The RAF Administrative Apprentice | Genealogy Ensemble Thames Valley Police have concluded an investigation and agreed that such crimes did take . Aylesbury The aircraft industries were naturally the first port of call for many ex-apprentices where they made magnificent contributions on the shop floor, at all levels of management, and in the boardrooms. In 1917 there was an expansion of technical training in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and Halton became the main training unit for aircraft mechanics. 2 Squadron (Airframes) 78th. services through our wholly owned subsidiary These had to be accurately placed and this called for very accurate navigation. SERGEANT Served from 1962 - 1975 Served in RAF Apprentices. Uniquely, at the moment (2016) two former Halton Craft Apprentices hold high executive 69 positions in the two principal RAF Charities: Air Mshl Sir Dusty Miller 210th, is President of the Royal Air Forces Association, and Mr Lawrie Haynes 216th, CEO of Rolls Royce Nuclear and Marine, is Chairman of the Trustees of the RAF Benevolent Fund. Sgt Samuel Butterfield destroyed eight enemy aircraft in 14 days of intensive operations in May 1940 accounting for four EA on a single day before being shot down himself over the Channel. Halton Apprentice Roll of Honour - rafcommands.com and a limited company (03277032). The winds of change were now well and truly blowing through Halton. They have records for every single engineering apprentice that went through RAF Halton. On-going research indicates that 1,000 have been awarded State Honours. On airfield, we did engine running on a Blenheim, prop swinging on Tiger Moth. Below are just some of our members who have served at RAF Apprentices. of the recipient to perform all necessary checks. In 2007 he created the Station Archives. The Boys were signed on for 12 years' service from the age of 18 and . These boys moved to Halton in the late summer of 1917 where, by the end of the 4 year, 2,000 boys were under training as air mechanics living in Spartan conditions in dilapidated wooden huts previously occupied by infantry troops. Former Halton apprentices were ideally suited to this new challenge and volunteered for it in their thousands. Activities of 38 Group were towing of gliders and dropping of parachutists. Recent discoveries include six George Cross and thirteen George Medal winners among the former apprentice fraternity. recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The 103rd Entry has an active Association and has held a number of reunions. We wish to have access to records, manuals, policy statements, annual reports, developments, evolution.. especially with respect to the care and education of the apprentices. Like this page to receive our updates. His name is Ian Henderson cairms and joined the 81st RAF Halton apprentice. The oldest living member of the RAF Halton Apprentices Association (Old Haltonians) is John Rogers, who was born in October 1908, and who became a member of the 12th entry of apprentices in 1925. 29th June 1941 she joined HQ 14 Group. It was a great experiment and was bitterly criticised at the time. The whole estate was purchased by the British Government for the nascent Royal Air Force at the end of the First World War for ?112,000. A high proportion of TAs were commissioned in the engineering branch. He commanded the whole apprentice population and also enjoyed the privilege of commanding his Entrys graduation parade, and parades for visiting VIPs and Royalty. Flight Engineers accounted for more than 400 of these names. Now with some 4,000 boys on strength Scarlett wanted an additional distinguishing feature on their uniforms to facilitate immediate recognition of the sections (later wings) to which they belonged. Duty RAF Medics provide airfield medical crash cover and pre-hospital emergency care. AIR - Records created or inherited by the Air Ministry, the Royal Air Force, and related bodies; Division within AIR - General records of the Air Boards and Air Ministry; AIR 2 - Air Ministry and Ministry of Defence: Registered Files; Subseries within AIR 2 - Non-coded sequence (files registered from 1953, with some earlier files) Our barrack room had 30 boys in it. Recipients should note that e-mail traffic on MOD systems is subject to On arrival at Halton, apprentices were signed-on for twelve years from the age of 18, allocated accommodation and kitted out and they very soon found their lives falling into a well-ordered routine governed largely by bugle calls. She was brought out to our aircraft just as we were about to take off. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 261373 your information is still in the queue, please do not resubmit, we are working through them as quickly as possible. Halton Apprentice - oldhaltonians.co.uk He was rescued only to be shot down again a few weeks later and killed. In February 1920, still known as Boy Mechanics, the first intake of 235 was accepted at Cranwell for a three-year apprenticeship. Under the guidance of his Flight Commander and the NCO instructors, he was taught drill, physical training and Air Force Law. To meet the immediate need for these 61 skills, volunteers were invited from the 35th, 36th and 37th Entries to transfer to the Royal Navy, and 160 of Haltons apprentices answered the call. There is a RAF plaque to remember the Halton apprentices, at the National Memorial Arboretum, in Staffordshire. Reply 13th Jun 2019, 07:36 . A group of dedicated retired service personnel and proud ex-Brats came together to ensure that the story was told of how thousands of boys were trained to levels of excellence which led to them to make huge contributions to the Royal Air Force, to science, and to Great Britain. Join | The Old Haltonians If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small Halton was arguably one of the first aeronautical engineering colleges in the world and certainly the first in any air force. Raf halton hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy Academic training was comparable with that of a good technical college and was to National Certificate level. Also in 1919, Halton House - a French style mansion built by Lionel de Rothschild . Please send me copies of any RAF or Halton Apprentice certificates and other items you think may be of interest to other members or visitors to the Website. We all owe a debt of gratitude for the apprentice training we received at Halton. To help find them, these trips were always in full moonlight and at low level, generally 500ft, so that the parachutes were in the air for the shortest possible time to avoid detection. The Trenchard Museum aims to preserve and display items that relate to the history of Royal Air Force Halton. Workshops entailed basic fitting, lectures on metallurgy, heat treatments etc. Halton Apprentices - The State Awards and Honours, Wing Commander Taffy Holdens inadvertent flight in Lightning XM135, The Stained Glass Windows of St. George's Church (Part 2), The Stained Glass Windows of St. George's Church (Part 1), The Halton Grove at the National Arboretum, The Halton Tribute to the Apprentice Scheme, The official contact address for the RAFHAA is as follows: He has also told us in Family . Just before reaching her destination, which had been given to our navigator verbally just before take off, he alerted me to go aft, open the rear bottom escape hatch, attach her package to the static line, get her in position to jump (after also attaching her parachute to the static line). We wish to have access to records, manuals, policy statements, annual reports, developments, evolution. especially with respect to the care and education of the apprentices. The limiting factor to this huge expansion turned out to be not a shortage of aircrew, nor of aircraft manufacturing capacity, but rather a lack of skilled groundcrew of which more than a dozen were needed to maintain each front-line aircraft. About half way through this course an appeal was launched for training as Flight-Engineer. He had laid firm ground on which Trenchard was able to build his aircraft apprentice scheme. Royal Air Force Apprentices were a breed apart, a cut above, a group of boys who went on to become highly skilled craftsmen and airmen. To see photographs of our reunions and of ex 78th entry members . The rigorous selection procedure 13 ensured that recruits would be of the highest quality, and because of their resourcefulness and intelligence, they could be expected to complete their apprenticeships in three years rather than the five normally served by civilian engineering apprentices. Until 1951, this mark also governed the rank at which an apprentice graduated. England Royal Air Force Records for Family History - International If you were a 'Trenchard Brat' and not already a member, why not join this elite group; we have regular reunions involving hundreds of your ex-colleagues. This was a new air-crew category specifically for the four-engined bombers then coming into service. He ew in Shackletons with 224, 205 and 201 Sqns, and Nimrods with 201 Sqn as Air Electronics Leader and aircraft captain. With ever increasing numbers now volunteering for the RAF, the size of Halton intakes ballooned, in 1936 reaching over 1,000 boys per entry. Many were soon commissioned rising quickly to executive positions on operational squadrons. The Halton trained men . RM 2D2Y83F - The Queen inclines her head in acknowledgement of the new colour (the flag), one of only nine held by the Royal Air Force, which she presented to RAF Halton this afternoon (Friday). photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. Old Haltonians - Wikipedia The Royal Air Force Apprentices' Association (RAFHAA), the Old Haltonians, was formed in 1980 to meet the need for a point of focus for all those young persons who as 'Trenchard Brats' went through the 'Halton Grinder' and emerged at the other end as fully-fledged tradesmen to support the needs of the RAF.. In his memorandum, Permanent Organization of the Royal Air Force, which was presented to the House of Commons as a White Paper by Secretary of State Winston Churchill in December 1919, Trenchard placed great emphasis on the importance of training, particularly of skilled ground crew. One of the youngest recruits to join the RAF, at just 15years and 2 months, was Apprentice Harry Clack. The site has grown as people send in old photos of those days . Notable among them was Sgt Gray of the 20th Entry, an observer, who was, along with his pilot Fg Off Garland, awarded one of the first two air VCs of WW II. What are the limitations? Top 10 most popular library books since 2016. Having passed this course I was sent to 90 squadron of 3 Group, Bomber Command, then stationed at Tuddenham, Nr Mildenhall in Suffolk. Library contains an ever growing number diary entries, personal letters and other documents, most transcribed into plain text. They spent most of their first year at Halton and Cranwell settling into their new country and learning English. The BBC soon recognised his talent as a broadcaster and he later co-hosted, with Jean Metcalfe, Two-Way Family Favourites, a radio programme much loved in the UK and those serving in Germany. The 40th Entry, which enlisted in August 1939, was the largest ever with 1,285 boys taking the Kings shilling. This was undertaken in parallel with another study into the requirements for trade specialisations and resulted in the 1964 Trade Structure, introduced in April that year. The idea was to create future leaders of the technical branch with an appreciation 51 of the challenges faced by aircrew. They eventually found their true vocations with the advent of the Nimrod and the Tornado in the early 1970s. Ironically, many of the apprentices serving at this time were keen to see these symbols of their past heritage restored. The information was collated from graduation records, confirmed by research at the PMA. after leaving RAF Halton, but whilst stll serving in the Royal Air Force, click here. My first flight was in an Avro Tutor 2 seat biplane at Halton airfield. In order to find the thousands of skilled men demanded by the rapidly growing Service, the RFC expanded its training programmes, basing these new units wherever suitable sites could be found, an unavoidable but random process that scattered the schools across the country. RAF Malton. to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hopefully this site will also be of interest to others who trained as Trenchard's "Brats", and to anyone with an interest in RAF Halton. Mine Laying - it may not be generally known but at least three quarters of all mines laid within enemy waters were dropped by the RAF. Only five of Haltons Polish contingent elected to return to Poland. AETs enjoyed the highest level of aircraft engineering training during the life of the various 49 apprentice schemes. Boys from the age of 15 took a series of highly competitive exams and tests, and the select few were invited to join the most exclusive boarding school of its time. Many former apprentices who trained as pilots and flight engineers continued to fly with civil airlines. In June 1917 Maj Gen Sefton Brancker, Deputy Director-General of Military Aeronautics, submitted proposals to centralise the technical training of men, women and boys in a new large school to be located at Halton. They were woken with Reveille at 0630hrs, called on colour hoisting 18 parade at 0730hrs and sent to bed at 2145hrs. Sqn Ldr Donald Finlay, of the 12th Entry, a triple Olympian well known to the public as one of the countrys top athletes, commanded Nos 41 and 54 Sqns in the Battle of Britain shooting down four enemy aircraft and winning a DFC.