to test the man's appreciation of sound and rhythm and his potential ability to absorb and learn Morse. 

Practical workshop tests are included in the syllabus, just as they are for the groups of men who go to the Wellington and Nelson provinces for the flight riggers, flight mechanics, drivers petrol mechanics and associated trades. The tests consist of making some small pieces of apparatus and patterns, using hand tools without instruction and then using them with instruction, the progress made by the man being examined as a further means of testing his capacity.

Misplacement Ratio Reduced
When they have completed all these tests the men have their personal interviews with the commanding officer and are selected or rejected for the various trades. They are then formed into definite classes, and until they go on to the next stage of their training at the next school in the group are instructed in various Air Force subjects of general interest, current affairs and methods of study.

This, then, is the outline of the work done at the pool. It is designed to eliminate the misplacement of men in difficult trades and thereby save time at the two other schools. Since the school, or pool, was formed some months ago the misplacement ratio has been greatly reduced. The system is necessarily fairly ruthless, but better that than a hit-or-miss method which wastes time and money in useless advanced training.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 11th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE SCHOOLS

PERSONNEL FOR RADIO

ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION

No. VII

The second of the group of three Royal New Zealand Air Force technical trade training schools which are based on Canterbury stations is the Elementary Radio Training School. Its function is to prepare men chosen by their aptitude as wireless operators and radio mechanics for the extremely difficult course which awaits them at the Electrical and Wireless School, the pinnacle or university of the group.

In the E.R.T.S., as it is called, the embryo wireless operators and radio mechanics at once have their minds adjusted for the swot they will have to do at the E. and W. School, and are further tested in their ability, or potential ability, to pass successfully through that school. Thus, the E.R.T.S. checks again for misplacements on the men who have survived the preliminary checking of the Radio Selection Pool, its success is shown by the fact that since its establishment only one man passed through the E.R.T.S. to the E and W. School has failed to qualify at the latter. This naturally does not include men who for medical reasons have had their qualification interrupted, and is the final and not the intermediate result. For instance, the E. and W. School does find it advisable to give a man a second chance on some occasions.

Interesting foundation
However, the E.R.T.S., which is the outgrowth of an interesting section of the service's history, has amply proved its value. Its foundation goes back to early in 1941, when the supply of civilian tradesmen available for the electrical and radio trades of the R.N.Z.A.F. was rapidly being exhausted and it became necessary to introduce some form of preliminary training to bring inexperienced recruits up to the standard where they could understand the difficult technical course of the E. and W. School.

This pre-entry course began as a series of correspondence course assignments prepared by the officer who now commands the E.R.T.S., a schoolteacher whose private interest in radio enabled him to prepare a series of studies which are ideal for the purpose. They are still used in the E.R.T.S. to prepare the men for the next stage in their training by giving them the essential groundwork in such subjects as mathematics, electricity and magnetism, mechanics, radio waves and a host of others which would bewilder the parents of most of the men now taking them

Special Units Established
After rapid development on a correspondence course basis, the deteriorating war situation of early 1942 caused the R.N.Z.A.F. to form units on stations for the purpose of taking this necessary preliminary educational training At the same time the mien so mobilised could be used in an emergency as aerodrome defence units. All the radio trades reported to the Canterbury stations and the beginnings of the E.R.T.S. as a station school became clear. Later the two units which were then formed were amalgamated and the E.R.T.S. was born.

By this time it had gathered to itself a staff of education officers and such specialists as Morse instructors, and it was organised along the lines of a high school with technical purpose. Lecture rooms, laboratories and workshops were established and equipped, and now the school forms yet another of a chain of technical trade training centres whose value for the nation at war suggests that they could have definite civilian application in peacetime.

Use of Schoolteachers
The training and organisation of the school are handled entirely by education officers, and men accepted at all standards of education and experience, after surviving the Radio Selection Pool, are assembled in flights of 25 to 30 men and given the thorough grounding in mathematics, electricity and magnetism that is necessary for the understanding of modern radio theory.

They also have regular periods of physical and weapon training, in the gymnasium, baths, sports field and parade ground, and have the additional aid to their education of weekly screenings of instructional films.

At the end of his course, every airman is tested and, if successful, sent on leave for a week before being posted to the E. and W. School and the hardest period of his progress toward efficiency as a radio mechanic, wireless operator, or some form of even more highly skilled work in these fields. If he is a wireless operator he has now spent a few months in the E.R.T.S.; if a radio mechanic the time has been slightly more.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 12th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE COURSES

FINAL RADIO SCHOOL

CANTERBURY "UNIVERSITY"

No. VIII.

The majority of the men who enter the electrical and radio trades of the Royal New Zealand Air Force embark on the most difficult period of study in their lives from the moment they go to Canterbury. It is estimated by some of those who teach them that only the top 20 men of every 100 who might be selected at random in the streets have the ability to become Air Force radio mechanics, but whatever the percentage it is undoubtedly true that the men who later emerge in uniforms that have on their shoulders a spider-like design called their "sparks" have covered the equivalent of a university course.

At the apex of the group of three schools at Canterbury air stations is the Electrical and Wireless School, or E. and W. School. Here, after surviving the aptitude tests of the Radio Selection Pool and the preparation at the Elementary Radio Training School, the future radio mechanics and wireless operators, together with a variety of associated tradesmen of the electrical and radio groups, enter for differing periods of time a course of study which is possibly without parallel in the service.

Instructors From Pupils
The school is housed in a big block of rooms, laboratories and workshops laid out on much the same principles as the ordinary secondary schools, it is commanded by a Royal New Zealand Air Force squadron-leader, who also has under his administrative and disciplinary care the E.R.T.S., and he has a staff of technical officers and instructors — many of them old pupils from a technical and non-technical civilian occupations.

Indeed, it is one of the features of this and other technical schools of the service that many of the instructors come from vocations in no way related to those they are now teaching, and none who sees them at work can question the excellence of their conversion. There are many magnificent instructors in the service; without them the whole training organisation could not function.

In the E. and W. School the following various, groups of trades are provided for:—Radio mechanics, wireless operators, direction-finding operators, electricians, and telegraphists. As the majority of these men have already done several weeks in the Elementary Radio Training School before they enter the E. and W. School, it can readily be seen that their courses, ranging up to 52 weeks, must be far more than child's play.

But if the work is extraordinarily hard, it is made as easy as possible by the equipment of the school. The rooms contain between them most expensive and valuable gear. In civilian life a youth or man would never have the opportunity of qualifying as a radio mechanic with such equipment and with the additional advantage of access to text books of the type and variety to be found in the school's library.

Theory and Practice
The men have, their time divided between study of theory and practical workshop or laboratory application of the principles and groundwork they have learned. It would be impossible to detail what they do and what they have to do it with; it will have to be sufficient to say that New Zealand has never seen such a school before. This applies equally to the various sections, whether they are teaching radio mechanics, radio operators or electricians.

Although they find the going hard, the men — more particularly those who are keen to apply their new knowledge to civilian life — show an astonishing aptitude for the work. When it is realised that in these days the majority of them have never had more than an amateur's nodding acquaintanceship with radio before, and many of them have not even had that, then miracles are being wrought. The school may find that almost each new group is a little harder to teach, but it still achieves results that more than satisfy the air crews dependent upon them for a great degree of their safety.

Accommodation Near School
As with the E.R.T.S., the men live in a hutted camp not far from the school. It is well kept and as comfortable as camps can be. Some occupy "shell" houses, a feature not met on the other stations visited. They are State houses which will be used after the war for civilians, but they have not been lined or partitioned or fitted with the usual domestic needs.. There are about 23 of these "shells," and the men sleep in bunks which have been placed in tiers of two in barrack style.

As with the other technical trade training schools visited, the electrical and radio trades group is most impressive Only one conviction can be formed from such a visit—that the R.N.Z.A.F, is making a perfect fist of its training organisation for the technical trades. It has been well planned and is being very ably executed.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 13th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE COURSES

POST-WAR VALUE

DEFINITE ADVANTAGES

No. IX.

It is impossible to inspect the Royal New Zealand Air Force's technical trade training organisation without trying to weigh its postwar rehabilitation value for the thousands of men who are passing through it. The question is discussed equally by the men, their relatives and their instructors, and service leaders and education and rehabilitation authorities are giving it close attention.

Throughout his visit to the trade training schools the Herald representative discussed the matter with scores of officers and men and found no unanimity of opinion on the immediate postwar value of the training. However, it was possible to classify the majority view and to support it from the observations made.

Varying Post-war Value
This is what it was:— That some of the Air Force trades will enable the men fully skilled in them to transfer at once to the equivalent civilian trade; that the value of others will depend very largely upon the extent to which the Air Force is maintained after the war and the degree to which commercial aviation is developed within the country; that some will have no immediate civilian value save as they increase general knowledge to a greater or less practical degree; and that some will have definite value if the men choose and are encouraged to take certain extra civilian training necessary to adapt their specialised service knowledge to the more general commercial requirements.

Much will necessarily depend on Government policy and upon the readiness of employers and unions to help servicemen change their occupations. But it can be taken as assured that large numbers of Air Force tradesmen, many of them formerly belonging to a host of other occupations and many with no civilian trade at all, will want to enter the approximately equivalent civilian trade after the war.

The Types of Men Met
Four types of men were met during the visit to the technical trade training organisation. They were:—
(l) The man who said he had no interest in his work and had no interest in doing anything after the war save getting a job which would give him big pay for small effort;

(2) the man who cold-bloodedly said he had sought entry into such an Air Force trade as radio mechanics or flight mechanics for the purpose of getting cheaply an expensive training;

(3) the man who said he had become so interested in his new skills that he wished to continue with them after the war in the service or equivalent civilian capacity; and

(4) the man who declared he intended to return to his old occupation as soon as he was demobilised, but was glad that he would have some useful knowledge which could readily be applied to his work or to his home.

The first, or disinterested, category was definitely in the minority among those questioned. The second was frequent and the third and fourth more frequent.

Characteristic Outlooks
Two men who happened to be working alongside each other at the same bench expressed the third and fourth attitudes. One, a hat-blocker in civilian life, said: "If I show sufficient improvement at my Air Force trade (flight mechanic) I hope to become a mechanic after the war." The other, a farmer, said: "Too right, I am going back to the farm, but I will be able to repair my tractor or make sure the garage repairs it properly."

The second part of his answer was an expression which was commonly met among Air Force riggers, mechanics, electricians, radio mechanics and several other trades. There is a very wide opinion in the Air Force that the thoroughness of the service training, and the emphasis which it places on honesty and accuracy of workmanship, will tend to raise standards in many civilian trades after the war.

(To be continued)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 14th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE COURSES

REHABILITATION VALUE

POST-WAR APPRENTICESHIP

No. X.

Although it is difficult to assess the exact value of specialised Royal New Zealand Air Force technical trade training for post-war employment in the approximately equivalent civilian trade, two things are abundantly clear One is that Air Force tradesmen will be much luckier than many young members of air crews, for it should not take nearly so long to adapt them for employment in civilian trades, and the other is that wartime effects on civilian apprenticeship schemes can fairly readily be bridged in many of the trades if the men are willing and employers and unions are co-operative.

Men trained as butchers, cooks, blacksmiths and welders are among those who will need little, if any, conversion to civilian openings. Flight mechanics and fitters 2E, who have been intensively trained in aircraft engines, will know far more about the servicing of engines than a motor trade apprentice and some mechanics ever knew, but they will still need conversion to civilian practices.

Conversion Courses Needed
Electricians have learned the complicated circuits of aircraft, but would not be able, for example, to install a commercial elevator unless they also have training in commercial electrical wiring. Flight riggers learn bending, turning, jointing, timbers, hydraulics, a host of subjects that have definite value, to a degree of expertness and from text-books which they could never expect to attain in the same time or to have access to in civilian life, but they also will need conversion to commercial ways.

This applies equally to a number of other service craftsmen. Air Force instruction and requirements are necessarily specialised and standardised. In many of the trades the men get a background of theory which never comes to the civilian apprentice or improver or, even, the master craftsman; they might do more of this thing and less of the other; and they concentrate on service types of equipment, often more complicated than commercial and household types, but nevertheless not the types they would have to deal with as civilian tradesmen.

Obviously, then, if they seek employment in the equivalent commercial trades there must be a means of letting them adapt themselves.

Civilian Apprenticeships
Related to post-war apprenticeship schemes are two expressions of opinion which were constantly being met during the visit to the training schools. They came from both men and instructors. The first was that civilian apprentices are frequently ruined in their work and outlook by employers. Dozens of apprentices were seen who said all they did in civilian employment was to make tea, run messages, mend punctures, grease cars, do a variety of menial jobs in a variety of trades which taught them nothing and caused them to adopt a lackadaisical attitude to their work.

The other was that civilian tradesmen have too often been insufficiently grounded in the theory of their work. Trial and error, hit-or-miss methods have had to take the place of ways soundly based on a complete understanding of the task. Woven into this was the frequent statement that poor materials were often employed because the capacity of the materials was not understood.

A flight rigger in training who had been an apprentice expressed what he felt. "When I came here," he said, "I didn't care a hang what I did or how I did it. Now I know that no matter how small the job I do somebody's life may depend upon it. I like the responsibility that idea gives you and I know the need for accuracy and the correct materials and procedure."

(To be concluded)

[Dave Homewood]

From the NZ Herald, 17th of January 1944:

TRADES TRAINING

AIR FORCE COURSES

LESSON FOR EDUCATION

SPOTLIGHT ON WEAKNESSES

No. XI.

Closely related to an examination of the rehabilitation value of the technical trade training being given by the Royal New Zealand Air Force to thousands of men of many ages from a variety of civilian occupations is the potential application of the training system and methods to adult vocational education. It is equally interesting for the spotlight it throws on some weaknesses in existing educational methods.

Every year hundreds or thousands of young New Zealanders embark on a job which in time becomes their life-work not because they have any special aptitude for it, but because it seems to be the most interesting or lucrative opening at the time when they are looking for employment. Vocational guidance is a familiar method of fitting a square peg into a square hole, but the need of a constant enlargement of its application to civilian life is shown by the Air Force's experience with hundreds of men who in the service, have found a trade far more satisfactory and satisfying to them than the employment they left when called to war.

An Immensity of Data
It is equally true that hundreds of men never undertake the tasks for which they are peculiarly fitted because  they never have the chance of receiving the necessary education. School teachers who are now service educational officers have found many men who are naturally good and even brilliant at mathematics, applied mechanics, physics and other such subjects even although they left school too soon to take advanced courses. 

All sorts of observations are constantly being made by these officers. They have been reflecting on the ability of men in the 30-40 age group, men of settled ways and set minds, to study alongside youths of 18-20, men of unsettled ways and malleable minds. An immensity of data is within the reach of educationists and, if used, may well have considerable value for the future of New Zealand education.

Application of Aptitude Tests
The use of aptitude tests is firmly established in the Air Force as a means of selecting men potentially well fitted for definite types of trade. Necessarily, the service has to be fairly ruthless, although all men are given a chance to disprove the accuracy of a scientific test, but the saving of wastages and misplacements is impressive enough to suggest that the tests may well have industrial value.

Noticeable to instructors has been the lag in knowledge gained by a recruit from a technical civilian trade after he left school. Without seeking to diminish the value of technical colleges, it seems to be generally true in New Zealand that too much reliance is placed on the faithful training of technical tradesmen by their employers after they have left school. Technical training is not carried far enough or thoroughly enough within the education system itself. There seems to be a definite need for schools of technology and there are many to be found who, on the results of their Air Force experience, are in favour of a rehabilitation method of State-controlled apprenticeships.

Experience For Teachers
Clearly a service at war has an advantage over schools and employers. Equipment can be got more easily and  with less regard for expense. Training is compulsory, is without many of the distractions of civilian life, and is a full-time, constantly tested task for as long a period as is necessary to achieve the desired result.

Again, schools can be spread throughout the country and the men transported from one to another at need, but there is so much in the R.N.Z.A.F. technical trade training organisation which promises to have application that it would be a pity if its possibilities were not completely investigated to determine whether it can be put to civilian use once its service need has gone or is diminished.

The scheme also represents, for the teachers employed in it, their first opportunity of taking back to the lecture room, laboratory and workshop the products of their own educational methods and system years after the pupils have graduated from it. Thus they are able to test the thoroughness with which these men were taught and are able to check those methods and that system for weaknesses.

Weaknesses Revealed
They have found a very general poverty in mathematics, spelling, writing, and ability to express thought on paper. These are weaknesses which convey different answers to different people. To some they indicate education's failure to produce powers of concentration, to teach thinking, to produce logical minds, to imbue children with the ability to appreciate their own language, but whatever the suggestion, the opinions teachers are forming and the data which is open to their collection — the first time on such a scale in the country's history—should not be allowed to escape and could possibly be applied most beneficially to future educational methods.


(Concluded)

[phil]

Armament School in the Wellington Province? I wonder where that was? I always thought Armament training was at Hobsonville before being centralised at GTW in WB.

[Dave Homewood]

There are several surprises in these excellent articles, Phil.

I never realised that the training continued at Rongotai after the TTS shifted to Nelson. So rather than simply moving the school, it split into two, it seems. I also never realised there were so many schools within the TTS.

Something else that really interested me was mention that they were setting up a safety section, dealing with "dinghies and rescue gear". That is essentially part of the Safety And Surface trade, but the trade was not established till 1949, so who were they training to look after these items, I wonder. Riggers?

[Dave Homewood]

I am guessing the two Christchurch stations they refer to must be Harewood and Wigram?

Or was the Radio Selection Pool situated in he city (where the RNZAF took over several buildings) or at Weedons or one of the other satellite stations?

I guess E.R.T.S. and E&W School were both at Wigram?